Warning: the following story is about fifth-season Janeway and Chakotay.
This means that they act like stupid jerks a lot of the time. It's
also about mountain climbing narratives, but it's missing some crucial
elements--like long rhapsodic descriptions of the hills and detailed
explanations of how the equipment works--I don't climb, so I felt like a
charlatan trying to speak like an expert. If you are interested in such
things, I recommend Reinhold Messner's autobiography or Jon Krakauer's
Eiger Dreams.

Yes, I am perfectly aware that to date we have gotten no hint in canon
that either Janeway or Chakotay climbs 8000ers...but if the writers can
declare that Janeway fiddles with her comm badge when she's nervous even
though we'd never seen it till the episode the line was in, then I can
declare that she has alpine experience. Paramount owns the parts of
"Survival" which were not borrowed from mountaineering sources. The
events were loosely suggested by Patrick Meyers' one-act drama K2 and
refined by Roger Ebert's review of the movie based on that play.

This story is dedicated with deep gratitude to Sam, who gave me a
crucial line, as well as an idea for how to end it. Thanks also to Patti
for a few diabolically bad cliches which I just had to use. And many
thanks to M.C. Moose for a vital test read.

SURVIVAL
by Your Cruise Director

"This is such a cliche, Chakotay," Kathryn Janeway snapped, the first
hint of anger he'd heard from her since she'd fallen into the crevasse.

"What do you mean?" Lifting his head from his pack, the first officer of
Voyager paused when the wind hit his face. The spectacular view of the
mountains--black rock, blue ice, and glowing white snow--had been
obscured by the storm bearing down on them, so there was little point in
stopping to admire the backdrop. Moreover, Chakotay suspected that pointing
out the mountains' majesty would also qualify as a cliche.

"I feel like I've played this scene before. Haven't you ever run any of
those climbing disaster holonovels? They're all exactly the same."

"The K2 equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru." Grinning briefly, Chakotay
nodded agreement, though he knew they'd be better off not talking so
much. They needed to preserve their strength. Without his tricorder, he
couldn't tell whether they were still above 8000 meters, but the air
seemed even thinner than it would have been on Earth. That made it easy
for him to recall the scenarios she was talking about. "Let's see.
You're high on a treacherous mountain, late in the season, without any
guides, and there are hints the weather might turn ugly. Do you go up or
turn around?"

"If you turn back before the summit, you always get down safely. But if
you turn back, then you've failed your objective in running the
program." As Kathryn spoke, Chakotay wondered why so many of those
recreations were set on Earth. Olympus Mons was far more dangerous, and
more humans had died on a first ascent of Rura Penthe's Nordwand than had died
in decades on its Swiss namesake. "But if you conquer the summit..."
Kathryn pointed a finger emphatically.

"There's a terrible disaster which strands you on the way down. Just as
the sun is setting."

"With frostbite. But without food, communicators, hope of rescue..."

"But always with someone you need to rescue."

"I hate being stuck in this part." Grabbing the end of the rope hanging
beside her from the sheer face of the rock above, she tried to pull
herself to her feet. A moment later she stopped, exhausted.

"At least you're never alone." He tried to smile at her, though his lips
felt frozen.

"Of course not. That would avoid the dilemma which is the real reason
for playing the program. Do you let the other person die so you can save
yourself, even if he begs you to go, or do you insist on staying with
him, even though choosing that option always means you wake up in a
grid-lined room because you both froze to death?"

"And which option did you usually take, Captain Kirk?"

That always got a smile out of Kathryn. He'd accused her of imitating
Kirk's reprogramming of the Kobayashi Maru--the no-win-scenario portion
of a Starfleet officer's exam--more than once. "Me? Woke up on the
floor, every time. Once, we were dragged off the face of Dhaulagiri in
an avalanche. And once, I think it was on Denali, I tripped carrying an
ensign and fell into a crevasse like this one."

"I've never seen a crevasse like this one. Not this deep in the rock,
when most of the face is as smooth as this wall." Chakotay walked
hesitantly to the edge of the narrow ledge on which they were resting. A
crust of snow had hidden the deep crack in the bedrock from them as they
climbed down. Kathryn had unclipped from their fixed rope, believing she
was standing on solid stone, then the ground had given way beneath her.
Her scream had been a great comfort to Chakotay, who had thought for a
moment that she'd slid down the face of the mountain. The bottom of the
crevasse had stopped her fall, but it had also broken her leg.

"There shouldn't be crevasses like this," she stated flatly. "The
geology's different on this mountain than on any other I've ever
climbed. It's been awhile but there were dozens in my youth--all those
acclimatization boosters made climbing as easy as transporting into
divergent pressure zones."

"Ever try it the old-fashioned way? Just with oxygen?"

"No. If this is anything like the old-fashioned way, I hate it. If we
hadn't acclimatized before we beamed down, we'd be dead now."

Kathryn worked her way upright and swung her axe. For a moment Chakotay
lost sight of her in a shower of ice. Then she reappeared, doubled over,
breathing heavily as she tried to balance on one leg. Chakotay watched
helplessly as she collapsed backwards, unable to stop her fall with her
near-frozen hands. She hit hard, lying still against the wall before
groaning and dragging herself onto one elbow.

