Sunrise, Sunset

By Kirknspock4FR331

Summary: Kirk succumbs to hypothermia and Spock learns French.

"Velcome to Russia!" Chekov cheerily declared. Kirk pulled his coat tighter about himself.

"Beep it," he grumbled. "I should have brought something warmer."

"Captain, you are free to borrow my coat if you wish," Mr. Spock offered, wrapping his arm comfortingly around Kirk.

"No…no, that's all right, Spock, I'll be fine. I always am, you know."

"Yes. You are." Spock's expression was unchanged, but inside he was smiling.

"I'll be back!" Chekov called out, walking merrily away. "You two can have some time to yourselves for a while. I vill warm a rock for you with my phaser." He pointed his gun at a rock and shot it. It began to glow softly. "Rather romantic, isn't it?"

"We must be careful, Jim, or we may succumb to hypothermia," Spock advised, pulling the captain towards a small cave. "Why not wait in here until Mr. Chekov returns? It would be a good idea to warm up."

Kirk agreed with his friend. How Chekov had decided that visiting a remote area of Russia in the middle of winter would be a good idea, he had no clue. He followed Spock into the cave.

It wasn't much warmer there. Kirk leaned against the wall. "Spock. Why don't we rest for a while? So that we don't…what was it you said? Succumb to hypothermia."

A concerned look passed over Spock's rigid features. "Are you all right, Jim?"

Kirk smiled. Spock always called him "Jim" when they were alone. "Yeah. I'm fine. Didn't I already say I always was?"

"Excellent, Captain. I shall practice my French."

"Uh…you do that."

Spock's current lesson was about going on a date. "How illogical," he commented. "Jim, did you know that you are supposed to say "mon amour" to a girlfriend? It means "my love"."

"How would I have known that, Spock? It's not like I'm Canadian or anything." Kirk was only half paying attention. He was suddenly very tired.

Meanwhile, Chekov was on a date with his girlfriend the hippie, Irina. He did not know to say "mon amour". Instead he said "How did you like my tour of auxiliary control?"

"Oh, Pav. You are so romantic. Would you like some LDS?"

"Vat's that? Is it like auxiliary control?"

"Um…no. Let's stick to talking about your ship. So…how do you run the bridge?"

Chekov smiled. This was the best date of his life.

Spock continued to recite French phrases. "Mon amour. Je t'adore."

"Spock? That's kinda creepy. Can you stop?"

"Why certainly Jim. Whatever pleases you."

Kirk sneezed. He woke up, cold.

"I believe you have just succumbed to hypothermia, mon petit chou."

"SPOCK! YOUR FRENCH PHRASES ARE CREEPY!" Kirk said with a smile.

"Captain, please do not yell. We are the only people around. Why don't you get some rest?"

"Wasn't I asleep two seconds ago?"

"Three point five seconds to be precise, captain."

Kirk decided not to argue, and promptly fell asleep. Spock gently picked him up and leaned him against the wall.

Meanwhile, Scotty was on the bridge of the Enterprise. "I do not like this at all! Why on Earth would they want to beam down into the middle of the wilderness?"

"Oh, I dunno," McCoy replied, looking innocent.

"Well when are they comin' back? We have to get to Rigel 372!"

"I'll try to contact them," Uhura offered. "Uhura to landing party, come in landing party."

"Chekov here. Ready to beam up."

"We're locked on and ready Mr. Chekov."

The ensign was promptly beamed aboard, but without the captain and Mr. Spock.

"Where the beep are they?" McCoy yelled.

"I dunno," said Chekov, who had completely forgotten to look for them. "Let's just go to Rigel."

"WHAT?" McCoy was furious. "We can't leave them alone together!"

"Vy not?" Chekov innocently asked.

"Eh. Forget it."

"Ready to leave orbit, Mister Scott!"

Spock was busily trying to contact the Enterprise. "Spock to Enterprise. Come in Enterprise."

There was no response.

"Perhaps your communicator has succumbed to hypothermia," Kirk suggested.

"Illogical, Jim," Spock replied. "Machinery cannot contract hypothermia. You, however, can."

"What about you?" Kirk protested, worried about his friend.

"I am a Vulcan. I cannot feel anything." Except for you.

"Can we just beam back to the Enterprise?"

"You forget that our communicators are no longer functional, Jim."

Suddenly, a polar bear leaped out of the darkness. Kirk promptly jumped in front of Spock. Spock gently pushed Kirk aside and Vulcan neck-pinched the polar bear, hard. Kirk walked over to the motionless bear.

"It's dead."

"It seems in my anger, I killed it. It is called tal-shya."

"Hmm. I like that better than your French." It took Kirk a few minutes to realize Spock had said he was angry.

