The Right Stuff

by Tauerle

After their little adventure with the Sentinel Grogan wonders who the right stuff is.

The Right Stuff
by Janny & Ina

J ack O`Neill felt his muscles still involuntary twitch. Little reminders from the last blast with the pain stick. But he had been in worse shape. Just couldn`t remember exactly when. Things were rushing a little fast at him for the moment.

He remembered yelling a direct order at Carter one second and the sharp energy blast of one his captors "cattle prod stick" the very next.
Then the whole bunch of Jaffa invaders, including their feisty First Prime just disappeared into thin air by a blinding bright light just like in a magical fairy-tale.
The Sentinel, the Latonna`s guardian and protector, a millennial old defense mechanism was working again, thanks to the same rogue NID-squadron leader that had damaged it in the first place.
"I`ll have you free in sec, Jack."

O`Neill felt Daniels hands loosening his ropes. For once he was glad that he was still kneeling. His arms came free from the large stick that held them firmly backwards, nearly behind his back. Searing pain radiated through his body and he suddenly pitched forward face down to the ground unable to hold himself up.

"Jack!"
"Sir!"
"Next thing he knew, two pair of hands rolled him gently over onto his back, causing him even more discomfort without knowing.
Jackson and Carter.

Their worried faces blurred into the line of Jack`s vision along with dancing black spots that announced a well known darkness that threatened to claim him once again.
He closed his eyes for a second to clear his mind and box up the pain he had ignored for so long once more, but failed miserably.
The situation was in control for the moment.
Time to let go.
Jack`s head rolled to the side as he lost consciousness.

"What did they do to him, Grogan?"
Oh, that voice. It sounds so much like my mother's does when I did something wrong.
Did I do something wrong?
"Major, I do not know." I watched her bend down over O`Neill, hands on his face as she gently pushed his head back and listened for a second to make sure no obstruction in his airway was hampering his breathing. When her head came up again, her intense eyes stared at me.
No, they accused me.
Maybe she is right.
Bottom line is, I am nearly unharmed but our CO lies unconscious on the ground.

"How can you don`t know?" The Jaffa Teal'c inquired from behind busying himself with freeing me from my bindings at last. Non to gentle, that is.

Do I feel some kind of hostility here?
I didn't know the Colonel was hurt so bad.
How could I know he would double over and pass out the second Dr. Jackson had freed him from his ties?
"We were stunned by zats. When we came too they started their interrogation. Took turns to beat the hell out of us…" I wear the bloody mark on my cheek and another number of vivid bruises to prove that. He does too.

"How many times was the Colonel submitted to the pain stick?" Carter asked, checking O`Neill´s neck for a pulse. It was there. A rapid shallow beat under clammy skin. She carefully slipped her hands under his back to lift his head into her lap when she felt something sticky and wet on his shirt.

"Daniel. I need the medical kit. Now!"
Her hands come back red. Smeared with blood.
His blood. And lot's of it.
"What the hell did they do to him, Grogan?"

"I swear, I don't know, Major! I lost consciousness a couple of times. Found myself lying on the floor next to Colonel O`Neill once. That's when he ordered me to stay down next time and play unconscious as long as I could."
"Sounds like Jack." Daniel Jackson nodded, but he seemed angry about it.
"Indeed." Teal'c echoed that thought.

Yes indeed.
Colonel O`Neills way of teasing the guards still ring in my ears. Between my bouts of unconsciousness I had to lie there and listen. To his backtalk. The sounds of hard fists pounding into soft flesh. His painful, yet stiffeled groans when they electrocuted him with the pain stick
Man, I was afraid they would kill him. First him, than me.
Just to make them stop, I wanted to do something stupid against that overwhelming Jaffa-Gang. Die fighting, John Wayne style…maybe I should have.
Following his order wasn't easy.
And certainly nothing I'm proud off.

