Uhura stood beside Scotty, shocked by the scene in front of her. No. No. It can't be… "Where's McCoy?" she asked Scotty as she turned to see if he was arriving behind her
"Laddie ordered me no' to call him"
"What? Why?" Uhura didn't understand
"He knew he wasn't coming out Lass" Scotty confessed with tears in his eyes "the doc ca'no get in there to help him until the chamber and Jim's body is decontaminated. He's stuck in there for another 8 minutes at least" the look of despair on the Scott's face at the thought they could do nothing hit her like a punch to the gut. Worse, was the feeling of knowing someone had to go tell McCoy, and she knew it should be her.

It took a few minutes for Uhura to compose herself before she entered the med bay. McCoy was swamped with patients, and surrounded by a flurry of other med staff, all creating an erratic chorus of noise. McCoy's voice always seemed to break through it to be heard barking orders and relaying information. Uhura tried to get through the chaos to talk to him
"Uhura? You OK?" he asked worried, giving her a visual check over as he continued placing a line in his patient
"I need to talk to you!" she pleaded, knowing he wouldn't understand her insistence
"Now's not the time. If you're not walking wounded, then get out and come see me later" his tone was gruff but Uhura knew Leonard McCoy considered her a true friend, and he would always find time for her when he wasn't so overwhelmed. But she needed to talk to him now!

"No. Now Bones!" she almost faltered at using his nickname, but she needed to get his attention, and it worked, he fixed the central line in place and stepped towards her, his mind obviously racing with concern and confusion
"It's Kirk" was all she could say before the tears started falling again. McCoy paled and suddenly it was like they were the only two people in the room, Uhura working up the strength to tell him what happened, and McCoy keeping it together as he internally freaked the fuck out because he knew this was not good. He suddenly had the presence of mind to usher Uhura into his office where they could have some privacy.
"Where is he?"
"He's in engineering. We can't get to him yet" she realized McCoy was packing a trauma kit ready to run to his friends aid, her breath caught in her throat, she didn't know how to do this… "He didn't survive.."
oh god she actually said it, she wanted to collapse into a black hole as she watched those words register with the man in front of her. He had his back to her, but she could see his breathing change as he fought the overwhelming emotions and disbelief. She stepped towards him and wrapped her arms around him. Suddenly McCoy stood up and turned to run, he nearly reached the med bay doors when two crew members wearing protective gear approached carrying a stretcher between them.

Upon seeing his friends lifeless body, the reality hit him and for a moment he forgot he was Dr McCoy – CMO and medical professional; he was just Bones, and the loss of his best friend was too much. He wanted to scream, cry, break something, anything. He subtly collapsed into a nearby chair, taking a moment to regather himself as he could not fall apart yet, not here. The room was unnervingly quiet, everyone was in quiet shock, something next to him got his attention – bloody tribble. Then his brain caught up - It was alive! What the? … suddenly he was hit by multiple puzzle pieces falling into place - Kahns blood, the regeneration properties, it must have revived it – but how? Scratch that, who cares, maybe he can save Jim!? It was a Hail Mary and he knew it, but he had to try.

"Get me a cryo tube. Now!" he ordered as he jumped into gear. He grabbed the hypo he had used on the Tribble and passed it to Carol after setting it to inject all remaining contents. Kirk had been clinically dead for over 10 minutes, and it was only a small amount of Khans blood, but hopefully enough of Jims vital cells get stimulated to reboot and they can preserve whatever they recover by using the cryo unit. They can do more if they could get more blood, but for now this had to do.
"How much of Khans blood is left?" Carol seemed to be keeping up with him, bless her beautiful brain
"None" Shit how are we going to get more? He thought quickly
"Enterprise to Spock", no reply "Spock!"
Spock wasn't answering and the cryo tube was ready so he turned back to Kirk as he continued
"Mcoy to bridge. I can't reach Spock. I NEED KHAN ALIVE! You get that son of a bitch back on board right now!" He could feel himself practically vibrating with tension "I think he can save Kirk!" he knew bridge crew would understand and trusted them to successfully carry out his order. Most of all he trusted Nyota who took off running as soon as she understood what was going on.

