Jagged Edges

Fanfiction
Title:	Jagged Edges
Author(s):	Jenna Sinclair
Date(s):	1996
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:	The Kirk/Spock Online Fanfiction Archive on AO3
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Jagged Edges is a K/S story by Jenna Sinclair in the zine Amazing Grace #3 (01/1996).

It is a "Sharing the Sunlight" story, Kirk and the landing party are held by Klingons, reminding both again of what they have lost when their bond was destroyed along with Spockʼs telepathic abilities.

Series

• Sharing the Sunlight
• Reflections on a Lunar Landscape
• Pursuing Hyacinths
• Heart's Delight
• Primal Scream
• Parallel Courses
• Double Trouble
• Son of Sarek
• Promises to Keep
• Setting Course
• Jagged Edges
• Manna
• Journey’s End
• One Night
• In the Shade

Reactions and Reviews

1996

This story follows Promises to Keep in Ms. Sinclair's Sharing the Sunlight series. Kirk and Spock continue to deal with Spock's loss of Vulcan abilities. It is tied to an action/adventure story about the Klingons.

I enjoyed this story, especially the interaction between Kirk and Spock at the end.

I had really wanted to read this, the next in the series after Promises to Keep, because I was so taken with the story of Spock losing his Vulcan powers in PTK. Let me say right here that Jenna did an excellent job of bringing us up to date on the three months or so between that story and this. It wasn't done in dry exposition removed from the present story, and never did I feel she was using a scene or dialogue as a device, solely to impart necessary past information. If she was doing this, she did it artfully.

There were flashbacks but these weren't overly used in the obvious way they could have been, for bringing us up to date in a linear kind of way. Also, this sounds simplistic, but I think it really helps to have flashbacks, as here, in italics. In some stories, where this isn't done, it often simply isn't clear what's a flashback and what's the present.

There are times in this story when Kirk is in a drugged state. I love this non-linear writing; yet it isn't so dreamy or abstract that we can't even grasp concepts, let alone visualize. Within this delirium of Kirk's we are given information about the past months, how it's been on the ship for him and Spock. This is all woven in realistically, unobtrusively and exactly where it should come from: Kirk's feelings. In any event, this fogged perspective is done so well—so fluid and emotional.

Here's a good example: Spock has also been captured and bound by the Klingons, along with Kirk. Kirk is seeing Spock's blood, and in his delirium, scenes/feelings come into his mind; this is where we learn of his own injuries in the past and of the physical pain of sex with Spock. We also learn that he wasn't telling Spock about this, so this brings up one of the issues that the present story deals with. You see what I mean about drawing everything in so nicely.

Beautiful feelings of Kirk's about how painful it is for him to see Spock's difficulty with simply living (basics like temperature, sleeping, etc.) without his powers.

The story is in a clear Kirk POV; natural and easy to follow. And a lovely immediacy, which we get right off on the first page — Kirk's pain from a knife in his arm by a Klingon, his struggle to stay on his feet and not pass out, tug the knife out and stick it in the Klingon's chest—yeah! Good action scene, in other words.

Anyway, this story is a "dark night of the soul" of the relationship... It might be too dark for some tastes, but because this is a continuing series of stories, we are assured these problems will be worked through. At least by the end of this story Kirk and Spock have reached a turning point, an acknowledgment of the problem and agreement to get out of their denial about it.

I like to think Kirk and Spock are the kind of people who would not be in denial (I want them "better" than I am, than we are) but it certainly isn't unrealistic to have them be this way. Not only is it indeed realistic, but of course there is obvious dramatic potential in having them this way.

I would not call this a "happy ending" story. They sure have some work to do, to seek a higher level of honesty with each other. But meanwhile, we get this dark intensity — their "unacknowledged conspiracy of untruths." This is very painful. And I have to say it sure is sexy pain.

One place I didn't think was perfect, was the long thing (in the first flashback) about the specifics of why they went down to this planet instead of just scanning and moving on. This is all valid (and Jenna knows I do prefer and appreciate realism too), but it may have been given more weight than necessary. I felt this part of the flashback could have been condensed into only the essentials; whereas the other part of it, which has to do with how it's been with Spock's loss of his Vulcan powers, is what should have all the weight.

