Warnings: Language, bullshit medical practices, proving once again that I can't write Bones without all of his gooey marshmallow filling leaking out. Contains Knitting!Uhura. Because I like it. Spock/Uhura, if you like. Sappy warning.

A/N: "Sleet" is set in the same verse as "Plaster," to indirectly explain where Kirk got that knitting needle.

Sleet

Nyota finds knitting relaxing. The movement is as repetitive and soothing as the waves of the ocean, and her mind can wander, thinking about languages or missions or nothing at all. Plus, it reminds her of her grandmother, hot chocolate spiced with nutmeg and waking up early on holiday mornings.

Not to mention, the needles are damn good for stabbing purposes.

She's making mittens now, dark blue ones the colour of twilight skies. They're for Spock. She knows his Vulcan biology isn't really suited to the chilly weather of San Francisco, and his long fingers get cold.

She's alone, quietly enjoying herself in a little-used room on the Enterprise, when Kirk wanders in.

Nyota doesn't pause in her knitting but looks up and glares at him, daring him to say something. She doesn't know how he found her or if he even knew she was in here when he stumbled in, but it's Kirk, so she has her suspicions.

"Whatcha doin'?" He asks cheerfully as he approaches, as if everybody walked into this storage room all the time.

"Knitting," She says flatly, and the what does it look like? is silent but perfectly clear.

"Oh. What is it?" He asks, gesturing at the shapeless dark blue mass on her lap and dropping to the floor to sit lotus before her.

"They're mittens," She answers, needles clicking.

"Ah," He says intelligently. And then he grins suggestively, "You know, there are better ways to keep your hands warm."

Nyota doesn't even bother to look up. She has learned, since Kirk has become her captain, not to take comments like that seriously. Kirk throws them out with no real intent behind them. She knows by now that the captain respects her, and even that he would risk his life for her. He's only teasing.

And if anyone else ever tried to say to her half the things he does, Kirk would personally pull all their fingers out of their sockets one by one.

"They're for Spock," She says. Before he can say something evocative about that, however, she finally looks up and fixes him with a milder version of her death glare. He is Kirk, but she is still Uhura.

Kirk isn't about to make any innuendo, though. Instead, he's staring at the misshapen pile of yarn in her lap with fascination.

"Oh, cool," He says, and she is surprised by the amount of sincerity in his tone. "That's a really awesome gift."

He pokes the ball of soft evening-blue yarn with one finger, adding off-handedly, "No one's ever made me anything before."

Uhura's needles falter at his words but she recovers quickly, with only a mild hitch in her rhythm.

They continue their friendly conversation (or mocking, though it's really the same thing), Uhura surreptitiously studying Kirk from beneath her lashes. He is batting the ball of yarn from hand to hand absent-mindedly. She has the brief, absurd image of him as a kitten, all velvety fur and too-sharp teeth, clawing at the world.

But what she is mostly thinking about is the roll of downy mustard-yellow thread she has in her quarters, the same colour as his captain's uniform. Or maybe a light, sky blue...

A while later they're on Gamma VIII, and the sky is dropping bucket-loads of something that is not quite rain and not quite snow; a harsh, bitter sleet that soaks through every layer straight down to the bone.

Peeking out beneath the captain's regulation arctic hood is the lumpy, fuzzy mess of a home-made scarf.

And amid the sleet Uhura feels warm.

Stipulation

"It's my party," Jim said with a pout. "I wanna go."

"Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a baby-sitter." Bones growled. "Would it kill you to act your age?"

Really, the bash the Elysions were throwing held very little danger. But Bones couldn't help but remember the last party Jim went to that held 'very little danger,' and ended with Bones reattaching four of Jim's fingers.

"Pleeeease," Jim whined, eyes wide and bright.

At that moment a rather unhelpful part of Bones' brain pointed out that Jim had never had a birthday party growing up, and would it really be so bad?