"Be careful. It's not going to do either of us any good if you start an
avalanche." Spectacular slides had rumbled occasionally down the
mountainside, their deadly force appearing almost in slow motion
alongside the vastness of the massif. This more conical peak had
comparatively less loose snow on its walls, but the giant seracs of the
glacier had been difficult to navigate even with the help of aerial
mapping.

Peering at him, Kathryn shifted forward. "That might not be such a bad
thing. We know where this would be going if it were a holovid, Chakotay.
The issue is whether we're both going to die up here, or whether the
more injured of us is going to talk the other into going down alone."

"Damn, my hands are cold." Chakotay rubbed them together briskly in the
frigid air, changing the subject, though the friction made little impact
on his gloved fingers. "This is the last time you get to pick the locale
for shore leave. Next time it's my turn, and we're going someplace
tropical."

"I thought you liked mountains." Kathryn's voice contained a trace of a
shiver, but it was still surprisingly strong and throaty. "You know I
only picked this one because of the dilithium readings on the ridge. We
were supposed to get the shore leave portion of this away mission after
we got the ship's stores restocked. It's not like this is Mount Everest,
anyway--this peak was supposed to be a cinch for two people with years
of Starfleet training."

"If there's one thing years of Starfleet training have taught me, it's
that the things which are supposed to be a cinch never are. I learned
that from mountaineering, too."

Kathryn chuckled huskily. "I suppose this is not the time to admit that
when I tried to climb Everest with an Academy group, I had to be beamed
unconscious out of Camp III."

Chakotay laughed aloud. Having climbed Aconcagua and Huascaran on
expeditions with his father, he'd been better-prepared than most
Starfleet cadets for the grueling Himalayan course--plus he'd always
climbed without acclimatization boosters. "I'm going to try again to get
the rope," he offered. "When I pull, see if you can grab that little
shelf of ice about half a meter above your head." His shoulder throbbed,
but Chakotay ignored it.

"That's not a shelf. It's barely big enough for three fingers!"

"If you can grab it, you might be able to wedge your foot in an
indentation in the wall."

"Are you taking or leaving your axe?"

Hesitating again, he considered. If they got down this mountain
together, it was going to have to be with Kathryn in a sling, so two
axes weren't going to do them much good. And it was extra weight to be
trying to haul on the icy cliff right now. But if one of the screws
didn't hold, that axe might be the only thing between her and the bottom
of the sheer face of the wall of ice. "Take it," he decided, with a grin
at her groan.

One of the many, many things they had done wrong on this expedition was
bringing local climbing equipment, rather than replicating their own.
They'd been concerned about intrusive demonstrations of their technology
in this pre-warp culture. As Kathryn kept saying, this mountain was
supposed to be a fairly easy climb even with the ice. Plus the crampons
on his new boots were better-made than anything Starfleet had to offer.

The only problem now was that they weren't attached to antigrav units.

"Did I ever tell you about getting up Wowie Zowie? It's a waterfall in
Alaska." Her look of incredulity made him feel better, even though a
feather from the down in his snow pants was stabbing him in the groin. He
wiggled. "In the winter, the falls freeze into a blue crystal lattice,
really amazing to see. The only problem is that the upper ice is full of
air pockets. Most years it's completely rotten. We were climbing it the
old fasioned way, just like this, with no propulsion or transporter
backup, and I peeled right off the side." His companion began to laugh
again faintly. "Bounced about eighty feet, popping screws out of the
ice. One of them finally held. I pulled my shoulder out of the socket,
just like up here. Got stuck upside down until one of the guys I was
with hauled me up on a bungee cord. That stopped me from climbing for
almost a year."

"But not forever." Kathryn took a deep breath, rising onto the one leg
which could support her weight. She adjusted the rope threaded through
hooks on her climbing suit, clutching the taut portion which led through
an anchor, around Chakotay's body into his hands, pinned on the other
side with a pair of screws. "There wasn't supposed to be ice like this
up here."

"We came prepared in case there was."

"Yes, but we also weren't supposed to lose the pack with the rest of the
screws and the rope. We have dangerous hubris."

"I know." That loss had been costly but inevitable: he had been hauling
Kathryn up the sheer face of the crevasse which had broken her leg and
nearly taken her life. There hadn't been much room to maneuver. He'd had
to rely mostly on the strength in his arms, since he couldn't walk
forward without coming dangerously close to the precipice overhanging
the steep drop below. The large pack had slid and fallen, but he hadn't
spared it a second thought at the moment, too intent on getting her out
of the hole in the ice which might have killed her.

Somehow, though his strength was waning in the limited oxygen of the
freezing air, he'd gotten her to the top of the crevasse, where she'd
taken inventory while he considered their situation. Given the limited
daylight left to them, there was no chance he was going to be able to
get her down the mountain before darknes fell--and probably more snow as
well. If he bivouacked there with her, they might both freeze to death.
On the other hand, if he went down without her to get help, she would
certainly freeze to death. He didn't like any of the options a bit, but
he hadn't come up with any new ones.

"You sure there's no way to make a homing beacon out of a communicator?"
he asked.