"At least you were following orders this time, Grogan." Major Carter stated with a certain edge in her voice. She is still busy tending to the Colonel.
Dam it, he is my CO too.
And when it comes to following orders she isn't exactly a role model. That little detail must have slipped her mind.
Oh come on. It would be suicide to tell her that now. Maybe if I sit here in the shadows they will just forget about me for a while. Please! I try to forget. Forget the deaths. Elliot, Major Benton….and now the Colonel.
He didn't give in.
Cursing, moaning and taunting he drove that Jaffa First Prime incense.
When they finally gave up torture, found out the location of the Sentinel from one of their own patrols, they thought they could at least use Jack O`Neill to blackmail his team.
Wrong idea!
The Colonel's stubbornness saved me.
But he paid the price. Now his prone form lies on the ground, face all ashen and still, colored only by a small red trail of blood from a gash on his forehead. He looks like he really had it this time.
And that's what they all think.
He is going to die and it's my fault.
God, Carters hands are all covered with his blood.
She has cut away the back of his black T-Shirt, revealing a small bleeding and gaping hole in his shoulder.
A stab or shot wound?
I can't tell.
Didn't see it happen.
No matter what they think.
I didn't know. He hid his injury from me.

Teal'c is leaning in now with his whole weight, applying pressure on a stack of dressings and pads to staunch the wound on O'Neill's back, before he bleeds to death right under their hands.

I just hope he'll make it. He deserves to stay alive.

Why didn't they take me?

He does everything for his team!

How hollow that had sounded the hundred times Haley had told us. And how could we believe something pathetic sounding like that? Especially after the treatments he gave us. I never had an instructor who had been any meaner, trickier, more ruthless and unforgiving as he had been.

Man, I will never forget the look on his face when SG-1 found me sleeping earlier. Or that anger in Colonel O'Neill's voice when he asked me for a way into the city.
How can I ever do something right in his eyes?
Major Benton was okay with me. But he is dead now. So is my whole team, SG9.
In the end the Colonel is right. We face an enemy who doesn't value life like we do. We need to be prepared. Always on one's guard. I know that now, learned it the hard way.

Will I get a second chance?

I guess the better question is, am I good enough to become part of another team? Could I be so selfless and endure the pain Colonel O'Neill took? Or give my life like Benton, Greeves, Kershaw did?
SG-1. Look at them. They are twice as old as I am. How did they manage to survive all that time when they are always prepared to die?

"Are you okay?" Dr. Jackson stepped up to me.
"Yes, I am unharmed." A couple of bruises and sore ribs don't count. "How's Colonel O'Neill doing?"
"He's tough. Teal'c got the bleeding stopped for now and he's resting."
"Still unconscious?"
"He has lost a lot of blood… " Jackson's voice trailed off for a moment. "What about the people in the city?" He asked masking his worries about his friend and CO by changing the subject.
"Maroo, the leader of the Lantonna`s was killed by the Goa'uld. He was just an old man, but they butchered him anyway. The Goa'uld mother ship did some considerable damage to the city. We saw many dead on our way here."
"Any word from SG3?"
"No contact for hours. We're out of radio range."

"Sam, shouldn't we see if we could help the people in the city?"
"We first have to inform General Hammond. And the Colonel needs medical attention. He seems to be stable at the moment, but we need to get him into the infirmary as soon as possible."
"I can go and try to contact SG-3." I offer her.
Right, please let me get out of here.
"Grogan, you are weak. Besides we first have to check what the situation is out there."
"You don't think the Latonna`s could get hostile towards us?" Dr. Jackson wondered.
"After many of their people died and they know we are responsible for leaving them defenseless against Goa'uld aggression?"
"But the Sentinel didn't send us off to Nirvana with a bright flash of light. Not even Teal'c and he's a carrying a symbiot. That should prove were not their enemies…"
"I'd rather take no risk, Daniel."
"Daniel Jackson, Major Carter is right. I will accompany you on a short reconnaissance patrol." Teal'c decides the matter. He gathers up his staff weapon and they both leave the cave. Yeah, I would feel save too with a combat sized Jaffa escort.

