I'm so happy the last part worked for you guys! Phew! I can stop freaking out about it now. I know there have been lots of very varying requests for how Kodos should be dealt with. Let's just say there's a looooong line of people waiting to get their hits in, and after the epic angst of the last few chapters, I figured the solution was a nice dose of Spock and Bones banter. Actually, I think that might just be my solution to everything. If in doubt, add sass! And, you know, emotional whiplash.

McCoy, despite being a man of many passions and deep emotions, had never before understood the term 'blinded by rage', but as looked across the room at Winston/Kodos…Robert fucking April, if Jim's memory was telling him the truth, he almost couldn't see the man properly for the red haze of anger.

He suddenly had to brace against Jim's entire weight as Spock shifted, a half step forwards that should have scared Kodos a whole lot more than it did.

Jim's memories were still fresh in his mind, raw as if they were only minutes old instead of years and as painful as if they were his own. He looked at this man and didn't see the way his face had been altered, only the ways in which he had tortured a man McCpy loved as much as his own daughter. And it had been torture. The physical wounds Kodos had inflicted on Jim had been nothing compared to the damage he had done to Jim's heart and soul. He'd violated Jim's mind as brutally as Frank had violated his body, and McCoy hurt with the need to rip him apart.

"Ah, none of that." Kodos warned as Spock made to move.

"You do not have the speed to kill us both." Spock said, his voice deceptively mild.

"Maybe not," Kodos agreed. "But I can kill James and I don't think either of you would like that." He turned the phaser on Jim and McCoy felt a wide, wicked grin stretch across his face. Well that was a goddamn stupid move to make.

McCoy felt Jim shift against him, trying to find the energy and strength to fight, to save himself as he'd always had to.

McCoy gently but firmly held him back. There might have been something to be said about letting a victim face their attacker, to prove to themselves that they were strong and they could move beyond what had been done to them.

But Jim was strong, and he'd been saving himself since he was just a little boy. He didn't need to prove that to anyone. If McCoy and Spock were to stand back and do nothing, Jim would, somehow, find a way to do the impossible. Everyone, even Jim, knew that.

McCoy had been in Jim's head. The things he had seen and felt only strengthened the love, admiration and respect he had for his friend. It had also given him an insight he'd long been missing.

Jim didn't need to face Kodos down.

He needed to be shown that there were people who loved him, who would always come for him, who would stand between him and harm as no one ever had. And who would, without hesitation or remorse, tear apart anyone who hurt him.

So McCoy smiled at the phaser pointed at Jim's chest. "Spock?"

"Doctor?"

"You wanna do the honors?" He asked, his grin widening even more.

"It would be," Spock said, the mild manners slipping beneath something cold, hard and terrifyingly primal, "my pleasure."

Kodos didn't know what hit him.

McCoy was shouldering practically all of Jim's weight, his arms wrapped around his friend while Jim stared in shock at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

Spock had moved fast, faster than McCoy had ever seen anything move, and in a smooth collection of movements, knocked the phaser from Kodos' grip, backhanded him hard across the face – it must have felt to him the way it had felt when Kodos had done the same to Jim – and hoisted him off the ground by his throat.

"Oh my god." Jim breathed, stunned to see the monster of his nightmares so easily beaten by his implacable First Officer.

"You know when I told you Spock nearly killed Khan with his bare hands?" McCoy said mildly, taking vicious delight in the way Kodos' legs kicked in the air and the frantic bulge of his eyes. "Really wasn't exagerating." He said. "Pacifists my ass. Sneaky Vulcans."

"He's gonna kill him." Jim breathed, half hope, half concern.

"Negative." Spock said, not even slightly out of breath. "I will choke him until he is unconscious, at which point the doctor will revive him and I will repeat the process again."

"For how long?" Jim asked, his eyes impossibly wide.

"Until I feel less inclined to rip open his throat and watch him bleed to death."

"You're gonna be here a while then, you know that right?" McCoy said, shifting his grip on Jim's waist. The combination of his prior ill-health and three weeks of paralysis had left him as weak and shaky as a child, but he was still a tall, broad shouldered man and McCoy wasn't exactly operating at full speed himself. If he had to carry Jim he would, but it would be far easier to let Spock do the job. McCoy could kick Kodos all the way down the hill to the edge of the cliff…

"I had considered that possibility." Spock agreed, as if only mildly troubled by the fact.

"Spock," Jim said, his voice raw and soft, but still somehow commanding. McCoy was impressed. "Put him down."

"Why?" Spock queried, sounding exactly like Joanna when McCoy told her to do something she didn't want to.

"Because this isn't you. Don't let him turn you into something you are not." Jim tried to be the voice of reason, and that drove McCoy mad. He hated, hated the way Jim would defend people who had caused him harm, especially when he was so quick to enrage when the shoe was on the other foot.

Spock shared his feelings. "I assure you, Jim, I am in no such danger. This pitiful excuse for a man gravely harmed one I hold most dear. It is logical I discourage him from attempting to inflict further harm, and it is the Vulcan way to extract repayment for wrongs done. Since neither of us desire financial recoupment from a source that is most likely illegal as well as immoral, I felt this would be a suitable alternative."

Kodos choked and clawed at the hand so calmly wrapped around his throat.

McCoy had repaired damage Spock had inflicted on Jim in a similar way and he knew exactly how strong those deceptively elegant hands were. "You know Spock, it's times like this I think I could almost like you."

"The feeling is entirely mutual, Doctor."