Spock tried again to call the Enterprise.

"Spock, that's illogical. It didn't work before."

"Yes, but we must return to the ship!"

"Why? Can't we just stay here for a while?"

"Negative, Jim. Do not forget that you have hypothermia."

"Riiiight. I'm totally fine, Spock, or did you not notice?"

Kirk sneezed. "Well, OK, maybe I have a cold."

Spock scanned Kirk with his tricorder. "My readings indicate otherwise."

Kirk got annoyed and left.

"No! JIM! COME BACK!" Spock yelled into the freezing darkness. The sun had set hours ago.

Kirk did not hear Spock, because the wind was blowing. He decided to collect some plants for his friend, as he knew Spock did not eat meat. Unfortunately, all the plants were buried in snow. It took a while to dig them out. When he finally got back to the cave, he saw that Spock had vanished.

Meanwhile, Spock was looking for his best friend, Jim Kirk. "JIM! WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed into the darkness of the swirling winds. What if he is trapped in a snow tornado…what if he…NO!

As it turned out, Jim was trapped in a snow tornado, having dropped off the plants and gone to find Spock. "SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK!" he yelled, as the wind carried him far over the tops of the trees. "I didn't even know there were trees here."

Suddenly, he heard a voice, far away. "JIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!"

It was Spock. He had come to save Kirk! Just in time, too, Kirk thought as the wind suddenly ceased and dropped him into Spock's open arms.

"Jim. Are you all right?"

"Pretty much. I'll be fine. You?"

"I am, as usual, unharmed, Captain."

Spock gently carried Captain Kirk back to the cave.

"You don't have to do that, you know."

"Actually, Jim, I do, mon petit chou."

"Doesn't that mean something about…cabbage?"

"I was merely practicing my French lesson."

"Cabbage…hey, I brought you some plants. Maybe there's some cabbage!"

As it turned out, there was. Spock cooked some delicious Vulcan Cabbage Soup and ate it for supper while Kirk was sleeping.

"Spock! No! No, don't do this to me! Mon petit chou! Cabbage! No, Spock! CABBAGE! Don't die, Spock! Don't die! You've died already, Spock! Once is enough! My…amour! Spock…"

"Captain? Captain? Captain? Captain? Captain?"

Kirk opened his eyes. "What? Spock! You're alive!"

"Naturally. As are you." Thank goodness, he thought.

"Don't ever fall asleep in the cold again," Spock admonished. "You could die in your sleep."

"Not with you around. You always keep an eye out for me."

"That is my job, Captain. I will attempt to mind-meld with the communicator and see why it is broken."

"No, don't, Spock. It doesn't have a mind. Try the cabbage."

"Cabbage, Jim? I shall take apart the communicator."

Meanwhile, Scotty was yelling at Chekov. "Since when are you the captain? The captain left ME in command! Doctor McCoy, I hope you have a tranquilizer on you! We don't want this to get messy!"

McCoy pulled out a tranquilizer. "Shouldn't we look for Jim and Spock?"

"Once we get back to Earth. We're already two light years away!"

"Captain, the helm's not responding. Hey Chekov, how was your date?"

"Marvelous," Chekov replied. "I have never had such an intimate conversation about the engineering deck before."

"Whatever you say," Sulu replied.

"Pretty soon he won't be saying anything!" added Bones, shooting Chekov with the tranquilizer.

"Set course for Earth. Ahead warp factor seven, Mr. Sulu."

"Weren't you listening? The helm's not responding!"

"Try setting it on manual control! We can't go on autopilot the whole way back, you know."

Spock finished taking apart the communicator. "Ah," he said. "When I was making the cabbage soup, I needed this component to make the fire. I shall replace it with one of your hairs, Captain."

"Hey, I wanted some cabbage soup."

"If you are willing to spare any more hair, I can use it to make a fire and heat it up. It is all cold now."

Kirk pulled out some of his hair and gave it to Spock. "Whatever you say, my cabbage."

Spock heated up the cabbage soup and handed it to Kirk. Then he got back to work fixing the communicator.

"I like soup," said Kirk.

"That is hardly relevant, Jim."

"I know. Do you like soup?"

"The communicator appears to be functional. Let us try to contact the Enterprise. Spock to Enterprise, come in Enterprise. Do you read?"

There was no reply.

"The communicator is functioning properly, but it appears there is no Enterprise in the vicinity."

"No…Enterprise?"

"I am sure they will be here soon. At least we have each other."

"At least we do." Kirk reached for Spock's hand and held it firmly.

"You're the best first officer in the fleet."

"Thank you, Jim."

Back on the Enterprise, Chekov was being questioned in Sickbay. "Tell me, why the beep did you leave Spock and Kirk ALONE in the middle of Russia, beam up without them, and then take the ship out of orbit with no orders to do so? What are you, crazy?" Bones screeched.