So I am left alone with the Major!
It's an awkward situation. For both of us.
For a couple of minutes she keeps herself busy checking on Colonel O'Neill. He is still unconscious, lying on a thermo blanket. Still dressed in the remains of his black T-Shirt, stretched out on his good side with his eyes closed, he looks nothing like the tough soldier he is.
Yet he is. Though I mean.
God knows, how long he had been bleeding silently without allowing his pain and weakness to be seen by the Jaffa. Or me.
I can see how worried Major Carter is about him. In fact the whole team.
They seem to care so much for each other.
Seem so much like…family….
I wonder if it's that what makes them SGC`s number one team? My thoughts travel back to the only team I've felt close too yet. It's time for a question. Not an easy one. But I need to know.
"Major, can I ask you something?" She looked up, still angry. I am doubtful about who exactly.
"Elliot and I were friends. I wonder if you could tell me, how he died?"
"You read the report." She snapped back at me.
Maybe I deserve that. Never was particular good at finding the right words at the right time. You know, with Colonel O'Neill lying there injured and hurt…not exactly good timing….
But the report didn't say much and I need to know.
Elliot's gone.

The most capable of our cadet team.
My friend since boot camp.
If it had been one of her team, I'm sure she too wanted to know, what was written between the lines of the official report.

A deadly silence takes over.
I sit there, massaging my legs which are hurting from all the kneeling the Jaffa`s forced us to do and try to mind my own business.
"Tell him…" a firm but frightingly week voice demands. Finally Colonel O'Neill is awake again.
"Tell him." He says again keeping his eyes still closed. "Grogan did good today. He deserves to know."
As he tried to sit up Carter pushed him back to the ground.
"You are hurt, Sir. Better stay down."
"Daniel, Teal'c?" He muttered.
"They are on their way to see if the passage to the gate is safe ."
"Greeves and Kershaw?"
"They are both dead."
His head fell back to the ground exhausted.
"The sentinel is working again. It seems…"
"Carter, please…!" He interrupts her.
He is weak and in obvious pain. Can't she see, that she bothers him with all that techno babble?
I would be upset too.
Why can't she let him be? I get a headache too whenever Haley or Satterfield start to ramble about that technical stuff.
"Save it for later." Jack O'Neill continued a little bit softer.
I can see her smile.
How can she smile in a situation like that?
"It can wait, Sir. Care to tell me what happened to you?"
"You mean the hole in my back? It's nothing…" He dismisses her worry, but the lines of pain embedded in his face tell the contrary. "You know how cranky those Jaffa boys can get with the little snake inside their belly and all. I told them how our guns drill holes into humans but they insisted to try it out themselves…."

Jack O'Neill closed his eyes for a moment. The pain in his back was still throbbing, but it's edge taken off by a shot of wonderful morphine. Carters doing. He was sure off. Her medical skills had so much improved since Antarctica!
"You mean there's a bullet still in your back, Sir? We got to get it out!"
"What do you mean?" O'Neill's eyes flew open in an instant. "You can't get it out."
"Why not? If we leave it in, it'll probably cause a severe infection."
"I admire your spirit Carter, but you would be in over your head for sure with this one."
"What do you mean, Sir?"
"The little slugger snuggled right up to a bone."
"Are you sure?"
"Believe me, I am sure."
Carter casted a searching glance upon him, checking for any signs of fever or confusion.
"You don't believe me?"
"I do, but it might be a while before we can get you home through the gate. Wouldn't hurt to let me have a look at your back…just to make sure, Sir!
"Forget it, Carter."
"Sir?"
"For crying out loud, I heard the bullet shatter my shoulder blade. You want any details on how it felt?"
"No, sir!"
"Good. Then go out and wash your hands. There's blood all over them. Not a pretty sight to a sick man…."
Carter hesitantly obeyed.
Getting up she remembered to throw another one of those despising glances at me.
God, will she never forgive me?
I am still leaning back at the walls of the cave when I suddenly realize that I am now alone with the Colonel. Maybe he doesn't bother to give me one of his famous lectures, indeed I had enough of them during our training sessions. Maybe he is too washed out and in too much pain.
"Grogan?"
No, I am not that lucky. He just needed time to collect his strength.
"Elliot didn't let us down, if that's what you wanted to know from Carter."
Was there a kind of regret in his weak voice?
"I never thought he would, Sir."
No way, Elliot was that kind of guy who would sacrifice himself without hesitation.
"He was critically injured."

