Note: This is a sequel to an early story, Retribution, and will make a whole lot more sense if you've read that story first.

Disclaimer: Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

The Face of a Friend, Part 2

"Miss me?" Pirelli asked.  "You'll never guess where I spent the last few months.  Area 51.  I'd been involved in too much for them to let me back on a real base, so they abandoned  me there, basically being a hall monitor for a bunch of scientists.  Dull work.  However,  I did get cozy with one of the scientists there who had the keys to the prize closet.  She'd been working on this hopeless project, trying to re-engineer these alien devices that allowed you to simulate the appearance of someone else.  Trouble was, they couldn't recalibrate them.  They'd only work to create an illusion of the person they'd been created for originally - and who cared about impersonating members of the SGC?"

"Obviously you did," Daniel said.

Pirelli grinned as he continued. "You know, these are sweet little devices," he said, pulling his shirt open so that Daniel could see the gleaming metal nodule on his chest.  "Did you know that they're updatable?  Attach them to the original subject for a few minutes, and they adjust for the person's aging, appearance - even any new scars you might have.  How does an archaeologist get so many scars, anyway?  Do you have a target painted on your back or are you just that incompetent?"

"The device should have been reported missing by now," Daniel said, changing the subject.  "And so should you."

"They're in storage - who's looking for them?  And I'm on leave."  

"And how did you manage to get off-world - there are safeguards in place..."

"The ever-popular 'high frequency burst from the harmonic generators' that Major Carter so diligently put in place to keep those aliens from coming back?  I'll let you in on a little secret, Daniel - it took Area 51 about two days to compensate for that."

"You didn't come all this way just to tell me about this, did you?" Daniel forced himself to speak.  

"No, not really.  You see, you've been a real asshole these last two weeks, Daniel.  Falling behind on your work, not doing reports.  Surly behavior toward your team-mates.  O'Neill even had Doc Fraiser check you out.   Good thing we have the same blood type.  Trouble is, she didn't find anything physically wrong with you."  He came closer to Daniel.  "You know what I believe?  I think good old Dr. Jackson is going off the deep end again.  Had to happen, given his medical history and all the stress he's been under."

"What good will it do to make them think you're going crazy if you're impersonating me?" Daniel said.

"Crazy people do crazy things.  You might snap and do something terrible.  Like killing your team on a mission, for example.  What a tragedy that would be - turning on your team.  Your family."

"No!" Daniel said, starting toward him.  

He backed up, pulling out a zat.  "Careful," he said, as Daniel backed off.

"Don't do this," Daniel said.

"It's a shame that it's got to end so soon, but as good as I am, it's just a matter of time before they ask me to translate some goddamn ancient language and then the jig's up.  So if Dr. Jackson's going to go ballistic, it's got to be soon."  

"This was between you and me - so if you want revenge, take it out on me, not on SG-1," Daniel pleaded.

Pirelli smiled.  "I am taking it out on you, Daniel.  I know there's nothing worse I can do to you than destroy your team.  They'll never see it coming - the last thing they'll see is the face of a friend."  Without warning, he zatted Daniel, who crumbled to the floor.

"You took my team from me, Jackson," he said, opening up the duffel bag.  "Now I'm taking yours."

Jack looked over at Daniel as he entered the gateroom - on time, thankfully.  "Good morning, Daniel," he said warily.  

"Good morning," Pirelli returned, giving him a small smile.  The gate opened, and Sam and Teal'c went on ahead.  Pirelli reached over to touch Jack's sleeve as they walked up the ramp.

"Listen, Jack - about the last couple of weeks..."  Jack turned toward him expectantly as he continued.  "I guess I owe you an apology," he finished.

"I guess you're right," Jack agreed.  Then he smiled.  "Apology accepted, Daniel.  Let's go," he said, nodding toward the gate.