"Not that will work through the interference from this radiation, unless
you brought a signal booster." She slammed her hand into the snow. "Why
didn't we think to scan for residual neutron decay before we started
climbing? Where were our brains the day before yesterday?"

Unfortunately, Chakotay knew exactly where his mind had been when she
suggested the climb. If she'd proposed going alone or with any other
crewmember, he would have vetoed the idea as a ridiculous risk for the
captain to be taking. Instead, since she'd invited him along, he'd
rushed them into the clouds before she could change her mind. He'd
thought about climbing alone with her, camping alone with her. Sharing a
tiny tent, working in close proximity to her as they struggled up the
mountain, probably roped together. Climbing was an exercise in trust and
intimacy--one was dependent on one's partner's skills, and needed to be
completely relaxed sharing physical contact to help one another through
the difficult stretches.

Kathryn looked up at him blearily. They hadn't bothered to carry bottled
oxygen since the Doctor had given them acclimatization boosters, but
this planet's air thinned more quickly than Earth's at high elevations.
They had both developed symptoms of high-altitude sickness. She didn't
look ill at the moment--he didn't think she was going to throw up again,
at least--nor did she look particularly agonized, which was more
worrisome.

"How's your leg feel?" he asked casually.

"Hurts like hell."

"That's not surprising."

"I don't want to die like a cliche, Chakotay." She slammed her hand back
into the snow. "I've already done enough living as a cliche."

Coming from Kathryn Janeway, that sounded close enough to nonsense to
scare him. "What did you say?"

"Look at us! We're doing what we're supposed to do, right? Chasing
supplies. Trying to get the crew home. That's been my only goal for all
these years. It's my day off. I go looking for energy reserves, and I'm
going to end up dying on a mountain whose name we don't even know. It's
worse than Magellan."

"Stop talking about dying, Kathryn. We're going to get out of here..."

"God, I was arrogant. I screwed up big-time."

"Nobody could have foreseen all the disasters which have hit us since
this morning. We took the right precautions. We had communicators, we
had phasers, we had the medkit, we had local guides..."

"And the guides are long gone, with all of our food and most of our
equipment, and I have a broken leg and you have a dislocated shoulder.
We didn't take enough precautions."

"How can we ever take enough? We're in the Delta Quadrant. There are too
many unknowns."

"One of us could stay with the ship at all times."

"If one of us stayed with the ship at all times, I would have died on
that Kazon training moon. And you probably would have died when that
alien presence invaded your mind. This is a moot discussion, because I
wouldn't have let you come up here without me."

She stared up at him. "If I had known that," she said slowly, "I
wouldn't have let you come at all. Because now you have to go down
without me."

Chakotay had known this was coming since she broke her leg. He'd
expected it earlier, actually, thinking she would try to play the martyr
as she had in the Void. Once she brought up the climbing programs, he'd
seen where the discussion would inevitably lead, but had not had enough
energy in his oxygen-impaired brain to work out a full rebuttal.

He said simply, "No. We haven't exhausted all our options."

She pulled the hood closer to her head, tightening the strings so that
all he could see of her face was a tiny circle, her eyes gleaming in the
dark air. "Do you see any realistic chance for both of us to get down
the mountain tonight?"

"Not now, no," he admitted.

"Then I am ordering you to go down to base camp. Even if we both survive
the night, the risk that we won't find a way tomorrow is too great. One
of us has to go back..."

"Kathryn, you're not going to survive the night alone out here."

"I'd rather take my chances on that, knowing you're bringing a rescue
team, than on both of us staying..."

He cut her off. "You'd rather take your chances on dying so you don't
have to take responsibility for me. I can take care of myself, Kathryn.
If we reach a point where I don't believe there is a better option than
going down alone, just like in all the cliched mountain stories, then
I'll go. Not before. I'm going to try to get the heat packs to activate
manually. There must be some reason they won't snap on like they're
supposed to."

"You're not in a position to judge. We're both suffering from hypoxia
and in a few hours we'll be freezing to death. You're still mobile,
despite your shoulder, but that could change..."

"Kathryn, would you listen to me for a minute? I. Am not. Going. Down.
Now. Let's start thinking about our other options." Her silence told him
he was winning for the moment. She gave him a long, calculating look.
"Whatever you're planning to say, just drop it for now and save your
strength."

Sitting back, the captain looked momentarily defeated. "I was trying to
decide whether to pick a fight with you, or something else."

"Something else?"

"Maybe if I tearfully declared my undying love for you, you would honor
my last wish and go back to our ship."

She made the statement matter-of-factly, without a trace of humor or
emotional appeal. Chakotay's hands slipped on the heating pack; he
nearly dropped it down the face of the mountain. In the most neutral
voice he could muster, he stated, "That's the biggest cliche of all."

"It always works in the movies, though."

"Not always. Sometimes people want to play Romeo and Juliet. Haven't you
noticed that dying tragically with someone is the most common ending for
people who can't be together in life?"

"Not in disaster stories. In situations like this one, there's always
some obligation someone has to fulfill. It's the reason for
persevering." She hesitated. "If you go back, Chakotay, I won't die in
vain. I'll have the satisfaction of knowing that the mission can succeed
with you on the bridge." Her voice was almost seductive, slurred as it
was with cold. "If you stay here, you'll have only the hollow
satisfaction of knowing I didn't die alone."

