"Won't be hard this time," McCoy says with great surety. "The machine's doing the heavy lifting." He neglects to add how much pain his father is in. He just has to hold the hell on while the cure gets there a bit faster, that's all. He glances to Jim, grateful that he's there, because he can see Jocelyn entering the hall and he ducks inside the room, gesturing for Uhura and Spock to join so that he doesn't spend the next hour in a bickering match about who's failing who.

He glances over his shoulder at his father in that bed, taking a deep breath to try and settle his nerves. "He just needs to be alive come tomorrow morning. That's it. I just have to keep him alive." Ignore his wishes, ignore his pleading demands, ignore what he did.