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Daniel fought to clear the fog from his brain.  Ticking?  He didn't remember that - didn't remember having a clock in this cabin.  Awkwardly, he rolled over on the mattress and scooted into a sitting position, peering around.  His glasses had been knocked off when he'd been zatted, but even without him, he was able to tell he was alone again in the cabin.  

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

So Pirelli had left him a clock - why?  So he could count down the hours he was here?  He looked around for the source of the ticking, and focused in on a box on the floor nearby.  Count down....

He cursed, scooting away from the box with its ticking payload.  He was no explosives expert, but a silver box, loads of wires, a clock.  A timer.

Pirelli had rigged a bomb.  Panic-stricken, he squinted, trying to read the time on the clock's dial.  8:05.  Judging from the dim light streaming through the cracks in the room, he assumed the clock was set to the current time - which seemed to be morning.  8:05 in the morning.

How did that happen? Daniel though frantically.  Pirelli had arrived mid-afternoon at the cabin, and no zat blast had ever knocked him out that long.  He'd been drugged.  It was as good a hypothesis as any - Pirelli had probably drugged him after zatting him - just like he did to get him up here to the cabin in the first place.

8:05am.  When would it go off?

Steeling himself for the possibility that "any time" was the right answer to that question, he got to his feet and made his way over to the bomb.  The clock itself was an ordinary Big Ben alarm clock.  Its loud ticks seem to fill the entire room now.  He looked closer at the alarm hand.  7:00.  If this thing were set to go off with the alarm, he had until this evening.  Then he noticed the thin wire leading from the box to the door of the cabin.  Daniel walked over to the door and gave it an experimental push.  It began to swing to the outside, but as it did, the wire began to pull taut.  He stopped, letting the door fall back into place.

A trip wire - if anyone tried to open the door, the motion of the door swinging to the outside would pull the wire.  So it looked like he had two choices - stay and wait to get blown up, or get blown up immediately if he tried to leave.

Okay, Daniel, he coaxed himself.  Stay calm.  There has to be a way you can disarm it.  

"Wish I'd watched more Macgyver," he mumbled.

"Okay, Carter  needs to take some mineral samples, and Daniel wants to check out the plaza surrounding the Stargate.  Wanna flip for it?" Jack said to Teal'c, holding up a coin.  

Teal'c nodded, and as the coin spun up in the air, he called out.  "Heads."

Jack looked at the coin briefly before picking it up. "How do you do that?"

"I will stay here with Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said.

"Okay - we're off, Carter."  He helped her hoist up one end of the storage case where her supplies were stored.  "Have dinner ready when we get home, kids."  He glanced over to where Daniel was already engrossed in the inscriptions on the monuments surrounding the Stargate, and when he looked back at Sam, she smiled at him.

"Kind of like old times," she said.

"I sure hope so, Major," Jack said, with one last glance toward Daniel.

Daniel sat back in frustration, glaring at the bomb.  Hours of staring at its tangle of wires, batteries, and various other odds and ends hadn't given him any clues on how it worked.  No fewer than seven wires were attached to the insides of the alarm clock.  Moving it was out of the question, as the main components were nailed to the floorboards.

Who am I fooling? Daniel thought.  I don't know the first thing about bombs, and I'm sure Pirelli took more than enough safeguards to prevent me from doing anything to disarm it.  Maybe he wanted me to tamper with the bomb - maybe that will set it off...

"Damn it!" Daniel said, climbing to his feet and pacing around the cabin in frustration.  He grabbed a bottle of water and opened it, downing several gulps.  His stomach was rumbling, but he couldn't look at any more macaroni and cheese.  In fact, if he made it out of here, he'd never touch the stuff again.

"The more time you waste here, the more time Pirelli has with SG-1," he told himself sternly.  Judging by the light (and after two weeks, he was a professional at telling the time by the slivers of light streaming in the cabin), it was late morning.  SG-1 always got early starts on their missions, so if they had gone out this morning, they'd been off-world for several hours.

