When Kirk woke up, it was dark out, but still as hot as ever. He wondered if they would ever get some relief; the climate-controlled Enterprise was starting to seem like a dream. He was still thirsty, not to mention extremely light-headed, probably from prolonged hunger. He tried to sit up, only to have the world start spinning around him again.

"Captain? Are you all right?" Spock was suddenly next to him, and Kirk waved him off.

"I think so. What happened?"

"You lost consciousness due to dehydration," Spock answered. "I carried you for the remaining twenty-six miles."

Kirk looked around, "You mean we made it to the mountains?" He looked behind them for the first time and sure enough, they were up against a sheer rock wall, with an overhang. He grinned for the first time in days. "Have you looked around here? Is there anything useful?" He didn't trust himself to get up and start exploring himself yet; he had the feeling if he did he would collapse again.

"I conducted a general survey of our surroundings," Spock said, and Kirk noted that for the first time in this whole ordeal he sounded tired. "There does not appear to be any water in our vicinity, and I was unable to locate any caves nearby. The interference has not stopped."

"We could go searching for caves now," Kirk said unenthusiastically. He hadn't expected the interference to stop, although he hadn't been able to stop hoping that it might. That small hope extinguished, Kirk realized they'd have to push themselves forward on nothing now. Just sheer perseverance.

"It is more logical to rest under the overhang than strain ourselves searching now," Spock answered, to Kirk's relief. "It will be dark soon." For the first time, the captain realized how long it must have taken Spock to get here, carrying Kirk in his weakened condition.

They leaned up against the rock wall and Kirk closed his eyes, grateful for the reprieve, however small. It wasn't much of an improvement, but at least they weren't out in the open anymore. Today, that rock wall felt like the most comfortable bed he'd seen in years.

They sat there in silence for a few moments, Kirk trying to think through plans for the next day. He still had a little of Spock's water left, so he should make it until the next day when, with any luck, they would find an underground pool. Or, better, a way back to the Enterprise.

The silence grew awkward. Kirk supposed that since the last thing he'd done before collapsing was take out all his anger on Spock this was to be expected. Even Vulcans were not immune from some expression of anger. With Spock, this usually took the form of a clipped professionalism that left no room for anything else. Kirk sighed inwardly; he knew if he tried to apologize he would be rebuffed again. Blast it, just because Spock didn't get angry didn't mean he wasn't angry.

"You are incorrect," Spock said suddenly, and Kirk jumped up, startled.

"About what? I didn't say anything."

"When you said I was so 'big on following rules and traditions,'" Spock answered.

Kirk almost smiled. "Dwelling on that, Mr. Spock?"

"Not at all, Captain. However, I was not known for strictly following rules until my Starfleet career."

"Spock, I have a hard time picturing you breaking any kind of rules or codes. The only time you ever go against regulations it's because of Vulcan traditions," Kirk said, thinking back to Spock's almost mutiny on behalf of Captain Pike, and then his diversion to Vulcan because of the pon farr.

"You can ask my mother, should you ever meet her," Spock said. "My instructors had to contact my parents more than once about my…altercations with my fellow students."

"You? Altercations?" Kirk couldn't picture his upright first officer getting into fights with anyone.

Spock didn't look up, "Vulcan children can be as cruel as humans when they wish." Kirk's eyes widened in sudden understanding, and he felt like sticking his foot in his mouth. But he didn't say anything; Spock so rarely talked about his past that any confidence was a rare privilege.

"Before I took the kahs wan, I found the mountains near my childhood home to be a refuge. I often went there after school hours were over. Sometimes instead of school, without informing my parents." If a Vulcan could look sheepish, that was what Spock appeared to be right now.

Kirk, for his part, almost burst out laughing. He managed to prevent it just in time. "You cut school to go hide in the mountains?"

"I attempted to convince my parents it was part of my kahs wan preparation," Spock said.

"I take it they didn't believe you?"

"My mother saw through it right away," Spock said , still looking somewhat piqued about it.

Kirk had not met Spock's parents yet; from what he knew about Spock's relationship with his father, he doubted he ever would. However, he could picture the reactions. A coldly logical argument between father and son, with Spock's mother caught in the middle. The farming community Kirk grew up in had seemed unbearably small and provincial to a boy who wanted to travel the stars, but it seemed likea paragon of open-mindedness compared to what Spock had gone through.

"I was much better prepared for my kahs wan than my classmates because of this," Spock said. "I used to practice mapping the stars in those mountains."

Kirk smiled. He could easily picture a young Spock watching the stars with the same eagerness Kirk had as a child. Different stars, but the idea was the same. "I used to go in the fields and watch them. I could name all the constellations by the time I was six."

"I could as well," Spock said. "The mountains were a good place for a child's scientific studies. There were numerous rocks to study, as well as a complex desert ecosystem." It was easy to tell where Spock had gained his interest in science. It had clearly been an escape for a lonely young boy who had quickly figured out the ways he wouldn't fit into traditional Vulcan society.

"You were quite the rebel when you were young, weren't you?" Kirk asked. He could have sworn Spock looked almost proud of this fact. "It's almost like we switched places."

At Spock's odd look, Kirk went on, "I wasn't always as willing as I am now to break rules into pieces." He grinned, because they both knew that while Kirk's reputation as a maverick was well-deserved, it was also highly exaggerated. "When I was a kid, people used to call me the walking textbook. I always had a stack of books with me, real books." The Kirk family library was a matter of pride, begun by his great-great-grandfather. By the time of Kirk's own childhood, it had spread out to take up most of the living room and formal dining room, and small piles of books could be found all over the house. Of course they had digital books too, it was the only way to buy new works, and no one wanted to be the Kirk who stopped collecting books. The collection encompassed everything, fiction, non-fiction, all the sciences, literature, art, music, history, politics. If Spock's escape had been in hands-on scientific study, Kirk's had been in books. "I read everything, knew every answer in school. I was an easy target until I became a teenager; I was what you'd call a teacher's pet."

"Teacher's pet?"

"Someone who does whatever the teacher wants, shows off how smart they are, that sort of thing," Kirk explained. "I never dreamed of stepping outside the lines until after Tarsus IV. That's when I realized that sometimes you have to take all that knowledge and use it, do something that makes a difference. I was lucky to survive that. I told myself I was never going to survive something just by luck ever again. Although I was still known as being pretty bookish even into my Academy years." He grimaced, thinking about how Finnegan would call him a stack of books with legs. Spock raised an eyebrow, knowing that Kirk was still far more interested in study and serious intellectual discussion than anyone who knew him only by reputation would guess.

They both glanced up at the sky, their argument of the prior day completely forgotten in how similar they always proved to be. Connected by that huge expanse of space they both had taken such comfort in as children that now had brought them together. "The universe works in mysterious ways," Kirk finally said.

"Indeed," Spock answered. Kirk must have fallen asleep after that because the next thing he knew, it was light, and the second part of their journey was about to begin.


A/N Thank you everyone, for the reviews and the favorites and the follows!