Jim has to believe, right? Bones has pulled off the impossible before. Hell, so has Scotty, Spock, Uhura - the Enterprise is a ship full of impossible geniuses. When there's a life in the balance, or an entire ship's worth of lives, they've done it time and again.

So if Bones says it can't be done, that means he's exhausted all the research, all the collaboration, all the experiments that he's done himself. He's right, right?

...this is going to be hard. So many times they've been at the edge, and pulled one last impossible solution out of someone's ass. Maybe not, this time. (Like it's not hard enough already.)

He finds himself nudged and yanked onto the worn sofa, with Bones' face pushed up against him, and lets out a breathless laugh. It's not that being with Bones is a rollercoaster of emotions. It's that Bones has always been there for him sharing the rollercoaster. This can't end.

If it has to end... at least Jim wants to be here with him.

"I'll remember everything," he says quietly, tucking away the symptoms into the back of his mind. Is that why Bones actually cut himself earlier? "The good and the bad. Don't worry about that. And I'll be in touch with Spock and Starfleet. Figure something out. Does all your family know?"