Daniel looked back at the bomb.  If he couldn't disarm it, it would go off anyway, and he'd never make it back to warn them.  But even if he managed to figure it out, he could still be too late.  He put down the bottle and hunkered down again beside the bomb.  Get blown up now or blown up later - it really didn't matter.  But if hee could escape now versus later, they might have a chance.

Not much of a choice, he thought, reaching for the first wire.  He pulled it out with a sharp jerk, but the clock ticked on.  Then he grabbed the next wire, and the next.  So far, so good.... But as he pulled the next wire, the clock suddenly stopped ticking - and its hands began spinning around with lightning speed.  He clambered to his feet and pushed open the door, launching himself outside.

"Teal'c, when you won the coin toss, why did you choose to stay here with me?" 

Teal'c looked over at Daniel, who had paused in his work to take a mid-morning break.  "Why do you ask this question?"

"Well, I mean - I haven't been the easiest person to live with these past two weeks," Pirelli said.

"That is true - you have not been yourself," Teal'c agreed.  "However, I could only find out the reason why this was so by observing your actions further."  He watched as Daniel looked down at the ground, not meeting his eyes.  "I wish to help, if I can."

Pirelli looked up.  "Maybe you can, Teal'c.  You see, these past two weeks, I've been looking back over my journals, reading about the time I've spent here at the SGC.  You know, it all started with Sha're.  She was the whole reason I even became part of the SGC."

"That is true.  However, that is not why you remain now.  You remain because of your belief in our mission."

Pirelli shook his head.  "No, Teal'c - I just stayed because I didn't know what to do with myself before.  That's going to change.  But, there's some unfinished business I have to take care of before I leave."

Teal'c frowned at his words, but before he could formulate an answer, Pirelli had drawn a zat and pointed it at him.  

"Did you actually think I would ever forgive you for what you did to Sha're?" he said, before firing.

Daniel ran out the door of the cabin and down the front steps, throwing himself to the ground.  Behind him, the door to the cabin swung closed with a tired squeak.

No explosion - did I do it? 

He sucked in his breath suddenly as the soles of his feet erupted in pain.  Sitting up, he drew up one of his feet, then the other one - and stared in shock.  The bottoms of his feet were cut in a dozen places, some of them deep, and all of them oozing blood.  As the panic from his headlong flight ebbed away, the burning pain that replaced it brought tears to his eyes.

"How the hell did I do that?" he mumbled, looking back toward the cabin.  There, in the afternoon sunlight, he could just make out the sparkle of something spread along the steps leading down from the cabin's porch.  Glass - broken glass.

There probably never was a bomb, Daniel realized.  It was just a trick, to delay me.  Then if I did leave the cabin, he was betting I'd be running so fast I'd miss the glass spread over the steps.  Another delay - it will take me forever to walk down out of here with my feet cut in a dozen places.

"You wanted me to live - to take the blame for what you're going to do," Daniel said, feeling a little cold at the realization.  And it would work, too - unless he could get back in time to catch Pirelli before he was able to escape.  Gritting his teeth, Daniel stood up, groaning a little as his weight bore down on his feet.  He turned to walk toward the road when he heard a voice.

"Hold it right there."  

Daniel turned, and found himself looking down the double barrel of a shotgun.  He stopped, raising his hands.

"Jack!"

Jack stood up, startled, as Daniel's voice came crackling through his radio, barely audible.  "Daniel?" he said back into the radio.  "Do you read?"

"Help us!  We're.....attack," the scratchy transmission ended there, and Jack looked over at Sam in alarm.  She hurriedly put her vest back on, leaving equipment scattered around her.

"Daniel, where are you?  Give us your coordinates," Jack said urgently.

"We're still back at the gate," Jack heard, then winced a little at the background noise, which he recognized as staff weapon fire.  And close.  "We're surrounded by Jaffa.  They came through the gate...."