It was clear Jim had no idea how to deal with someone wanting to inflict violence and pain on his behalf. McCoy tightened his hold protectively. He would learn. In the meantime, McCoy continued to smile at Kodos who had rapidly begun to turn pink and his lips blue.

"Not nice, is it? Not being able to breathe." It was terrifying, actually, and he knew that because he remembered Jim's fear as he'd been intubated. McCoy was going to have a hell of a time keeping him in sickbay now when it was necessary, both from the trauma Jim had experienced, and his own guilt at having to be the one who made him relive it. "Bet you'd like him to let you go?"

Kodos choked. "J-ja-mes." Spock dropped him like a rag doll, flipped him on to his back and closed his hand around Kodos' jaw, mindless of the way he choked and hacked as he sucked in air.

"You will not speak to him." Spock warned, tightening his grip until Kodos's mouth was forced to open. "You will not look at him. You will not think of him. For I will rip out your tongue, pluck out your eyes, and lock your mind in a hell of your own creation." Spock released him carelessly before raising his eyes to Jim. "His life is yours." Spock said gently. "Should you wish to see it ended, we will do so now. His body will not be found."

McCoy didn't need to look at Jim to know his tormented expression. The part of him that was still that angry boy wished for nothing but Kodos' blood, but it was not that boy Kodos had hurt. That boy had come later.

No, the boy Jim was in that moment was the scared, lonely child who so desperately wanted to be loved and had for a short while believed that Kodos could grant that wish. Jim had hacked away at that part of himself in order to find the strength and the courage to resist, but given the support he'd always been denied, he was stepping out once more, bloody and wounded, but good. He shook his head. "No." he whispered, then shook his head and spoke with a stronger voice. "No. He should stand trial. His victims deserve justice. I won't take that from them for selfish revenge."

"You, Jim Kirk," McCoy said gruffly, touching Jim's forehead with his own, "are a better man than I'd ever be."

"No," Jim whispered, "But I am a better man with you. Both of you."

"Is that what you believe?" Kodos rasped. "They don't know you like I do, James. Do you think they would be so quick to stand by you if they knew what you really were? You'll do what you always so, James, you'll make them hurt you. I'm the only person what understands you."

Jim flinched in McCoy's arms but his eyes were no longer clouded by fear. Something had changed, something fundamental about Jim had shifted, and while McCoy would not trade a single thing about him, he couldn't help but be glad. This was….good.

Physically, Jim was more fragile than McCoy had ever known him to be. Emotionally, he was wounded still, so deeply. But there was something there in his eyes, something McCoy felt that he'd never once experienced in Jim's memories. The jut of his chin was familiar in his defiance, but there was no goading desperation in his eyes, no little boy trying to mask his fear behind anger and cockiness. This wasn't the cadet who had pulled off the impossible with Nero, it wasn't the Captain who had sacrificed his life battling Marcus and Khan. This man, McCoy knew, would never be forgotten by history. This man would change the whole universe and everyone in it.

This man was everything Jim Kirk had always had the potential to be, now standing on a solid, unshakable ground built on the one unchangeable fact: he was no longer, and would never again be, alone.

McCoy waited to hear what he would say, knowing Jim's eloquence and emotion, ready to hold him steady and support him as he delivered his soliloquy.

But Jim, proving once and for all to be the most unpredictable of men, looked down at Kodos without the veil of fear or the confusion of misplaced devotion. Tilting his head to one side in an expression that was uncomfortably Spock like, Jim very calmly gave voice to his thoughts. There as no anger in his words, and no hate. Just cold, unmovable conviction.

"Fuck you." He said, delighting McCoy into another wide grin.

"Couldn't have put it better myself." He squeezed Jim in encouragement.

"I think you'd have thrown a 'damnit' in there somewhere." Jim said absently before turning to his First. "Spock, I want to go home. Either cuff this piece of shit or break his legs, I don't care, but I want out of here."

"I vote legs." McCoy said vindictively. "I'll happily set 'em for you later." He promised Kodos, who had developed another unfortunate case of a Vulcan at his throat as Spock once more hauled him upright and dragged him down the hallway, mindless of his impotent kicking.

"I trust you can assist Jim on your own, Doctor." Spock said loftily, as if he didn't have a fully-grown man clutched in the one hand.

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah, goddamn Vulcans." He twisted his grip on Jim so he had one arm around the kid's back. "Come on Jimmy." He said, grinning at the seriously unimpressed look on Jim's face. "I promise I won't drop you."

"I can walk!" Jim protested, batting at McCoy's shoulder. "Bones, don't you dare!"

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" McCoy sniggered, feeling so much lighter somehow with the return of Jim's spark of life. "Stop wriggling or I will drop you."

"I'm pretty sure there are regs against this. Lots of regs! Spock, damnit Spock!" Jim could squirm and complain all he liked, but right then McCoy was stronger. Besides, Jim got up to all sorts of crazy escapades when he was allowed to wander around on his own two feet. McCoy wasn't kidding when he said Jim would be having an escort for the rest of forever.

As they made their way down the corridor, McCoy could still see the look of rage on Kodos's face as Spock dragged him. McCoy couldn't help but meet it with a sneer of his own.

Look, he thought, look at us. You can't have him, and you'll never be able to break him. Not while we're here.

Which was, of course, the same time the windows exploded and a dozen figures dressed in black flooded the hallway, phasers armed and pointed at the four of them.

Jim's bad luck was apparently contagious.