A quick detailed scan indicated Kirk had died from his internal injuries – not the radiation, so if they could repair Jim's injuries he might actually have a chance! They just needed to put him into stasis to stop the effects of the radiation progressing, while they worked out how to get enough of Kahn's blood into him to regenerate Jim's broken body.

McCoy was not giving up on Jim yet…

He was busy taking readings, calculating dosages, and using all his knowledge to figure out how he was going to pull this off (he might be a humble country doctor but McCoy was a medical genius – it was something he had in common with Jim, and one of the reasons Star Fleet looked past his personality flaws). First priority was working out how much of Khan's blood they were going to need. He was so focused on his work that he jumped when Uhura commed to say the had Khan back in the brig. He had never run so fast in all his life. Khan was beaten and barely conscious, not an ideal time to be donating blood but McCoy couldn't care less, he was sure the suped up body could handle it.

McCoy signaled the security officer to let him in to the cell. As the force field reactivated behind him he grabbed the blood donor kit from his bag and held it up for Khan to see
"I'm going to need more of your blood"
"What makes you think you will get it from me?" Khan slurred as he tried to sit up and glare at the doctor
"Your blood is the only hope I have of saving my friend, so you either give it to me willingly, or you better believe I'm going to find a way to make you" McCoy's eyes were stone cold and drilling straight into Khans, daring him to test that statement. Spock and Uhura had never seen this side of him before, and they looked scared. Their concern and fear added weight to McCoy's attempt at intimidation. He could see Khan thinking over his options, and probably wondering just what the good doctor might do if he were to follow through with his threat. Spock, Uhura and McCoy were prepared to have another fight on their hands when Khan surprised them all with his response
"I have no doubt you would…Dr!" he remained propped on his side but held out his arm for McCoy to attach the donor kit that would collect his precious blood. It didn't take long, only a few minutes for the canister to fill. All the while Khan remained still and silent, just staring at McCoy like he was working something out about him. It made Spock and Uhura nervous to watch, and they thought McCoy must have nerves of steel as he didn't even flinch under the scrutiny. Spock made a mental note to discuss these intriguing events with the doctor at a future time.

As soon as McCoy got what he needed he turned to Khan and said "Thank you" quietly but honestly, before he quickly headed back to the med bay without saying another word. Spock then contacted Star Fleet who sent a special forces security detail to escort Khan to a secure facility. The sooner Khan was someone elses problem the sooner he could get back to the crew and the ships repairs.

"OK we got more blood, I'm still not sure how much we are going to need, and I doubt if I will get another chance to get any more so here is what we are going to do…"
McCoy burst back into the med bay and was proud to see everything functioning as it should be – he put a lot of hard work into training his team to be efficient, and times like this he was rewarded. The patients were all under control with a team of med staff attending to them, and a smaller group of more specialized individuals were off to the side where Kirk was, monitoring and setting up any equipment that McCoy might need. No one had ever done anything like this before, but the small team were ready to do whatever was requested. McCoy had the use of his trusted senior nurse Christine Chapel, Carol Marcus, and Dr Jassett (an internal medicine specialist stationed onboard as part of the med science crew). Kirk had a great team in his corner so this better work.
"We're going to give a 200cc bolus straight up and see what effect that has on his system – that 200ml is going to be our base line for dosage. Dr Jassett, you take a sample of this blood and I want you to go through it with people from the genetics lab – use their equipment to break this down and analyze it. I need to know what is in it that gives it the regenerative properties. I want a list of chromosome anomalies, protein markers, everything"

Everyone knew that as CMO, McCoy was in charge of the med bay in an emergency, but when that emergency involved a certain captain then even the gods themselves knew it too. McCoy was delegating tasks to people to help be his eyes while he worked on the solution as a whole, piecing together all the bits of information each person bought back to him. It was going to be an epic process but if anyone could save Jim Kirk it was Leonard McCoy, and there was not one person who would stand in his way.

What did you think of it so far?
I am debating writing another chapter, or continuing this as the start of my follow-on story.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it :)

- DA