Moments to Remember

Fanfiction
Title:	Moments to Remember
Author(s):	Roberta Haga
Date(s):	2002
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:
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Moments to Remember is a Kirk/Spock story by Roberta Haga.

It was published in the print zine First Time #54.

Summary

"Reunited after Gol, Kirk decided to tell Spock of his feelings."

Reactions and Reviews

A lovely moment-to-moment story written with lots of feeling and with a strong K/S love. It might be easy to pass this story by—it’s short and quiet. But don’t miss it.

There’s not even any plot to speak of—only a slightly older Kirk and Spock on the Enterprise, talking of their relationship. But so many wonderful things in this story. It’s written in a very close-up style where each word, each sentence is meaningful and has almost a real time feeling. These kind of intimate stories are very difficult to write, I think, and this one does have its flaws and is not written perfectly. But that made little difference to me as I found the story enthralling. The very first line sets up the story beautifully and establishes the characters right away. “The door to Spock’s quarters opened, but he stepped aside to allow his captain to enter first.” We learn immediately that Spock defers to Kirk in more than just captain and first officer because these are, after all, Spock’s own quarters. And he thinks of Kirk as “his captain”. Kirk finally wants to tell Spock that he loves him, but he chooses a rather obtuse way of telling him. Spock, of course, doesn’t get it at all at first when Kirk opens the conversation by saying he “went and fell in love” but doesn’t say with whom. Spock plunges into the depth of despair when Kirk says it’s a “him” and then again to the heights of joy when he finds out Kirk means him! I loved the emotional roller-coaster that they both went on. And I loved how they continued talking with Kirk referring to this other “him” while Spock questions Kirk about his feelings. I loved how they both found themselves hopelessly in love with the other—almost a surprise, yet a process that happened over time. So beautiful when they kiss and declare their love. I know obviously this has been done a thousand and one times, but I found it to be particularly poignant.

And I especially loved the ending as they are called to the bridge—the last line is so perfect. Perfect because it shows what they mean to each other in their lives—they are a team—and their love will carry them into all dangers that they may face.

This story has such a lovely scenario, just a small thing, one of those I wish I’d written. I’m sure these kinds of passages have been written in K/S, but it felt very fresh reading it here.

But first, the story begins and ends with short scenes of Kirk and Spock being captain and first officer, so we see this little interlude as part of their real, everyday lives, not set apart as something that couldn’t really happen. I also appreciate that there is nothing extraneous in the story; it’s not filled up with a lot of words. That’s my opinion anyway of what makes for fine writing – getting to the essence with just the right words, expressive but spare. After a simple set-up to put Kirk and Spock relaxing in Kirk’s cabin and giving a hint of the pleasure they feel with each other, the core of the story is Kirk telling Spock about someone he’s fallen in love with, referring to the person as “him.” Of course we know he means Spock; but we are privy to Spock’s feelings see-sawing as he listens to what Kirk’s telling him, and also to Kirk’s thinking that Spock’s reactions seem to be negative to the idea of Kirk being in love with a man. I love how I could feel the moment when Spock realizes Kirk is talking about him, and he asks, “Do you know how he feels about you?” And then, we see when Kirk realizes that Spock knows and is just playing along...and then they finally start saying “you” instead of “him.” It is such a sweet story. Here’s one of those little moments I adore: Spock’s arm is along the back of the couch, and he grazes the back of his hand on Kirk’s face. I love how these small intimacies are so charged because they’ve never touched each other in that way before, ways that cannot be construed as “guy” touching. These little soft touches are so...not macho-male, are so romantic and sexy I could just die.

It goes from there, but not very far, which is just right for this story.

"Moments to Remember" at five pages is one of the short stories in this contest zine. It is an interesting concept to have Spock and Kirk talk, talk, talk, and then talk some more. I'm rather ambivalent in how I feel about this story. I think I found the talk interesting in one way, but in another way I also wanted some more action to happen.

Roberta Haga wrote “Moments to Remember”?!? The Roberta Haga who wrote “Bright Star” in FT 7, the contest zine, and who won the contest with that story? Who wrote “Crystal Clear (aka First Time 16), one of my favorite K/S novels? Who wrote “Velvet Deceptions” in FT 20, one of my favorite stories? Where have you been? Welcome back! I hope the publication of this story means we will be seeing more of your work in future. I really enjoyed this little story, which is set on the Enterprise sometime after ST TMP. In it, Kirk takes a roundabout route to telling Spock that he’s fallen in love with him. He puts Spock through some mental anguish at first, when Spock thinks he’s talking about someone else. But eventually Spock figures it out, and I love how he gives Kirk a taste of his own medicine and doesn’t reveal right away that he knows what Kirk is trying to tell him. However, both Kirk and Spock do get on the same page finally, and a very happy ending is the result. Please write some more, Roberta!