"Maybe that's not hollow."

"Maybe I'd prefer to die alone."

"Maybe I'd prefer not have to wake up in the morning knowing that I left
you here to die while I went on to the captaincy of Voyager."

"Maybe you'd like to recall that you took an oath to bring the ship home
with or without me..."

"I never took an oath to let my captain die." His voice rose in spite of
himself. "I won't live with that every minute for the rest of my life.
So I don't care if you'd prefer to die alone!" Out of breath, he sat
down heavily in the snow.

"If you stay here, it won't just be my death on your conscience. It's
the whole crew."

"The whole crew would never forgive me for leaving you here. Never."

"They won't have a choice. I'll write down the order and log this
discussion..."

"We don't have any PADDs."

"Damn." She paused, thinking. "How about if I give you a lock of my
hair?"

Chakotay began to laugh, painfully because the air was so thin and so
dry that it made him want to cough. "Kathryn, if I came back with a lock
of your hair, Tom Paris would assume I cut it off your corpse as a
memento--so I could braid it into a circle, the neverending symbol, and
wear it around my wrist for the rest of my life. Even if they believed
you stayed here willingly, not one of them would believe you gave me a
lock of your hair."

She'd been ready to scold him again, but by the time he finished,
Kathryn was laughing too, practically without making a sound. "OK, OK."
Her voice wheezed. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't tease."

"No. You shouldn't. Because whether or not you declare your undying love
for me, I'm not leaving." Her eyes grew dark, serious. "I'm going to
take this rope and make a sling, and in the morning, we're both going
down together."

"Or not at all." The humor was gone from her voice. "Chakotay..."

"Don't." He kept his back to her while he rearranged their equipment.
"Kathryn, no matter what you declared to me at this point, I'd know it
was just another thing you were doing for your ship, to get me down the
mountain, because in your judgement as captain that's what I should be
doing. So pay careful attention while I'm disobeying orders, because I'm
doing it for the ship too. We are not going on without our captain.
Don't take it personally."

"You can do this without me."

"Tell you what. Why don't you give me a list of things you want me to
take care of after you're gone? Then I can tell you all the reasons I
can't do it the way you could, and you'll realize I'm right. Seven of
Nine, for one. You saved her from the Borg, twice. You care about her,
you're her mentor. It will never be the same for her without you there.
For Tom either. I know things have been different between you since the
Moneans, but he's still a lot closer to you than he is to me. Then
there's Tuvok--you think he's ready to take my orders? You think he'd
ever forgive me for leaving you on this rock?"

"Tuvok would say it's logical. Otherwise we're both going to die here.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the..."

"You know why that saying's so famous? Because of the number of
prominent Vulcan legends in which someone broke that rule. Sort of like
the Prime Directive."

"That's not funny. I will put you on report for this, Chakotay. Don't
think for a minute I won't."

"I'm scared now." Finally the heat packs seemed to be generating a
little warmth. He wrapped the thermal blanket around her, pushing the
material into her resisting hands. "You can threaten me with whatever
you want. I am not going back to the ship to tell them I left the
captain behind. We are going to bivouac right here, and we are going to
make it. Have a little faith."

There wasn't much to put faith in, however, No tent, no bags; they
didn't even have a pack large enough to crawl into. He shifted towards
her well-wrapped form, moving her body slightly so that her head would
rest against a natural indentation in the wall behind her. Then he
pressed as close as he could, which wasn't very close given the twelve
or so layers of clothing which separated them. Kathryn made a sad,
enigmatic sound. "Bivouacking doesn't count as sleeping together, so
don't start bragging," she murmured through her still-shivering lips.

"Now I know you're hypoxic," he warned, pulling his ski mask over his
face.

He wished they could talk more, here where the air was too thin for
reason--he wanted to press her for answers to questions he had never
dared ask. But he was so tired, and his shoulder so sore, night was
falling fast and with it the temperature...he needed to rest. Just for a
few minutes. As did she. The wind smelled like mint, then abruptly it
smelled like water. On ocean, warm, surrounding them both, until he was
under salt water breathing the bubbles and he was not afraid.

When Chakotay awoke an indeterminable amount of time later, with his ski
mask over his eyes, the wind had died completely. The quality of the
silence was unlike any he had ever experienced--almost tangible in
absence. And he could not feel her beside him.

"Kathryn?" She did not respond. "Kathryn? Wake up."

Nothing, not even the creak of the ice. Chakotay thought that he should
have been able to hear her breathing. Painfully, he pushed the hood back
from his eyes.

She wasn't there.

"Kathryn! I know you can hear me." No response. "I know you want me to
believe that you're gone so I'll go down the mountain, but I'm not
leaving." A momentary cry of wind, then the hush again. That was when he
saw her. She had dragged herself to the lip of the chasm.

"Kathryn! Get back here!"

"Go down the mountain, Chakotay," she said. "Goodbye." And stepped
backward, and was gone.