"You and Teal'c keep your head down - we're coming," Jack said, as he and Sam departed at a run.  At the distance they'd traveled from the Stargate this morning, Jack estimated it would be a good twenty minutes before they made it to their position.

"Jack, Teal'c's down," Daniel continued to transmit.  "They're retreating through the Stargate."

"Stay put," Jack commanded, his heart racing as they continued to run.

"I saw the symbols - I'm going to try and follow them." Daniel's last transmission cut off abruptly.

"Daniel, no!" Jack hollered into his radio.  "I said stay put!"  He looked over at Sam.  "Damn it to hell, he can't go after a bunch of Jaffa to God knows where.  What is he thinking?"

"I don't think he is, sir," Sam said.

Pirelli surveyed the damage he'd done with satisfaction.  He checked the trip wire strung low across the steps to the gate before picking up the staff weapon again.  

Teal'c still lay by the DHD, unmoving.  A dose of the same drug he'd used on Daniel had managed to keep the Jaffa down, but Pirelli knew it wouldn't last long.  He stood over him, aiming carefully with the staff weapon.  "That should be about right," he mumbled, firing.  

The discharge blew a hole in Teal'c's shoulder, serious but not fatal.  "Your aim's pathetic, Jackson," Pirelli said.  "Shoot a man while he's down and you still don't manage to kill him."

He checked Teal'c's vitals briefly before going to dial Earth.  "Hang in there, Teal'c," he said sarcastically, as the gate whooshed open.  He calmly entered the team's IDC, then dragged Teal'c away from the DHD, behind the shelter of a nearby boulder.  Making his way back to the gate, he pulled out a grenade, and with some adhesive, secured it to the top of the DHD.  He pulled the pin before running up the steps and throwing himself through the gate.

A few moments later, the grenade exploded, and shards of crystal and pieces of the DHD's symbols rained to the stones of the courtyard.  The gate flickered, then shut down.

"Open the iris," General Hammond said urgently, looking down to the gateroom.  The gate stood open, and everyone waited expectantly in silence.  Suddenly, Daniel came flying out of the gate, stumbling a little as he clattered down the metal ramp.  Behind him, debris rained through the event horizon before the gate flickered out.

"Get a medical team down there!" General Hammond said, as Daniel walked away from the gate in shock.  "Dr. Jackson, where's the rest of SG-1?" he asked.  He felt a stab of dread as Daniel looked up at him.

"We were ambushed - Jaffa.  They're dead," he said, his voice trembling.  "I saw them all...die."  

"Son, you are a mess," the man said passively, as he looked at the cuts on Daniel's feet.  "I think I have some bandages in here," he said, opening up his substantial backpack.

"I've had worse," Daniel mumbled.

"Sorry about pulling my gun on you," he said, as he pulled out his meager first aid kit.  "You surprised me.  Didn't expect to see anyone up here."

"It's okay," Daniel said.  "I'm just glad you found me, Mr...."

"Crane.  Josiah Crane.  Well, you're lucky I did.  I don't usually come up here to hunt."

Daniel winced as the man began cleaning his feet with an antiseptic, and cursed Pirelli silently once more.  Even with this man's help, this would seriously slow him down.

"This is going to make getting you out of here interesting," Josiah said a moment later, echoing his thoughts.  "I reckon you should take it easy for a while before we start back down."

"I can't do that," Daniel said quickly.  "It's important that I get back - the man that did this to me is planning to hurt someone else, and I can't let him do that."  Daniel's eyes lit up.  "Do you have a cell phone - can we call for help?"

"Cell phone?" he said with a disgusted grunt.  "If I'd wanted to have a damned ringing phone disturbing me, I wouldn't have come up here."

"Well, do you have anything else...something we can use to signal for help.  A flare gun, or something...." Daniel said, running a hand through his hair.  "Anything - you had to have a backup plan in case you got lost, or..."

"I don't get lost," Josiah said calmly.

