Darkness is cold no matter how you look at it. It creeps into your soul and taints whatever light you cling to, chilling your breath so you don't want to breathe. As Jack lay there on the battlefield, the sounds of battle waged on. Darkness has a way of warping time and space, since the reapers had long since been defeated by Shepard and the Crucible. All that had mattered was that her kids fall back to safety, but now even that didn't seem to mean so much. Pain was one thing but this...she knew she was dying if she wasn't dead already. So this was Earth...she'd never actually been to her home planet or if she had she didn't remember. It didn't make much of a difference anyway, she mused. Thoughts swam through her mind and blended together, not like the "little bugs" that had plagued her on the Normandy, but more like a soup of memories. "We got a live one here!" She didn't register the voice that seemed so far away, didn't feel the touch of someone's fingers on her throat. "Not by much. Load her up with the re- Jack?" She heard the familiar voice, but couldn't remember why she recognized it. "You know this one?" "Looks like she tried being some big goddamned hero after all. Aight load her up. Tell em she's a friend of Shepard's: that'll get her somewhere." Jack didn't feel herself being lifted up and carried away any more than she felt the medi-gel being applied. Darkness doesn't give way to light, and the cold doesn't allow warmth.
It was days, or maybe weeks, before Jack began to regain awareness, though darkness still clouded her mind. Voices, crying, apologies, the scent of various anticeptics as well as medi-gel...singing? She fought the darkness in an attempt to open her eyes, but all she managed was a slight flutter of her eyelids. The singing stopped, and she thought she heard movement before a wave of impossible pain washed over her. Her eyes snapped open and she caught a glimpse of a familiar scarred face before everything started to blur. Hurried footsteps, panicked voices, something cool flooding through her to replace the searing pain as the world began to darken again. Voices speaking in muffled shouts, growing farther away with each second. "What were you doing?" "She tried to open her eyes." Something the couldn't be understood. "She's a goddamned hero!" A frustrated huff and retreating footsteps. "A big goddamned hero..." Silence. Darkness. Cold.
It was months before the sedative feed was cut off from Jack again, this time permanently. As the haze slowly lifted, she heard people talking. Light began to creep in, gradually, and she could smell whiskey from somewhere. She fought to open her eyes, this time succeeding, and squinted against the brightness. Every part of her hurt, but not like the last time she'd fully awakened. She tested her fingers and toes, relieved to find they all worked. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked around slowly, careful not to move her head too much. This was clearly a hospital, though not like any she'd ever been in before. There was a man in a hardsuit talking to a woman, clearly a doctor. He was familiar, his scarred face and voice, though his name wasn't coming to mind. Jack took a breath and pushed herself up into a sitting position, wincing at the pain. The man and doctor turned around, the man coming over to her. "There you are, same as always. Welcome back; you're a big goddamned hero."
Jack looked up at him for a moment, then remembered why he was so familiar. She smirked. "Fuck you Zaeed."