"Kathryn!" His voice cracked on the dryness into a fitful, excruciating
cough, "I'm not leaving! Kathryn!" He could not race to the edge of the
chasm, he had to stop after every single step just to draw breath, and
his lungs felt as if someone was pressing a knife into his chest. By the
time he got to the spot where she had stood, his throat was raw and
filling with fluid. In the darkness, he could not spot her broken form
at the bottom, and his light had burned out hours earlier. His tear
ducts must have been plugged from the cold, because he did not weep. He
collapsed on the rim and stared into the chasm.

She was gone. Not dead...gone.

It took Chakotay a moment to understand.

Activating his comm badge, he threw himself towards the bottom.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry beamed him directly to sickbay. The Doctor was already working on
the Captain, setting her leg while Tom Paris checked her extremities for
frostbite. Chakotay started to go to her, but Tuvok stopped him.

"Commander, I believe you should rest on the biobed until the Doctor has
had an opportunity to examine you."

The first officer glanced at the Vulcan. Though the man's voice betrayed
nothing, Chakotay had the distinct impression that Tuvok was seething.
"It's all right, Tuvok, you found us in time," he said, and walked over
to where the ship's senior medical officers were caring for Kathryn
Janeway. She glanced up at him from eyes with dark circles beneath them.

"We got a cliched ending," she croaked. "The deus ex machina salvation."

He wanted to weep, he wanted to slap her or hug her silly, but his legs
suddenly wouldn't hold him so he sat down on the floor where he couldn't
even see her face. "I have to tell you, Kathryn, I like this ending," he
murmured. "I think we should program it for every situation like it."

"The next time I hear about the two of you getting yourselves into a
situation like this, I'm going to have you both relieved of duty for
psychiatric evaluations," the Doctor snapped. "If you have a martyr
complex, please work it out on the holodeck with the safeties on, not in
the upper reaches of an alien mountain with improper gear. You're very
lucky Mr. Kim had found a way to read your signals through the
atmospheric radiation once you were out of contact with the cliff."

"I am curious, Captain, as to how you were able to ascertain that we
would be able to lock onto your comm badge once you jumped," droned
Tuvok while he and Tom reached down to help Chakotay to the other
biobed. The movement left him dizzy and nauseous, and he lay down
without protest.

"Call it a hypoxia-induced hunch." Kathryn's voice sounded as if it were
fading. Chakotay could see how badly her hands were frostbitten; it was
going to take them some time to get her out of danger before they turned
their attention to him. And he really didn't want to answer any of
Tuvok's questions until he could think straight. Closing his eyes, he
drifted in and out of consciousness until the Doctor came to repair his
shoulder, giving him a sedative which knocked him out completely.

When Chakotay awoke, sickbay was dark, with the Doctor nowhere in
evidence. He glanced across the space between the biobeds at the
captain, who was lying on her back with her hands folded across her
chest. Someone had brushed out her hair and covered her neatly with a
blanket. He could not see her breathing. If not for her eyes, open and
blinking at the ceiling, Chakotay would have thought she was dead, a
body prepared for a funeral.

"Kathryn," he whispered.

Her head turned toward him, hair draping across her face. She did not
bother to move her hands to push it back. "Yes?"

"Just checking." He rolled onto his side on the uncomfortable mattress
so that he could keep watching her. "You should be asleep."

"You too. But these beds are horrible."

"You'll get no argument from me about that." Chakotay had a sudden sharp
longing to sleep with her--not for sex, just to lie in contact with her
body, sharing warmth, able to feel the rhythm of her breathing as he
drifted out of wakefulness. He reached a hand across the space towards
her, but she did not unfold her clasped fingers to reach back. After a
moment he let his arm fall to dangle off the bed.

"I'm too angry to sleep," she admitted.

"Why?"

"Because you wouldn't obey my orders."

Chakotay thought about trying to postpone the argument, then realized he
would rather have it lying in bed beside her in sickbay than in her
ready room with Tuvok in attendance. "With all due respect, Captain, you
were suffering from hypoxia, possible high altitude cerebral edema,
you'd suffered a major bodily trauma and you had frostbite. You were in
no condition to give orders, especially not about your own safety."

"I was rational, coherent, and in command of my faculties. Don't make
excuses. You disobeyed orders, and you were in command of your own
faculties to know that you were doing it."

"Hmm. You might manage to persuade a board of inquiry to open a hearing
on those technicalities. But which of us do you think a jury of the crew
will support at my courtmartial?

"This isn't a joke." She spoke in that deadly voice usually reserved for
sibilant aliens which suggested that Kathryn Janeway never had had a
sense of humor and never would. "I could have you replaced as first
officer."

Chakotay groaned. "No, Kathryn, I don't think you could. And no matter
how angry you are right now, I don't believe you would." So she wanted
to play it this way. "You're just trying to get me to swear that I'll
never disobey your orders again."

"Of course I'd do it, if I believed it was in the best interests of the
ship. I should do it. A major part of the purpose of having a first
officer is to take over in case the captain becomes incapacitated, but
you refused to perform that function."

"On the contrary. Like I said, I believed that the captain was quite
incapacitated. So in my capacity as first officer, I took my own counsel
on her unnecessarily hazardous orders. I had evidence that she was out
of her mind--the captain was admitting her failings to me as a human
being, and calling herself a cliche--I figured it had to be oxygen
deprivation," he joked.