Plenty of interesting details within the story of capture by and escape from the Klingons, such as the rape by the Klingons of the woman in the landing party and her attitudes about rape, about being a woman; but more importantly, her attitudes about Kirk and Spock's relationship.

Also, Jenna uses a number of presumably authentic Klingon words in dialogue (I wouldn't know; I don't have the Klingon dictionary). This was done well—a word here or there so we get the gist of what they mean from the rest of the sentence. But I think a Klingon's penis (is this in the dictionary?) would be huge and knobby, not "featureless" as Jenna called it. What do you think?

And so...the threads of what has been happening between Kirk and Spock continue to be woven through this story also; and I look forward to the next—I need the next, more accurately. Jenna obviously has an agenda with these stories—she's on an exploration; but agenda with these stories—she's on an exploration; but to me the reader who's along for the ride, I demand the next story please because now I feel left hanging.

The execution of this story is marvelous. It packs a lot of dramatic wallop in its 27 pages. The narrative alternates effectively between taut action scenes featuring a horrific attack on a landing party and poignant, intimate scenes aboard ship that focus on the loss of Spock's Vulcan abilities in "Promises to Keep" (a loss that deeply affects both partners). The scene in which Klingons try to force Federation secrets out of Kirk with the mind-sifter and a truth serum is agonizing and powerful.

The events aboard ship move along well, partly because the characters don't just talk and think about the issues, they talk and think while they are actively doing things aboard ship (like McCoy's probing Kirk about the couple's readjustment while running on the track in the gym). It's an effective technique, done well here.

The characterizations are interesting, including a feisty but narrow-minded woman red-shirt. Acknowledging the officer who's filled in for Spock as Science Officer since his accident was a nice touch. I enjoyed the scene in which Kirk plies his command style on the homophobic crew member. (However, I could not accept Kirk's gauche comments to her about what happened to her on the planet. He's not that insensitive, and even if he were, he has better social skills than he displays here.)

Tying the complex plot together is the story's unifying theme, which I would characterize as "truth-telling vs. denying the truth." The theme embraces Kirk's and Spock's struggle to come to terms with their mutual loss and pain, the Klingons' effort to force the "truth" of Federation military secrets out of Kirk, and Kirk's having to face the disgust some members of his crew feel about his relationship with Spock. As the story plays out, some nice ironic twists on the theme appear.

However, although the theme was stated clearly, I felt it did not really drive the story as it should have. The theme should have served as a unifying force that moved us from where the characters are at the beginning of the story to where they are at the end and revealed how they have changed, what they have learned and what made those changes happen. Instead, it felt tacked-on as a rather too obvious "moral of the story."

I think I would have felt the unifying force of the story's theme more strongly if some of the story's basic "building blocks" had been developed more clearly. One of those building blocks is the establishment, early on, that Kirk and Spock are "in denial" of their loss. I did not see this. I saw sadness, pain, stoicism, solicitude and wishing things were different, but I did not see denial, let alone "games" of denial, as is suggested in one passage later in the story. I realize how difficult it is to portray denial-how do you show a negative? I guess that's the kind of problem that makes writing fiction such a challenge.

On the first of several re-readings I looked closely at the scene early in the story in which Kirk assures McCoy that he and Spock were "all right," because logically, that scene should establish that Kirk is avoiding the truth of his loss, and Spock's; and indeed, it certainly can be read that way. However, grasping the meaning intellectually and feeling it dramatically are not necessarily the same thing. Though written from Kirk's perspective, this scene does not delve deeply into Kirk's mind and I didn't feel I could tell what he was really thinking and feeling: whether he was simply fending off questions from McCoy, who after all couldn't do much about their problem at this point, or whether he really thought that he and Spock had dealt adequately with their loss. Not wanting to talk to someone else about your problems is not the same as denying them, after all. I realize I am only guessing about the author's intent in this scene, but if its purpose was to show avoidance and denial with the dramatic force needed to establish the problem early on, I suspect it could have accomplished that more to my satisfaction if the scene had given me a closer look at Kirk's thoughts and feelings. (Parenthetically, I have felt that need throughout the Sharing the Sunlight series. The characters' actions always are described in exquisite detail, to be sure, but this is not quite the same as really getting inside their heads and feeling what they feel as they feel it.)

