There was a clear change, a change Kirk had not seen before in his friend, in how McCoy stood for a moment just looking at him. Looking at him almost as though he were a stranger yet also as though he was a hostile disbelieving patient. He then went to stand by the door into the Intensive Care unit and just looked in. It was in how still McCoy was that made Kirk uneasy. McCoy was just standing there looking in at Spock, his hand behind his back, but Kirk could tell that he was warring with an answer.

"Bones?" he said quietly, almost afraid of how McCoy would reply.

McCoy quickly turned and blue eyes glared at him, "I am not Bones, Captain James T. Kirk, I am Doctor Leonard H. McCoy. It is my medical understanding that First Officer Spock should be sent to his home planet of Vulcan where he will be put in a special isolated unit for the rest of his life. It is also my medical understanding, after reflecting on what Healer T'Totan stated, that you must grant First Officer Spock the severance he requested as soon as possible. Your failure to do so earlier clearly has had an averse effect on his mental state. Should you still refuse to grant him the severance before I sign his transfer papers I will make mention of your refusal to do so in his records so that future healers who may treat him fully understand why he is forever trapped in that shadow world. Mention will be noted on your records. It is also my,"

Kirk was stunned and slowly shook his head, "But, but he and I talked, through a meld,"

"For a time he was lucid and able to talk with each bridge member in a reasonable fashion, but his speech and thinking got more muddled, a reflection of the damage. You had a meld after which you acknowledged that he often repeated words, seemed to lose awareness of what he was talking about, and could not sustain the link. All signs of severe mental trauma in a Vulcan, trauma that could have been partly alleviated by your granting him the severance when he first asked for it. That severance would have,"

"Would have what? Did you not hear what the severance would mean for me, Doctor McCoy? It would remove all, all my memories of Spock as anything other than him being my First Officer. I would have no memories of all of him as him, no memories of all he had done with and for me, all we shared as two friends, all that he meant to me not as Captain Kirk but as me, as Jim. I would only remember that he was my First Officer but nothing else, nothing that makes him who he is and what he is to me. Do you know what that would do to me? Do you not realize that that would be ripping out of me one of the most important relationship of my entire life? Do you, as a doctor, not realize how it would have left me?"

McCoy all but stormed over to where Kirk sat, "I was going to say that, as a doctor, I can see that that severance would have been the best thing for him. But you stopped thinking about him, didn't you? Just listen to yourself. You ask me to be a doctor and when I try to explain to you how the patient is and their prognosis and best future treatment method you try to turn it into a pity party. You think I like the thought that with all the latest in technology and medicine that science can come up with I am relying on traditional medicine from at least the twentieth century? You think I like the idea of the severance and what it means to the two of you? You think knowing that the best thing I can, as a doctor, do for my patient is to have him sent to some facility on Vulcan isn't killing the non-doctor part of me? I do not have your luxury, Captain. As this ship's Chief Medical Officer it is my responsibility to think of the best for the patient. As that officer I must not allow myself to think of First Officer Spock as one of my closest friends but only as a patient."

For a moment McCoy was quiet and then shook his head as he took another step forward and placed a hand on Kirk's shoulder, "You asked if it is my medical opinion that Spock will fully recover as a result of the non-traditional yet traditional methods being employed on him by non-medical personnel and, strictly from a medical point, I would say no. Strictly from both our medical and Vulcan known medical points of view he will not fully recover."

Kirk felt the hand on his shoulder tighten and knew McCoy was right, he had thought of what he wanted and not what would be best for Spock. Spock had tried to explain it to him, explain to him why it was so important, why it was vital for his Vulcan side to continue yet all he could see was what it would mean to him. "That's from the known medical facts, Jim. We, however, have three random elements not covered in any medical histories or records." there was another squeeze, a more determined one and Kirk looked up, "It is those three elements that I am hoping will work and get him back for us."

Three elements. Kirk seized on the thought, "What three elements? How long have you known about them and not tried them? Are they ones in our," he started to stand but the hand on his should gripped again and when Kirk looked up he saw a smile on McCoy's face.

"Element one is the handed down through the generations cures that must have worked or they would not have been handed on, element two is that bridge crew who will not give up on him despite all the reasons and proof they have been given, and the third is that special element, that relationship between two beings from two very different backgrounds that formed a friendship that dares the known and unknown universes to part them."

"But Spock wanted a severance. He did not want to remember me."

"Oh, get over yourself, Jim. He wanted it as he did not want to hold you back, Jim."

"What's that supposed to mean? He would not have held me back."

"Wouldn't he? Can you honestly tell me you'd not be worrying about him? Do you expect me to believe you would not complain that your new First Officer was nothing like him? Have you even thought about what he did after you had called him out on the Bridge in front of the bridge crew, after you, you of all people, had called him a half-breed to save not just you and us but the ship for you? Do you not know that he knows, as I said before, that the only way you will be able to go on, to function normally as the Captain of this ship, will be to have all events to do with him, like what happened on the bridge, removed from you mind along with all memories of him other than as an officer on this ship? Dammit, Jim, he wanted, he wants that severance more for you than himself. "

Kirk remembered how furious he had been when he had first thought that Spock had turned his words against him earlier, how he had thought that no friend would attack him verbally as Spock had. He was trying to make him want the severance. He was trying to make him see how it would save his career as a starship Captain. Spock would have asked him what McCoy had just asked him. Momentarily he closed his eyes and again felt McCoy's hand grip his shoulder.

Slowly Kirk put his hand on McCoy's and nodded before he opened his eyes and looked at his friend and Chief Medical Officer, "Hadn't we best go check on how those other two elements are going now that you have reaffirmed the third element?"