"I vas only doing my duty, sir," the young ensign answered.

"Your beeping duty is to your Captain and your ship! You had no reason to do what you did!"

"Vell, I didn't remember that. I thought I vas the ciptin. You better give me a physical to make sure I am in my right mind," Chekov retorted.

"All right, I will!" the grouchy doctor said as he walked over to the communication panel and contacted the Bridge, "Mr. Scott, you will have to find another navigator for the time being. Mr. Chekov here is insisting he thought he was the ciptin, whatever that is, when he beamed aboard, and I'm giving him a full medical examination."

"Scott here. Acknowledged. You have as much time as you need, Doctor. Scott out."

Back in Russia, things were only getting worse. "Jim, are you cold? My tricorder reading indicate that your body temperatures are reduced by ten percent. Just as I feared. You have indeed succumbed to hypothermia," Spock stated, a grim expression on in face.

"Spock, so what if I succumbed to hypothermia? It's not like its deadly or anything, right?" Kirk asked his friend jokingly.

Spock stared in disbelief. "Do you mean you don't know that the death toll per month for hypothermia is currently 29,594.3? Surely you must have read about it in the news!"

"It was just a joke, Spock. You must have heard about jokes somewhere," Kirk cried.

"Oh, yes. A joke. I have come across the term before. Noun. Something that is said or done to make people laugh. Don't stress yourself over me not catching a joke, mon petit chou. You have succumbed to hypothermia, and since you shouldn't sleep because you might die sleeping without dramatic last words to say to me, you must not lose any precious energy," the worried Vulcan responded.

"Do you have anything to eat?" Kirk asked, "I'm hungry."

"I'm afraid not, but did I mention that Vulcans can pull chocolate bars out of their ears?" Spock asked in reply.

"No, I didn't know that it was possible to do so," the tired captain stated.

It only is because I'm doing it for you. Spock thought. Concentrate. Focus. Keep Steady. For Jim, I can do anything.

Slowly and carefully, Spock pulled a Hershey bar out of his ear. "I'm sorry, Jim. I could not manage anything more than Hershey. I know it tastes like wax, but it will have to do."

Kirk reached over and patted Spock on the back. "I knew you could do it! I always thought you could do anything you wanted."

"Thanks, mon petit chou. Could you tell me another joke?"

"Um, okay. So there was this guy, and he walked into a bar. The alien sitting next to him said 'He doesn't like you. I don't like you either.' So then the guy said 'Great. I have a terrible life. I wish I was on the Enterprise.' So then this old guy named Ben came and chopped the random alien's arm off with a laser sword. The alien said 'Thanks. That warmed me up a lot. I had succumbed to hypothermia.' Then the guy who wished he was on the Enterprise said 'Oh. I succumbed to hypothermia last year. It wasn't fun.'"

One of those rare Vulcan smiles passed across Spock's face. While Jim has lost almost all his body temperature, at least he hasn't lost his sense of humor.

"Vat the beep do you think you are doing! I asked for a medical, not some stupid doctor examination!" Chekov exclaimed.

"It's just a standard tranquilizer. Now shut the beep up," Bones grumbled as he injected the hypo into the young ensign's arm.

"Nurse Chapel, stop worrying about Spock and come over here and help me with this examination."

"Yes Doctor. I just hope Spock hasn't ceased to function."

"That is an illogical statement, Nurse."

"If you're trying to sound like Spock to make me like you, it's not working."

Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock decided to go for a hike to see the sunset, and keep their blood in circulation. "It's such a beautiful sunset, Spock. It reminds me of the time we went to Hoth. It was so beautiful."

Yes, Jim. Almost as beautiful as you.

"Spock, are you okay? You have such a forlorn expression on your face. Is that normal for a Vulcan?"

"Only when you are around, mon petit chou."

"Hey, is that a compliment?"

"Of course, Jim. I would never say anything negative about you."

"Thanks, Spock. Or as you say, mon petit chou."

"You're welcome. I suggest we try to find Moscow. Chekov walked in that direction when he left us the other day. If we get there soon, you can get warm, and you won't be succumbed to hypothermia."

The two of them set off in the direction Spock had pointed out. They had no idea how far it was to Moscow, or even if that was where Chekov had gone. But Spock's here. So we'll be safe, Kirk thought.

He pulled the chocolate bar Spock had given him out of his pocket and broke it in half. "You may have both pieces, Jim. Vulcans only eat once a month."

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to be inconsiderate, Spock."

"I assure you that no offense was taken."