Bones resolved to drown that part of his brain in alcohol at the soonest possible opportunity.

"Fine," He acquiesced with a scowl. "But under one condition."

Jim had not been happy to find out that Bones would only clear him from medical to go to the party -- it was a measly little party, for chrissakes, they were supposed to be fun -- if he had an entire contingent of Enterprise officers acting as his own personal bodyguards.

He had a reputation, for fuck's sake.

But then the bodyguards had turned out to be a good portion of his bridge crew and an even larger portion of his friends, and Chekov was steadily drinking Sulu under the table.

And Scotty was unsuccessfully flirting with the strange but wondrously attractive silver-skinned women.

And Uhura was dancing in a way he had always suspected she could move but had yet to witness for himself.

And Bones was glaring at everyone with suspicion and drinking more than was strictly healthy and recounting the biggest and best and most unbelievable of their academy adventures to a rapt audience (Jim had to join in when he began on the time with the two-headed dog and the motorcycle and the hooker-pizza place, because Bones always told it wrong).

And Kirk was forming clever plans that would elicit the emotional response he was looking for from Spock, and almost succeeding, too.

And when they all ended up in the same quiet corner as the night was almost done, watching some ancient holovid, Chekov falling to sleep on Kirk's shoulder and Kirk keeping warm with Spock's body heat, because the Vulcan was squished between him and a mostly-unconscious Scotty, and Uhura smiling at him and Bones grumbling in the way that meant he was happy and Sulu tangled up in Kirk's legs on the floor because he seemed unable to stand on his feet.

Well, that was one compromise he was willing to make.

Volcano

McCoy has rules for when the captain is in the sickbay.

The medical bay was in chaos, everywhere was a bedlam of frantic nurses and moaning patients. Something about an away mission and an unexpected explosion.

Nurse Eliza Dovi was rushing about from trauma to trauma, doing what she could, when she spotted an all too familiar golden-shirted form laying crumpled across a stretcher.

She rushed over him and began her triage.

Rule #6: Unless circumstances absolutely permit, Captain Kirk should be treated by CMO McCoy.

Shit. It was bad. Not the worst, granted, but still bad. The captain's body was peppered with shrapnel, and he was out cold.

"Where's McCoy?" Dovi snapped, the captain's blood welling up between the chalky white of her gloves.

"He's busy stabilizing Ensign Richards!" A passing nurse in stained scrubs shouted back.

Dovi swore under her breath.

"Fuck."

Rule #5: If CMO McCoy is incapable of providing treatment, then treatment responsibility should be given to Nurse Christine Chapel.

"Chapel?" Dovi asked, desperately trying to assess Kirk's situation and find out what to do first.

"Kori just flat-lined, she's dealing with it!" Someone answered.

"Double fuck."

Rule #4: If you absolutely must treat Captain Kirk, make certain you review the list of allergies in his medical file.

"Okay, okay," Dovi breathed. "I can do this."

She pulled up the relevant information on her PADD, leaving bloody fingerprints on the plastic. Avoiding the flashing notices declaring UNAUTHORIZED and RESTRICTED, she pulled up the captain's allergy information.

She scrolled down.

And scrolled.

And scrolled.

Fuck! The thing was longer than the complete guide to Starfleet regulations.

Rule #3: If absolutely necessary, disregard Rule 4 when the captain's well-being depends on quick treatment in which time constraints prevent complete review of his medical file.

Dovi let the PADD drop with a slap onto the table, and turned back to Captain Kirk's unconscious form.

His skin was broken, shards of plastic and metal buried under it. Blood was leaking over his skin in a thin film.

Dovi swallowed whatever it was that was catching in her throat and got to work.

His injuries weren't life-threatening, or at least, they didn't appear to be so and the tricorder was keeping mum on the matter.

Alright. Alright. The shrapnel needed to come out, obviously, but Dovi was afraid that some pieces might have punctured veins, and withdrawing them would result in Kirk losing too much blood.