"That isn't funny."

"Yes it is. But if you want play it seriously, you might look at the
facts of your medical condition, which I'm sure the Doctor will
corroborate. Think for a minute, Kathryn." He knew it annoyed her when
he called her by name while they were having a command disagreement, but
she rarely played fair in terms of keeping the personal and professional
separate, so damned if he was going to worry about it. "If you put me on
the stand and testify that because I refused to leave you to die, I am
no longer fit to serve as your first officer, the crew is going to
become even more convinced than many already are that you have a death
wish. And the Doctor is going to have you in sickbay for psychiatric
tests."

"The crew thinks I have a death wish?"

"Some of them, after the routine you pulled in the Void. You think it
was easy covering for you for weeks on end and then convincing the
bridge crew to disobey your orders? You've risked your life repeatedly
with the Borg and taken outrageous personal risks in the name of saving
the ship, when there were plenty of other crewmembers who were arguably
more qualified to face the dangers. Launching the torpedo against Henry
Starling, going personally to retrieve Seven...I don't think you really
want a list. You're lucky I know you're kidding with these threats to
replace me." When she rolled to look at him, he winked at her, complicit
not so much in the joke as in the fact that it was not a joke.

"I'm not kidding when I say I feel betrayed."

The first officer was not entirely successful in controlling his anger
this time. "You said pretty much the same thing to me when we went up
against the Borg. I'm sorry you feel that way, but it's your problem,
not mine. This is about the dozenth time you've cited personal betrayal
to express a complaint about a professional disagreement."

"This is personal as well as professional."

"You're the one who's thrown protocol in my face whenever I've tried to
get close to you. Either we're close enough that I can say things to you
as a friend, or we're not, in which case your feelings of personal
betrayal have no place here. My conscience is clear."

"You're telling me as my first officer that you will continue to
disregard my orders and my wishes when you disagree with them. You have
no confidence in my ability to judge what's best..."

"I'm saying that you sometimes give orders without having all the facts
at your disposal, because there are facts you don't want to face. That's
the other reason for having a first officer, Kathryn--to make sure you
see all sides of an issue. I can't do that job if you won't even let me
speak."

"Speak, then. Tell me why you disobeyed me today."

"All right. If I had left you to die when I was convinced that there
were other options, I would not have been able to come back and captain
Voyager. There's no point in sending me back into a situation where I
couldn't function anyway. When I looked at the odds, I thought my
chances of getting you down alive were better than my chances of
surviving alone. I know you don't want to believe this, Kathryn, but
there are some things you can't order people to do."

"We weren't talking about murder in cold blood..."

"It's a fine line between Starfleet captain and despot."

"I see." The mask went on. "Now I'm a tyrant."

"Not now, though I think you've had your moments and I know a number of
junior officers who agree with me." He weighed her stare and elected to
grin instead of furthering that line of argument. "Kathryn, you need to
realize that this crew is not going to let you sacrifice yourself while
there are any other options, even if you don't like the odds for those
options. Don't try citing logic because it won't work. Tuvok contacted
the Vidiians to rescue us when we were stranded, against your direct
orders, remember? We're not going to obey you in a situation like The
Void, or like last night on the mountain. You are not expendable."

"You're trying to rationalize behavior I cannot countenance, Chakotay.
If the situation warrants, I must be expendable, to you, personally."

"You have never been expendable to me, personally. I wouldn't leave
behind my ice axe when I thought of it as survival gear, and I wouldn't
leave you behind either."

"I'm survival gear?" Her voice was throaty but her tone was highly
dubious.

"Let me phrase it another way." Chakotay took a deep breath so he could
enunciate carefully. "I don't want to live without you." Kathryn tried
to hold her face steady, but her eyes squinted for a moment as she
flinched, then fought to hold her lower lip from trembling. He took another
deep breath. "I know, I'm betraying you again. I'm not honoring
protocol. We seem to have an unspoken rule that I am expected to remain
professional at all times for the good of the ship, except when you
decide you need a friend. Maybe you can live in that sort of isolation.
I can't."

Kathryn rolled onto her back, blinking at the ceiling. "What are you
threatening me with, Commander?"

"It's not meant as a threat, but I think you know," Chakotay accused.
"You knew last night on the mountain, or you wouldn't have threatened to
declare undying love for me. You thought that if you gave me that to
walk away with, I might take it."

"I shouldn't have said that." In a low voice, she asked, "What if I had
told you I was not yours to lose?"

"Wouldn't change anything. Either way, it wouldn't have influenced my
decision." She's asking, he pointed out to himself. She's not saying it.
"And if you ask your Vulcan buddy, I think you'll find that he'll
understand. Human emotions may be illogical, Kathryn, but denying them
doesn't erase their influence. I'll prove it to you."

"How?"

"Come with me to the holodeck." He waited. "I mean, now."

"Now? The Doctor will kill us."

"It needs to be now. For veracity. So we're slightly battered and
completely exhausted."

"What exactly are you planning?"

"I want to strand us back on the mountain. Play out the scenario your
way. Let's see if it's really a cliche."