Bear in mind too that when last heard from, the characters had spent the greater part of an entire novel dealing with the loss they are supposed to not be facing here. To my mind, in "Promises to Keep" Kirk and Spock were well past the stage of denial, which usually is only the first in the several stages of loss. I accept the possibility of backsliding; I just needed to be convinced of it dramatically in the story, and I think that an effective way to have done that would have been through a more immediate and up-close look at the characters' own thoughts and feelings.

Regarding the subplot about Kirk's unhealed wounds from the pon farr, it was disconcerting that Kirk would let such an obvious health hazard go untreated, and I couldn't understand why he failed to seek treatment. That made his problem seem "gimmicky"; that is, constructed just to create a parallel to Spock's wound (so that Spock can hurt Kirk and Kirk can pretend he's OK as well as the converse). The scene in which the Klingons tried to force the truth out of Kirk would have been even more powerful if the drama of denial's giving way to truth-telling had grown naturally out of where the characters were at the beginning of the story. It would have been truly cathartic--a moving, indeed a wrenching dramatic transition, instead of just a strong scene in a good story.

I also felt at a disadvantage in that scene in trying to understand how Kirk was reacting to the mind-sifter since we knew almost nothing about the Tholian situation until after the fact. Was Kirk successfully diverting the Klingons from the truth? Or giving away state secrets? How and why were Tholians an issue at all? More advance work before the mind-sifter experience would have helped me appreciate this scene better as it unfolded.

I would have found the drama of Kirk's conflict with the homophobic crew member even stronger had her attitudes been expressed without forsaking the outward forms of respect for a commanding officer. I realize that the crew member had just been through an experience that was traumatic enough to make her fall apart. However, I did not read her insults as the product of loss of control-in fact she seemed rather tightly in control, very much the professional security guard, even commenting on the training that had prepared her to deal with such experiences (that was a nice touch!). And I can appreciate the dramatic dilemma such a scene poses. If a woman security officer falls apart under duress, she is not being the professional she was trained to be, and readers might suspect she fell apart because she was a woman. But if she's too professional and controlled, it's hard to understand how she could allow herself to hurl such invective at a commanding officer.

I am setting aside, for purposes of this review, the question whether the author has laid an adequate foundation, here and in the Sharing the Sunlight universe generally, for the crew member's attitudes. In any case, I think that even where prejudice is understandable, the abandonment of respect, manners and good taste in a professional work situation is not. In my universe - and I have worked in some very free-wheeling environments - people who work together simply do not use intimate sexual information to attack a colleague, particularly a supervisor. (A government lawyer I know was once sanctioned by the conservative anti-gay administration he worked for for an out of court remark calling a man who lived in a state institution a "faggot")

I hope that standards of elementary civility will be at least as high in the 23d century as they are now; but actually that's beside the point I'm trying to make here. The larger problem, for me, was being distracted by the crew member's rude, abusive language from what I thought was the true dramatic issue in those scenes. The rudeness and abusiveness became the issue, overshadowing the drama of how Kirk must deal with the crew's attitudes toward his relationship with Spock.

Again, I don't mean to try to second-guess the author's intent; I'm only trying to describe what I would have perhaps found stronger dramatically. By no means am I saying that this part of the story isn't good drama as it is.

In sum, an unusually complex, dramatically rich, and well-written story.

[author's reply]: You mentioned that you believed Kirk and Spock had already adjusted to Spock's trauma in the novel, Promises to Keep. Excluding the Prologue and the Epilogue (the Epilogue adds a month to the time frame), that novel covers only three and one half weeks. I definitely do not think that is sufficient time to cope with life-altering catastrophes, even to get through the traditional first stage of denial, just as five days is not long enough to recover from a rape. The loss of Spock's psychic abilities is an event that will be wrestled with over months, perhaps years. An accommodation might seem to be reached, only to have equanimity overturned, and the task of achieving peace started all over again from the beginning. At least, that's how I see life happening to me and those I love, so that was my understanding when I wrote the story. Not only are Kirk and Spock still grappling with the issue after three months, they probably will continue with the process after Jagged Edges. Of course, my intent and what I managed to convey to the reader might be two separate experiences.

