Archive of Our Own

"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."