Standing Watch

K/S Fanfiction
Title:	Standing Watch
Author(s):	T'Other
Date(s):	1997
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
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Standing Watch is a Kirk/Spock poem by T'Other.

It was published in the print zine T'hy'la #19.

Reactions and Reviews

This two and a half page poem is one of those surprises one finds sometimes, that makes reading a zine such an unexpected joy. Told from Kirk's point of view, it takes place after Star Trek V: The Undiscovered Country, and is a nightime. sleepless rumination while Kirk keeps watch next to his Vulcan love.

"How odd that this sharing of our beds, our bodies, Should feel like the most natural thing in the galaxy, Yet should have cost so much in time and pain/" are lines that come early on in the poem, and then it dips into a contemplative history of their relationship, Kirk's race to Genesis ("I never expected to get him back") to their current intimate relationship, ("He makes love to me as though I'm still that same young Captain //with his first Starship command. //God knows, I'm not!...)

I'll stop myself here, before I end up quoting every line. I discovered this piece at Shore Leave, and insisted on reading it aloud for a group of K/Sers whom I hope appreciated this work as much as I.

The author. T'Other, wrote a long story in T'hy'la 15, and this poem reads like a sequel to it. I really, really hope that we see more K/S from T'Other; I could read her all day.

Excellent, romantic, touching poem giving us an inside look at Kirk's thoughts as he watches over his sleeping lover. Through these fine words, Kirk lets us in on how it was to find Spock again after Genesis and how much they've made of this miracle reunion.

Thinking back to Khan, Kirk remembers "I kept looking for an echo that wasn't there". He dwells momentarily on his age and the time lost, but it isn't sad because of the deep realization that now, this moment, is all that matters. "The past is another country. So is the future".

He thinks of the coming of The Fever and concludes he'll be whatever Spock needs at that time, but "until then, I'll bebeside him. Standing watch." Exquisite.