On the subject of Kirk's reluctance to have McCoy fix his physical problems.... I definitely see your point, and I worried about it as I wrote until I understood fully what was going on. I probably erred on the side of brevity in not fully explaining what was happening in Kirk's mind, and how the problem occurred. When the men that I know have a small physical problem, they ignore it, sure it will heal itself, and it's only when their leg is falling off that they agree to visit the doctor. Kirk's problem started out small, and like most men he shrugged and pushed his way through it. His primary concern was Spock. He didn't want to inject anything into their relationship that would inhibit it, that would make Spock feel guilty, that would add to the burden that both of them are already carrying. He wanted to give Spock absolutely everything that he could, everything that Spock wanted, physically, since the one thing they both want is denied them. As Kirk's physical problem got worse, he was caught in a bind, since admitting it then would have revealed his game of hiding the truth about his body and how he felt about sex during penetration, and that would have made Spock feel even worse. It's undoubtedly my deficiency in writing if you didn't get this concern of Kirk's about Spock, his desire to protect his lover from pain even if it costs him pain. I'll try harder next time.

The commentary about the scene with McCoy in the beginning not serving the purpose of establishing denial is right on, and I knocked myself in my head when I read what you wrote. Of course you're right. The scene accomplishes about 65% of what it needs to. Back to the drawing board.

I do disagree with your comments that Henderson would not have spoken to Kirk and Spock the way she did. In my opinion, rape was reason enough for her to lose control enough to allow her to hurl her prejudices at them. I see her bitterly ironic, trying hard to push the resentment down and having it come boiling up over her efforts.

So, thanks for an insightful review.

1997

I'd heard a great deal about Jagged Edges (by Jenna Sinclair) before reading it; what I'd heard didn't prepare me. This story really knocked me flat.

The writing grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me go until I'd turned the last, agonizing page.

(Perhaps I should say I have not read the majority of the Sharing the Sunlight series. I have not read the story which precedes this one, in fact. It didn't seem to matter, though-- I caught on quickly to what was going on, and it didn't detract from my involvement with the story at all.)

As I try to categorize my reactions to this story, I find it difficult to express how thoroughly I was enveloped by the scenes the author painted. The best word I can find to describe the experience is 'visceral.' I am with Kirk as he is brought down by an unexpected Klingon attack on the very first page. I feel the dagger lodged in his arm. I am with him in the gym the night before, as he tells little white lies to his Chief Medical Officer. I am with him for every moment of this story, held captive by the skill of the author -- a skill that truly impressed me. At many points I found myself literally nodding in admiration for the way she cast this spell on me.

The main part of the story focuses on what happens to Kirk after he is captured by Klingons, but the framework of the story is a struggle closer to home; it seems Spock has lost his telepathic abilities and neither Kirk nor Spock is willing to face what that really means to their relationship. Although I do not always care for this type of "bipolar" story (the theme of the A-story echoed by the B-story), in this case I felt the author wove the two stories together with such skill that each enhanced the other.

I can't pick out favorite moments in this one because there were too many of them. At all turns the writing was compelling, smooth, effective and original. (Okay, I lied. There were two standouts even in a goldmine of treasures. I loved the bit when Kirk is about to be taken for questioning under the mindsifter, and he and Spock share a single moment of shared recognition, the certainty that this is very probably the end of Kirk, once and for all. My heart was in my throat. And the second bit I loved--a scene where Scotty tells a joke in the mess hall. Can't describe this one but something about the pacing, the reactions, and the placement of this scene was just so right.)

Now I am forced to admit, I was simply going crazy at the end of this story--and not in a good way. The last scene is just as visceral, just as compelling, just as agonizing as the rest of the story, but it drove me nuts anyway. I was so in love with this story, so willing to go wherever the author wanted to take me. Even if it meant seeing Spock in great pain, seeing him suffering, needing a hug and some tenderness every bit as much as I needed it after reading this story.

Why the heck doesn't Kirk give it to him???

I was in love with this Kirk, too... totally buying this characterization. But I simply cannot believe that Kirk, as the author painted him in this story, would not offer Spock some solace after all that they have been through. He can clearly see that Spock is in great pain. Would he not offer comfort, even in his own pain? I can only react to this final scene viscerally, as the story affected me too deeply for an entirely intellectual response. But my reaction is, unequivocally -- why?

Even as I was loving the poetry of the last lines, I was shaking my head. No way he could be this callous, I was thinking, not my James T. Not this James T., either. Maybe he hugged Spock after the last line of the story? I imagined he did, anyway, after I scowled at the page for a while.

Very much impressed with this story, even if it made me want to bite something.