The Gol Letters

Fanfiction
Title:	The Gol Letters
Author(s):	Carlin Rae Thorne
Date(s):	1988
Length:
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Star Trek: TOS
Relationship(s):	Kirk/Spock
External Links:	download here
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The Gol Letters is a Kirk/Spock story by Carlin Rae Thorne.

It was published in the print zines Naked Times #18.

This story was the inspiration for No Better Mirror.

Summary

"Apart, Kirk and Spock each write letters to each other, each believing that the other will never read them."

Reactions and Reviews

Suppose you are browsing a 24th Century flea market and run across an unusual engraved box, purchasing it for your growing collection. Imagine upon arriving home you discover it contains an accumulation of letters, some written in precise hand on a rough vegetation based paper, the others in a scrawling style on fine white stock bearing an old-style Starfleet letterhead.

You have stumbled upon the Gol Letters.

Curious, you read first one, then another, alternating between the two distinctive styles. Before you are finished, you are in awe of your discovery and your eyes are brimming with tears. You've heard of James T. Kirk, of course, and of his comrade Spock of Vulcan. You've told your children of the legends surrounding these heroes of the 22nd century.

Now you hold in your hand the fragile but tangible proof of the love that has until now existed only as a part of the legend. You read Kirk's words to Spock: words committed to paper at the advice of a psychiatrist in an attempt to regain the stability that is slipping away at the end of the historic 5 year mission. Words of confusion and pain. Words of bitterness and discontent.

Finally, words of strength and determination to go on in spite of the greatest loss imaginable.

On parchment you read words whose despair is as chilling as the arid mountains of Gol. Precise sentences in a meticulous hand from a mind tortured by self-doubt and misery. The man who dwells in this place of deprivation has allowed his bleeding spirit to flow onto the pages as he attempts to come to terms with the sacrifice he has made to satisfy his dual heritage.

As you close the box and wipe the moisture from your cheeks, you recall the old holovids of the terrible threat faced by Earth in the form of an ancient transformed space probe. You remember the men the leaders of the Federation declared as heroes and rescuers of the planet. You envision their faces: tired, drawn. You summon the details. Their eyes: locked together and focused on something unseen by either the camera or the cheering crowd. The press has speculated for decades on those images; you've been haunted by them. But now you know.

You've read the Gol Letters....