The two walked in silence through the snow all night. Kirk had long since finished his chocolate, but didn't want to bother Spock by asking him for more. The sun was beginning to rise now, appearing over the treetops. Finally, the two Starfleet officers reached Moscow. Kirk was quite exhausted and Spock was beginning to worry about him, although he reminded himself that it would not be logical to do so.

A woman dressed in hippie clothes was walking down the street towards them. It was Chekov's girlfriend Irina.

"Good morning. You must be Pav's friends. You wear the same stupid-looking uniform as him. I keep telling him to become a hippie, but the silly boy never listens. He does know an awful lot about auxiliary control, though. Let me guess. You're Captain James T. Kirk and you are Spock, correct?"

"Affirmative," Spock replied.

"Pretty, isn't she?" Kirk whispered.

"I would not know, Captain. I have little interest in Earth females."

The hippie leaned in closer to them. "Would you like some LDS? I think I still have some."

"No thanks!" exclaimed Kirk and Spock together. Kirk went on: "Are you a drug dealer or something? The Federation has laws against that, you know! You could—"

"Jim. Please relax." Spock lightly touched the captain's shoulder. "You must save your energy."

Kirk, always ready to listen to his friend, stopped talking. Spock, meanwhile, tried once more to contact the Enterprise.

On board the Enterprise, McCoy was finishing up his medical exam of Chekov.

"Scotty? I've got the results. Apparently, he took a drug called LDS which caused him to believe he was the…er…ciptin. It's worn off now."

"Scott here. Acknowledged. We are about to begin orbit around Earth. Have Chekov ready to beam down to Russia."

"What? You're letting him go down there again, after what he did the last time?"

"I have to," Scotty replied, "His knowledge of Russia will help us locate the Captain and Mr. Spock. Meet me in the transporter room with Chekov in fifteen minutes. Wear a warm coat, you don't want to succumb to hypothermia. Scott out."

"Mr. Scott a message is coming in from the surface. It's very faint, but the voice sound familiar." Lieutenant Uhura said.

"On audio, Lieutenant."

"Spock to Enterprise, come in Enterprise. Do you read me?"

"Enterprise. Scott here. What is it Mister Spock?"

"I have finally made contact with you. Jim – I mean the captain - will be pleased. He was very upset when I could not make contact earlier because you were not in range. Where were you?"

"I'm sorry. Chekov had a little episode where he thought he was a 'ciptin'. I suppose that is someone who takes a starship out of orbit while two senior officers have not beamed up and takes the ship to Rigel at Warp 9.2! And against the commanding officer's orders! That must be what one is, because that is exactly what our young friend Mister Chekov did!"

"I see. Send down a landing party consisting of yourself, Chekov, and Dr. McCoy. Jim has succumbed to hypothermia, and is much too weak to be beamed aboard at this point in time. Use these coordinates."

"Landing party will beam down shortly. Scott out."

When the landing party finally made it down, Kirk was in a state of shock and freezingness. Spock was placing a warm washcloth on his friend's forehead. "Ah, Doctor. As Mr. Scott may have mentioned, Jim has succumbed to hypothermia. Shall I help you prepare the hypo that will save notre petit chou's life?"

"What kind of beeping language is that? Huttonese? Before you answer that, this hypo is jammed. I don't have any more, and I don't want to bother the ship."

"Actually, doctor, it's French. Chekov, we need some heat to make this hypo get unjammed. See what you can do."

Chekov pulled out his phaser and shot a large rock with it several times until the rock was glowing bright red. "Nice job," Chekov's girlfriend Irina said, "You can always count on Chekov's gun to help you in times of need, especially at the end of a long, hard adventure."

"Irina, I have to thank you. You took Jim and me in when Jim had succumbed to hypothermia. He could have died if he had not gotten inside to warmth quickly. If he had died, surely I would have not been able to continue life," Spock said quietly, but solemnly.

McCoy placed the hypo on the glowing rock for a few minutes. When he took it off, the hypo was completely unjammed! "Wow, Chekov! That actually worked!" Bones exclaimed.

The doctor skillfully placed the cure for when you succumb to hypothermia in the now usable hypo, and injected it into the captain's arm. Kirk's eyelids fluttered open, and he gazed up at a concerned Vulcan's face. "Spock, I'm alright. Didn't I say I always was?"

Back on the ship, Spock visited his friend Kirk in sickbay. "Jim, I have a surprise for you. A joke I made up: A man walks into a bar. Dr. McCoy is in the bar, drinking Romulan ale. The man says to the doctor 'I used too many hypos. Guess what I have now?' 'I don't know! I'm a doctor, not a person on a quiz show!' the Doctor says in response. 'Fine, I'll tell you. I have hypo-thermia!'"

Jim chuckled softly as he reached for Spock's hand. He thought of all the hardships they had been through together, and all the good times to come.

THE END