Yeah, I know, the curse of the first mission.
"Lantesch, a tokra, joined with him."
"He became a host?" Lantesch, I know that name. Wasn't he the snake in the Tokra Martouf who was killed?
"Kind of. Those two saved us." He was silent again, probably fighting to stay conscious. I won't push. I already know more than I should. But its good to know.

Where are the others?
Major Carter should have been back by now.
I can see that he is thinking the same. Maybe I should go and look for her?
On the other hand I better stay. Can't leave an injured man alone. Especially not if he looks like hell. I can see bauds of perspiration on O'Neill's forehead.
"Do want something to drink, Colonel?"
My voice is uneasy. Fearful. The last think I need is him to lose consciousness again.
"Yeah. A cold beer would be nice."
I hand him the canteen.
"Are you okay, Grogan?"
Oops, did he really ask that?
"Yes, Sir."
"You did good back there."
WHAT?
"I should have checked the door." I said embarrassed.
"I should have ordered you to do it. Not that it would have mattered. Not the way the Jaffa outnumbered us."
He is right.
We both are.
Still, I should have watched our backs.
"Grogan, you have to pull yourself together. There won't be always someone around to save your butt."
"Yes Sir."
He fell silent again, probably due to too much pain. He still held the canteen but didn't open it yet.
Damn it, I SHOULD have watched our backs.
Why didn't I learn from what happened to the others?
Haley nearly died on her first mission.
Elliot scarified himself on his first mission.
I got my whole team killed and nearly Colonel O'Neill too on my first mission.
Maybe I am not the right stuff.

Even Colonel Greeves was a better soldier than I am.
I still don't understand why he did turn against us. Broke the oath he took, worked against the interests of earth, but in the end he stood in for his comrades.
That's the important thing. He was there and ready to do what was necessary to save us all.
Why?
Because he knew that he was responsible for bringing the Goa'uld massacre upon the Latonn`s?
Or because Colonel O'Neill was ready to sacrifice himself for his mistake and he simply couldn't let him do that.
After all there was still some honor in his bones.
More than in me.

"Grogan, you gotta stop second guessing yourself."
O'Neill's strength is fading. I can hear the strain in his voice. And see a faint pink flush creeping into his cheeks.
How on an earth can he know what I am thinking?
"You made it into the SGC. Made it through the O'Neill combat school. That's gotta be worth something." He smiled at me. It took him some effort to do so, but it seemed important to him.
"You just have to learn to watch your back."
He suddenly froze up.
Then I heard it too, multiple footsteps getting closer to the cave. Could be anyone I think and grab a zat.
"Nice move, but it's only Carter and Daniel." O'Neill breathed.
A second later they both enter.
"Oops." Daniel said staring into my ready zat, making me feel real stupid. Will I ever learn?
"See, I told you he'll start using his instincts AND brains anytime soon. Where were yours, Daniel?"
"Right, I forgot to identify us before entering the cave…"
"Don't look at me. I was following orders." Carter defended herself. "Just be glad he didn't zat you!"."

Orders? Colonel O'Neill is still full of surprises.
When did he tell Major Carter about this?
Will he EVER stop to test me?
One thing is true. He really cares for his team.
More than that.
No wonder they are all eager to join SG-1.
What can I say?
Do I get a second chance with another team?

"Before we get you assigned to another team you have to promise me one thing."
"Sir?"
"That nickname of yours. Lose it."
"Sir?"
How can he know…AGAIN?
"I believe that nickname is Target. Target: Grogan." The big Jaffa stated, entering behind Carter and Jackson.
They all smile at me.
Hello major embarrassment.

"Kids," The Colonel said shifting slightly into a more comfortable position, "as much as I hate it to break up the mood… but ….let's go home. " And with disgust he eyed the crude stretcher Teal'c had build.
So much for going…

BTW: The usual disclaimers apply. I don`t want to infringe upon any copyright concerning SG-1.
I don't own SG-1 and I don`t want to own SG-1.
Although I wouldn't mind if the smart good looking Colonel was mine…
I am also not making any money or profit off this.