He couldn't believe she agreed to it, but then he hadn't expected her to
be so angry, nor so full of adrenaline. While she gave Tuvok orders for
no interruptions and blocked the Doctor from transferring his program to
the holodeck, Chakotay opened the parameters file one of the most
grueling mountaineering programs--the K2 equivalent of the Kobayashi
Maru, the one he'd initially joked with Kathryn about. A quick change to
the safeties, then he packed some medical supplies, grabbed the climbing
gear which was still piled in a corner of sickbay, cleaned his pitons,
replicated two ice axes and some rope, and swallowed some lukewarm soup.

He decided to put them close to the summit at midday, since they were
already as acclimated as they were likely to get and they had little
energy in reserve. Still, it took almost forty-five minutes to climb the
relatively easy slope to the top. "Why are we going up?" she demanded
after half an hour of intense physical exertion.

"I want to test your theory about the climbing scenario, which means we
have to summit before we go down. I don't think it's really a cliche at
all. Just about every true-life disaster story sounds implausible, but at
the same time predictable, when described afterwards. Look at some of our
own experiences in the Delta Quadrant; do you think anyone would believe
them in a holonovel?"

"Then what do you think is the appeal of those programs?"

"It's about interdependence. Living on the edge, but wanting to know
you're not alone there. Other people do it in other ways. They go to
amusement parks together or they do sports together, or they join
Starfleet or they join the Maquis." He stopped to draw heavy breaths,
exhausted just from speaking. "Right now, we get to the summit, we dance
around in the snow like we're supposed to. Then we go down. All right?"

"All right."

The final few steps were unbelievably difficult; it took almost five
minutes to walk the last meter, which scaled two rocky steps. The two of
them could barely squeeze next to one another to see the glorious view
down the other side. Crystal peaks all around, and a sky so bright it
made his eyes water if he looked too much.

"We forgot sunscreen," Kathryn murmured, and around the holes in her ski
mask he could see freckles forming. Or maybe they were just spots on his
retina from the brightness. Chakotay had had every intention of throwing
his arms around her and celebrating when they reached the summit, but he
felt numb instead. It was freezing. He couldn't draw a breath without
pain. He knew what was coming on the other side.

"Let's start down," he said.

He hadn't consciously planned the fall, though later he knew he must
have decided to do it. They were roped together, but he knew she would
be fine, her safeties were on. As it turned out, her technical skills
were superb, so she managed to get them both anchored within seconds of
his slide. Chakotay hung in open space for a few minutes, dizzy and
nauseous, while she tied the rope and waited for him to edge his
carabiner up. It had happened so fast, he could easily have lost control
and gone down, taking her with him...she began to haul him up, and he dug
bleeding fingers into the ice to help her.

"We...are ending...this program...now," she panted when she could spare
breath for it, draped over his form on a ledge of snow.

"Can't. I locked it in. Have to get to Camp IV..." He coughed painfully.

"Override."

"No..."

"Chakotay. Your hip's broken. You could be leaking marrow...into your
bloodstream."

"I know."

"Whatever...masochistic thrill...you are getting...from this
exercise...is over. I order you...end the program."

"When you get to Camp IV."

"Fine. Stay here...in the snow...and suffer. It won't be as bad...as
what I will do to you..."

"I turned my safeties off."

"You WHAT?" A coughing fit stopped her words. He felt her body convulse
against his.

"Don't worry. I left yours on. You'll live, no matter what."

"Chak--" Her breath sounded like sobbing. "Why?"

"No-win scenario. It had to be a real test."

He felt her sit up, pushing away from his body. "Chakotay, I am going
down. I can't say...I'm sorry...you brought this on yourself. You think
so little of me, as your commanding officer...once I go down, I think
you will realize...it would be insanity not to end the program..."

"I won't end the program."

"I don't know what you want...from me. I won't stay here and beg you."

"Good. Go already, you're losing strength."

"Chakotay."

"A captain has to be able to sacrifice any of her officers, right?"

"This isn't sacrifice. It's suicide."

"You said you never abandoned someone. You always wound up 'dead' on the
grid when you knew there was an out--it was holographic. But you
wouldn't let me make that choice when it was real. So I'm not leaving
you an out, either. Go down."

"Please." Pause. "I wasn't really going to press charges. I have no
desire to replace you as first officer."

"I know."

"We're even. Stop manipulating me. Override the safeties."

"I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm sorry you see it that way."

"Why are you doing this?" Her voice was anguished.

"I'm doing my job as first officer. This is a no-win scenario, Captain,
and you have to make a decision. What do you do?"

"You know I have to leave."

"Then why are you still here arguing?"

"You can stop this! Stop it!"

"What if I couldn't stop it, Kathryn? What if it had been me back on
that mountain? Would you have gone down without me?"

"It wasn't you."

"What if it was? Right now, we're on that mountain. All your Starfleet
training and your precious 24th-century equipment have failed you.
There's no way down for me. Are you going to leave me here?"

"I..."

The pause went on forever, until her breath merged into the sound of the
wind, into silence. "Yes or no?"

"...can't." Her voice was almost inaudible.

"Can't what?"

"No."

"No what?"

"No. Get up, dammit."

"What about the ship?"

"Just...get...up."