She'd have to do this one at a time, then.

Dovi swallowed hard. It was a good thing the captain was unconscious. She wasn't sure what painkiller she could give him that wouldn't kill him along with the pain.

Dovi grabbed what she needed and got down to work.

She pulled the shards out one by one, starting with his left wrist and working her way up. Blood swamped the little wells that were left by the removed pieces, and overflowed onto the captain's too-white skin.

She monitored his vitals, trying to make sure he stayed alive.

She finished with his left arm, stitching and bandaging as she went, adding antibiotics where she dared, and started on his left. It was all going fine.

And then the captain woke up.

Rule #2: Don't kill the captain.

She was first aware of his consciousness when all the blood drained out of his face, leaving it milky white. His throat tightened visibly and then his eyes snapped open, scanning around frantically. He didn't scream, but his muscles spasmed all at once, fingers clenching into fists.

He tried to get up and Dovi pushed him back down.

"Shit, no, captain, stay down, you can't move," She cried out desperately.

She could see his jaw working, and then his cupid's bow lips opened and something that wasn't quite a moan slipped out.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I know this has to hurt. I don't know what to give you for the pain. I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." She whispered, trying to soothe him without exacerbating his injuries.

The captain weakly raised his hands to try to shove her off, words forming soundlessly on his lips. He thrashed, and the blood began flowing freely.

"Fuck!" Dovi cried, scrambling for a hypo. She had no choice, she had to give him something before he hurt himself further.

She looked into his desperate, hurting blue eyes and pressed the hypo into his neck.

Kirk collapsed bonelessly back onto the stretcher, strength pouring out of his muscles. His eyelids slipped down over his agony-filled eyes and Dovi slumped back, breathing harshly.

She moved to continue removing the shrapnel when Captain Kirk went stiff as a board and his muscles started writhing. He jerked and shook on the stretcher, eyes rolling beneath his lids, shuddering like a drowning victim.

Rule #1: If you do kill the captain, CMO McCoy reserves the right to kill you.

"What the hell is going on?!" McCoy roared, appearing out of nowhere behind Dovi's shoulder as she tried frantically to stop Kirk's seizing.

He shoved her out of the way, holding the captain down bodily and scrambling for a hypo.

"What did you give him?" McCoy snapped over his shoulder.

"I--I just--" Dovi floundered.

"What did you give him?!" The doctor yelled.

"A painkiller," She whispered. "Just a pain killer. Standard nepenthin."

McCoy's eyes darkened and he turned back to the arresting captain, grabbing the proper hypo and stabbing it into his neck.

Abruptly, the captain's body fell still.

The CMO checked over his vitals, listening for longer than was strictly necessary to his beating heart, before wiping a hand over his brow and dropping back with a sigh.

"He was hurting," Dovi explained numbly, though McCoy wasn't looking anywhere near her. "He was hurting and I just wanted to make it stop."

He turned to her then, and looked at her, all bottled rage. He reminded her of the volcanoes of her home planet, ready to erupt in fire and death and destruction at any moment.

Dovi swallowed, prepared to be buried in anger and ashes like an ancient Pompeii victim.

And then McCoy turned away, grabbing the captain's wrist gently with one hand so two of his fingers rested on Kirk's pulse.

"Yeah," The CMO muttered. "Me too."

Writers are like delicate flowers, growing in a harsh desert. Reviews are like rain, or clear spring water, bringing them life-giving force and encouraging them to bloom and be fruitful. And reviewers are like, uh, watering cans, not the cheap plastic kind you get at the dollar store but the really nice metal ones that last a while, unless they start to rust, but then I guess they weren't that nice and... fuck, that metaphor kind of fell apart.

Oh, gardeners! Should've said reviewers are like gardeners. Right. The sexy kind that have steamy affairs with attractive but neurotic housewives... I'm not good at metaphors, okay? Just review, please.