For a day and a half, while drifting in and out of consciousness that only left frayed, fuzzy images in her memory, if Claire wasn't asleep, she was fairly certain she was caught somewhere between worlds. Purgatory, maybe. Some limbo where every muscle in her body complained, all the time. Weirdly enough, Purgatory looked like a really expensive hospital room, but details weren't exactly solid. She'd caught words here and there, spoken around her by the people who stuck her with fluid IV's and at some point had removed the futuristic armor. She wasn't as grimy as she'd been when she'd been brought in, but the dust and ash of the war she'd cut through still clung to her in a film in her hair and everywhere they didn't clean looking for injury.
Strangely enough, that smokey, caked grime (and the all-over soreness of being an alien punching bag for a day and a half) was the first thing she was aware of as she came out of her pain-killer induced coma. Before her eyes even opened, the freckles and dust on her nose wrinkled at the feeling. When she moved her IV-connected hand to wipe the flecks away, that nose-scrunch became a growly wince. The Vicodin had run it's course.
She opened her eyes with a shaky breath, blinking sleep and ache from them before the figure at the end of the bed caught their attention. At first she thought it was another alien... then when her brain started to work, a doctor. Only took a full two seconds of staring did she realize it was Dean. Which of course, locked up every muscle in a breath that stopped in her throat.
"Ohgod..." she huffed, half-sitting up in spite of her limbs feeling like they they were full of buckshot. "...when did I die?"