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"Shepard." His own voice sounded strange to his ears, muffled and echoing and altogether too loud for how indistinct it was. There was no light, but the strange impression of people, and the distant knowledge of pain that he could not presently feel.
"Shepard!" The darkness started to part, making way for blindingly bright light. Sound overwhelmed him, shrieking, ringing, beeping, before his mind began to make sense of it all.
His eyes opened- Captain Anderson was leaning over him. "Calm down, Joker, you're going to be-"
Joker didn't hear his next words, the gap of light closed and he was in the dark again.
"Shepard..." The word was a despairing gasp from his lips.
"We're losing him."
"He's flat-lining."
"He's waking up." It was Anderson's voice.
Joker opened his eyes slowly and tried to sit forward. A large, gentle hand pressed on his shoulder, stopping him.
He recognized the sounds and scents of a hospital.
Captain Anderson was sitting by his bed. He set a datapad aside. "Hey there, Joker," he said, keeping his voice low and soft like he was speaking to a cornered, feral animal. "How are you feeling?" The big man asked gently.
It was hard to move. It was hard to think. He was not a stranger to the cloying embrace of pain medications, and recognized the feeling immediately; He was drugged. All he could do was turn his face away. He couldn't look the Captain in the eyes.
"Joker, it's going to be alright." Said Liara from somewhere out of view, speaking with a cold certainty that in other circumstances, he would have thought was strange for the shy, mousy archeologist, but he was too tired to notice. "I promise."
"Her comms were on," he said, his voice little more than a hoarse rasp. It was all he could bring himself to say.