The key to survival was pretending.
No one had actually told him that but Lieutenant Josh Grogan knew it was the truth. The only way they could get past any of the shit they had been through was by pretending… Pretending not to hear your team-mate wake up screaming from a nightmare. Pretending not to see her hands shaking as she wiped the sweat from her face. Pretending to be immersed in some crappy book when she looked at him, to see if she had screamed out loud, before stumbling out of the recliner and running into the bathroom.
Pretending he didn’t want to throw the damn book out the window and pull his friend – his best friend – into his arms.
If they were other people, in another profession, he would be at her side right now. Arm around her shoulder, asking her if she was all right. Of course, if they were in any other profession they wouldn’t be spending the third night in a row at Kawalsky’s house trying to pretend like the last week never happened.
Grogan wouldn’t be trying to pretend that Rosenberg wasn’t throwing up in the bathroom because she had killed a man. Three men.
Men she had killed for him… for all of them.
He couldn’t remember much after he was injured, just Rosenberg promising him she wouldn’t let him die. Kawalsky had told him most of what had gone down… what Rosenberg had done.
It had been a week. Seven days. One-hundred-sixty-eight hours, give or take, since it happened. He’d read the mission reports, talked with the General O’Neill, Kawalsky, and Hayes. Hell, he’d even spoken to Dr Jackson…
The only person he hadn’t spoken to about it was Rosenberg. He’d tried, once, right after Doc Fraiser had released him, when he and Rosenberg had been alone for the first time since it happened. He got as far as opening his mouth before his best friend had turned a sickly green colour. She had known what he was about to say. It would’ve been pretty hard not to have known, Kawalsky and Hayes hadn’t been all that subtle when they’d left them alone. One look at her face, however, had told him everything he needed to know.
What happened on P9X-181 was something they would never talk about.
Ever.
A single pleading look from the woman who saved his life was all it took for him to agree to this; to never talk, never forget.
To pretend he wasn’t grateful.
It was the only way to survive.
It was the only way she could survive.