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He opened his eyes to find himself looking down at his own prostrate body. Bent over it was the unmistakable form of Kathryn Janeway.

From where he was standing it looked as if she was in the middle of attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Awful dream. Nightmare more like. Had enough of this. Wake up. Now. Now!

Can't... That's odd...

For several seconds he continued to try and jog his mind into waking up. Force himself to snap out of this. Nothing happened.

Then he shouted to her, called her name several times, waited for her to look up and reply.

She didn't.

He shouted again. Still no reaction. He moved closer, reached out to touch her, but his hand passed straight through her upper arm. He tried again. And again. He discovered he was unable to touch her.

One hell of a dream.

The scene before him continued; his captain pumping with considerable force the chest of the body that was clearly his, stopping at one point to check for a pulse, then resuming the rhythmic movements immediately.

"Come on, Chakotay!" she urged, as she bent over to connect with his lips to try to force air into his lungs.

After another minute or so or trying to wake himself up, he began to question what he was experiencing.

It didn't feel like a dream.

He began to wonder if there could be another explanation. But if it wasn't a dream then why couldn't he touch her? How come he could pass his hand straight through her? She didn't seem able to detect him at all, yet he could see and hear her clearly. The body that lay motionless on the floor next to her obviously did exist for her in her reality.

He then wondered if he had unintentionally entered a lucid dream; lucid nightmare more like. He tapped the back of his hand three times, the signal he used to wake himself when he entered lucid dreams, but nothing happened. He was aware that he was beginning to feel increasingly anxious.

After another minute or so of watching this distressing scene, he felt his breathing speed up, and he knew he needed to focus in order to stave off the panic he could feel about to break through the surface of his anxiety. The conscious effort to slow his breathing worked and he felt calmer. Again he began to try and form a working hypothesis as to what could be happening to him.

Perhaps this wasn't a lucid dream? Perhaps his consciousness had been detached from his physical body again somehow, as it had been once in the first year of their journey? Perhaps he himself had shifted somehow out of phase? He had no way of verifying this, but he did know that this definitely didn't feel like a dream.

He realised he had been watching her now for four or five minutes at the very least, and she still didn't seem to be having any success with her attempts to get his body breathing again. He heard her say his name again, and then in between connecting with his mouth he heard her shout, "Damn it, Chakotay, come on! Breathe!"

Another minute elapsed and there was still no change. She continued her efforts with the same level of energy, occasional utterances escaping from her lips as she pumped his chest forcefully.

"Come on! I won't let this happen! Come on!"

He knew the force she was now applying might well be enough to crack a rib or two, but she still wasn't getting any response. He began to take in more of the details of this scene. Both of their uniforms were charred and torn. Her hair was disheveled and her face and hands smeared with smoke residue. Clearly visible across the forehead of his body was a deep, bloody gash. Half of his hairline was matted with what looked like dried blood. Evidence of severe trauma to the head. As he continued to watch, he realised that it wouldn't be too long before his body would have gone so long without adequate oxygen that brain damage would be a real possibility.

Perhaps the ship would contact her soon? Perhaps the Doctor would still be able to save his life?

He tried desperately to remember what they were doing on this planet.

It started to come back to him. The last thing he remembered was trying to land the shuttle in an ion storm. He remembered feeling it reel as a huge blast of ion lightning had hit them just as he had started the final descent. He must have passed out when the shuttle crash-landed, and she must have pulled him from the wreckage. He looked across at the shuttle. It was quite a distance away, and even from this distance he could see it was in pretty bad shape. She had done well to drag his body that far.

He turned his attention back to his captain. He didn't know if she was aware of it, but the speed at which she was pumping his chest had increased considerably, and Chakotay's own experience told him that she was actually going too fast. His own knowledge and experience also told him that by now she ought to have stopped.

He didn't know how long he had been watching exactly, or how long she had been attempting this before he had materialised opposite her, but he did know that when they had entered the ion storm it had been nowhere near nightfall. Now it was dusk. It was possible that several hours had passed since the shuttle had crashed and he had been knocked unconscious. Perhaps she had been knocked out too and had come round to find him unconscious next to her? He realised it was also possible that his body had already stopped breathing long before she had regained consciousness and started trying to resuscitate him.

He knew that if their positions were reversed, he would have probably given up trying to revive her by this point. As he looked at the body lying lifelessly beneath her, he instinctively knew that it was already dead. He still found it impossible to believe that this body was his. He felt no connection to it.

He knelt down next to her and tried to talk to her again with no real expectation that she would suddenly be able to hear him. He told her it was OK to stop. That it was too late now. That there was nothing more she could do.

She continued. Her efforts ever more desperate perhaps, but no less determined.

Her communicator chirped. It was Voyager. She cut Tuvok off in mid hail to shout, "Medical emergency! Two to beam directly to sickbay!"

Tuvok informed her that they would be in transporter range in two minutes. She shouted her acknowledgment and continued working.

"Come on, Chakotay, we can do this! Hold on!" she ordered the body beneath her.