A Day in the Life (Star Trek: TOS story)

Fanfiction
Title:	A Day in the Life
Author(s):	Eva Stuart
Date(s):	1984
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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A Day in the Life is a Kirk/Spock story by Eva Stuart.

It was published in the print zine The Voice #3.

This story is part of a series: see The Voice for more information.

Some of the characters in this story appear in the stories, "The Lion and the Lamb" in "touched" #5 in 1985 and "The Rescue" in "touched" #6 (1986).

In "touched" #5, the author wrote: "I was always curious as to what Lt. Armscom and Ensign Traven said to each other afterwards and am very grateful to "touched" for letting me find out."

Series

In order of publication, possibly not in fictional chronological order:

• The Sun Rising (Classified Assignments #1) (1981)
• The Anniversary (Classified Assignments #2) (1982)
• Love's War (Classified Assignments #2) (1982)
• Legacy (The Voice #1) (1982)

• The Solution (Classified Assignments #2) (1982)
• The Still Centre (The Voice #2) (1983)
• Patterns (T'hy'la #3) (1983)
• Winter Storm (The Voice #3) (1984)
• A Day in the Life (The Voice #3) (1984)
• The Visit (The Voice #4) (1985)
• The Lion and the Lamb ("touched" #5) (1985)
• The Rescue ("touched" #6) (1986)

Summary

"Kirk spends the day on survey duty while Spock grapples with a problem presented by a security team."

Reactions and Reviews

1986

The thing that most interested me about "A Day In The Life" by Eva Stuart, is not that it contained two lesbian Starfleet officers, though that too is interesting, but the vegetarian issue. I discussed this previously in mailing comments for this apa last time, but I would like to add that I think that Kirk is not at all a vegetarian by temperament. Becoming a vegetarian for Spock's sake, would be a tremendous shift for Kirk not only in dietary habits but in outlook. It would be difficult for him. I'm not saying that he wouldn't do it. I'm sure that even if the mental disharmony between himself and Spock weren't a sufficient reason, he would take it on as a challenge.

1997

My favorite story for this zine. It's not very heavy with plot, unusual for Stuart; in fact ifs exactly what the title says it is, a description of a day in the life of Kirk and Spock. Unlike some of the other, sometimes rather bleak stories in the zine this one has a happy, peaceful feel about it, and a zing in its writing that makes it a delight to read.

"Beneath the freshly donned uniform, Kirk's body was hot and gloriously sweaty." Ifs that 'gloriously' that makes the sentence, no?

The picture of everyday — and yet hardly boring — starship life is a convincing one. All kinds of things are going on — department meetings, interviews with crewmembers, McCoy performs an operation (and, shockingly, loses his patient), and Kirk wangles a place on a routine planet survey, like this:

"...He found himself pressing a button in the chair arm.

"Spock here." A response so fast, Kirk wondered again about the Vulcan's awareness.

"How's it going?"

A rather pointless question but Spock replied evenly, "We are on schedule and making satisfactory progress."

Kirk grinned; Spock was way ahead of him, as usual. He could 'hear1 the smile in both the words and the ensuing pause - a Vulcan could play intuition games as well as any human and Spock was playing out the pause like a fishing line, before taking pity on his catch.

"However, we are somewhat short staffed. Ensign Tel'en has gone down with the influenza and reported to sickbay an hour ago." Kirk said airily, "Can I help at all? I'm not..particularly busy up here."

Spock was still holding the line. "If you are truly not occupied, Captain..."

"No... not at all." A courteous hesitation. 'Then your assistance would be most useful." //Catch netted.// Kirk bounced out of his chair, abandoning the game."

I love the fishing analogy here - one that could be used with a lot of series dialogue (the bit in Devil in the Dark, for instance, where it's just the opposite; Spock convincing Kirk to let him share his danger, and Kirk knowingly letting himself be set up; "Those are — pretty good odds, Mr. Spock....")

Anyway, Kirk then beams down to the planet and spends a very enjoyable afternoon counting insects with a singleminded Lieutenant Durrell, popularly known as The Mad Bug Hunter of Section C\ who gets my vote for Best Supporting Character. Hey, I said to myself while reading, I know people like that....

Meanwhile, Spock heads for the sauna, where he does his best to comfort an irritable, privately grieving McCoy. The day ends with Kirk and Spock lying in bed together, quietly talking over their experiences.

I wish there could be more stories like this - ones that make you believe in the reality rather than the fantasy of the Enterprise and her crew.