All That We Shall Be

Fanfiction
Title:	All That We Shall Be
Author(s):	Anna S. Greener
Date(s):	print zine-(3/2000); The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive-(04/2011)
Length:	print zine-23 pages The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive-16,461 words
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:	The Kirk/Spock Fanfiction Archive on AO3
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All That We Shall Be is a Kirk/Spock story by Anna S. Greener.

art by Marianne Mueller (Instinctive Passion)—"Wow! What a pose! Excuse me while I thrash on the carpet. Okay, I’m back. A pen and ink drawing of Kirk and Spock in the throes of passion—and Spock’s on top! Yes! I love how Spock is grabbing Kirk’s butt and lifting him up. Very sexy. And the cute touch of beads of sweat on Kirk’s brow. The only thing a little distracting is the too hard bed. A comment here on the degree of difficulty of the position of Spock’s head. He is turned away as he kisses Kirk’s neck and the angle is from below Spock’s chin. This is very difficult to achieve, but [Marianne] does it well. I also noticed their legs are slightly angled away from us—this kind of perspective is also really hard to achieve, but she does."

Published in the print zine Beyond Dreams #2 (3/2000) and online in 2011.

This story was nominated and won the STIFfie Award in 2000 for Best Story.

Summary

From Beyond Dreams #2: "A 22-page story set in San Francisco after Spock has been brought back to life. He's still having trouble dealing with the experience. In this story, Spock and Kirk are bonded but Spock has no memory of this and has taken other lovers, including an Andorian."

Reactions and Reviews

This is a 22-page story set in San Francisco after Spock has been brought back to life. He's still having trouble dealing with his experience. The story starts out very dramatically and quite strangely. McCoy visits Kirk and Spock and is quite surprised by what he sees. Actually the beginning pages and the plot at the beginning really don't work for me. However, once the story progresses past this, it's an enjoyable story very heavy on feelings and the problems of making a relationship work. Basically it's a Kirk, Spock, and McCoy friendship story as Bones tries to help out his two friends with their problem. McCoy, because of having Spock's katra, knows better than anyone how Spock feels about Kirk. This is a very talky story. Kirk and Spock talk a helluva lot, spending much more time on talk than on sex. And a lot of what they talk about concerns how relationships do change as one gets older. In many ways, this is a very realistic story about mature love between people who are now middle-aged. And this makes it a very rare K/S story. I don't recall reading too many of this type before.

This is a sweet-sad story with some unique premises. I very much like explorations such as here, of subtle aspects of the relationship looked at from an original perspective. It's good writing, too.

This is after the fal-tor-pon [sic], where Kirk and Spock had been lovers previously, and bonded. The problems arise because of Spock not having true memories of the feelings he had before. They live together as lovers in San Francisco, but Spock has also been taking other lovers. This is a very colorful part of the story, the bits about the other lovers - the Andorian male, etc.

Kirk is reluctant to push, to confront Spock about this; he's afraid to lose what tenuous connection they have reestablished.

McCoy has a nice part in this, particularly because he has real insight to share, having held Spock's katra.

Plus, sexy scenes, such as when Spock comes home and no words are spoken, and he comes up behind Kirk and... Two lovely pages of sex on the floor, with no dialogue. Descriptive passages of the sex are enhanced by being seen through Kirk's feelings.

And finally they really discuss this uneasy relationship they have. What it comes down to is, since Spock doesn't have the memories of what they were to each other before—besides all the other memories he doesn't have—he's not really the same person, and who is it really who Kirk says he loves? Spock thinks this can't be an equal relationship anymore. Maybe he even loves Kirk simply because Kirk holds the key to who he was before. This is so sad, Spock's sadness at the loss of precious memories.

And I find this very interesting, that a meld can occur which is basically just physical, a sharing of sensations, such as during sex, without the true mental/emotional sharing as they used to have in their melds.

I also found this unique, and I don't think I ever read this in any other K/S: Spock talks about his awakening as a child on the Genesis planet, the actual experience of coming to life as a blank slate, so to speak.

In the end, a very nicely written physical and, finally, mental joining - they are bonded again. And a lovely little end scene, champagne with McCoy.

This is a story set after the fifth film The Final Frontier[sic] (Editor's Note: ...set after the third film, The Search for Spock) and deals with Spock’s problems after the refusion ritual on Vulcan in trying to re-establish his life after events on the Genesis planet. I always thought in the film that Spock’s miraculous and immediate recovery was a bit quick and this story makes it quite clear that although [he] recovered physically, the Vulcan still has a lot of problems to deal with, in particular the loss of a large number of his personal memories, and the effect this has on his reconciliation with Kirk.

