So sorry for going so long without an update! This week has been crazy with college and work and I'm pretty burnt out, but I wanted to make sure I got something out before the finale!
side note: has anyone heard anything about the future of the show? I've got this sad little suspicion it won't be renewed...
Jaz is no stranger to pain.
One of her first memories is of when she was six. She doesn't remember running into the street, but she remembers the shriek of brakes before the car smashed into her small, frail body. Later, her mom told her she must have flew 5 feet in the air - it was nothing short of a miracle that she didn't get killed by the impact itself, and even more that she didn't break her neck as her body landed on the concrete ground. Something about the sounds stick with her, remind her of suffering; while she can't visualize the environment of the ambulance, she remembers hearing the sirens around her and the beeping of machines while paramedics worked to keep her alive.
When she is eleven - physically healed up from getting hit by the car but still with the biggest scars to show off to her friends - she is running towards goal on the soccer field when an older girl slides recklessly into her ankles. Once again, the memory of pain exists with the memory of the sound: the vivid 'snap' of her bone as it fractured into two, and the excruciating pain that immediately followed. Everything after that exists in a haze of cloudy flashes, and then there is the harrowing period of trotting around on crutches that just about ruins her adolescence - she hates the periods in which she was restricted, and with her leg in a straight cast and two metal crutches under her arms, she was certainly restricted.
The night of her junior prom is another one that is engraved in her brain. She cheated death by car once as a child, and she somehow did it a second time. Jaz remembers seeing a deer hesitate, taking a step towards the road; before the words could tumble from her lips, the car was spinning on ice and crashing carelessly into the awaiting metal. She remembers choking - her seat belt lodged against her neck, the blood gurgling in her mouth. Most distinct is the memory of the moment she shifted her eyes towards the driver seat, aware even in her state that no man could live in the position her best friend was in. Half of his body perched through the shattered glass of the windshield and blood acted like paint on his half of the car.
It's when she remembers that pain and the pain of losing her partner just months prior that she promises herself not to succumb to whatever torture is still in store. If not for her own sake, she won't allow her friends and partners to be subjected to the pain she's felt too many times before in her life. When you lose someone in a situation like that - something you think maybe you could have prevented if you'd just spoke a little sooner, been a little more careful - your mind has a way of making yourself seem like the bad guy. The last thing she wanted for anybody on the team was for them to feel any guilt or resentment for losing her.
Jaz knew what she had to do - no matter what it took, she would have to stay alive.
She's discovered that pain works in two ways. Sometimes, it makes you want to keep going; other times, it makes you want to give up.
When she broke her fibula during the soccer match, she wanted to keep going. Physical therapy wasn't what any eleven year old wanted to spend their time doing, but she was determined to be back on the field, stronger and better than ever before the next year.
Perhaps unsurprinsgly, the mental pain wore down at someone quicker than the physical pain. When she was seventeen, the car crash hurt, but the image of her dead best friend next to her would haunt her for years. She remembers wondering: "Why him? Why not me?" And just when she thought she had gotten over it, years later after witnessing too many deaths to count through her tours of service, she relieved the same question about her partner. "Why him? Why not me?"
There was no question in her mind that Dalton wasn't asking himself the exact same thing. Why her? It wasn't that she wasn't concerned about her teammates or what her family at home would think if something were to happen, but a sinking suspicion in her gut was telling her that if anyone were to do something brash because she died, it would be Dalton.
When she wakes up, she is no longer chained to the chair. Instead, her body is slumped against a wall by no doing of her own.
This time, the pain is immense. It may because it's in the moment, fresh in her bones, but she thinks it's the worst pain she's felt in her life. She blinks and it feels like the bones of her face are going to crack into pieces at the slight lifting of muscles. At first, she could barely tilt her head down to assess the damage done to her body: still, she forces the muscles behind her neck to work, and when she does, a wave of panic floods through her veins. She knew it was bad - the pain and the thick, dried blood weighing her down let her know - but seeing her own body as if it had been in the center of a war zone was jarring even to Jaz.
Her jacket and her t-shirt are off now, removed by someone in her unconscious state. She remains in her underwear and a thin black tank top that does little to cover the mosaic of bruises, burns, and bleeding lesions dotting her skin.
If fighting had been an option before, she knows it's certainly off the table now. She would fight to stay alive, of course, but there was no fighting for freedom by herself. Though Jaz had specifically warned the team not to intervene, she was sure they were formulating a plan to get her since the minute they realized she had been attacked. If they were anything, they were loyal - perhaps even when they shouldn't be.
She knew the most she could do, for her and her team, would be to cooperate as well as she could will herself to and allow herself to heal as much as possible. There was no doubt in her mind that some type of internal damage had to have been done: the pain in her abdomin was raw and aching, and without moving around or touching the area itself, she couldn't tell if it was as simple as few broken ribs or internal bleeding of some organ on her left side. If Dalton was coming, they would have to be relatively quick.
McGuire was one of the best medics she had ever encountered. As easy going as he was, he turned into the most reliable person she knew when his med kit was in his hands. It was a welcome thought: familiar hands tending to the wounds, cracking a joke while offering a hand to hold. While McG worked, the team would offer privacy but be close enough for her to sense their presence and, as soon as she called, they would be there.
The fantasy in her brain existed only for seconds before shattering into a million fragments as the door swung open, interrupting the mental reprieve she had created for herself.