When Kathryn leaned over to try to haul him to his feet, he could tell
she was crying despite her ski mask and the goggles she'd hastily shoved
on. Crying above 8000 meters could be deadly; your tears could literally
freeze in your nostrils. Chakotay put his arms around her and hugged her
before overriding the safeties to beam them back to sickbay.

The moment he gave the command, even before he'd triggered the exit, he
felt the transporter sequence beginning. The Doctor and Tuvok, waiting
with proverbial great stone faces, were both forced to save their
comments when they saw his condition.

The captain hadn't stopped crying when she peeled off her ski mask, nor
for several minutes afterwards. Chakotay could hear her as Tom treated
her injuries in silence while the Doctor set his own hip, in a procedure
so painful even with anesthesia that they ended up sedating him. When he
awoke, Kathryn was asleep on the biobed opposite, and the Doctor and
Tuvok were both in the office. The lights were at three-quarters.
Chakotay supposed it was possible they'd both been put under guard.
Noticing that he had awakened, the two men strode out to stand at the
foot of his cot, glaring.

"You look pissed off, Tuvok," Chakotay croaked.

"Vulcans do not become 'pissed off.'" The haughty tone of voice made
Chakotay laugh, though laughing was sharply uncomfortable. "I am curious
to know why you and the Captain chose to leave sickbay midway through
your treatment, to return to an environment which could have further
damaged you." Good, maybe they hadn't figured out he'd turned his
safeties off. Chakotay hoped Kathryn would leave that out of the
official report, though it was certainly possible that when she woke up
safe in sickbay, she'd revert to her philosophy of the day before and
attempt a courtmartial.

"I am noting this incident in your permanent medical records regardless
of whatever explanations the two of you might make." The Doctor did not
bother to disguise his anger.

"Don't blame the Captain. It was my idea. She just went along to try to
stop me."

"I will take that question up with her."

The Vulcan lowered his eyebrows. "I will also wait until the captain is
awake to make my inquiries."

Tuvok left shortly afterwards and Chakotay convinced the Doctor that
keeping the lights on wasn't preventing him from escaping, just from
sleeping. The hologram reluctantly agreed, so Chakotay got a few hours
of fitful sleep before the stirring on the biobed next to him aroused
his attention. He watched Kathryn open her eyes, realize where she was.
Blink as if she weren't sure how much of what she remembered was hypoxic
delusion.

"That was one hell of a belay," he said softly. "You must have done
better in that Academy alpine class than you let on.

Her head turned towards him and she studied him for a few minutes, as if
trying to decide whether to take on the conversation. "You son of a
bitch," she said finally.

"Captain?"

"That's right. How dare you make me cry in front of the crew. I'm going
to make you sing."

"Sing?"

"I know I threatened to take your rank, but I think I'm going to take
something more personal. Much more personal."

She rolled onto her side and made a snipping gesture with her bandaged
fingers. Chakotay broke into a broad grin. "Hello, Kathryn."

"That was one hell of a belay, wasn't it. You owe me your balls."

"And my life. You going to take that?"

"No. I mean, yes, but I owe you my life too. You know what I remember
from climbing class?"

"What?"

"Teamwork. All of my instructors went on and on about it--the whole point
being that you can't climb alone. You're dependent on the skills of your
team. You have to adjust to them, and trust them, and cooperate. Sometimes
that even means you can't go for the summit if you want everyone to survive."

"Go on," he said. She smiled triumphantly at him, a student passing the
exam.

"The success of the climb is ultimately about how well we build those
connections. It doesn't work otherwise, the risks are too great for
everyone involved. An expedition leader's not a leader if she tries to
climb to the summit alone."

"And no one can survive alone up there for long," he agreed quietly.
"It's not just lonely at the top: it's deadly. For you and everyone
else."

Kathryn nodded. "I don't think I ever considered how much that applies
to a starship."

"Then this expedition was worthwhile, even if we didn't get the
dilithium."

"How's your hip?"

Sore subject. "Not as bad as my head. How's your leg?"

"Not as bad as my hands. Frostbite."

"I guess we won't be climbing together again any time soon, huh?"

"On the contrary." She bent an elbow under her head to lift it up while
propping her other hand on her hip. "How would you feel about doing this
regularly?"

Chakotay hoped the smile on his face wasn't as revealing as he
suspected. "I'd love to. As long as we can skip the sickbay part." She
raised an eyebrow.

"All right, if you give me your word as a climber that you won't try to
turn the safeties off again, ever, no matter what lesson you're trying
to teach me."

"You mean you don't want my word as a Starfleet officer?" The death
glare Kathryn gave him was priceless. He reached a hand across the
biobeds; this time she took it.

"Kathryn, I give you my word."

"I'll hold you to that."

"So will Tuvok and the Doctor, I imagine--if they let us climb together
at all."

"I'll order them." He rested in silence grinning at her smug expression
until the weight of their hands between them became too uncomfortable to
sustain. "I'm going to sleep," she said when she pulled her arm back.
"If I can sleep on this godawful mattress. Bivouacking's more
comfortable."

"I intend to sleep well. I feel like I've moved a mountain today."

"That is also a cliche, Chakotay," she said in the voice of a
schoolmarm.

"I know. But they've worked pretty well so far."