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"Fancy a game, for old time's sake?"
He looked up, and saw that it was Her, and that a chess board had appeared on the table of the back corner booth in a little pub in Soho.
"You aren't supposed to be here." She'd set the board with him playing white this time, so he sent out his first pawn.
She shrugged, and moved a pawn opposite. "They never said I couldn't watch."
"Hmm," he replied, noncommittal. "Hell of a coincidence, those two meeting again, don't you think?"
She smiled, wry. "D'you know it happens every time? I started up a couple ten thousand of these — bang, bang, bang — and they all run differently, but no matter what, somewhere, somewhen in the long sweep of a universe's history, there they are."
"They always did find a way around the rules, those two." Something niggled about that. "I shouldn't remember any of this, should I?"
"You won't, once we finish. We aren't really here. It's just… one needs an Adversary, sometimes."
"Did you let them cheat?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.
God-Who-Wasn't arched Her brow.
"Your move."
So they played, and across the pub, an unlikely pair fell in love again.