Kirk’s anguish and desire to help Spock recover and his seeming inability to do so is well described as is Spock’s ill defined sense of self and his struggle to rediscover his previous sense of identity. It seems at the beginning of the story that he and Kirk may never rediscover their old relationship in spite of Dr McCoy's attempts to assist and Spock’s rather clumsy methods of trying to rediscover his old self (namely having sexual relationships with several other people, although he is aware Kirk is the only person he really loves). In the end it is down to the two of them to resolve things before they rejoin the ship for another five year mission.

As part of this process, their discussion about Spock’s death from his point of view is one of the most moving of the whole piece, especially when Spock reveals to Kirk that he has viewed the recorder log of his death all alone, something which puzzles Kirk greatly, although of course we know immediately why Spock would do this, wishing to protect Kirk from having to witness his death all over again. This is an especially wrenching scene which sums up their whole relationship perfectly and is a wonderful catalyst for the story finale.

This fine story by a relatively new author is notable especially for its insights into Kirk and Spock’s state of mind in the months following the fal-tor-pan. The idea of their reunion after Spock’s death is so emotionally charged and such a natural basis for a romantic story. Ms. Greener's story, however, takes a serious look at problems that both men are forced to deal with as they comes to terms with the changes in their lives. I like the idea that Spock does not emerge unchanged from the fal-tor-pan, but instead suffers painful memory loss and a resulting uncertainty about the direction his new life should take. Kirk has been changed by the experience as well and has his own demons to face. The central question of the story is whether the two men, who had previously been bonded, should resume their life together.

At first I found the idea that Spock would openly bring other sexual partners to the apartment he shares with Kirk a bit hard to accept. (It makes for a highly dramatic opening to the story, though!) As I read on, however, I began to see how truly unsettled Spock is and how changed from his former self, and I came to believe that he might indeed resort to such awkward “experiments.” Kirk’s reaction is wonderful, too. He is confused and obviously hurt, yet does not react with stereotypical self-righteous anger. Instead he chooses to hold his tongue and give Spock a chance to work things out on his own—perhaps not the wisest decision, as it turns out, but it certainly shows Kirk’s willingness to provide whatever his former bondmate needs to become whole again. There are other wonderful insights, too, such as Spock’s concept of a mindmeld as the “merciless intimacy of joined minds.” Also his fear that a re-formed bond might be an imperfect replica of their original joining, and that it might be too much to ask Kirk to accept this while he’s coming to terms with a new ship that is likewise a mere replica of his beloved Enterprise. The writing in this story is generally very well done, to the point that a few minor flaws stood out enough to be bothersome. Spock’s dialogue occasionally feels a bit off to me—in the section where he describes awakening on the Genesis planet, for instance. Much of what he says seems too wordy, not in the sense of being overly precise, but rather of being so descriptive that it sounds more like narration. The transition between scenes on page 221 also feels awkward to me. When one scene ended with Kirk and Spock falling into each other's arms and the next scene opened with Spock lying awake in bed with Kirk sleeping beside him, I assumed that only a matter of hours had elapsed between the two scenes, and was confused upon learning several paragraphs later that more than two weeks had passed! This could have been avoided by simply having Spock’s reverie take place at some other location, after which he returns home for the subsequent interaction with Kirk.

All in all this is a very enjoyable and heartfelt story. I look forward to reading more from this very talented author!

A very close, introspective story of Kirk and Spock after the fal-tor-pan and their struggle to regain the relationship they once had.

The whole story takes place in the apartment in San Francisco and this is shown very well. We really get a wonderfully detailed picture of it as they confront their difficulties. I enjoyed how the situation was presented to us by McCoy's arrival as he sees Spock run out the door and when he comes inside, there’s a naked woman. This was tied together by the final scene when McCoy comes over again for a celebratory dinner. The scene where Spock comes back to the apartment and undresses Kirk while he’s standing was extremely sexy. But problems with their relationship abound and Kirk desperately wants to be bonded with Spock again. The situation they face is complex—it has to do with Spock’s loss of memory, his doubts and fears of being with Kirk, and Kirk’s need to be with Spock. I must admit, however, that at times I got lost or it was unclear to me what exactly was going on. This might be because of the way the story was presented. It’s almost all inner dialogue with no plot to speak of—that is, little or no action surrounding the introspection. Without action to help move the story along and to help the reader visualize where the characters are, all the inner thoughts and detailed conversation is difficult to read and slows the story down considerably. However, I loved Spock’s description of waking up inside the photon torpedo tube and his rebirth process. I can’t recall ever reading about that before and I was fascinated. I also loved his description of when he died in the radioactive chamber. Also, that first sex scene was dynamite. There were also some nice details—things like Spock’s exotic plant collection that Kirk had some strong feelings about and McCoy's involvement was particularly well done.

I like the tie-in with the title—it’s optimistic—Spock says, “When I offered the meld, it was not just to save your career, or my own. It was for the totality of our beings—for all that we have been, all that we are, all that we shall be...together.”