It was warm. She was lying on something soft and it was warm. For a moment, Kathryn was confused, and it took her a moment to remember that she was no longer down on the planet, Chakotay's hand frozen to her own, his dead body only held up by her grip. Then the images came flooding back.

She saw his still form, blue and cold, on the floor of sickbay. She saw her own hand refusing to let go. She felt the hands grab for her, trying to pry their hands apart. She felt her own grip strengthen on his hand, refusing to give even a millimeter. She heard the Doctor's urgent voice and rustling around them. She heard the flatline when the Doctor scanned Chakotay and the erratic beeping when he scanned her. She saw Tom's worried but gentle face speaking to her. And she felt the hiss of a hypospray against her neck, before her vision blurred and darkness overcame her again. The last thing she remembered before she closed her eyes and gave in to the relief of unconsciousness was gentle fingers trying to tear them apart and her own reflexive clenching of her hand in a desperate attempt to not let go of him.

She slowly opened her eyes. The lights in the room were dimmed and she started to look around, avoiding the surgical bay and searching the other beds first. Her eyes caught on the contraption her hand was strapped into, and when she tried flexing her fingers she had to suppress a wince at the stinging pain that shot through her hand into her arm.

When she found sickbay entirely empty, her gaze wandered towards the surgical bay, expecting to find Chakotay's still form, imagining the cloth that would be pulled over his frame all the way over his head, but hoping for the clear sight of his tattoo, letting her know that he was alive, that he would be alright.

Her breath caught in her throat when the she found the bed empty. Her eyes fluttered shut against her own volition. She felt the shiver run through her whole body, the burning behind her closed eye lids and the clump that was quickly forming in her throat. If he wasn't in sickbay, she knew most certainly where his corpse was. She let quiet tears escape and fall down onto the bio bed and struggled to keep the sobs in.

Not wanting to alert the Doctor, she tried to consciously calm her breathing and get her rapidly beating heart under control. She opened her eyes again to stare at the empty surgical bed again and tried to imagine what Chakotay would say to her if he was here right now.

She had yelled at him. Before she had closed her eyes and let go, she had desperately yelled at him not to die.

"You bastard, you can't leave. You can't do this. You promised…you promised. Always. You promised." Her hand submerges with him and there is nothing she can do, but hold onto him and lie on the hull piece, waiting. And she doesn't care if she freezes to death, if her own hand falls off. She doesn't let go. She holds on to his hand under the surface, his blue, cold, stiff hand.

Her breath comes in small visible puffs as she desperately tries to scramble him closer to her when his eyes flutter closed. He is too heavy and they are both frozen stiff, but she tries to pull him up with her in a vain attempt to get him to open his eyes.

"Don't do this to me. You promised."

"How is she, Doctor?" he asked his eyes never wavering from Kathryn's still form.

Chakotay watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the rosy color of her cheeks. Her right hand was in some kind of contraption.

"The Captain will be fine. She is merely sedated." The doctor noticed Chakotay's frown and clarified, "She refused to let go of your hand. I had to sedate her in order to treat both your injuries and hypothermia. I was about to call you. She woke up a few minutes ago," the Doctor added as Chakotay threw a worried glance in Kathryn's direction.

"How is her hand?" When Chakotay first woke up and asked about Kathryn, the Doctor didn't know if he could fully repair her hand. While he knew it would be a price she's gladly pay if she learned that it had saved his life, he did not want her to have to pay this price.

"It will take a while, but I believe she will regain full capacity of her hand." The Doctor nodded, "Give another day or two."

It had been complicated. Kathryn's hand had been almost frozen, unless the rest of her body. Warming up Chakotay had been a relative easy process since his whole body had been submerged in the water. For Kathryn though the Doctor had to think of a way to raise the temperature of her hand much slower than the rest of her body's.

She heard the hushed voices from the Doctor's office and wondered who it will be that has to come talk to her and tell her. She wondered if they will even tell her of if she'll have to ask them. She heard the quiet footsteps and decided that whoever it was, she was not ready. She didn't want to hear the words. She didn't want to see their pity. She didn't want to handle their grief in addition to her own.

She was not ready to face the music outside of these walls. So she closed her eyes in a vain attempt to pretend she was asleep. She tried to conjure his beautiful face, his gentle smile. She imagined the gleam in his eyes when he would look at her and tell her how stubborn she was for not letting him go. She imagined the crinkling of his nose when he used to tease her that one day she'll be the death of him before handing her another cup of coffee. And then she swallowed a sob and shrugged the hand off that touched her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut and tensed and wished them away, but whoever touched her wasn't leaving but pulled up a chair to sit next to her.

"You can't be mad at me forever," the gentle, warm voice rolled over her like balm and she thought she's become too good at pretending. But she had no energy left so she gave in.

"Oh but I can," she whispered back, "it's one of the luxuries of being alive."

"Of being stubborn, you mean," he teased her and it broke her heart to think that it was exactly what Chakotay would say.

But when the hand slid into hers, her eyes sprang open. She would know that hand anywhere. And she had to blink a few times, to clear her vision from her tears, to make sure he was really there. But she felt his hand in hers and she felt his warm breath against her face when he leaned in. And she heard the warm tremble of his voice when he said her name.

"Kathryn."

"Chakotay?" Her voice broke and she couldn't believe it was really him, half expecting him to vanish when she spoke his name out loud. But he didn't. "You're alive."

She let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding and closed her eyes in relief when his other hand came up to tuck a few stray hairs from her face behind her ear.

"They found us," he assured her, "Just in time to save your hand."

She wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. Just for getting back at him for dying on her.

"You're really alive?"

"Yes," he grinned, "thanks to you."

"But I didn't do anything." She didn't understand how she could be responsible for him being alive when she had to watch him die.

"You wouldn't let me go," he grinned, "when Voyager finally came, they were able to lock on to both of us, because you were still holding on to me. If you had let go, I would have sunk and without my comm badge…" he trailed off, seeing the tear that rolled down her cheek and wiped it away with his thumb, gently cupping her face.

"Are you okay now?" She wanted to be sure he was fine, that there were no lingering complications.

"I had severe internal bleeding, a punctured aorta, a tear in my liver and several broken ribs," he filled her in on his injuries, knowing she would want to know, "Doc said it was a good thing I was in the water. Apparently the cold lowered my body functions enough to keep me alive until he could treat me." He kissed her temple, "So you can stop feeling guilty now for having that raft all to yourself."

"So you crashed my shuttle," She husked her voice still raw as she finally grinned back at him, "and I saved your life?"

"Yes," he lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper, lest the Doctor might overhear them, "and you owe me a kiss."

"You died."

"I'm sorry."

"You better be."

"I'll make it up to you."

"See that you do."

THE END

Notes:

This conclusion doesn't really correspond with the original idea of having them fight it out and make up. But after writing the first part, I wasn't really in the mood to write that kind of ending, so I went with what came naturally.

I might write an adult version, but for the moment I'm pretty content with this.

Hope you like it. Comments are always welcome.