Miles to Go

You may be looking for the 1985 K/S story by Meg Fine called Miles to Go Before I Sleep.

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	Miles to Go
Author(s):	Suzan Lovett
Date(s):	1983, 2006
Length:
Genre:	gen
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Miles to Go is a Star Trek: TOS story by Suzan Lovett.

It was published in Vault of Tomorrow #4 and later in Antinomy.

Excerpt

"Kirk held his breath. Just as he was used to reading the slightest expression on Spock's face, he was also used to digging through the Vulcan's jargon to the heart of the matter. Spock was finally putting the conversation on a personal level and on the right track. It had taken him almost a decade of struggling, but tonight, over a year after one instance of affirmation, he was finally ready to talk. Kirk had once been on a backpacking trip with his father when they had come across a deer by a mountain brook. The boy had ached with the desire to touch the wild beauty of the animal, had been terrified to move lest it would bolt away. The same feeling now assailed him."

Gen or Slash

Suzan said I could share this... so her are her comments: "To the members of K/S and Kindred Spirits apa: You're kidding! You want to know if, of all my stories that are more open to that speculation, MILES TO GO is intended as a pre-K/S story!? In one word: NO. It is intended to reflect, as it specifically spells out, my very honest attitude toward K/S — there is absolutely nothing wrong with it; it's just unnecessary. That is, of course, my feeling, my intention; the reader is perfectly free to get what he/she wishes out of it. I freely own up to limitless devotion and very deep love between Kirk and Spock, and each individual can set their own boundaries and what those boundaries encompass, to that love. Personally, I choose to believe it doesn't encompass phsycial love. I illo K/S stories...but when it comes to my personal ST universe, they 'don't', and since the initial ideas of my stories happen to be mine alone, they are never intended to be K/S. So, if there's a question that remains, as in "If MILES TO GO was intended as pre-K/S, will there be a sequel?", the answer is "No," not from me. If there's anybody out there wishing to carry on where I left off, they have my blessings."

Reactions and Reviews

Unknown Date

Miles to Go / Kirk brings Spock to his mother's Iowa farm for shore leave, where Spock receives a chilly welcome and Kirk receives an unwelcome proposal to go into private business. Both serve as catalysts to get them plotting for their post-Starfleet career, and to heck with the rumors about them.

1983

About preferring other problems for Kirk and Spock to deal with than homophobia? The external homophobia has often seemed exaggerated in some stories. That of individuals, or internalized problems with it have intrigued me, though. Anybody read Susan Lovett's Miles to Go" in Vault of Tomorrow 4? The reaction of an individuals (Kirk's Mom) homophobic reaction (which is how I see it) worked into other themes can be strengthening to a work, because it shows one of the factors that must be weighed when the characters consider that sort of relationship.

Susan Lovett's "Miles to Go" sports a setup similar to one common in another fandom, to wit, S&H. Kirk goes home to visit his Mom and takes Spock with for the first time. Mom is a local bigwig but otherwise provincial, does not approve of Sonny's choice of career, and is privately convinced K and S are K/S. An old buddy makes Kirk realize that though he retrieved the command of the E for now, eventually he must lose her. But Spock, who has been dispensing sage advice throughout, comes up with a plan. The pace is slow, gracious, and subtly wise. "'Have you ever had something so special, so precious to you that, no matter how strong it seemed, you saw it as fragile, vulnerable?'"

1984

I, too, saw "Miles to Go" as a pre-K/S story. Actually, though, I think that what a story says to the reader is valid even if the writer didn't intend it that way. (After all, I see aired Trek as pre-K/S no matter what the producers intended!) I agree that Kirk's mom's homophobia (if it was homophobia and not anti-alien prejudice -- I wasn't sure) was realistic and light-years ahead of the "external homophobia" tales as far as real drama was concerned. Still I found it hard to accept that an educated person the 23rd century would really be that prejudiced. Maybe I just don't think Kirk would have that sort of person for a mom. I liked the fact that she wasn't presented as a simple, anachronistic "farm wife," though.

1997

When "Miles To Go" first appeared in a non-K/S zine, fans debated hotly whether or not it was in fact a K/S story. It's definitely a love story, and the ending is open- textured enough that the reader can read it as K/S if she wants to. The story certainly is about K/S since the major dramatic conflict arises over Kirk's mother's belief, based on those ever-present rumors in Starfleet, that the friends are lovers. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the members of the K/S APA queried Suzan Lovett to settle the question whether "Miles To Go" was K/S, and she wrote that she did not see the relationship that way, but that readers were free to read the ambiguous ending as they saw fit.) By any standard, it's a powerful, superbly written story and a moving portrayal of a turning point in the character's relationship toward an explicit life-long commitment.

2007

Oh, my. There are certain classics in K/S that, once read, are not easily dismissed or forgotten. “Miles To Go” absolutely belongs in this category. It is the first time Kirk has taken Spock home to meet his mother. His friend Spock. Not his lover, his friend. The reception he receives is cold by any definition of the word. The cold that touches me most is the cold Spock endures for days because no one has turned on the heat in his room. Since Kirk’s mother is equally as cold, he keeps the fact to himself. This seems to me to be a capsule version of Spock’s entire life. Unaccepted, shunned, and accepting of whatever misery is dealt him. It just breaks my heart. As it does Kirk’s. The love shines through as Kirk tries to deal with his mother’s unhappiness and resentment and to compensate for it. It is so very, very clear here that there is love between them that is going to withstand anything that threatens it, and yet it is not truly K/S.

I’m very fond of homecoming stories, and this is one of the very best. No, it is not sugary sweet by any means, but sometimes it takes adversity to bring out the best in us – to define what is most important to us. We see what a fine and extraordinary being Spock is, and we see he means everything to Kirk and that’s what is important.

The author toyed with K/S here, in that Kirk’s mother’s bitterness is based on her belief in “rumors” about her son and his first officer. There is a magnificent scene in the garden on a chill evening that is just breathtaking and fairly sings of the special love between Kirk and Spock. Through a confrontation with Mrs. Kirk, we get a glimpse of what such rumors mean to these men, and we can easily imagine there is a tiny but very fertile seed planted during this memorable homecoming. An outstanding story, possibly the best in the zine.