Daniel closed his eyes briefly, willing himself to calm down and think.  "Okay, uh...do you have a camp stove?  Kerosene?  And some matches?" Daniel asked a moment later.

"Yep," he said.  He retrieved them for Daniel, who took them with relief.  "You going to build a signal fire or something?"

Daniel looked back toward the cabin thoughtfully.  "Or something," he said, hobbling back toward the porch.

"Shit," Jack cursed, as he and Sam finally made it to the Stargate.  They entered the area carefully, guns at the ready, but a quick look around convinced them they were alone - for now.  The area around the Stargate, including the monuments Daniel had been studying so intently, were scored with long black marks.  Jack could smell the acrid discharge still hanging in the air.  

"I found Teal'c, sir," Sam said, bending down beside him.  "He's been wounded."

"The DHD's been damaged," Jack said, looking it over with dismay.  "No way we can dial out now."  He went to where Sam was attempting to look at Teal'c's wound.  "That means someone's probably still here, unless they disabled the DHD to prevent us from following them."  The woods around the Stargate would have allowed any remaining Jaffa to quickly hide.  They needed to retreat - and fast.

"Either way, we should probably find somewhere else to take Teal'c so that he can recover," Sam said.

"I agree - I think there were some..." Jack paused as a chevron lit.  "Let's go, Major," he said, reaching down to grab Teal'c.  Sam reached under his other arm, and Teal'c's arm pushed off her hat as she draped it around her shoulder.  They hauled him to his feet, swaying a little under his weight.

"Should I..." she started, motioning at the hat, not wanting to leave any signs they'd been there.

"Leave it - there's no time," Jack said, as the chevrons continued to light.  They hurried into the woods as the final chevron lit and the gate whirled open.

"What if it's the SGC?" Sam said, as they continued to make their way through the woods.

"Then they'll radio us - until then, we should keep moving," Jack said.

"Damn it, son - are you crazy?" Josiah said, watching as the roof of the cabin caught fire.

"Well, that ought to get someone out here in a hurry," Daniel said, returning to give him back the empty kerosene cell.  "I'll pay you for that - when we get back to civilization," he said apologetically, as the fire began creeping along the edge of the shingles.

"The park rangers are going to have us both put in jail for this," he lamented.

"Well, that would mean we'd be out of here," Daniel replied.  He looked back as the cabin continued to burn, sending a thick plume of smoke into the air.  He realized he was destroying the evidence of his captivity - but the need to get someone out here to rescue them was paramount.  Besides, he felt a sense of satisfaction at seeing the prison he'd been held in for two weeks go up in smoke.  And if he didn't get back to the SGC soon, proving he'd been held captive was going to be the least of his worries.  

The beating of a helicopter's wings startled him out of his thoughts, and Josiah came to his side, motioning upward.

"There's your rescue," Josiah said wryly, as the helicopter landed.  

The MALP rolled onto the steps and immediately started transmitting.  Hammond's gut twisted as he saw the obvious signs of battle around the Stargate.  The ground was scored with burn marks from staff weapons.  He looked over at Major Ferretti.

"Stop the MALP and pan around," he commanded.  The camera swung around, revealing the damaged DHD. 

"That may be the reason no one's dialed in," Ferretti offered.  "That DHD's had it."

"It also means that whoever did this could still be there," Hammond replied, then stopped as the MALP zeroed in on an object lying close to the DHD.  

It was a hat, SGC issue - just like the ones that Major Carter and Colonel O'Neill always wore off-world.  

"General, I..." Daniel started, swallowing hard.

"Dismissed, Dr. Jackson.  We'll let you know if we find anything else," Hammond said quietly.  Once Daniel was gone, he turned to Ferretti.  "I'd like you and Major Griff to come up with a plan for a search and...."  he was distracted as a boom came through the speakers.  The MALP's transmission was suddenly cut off.

"What the hell was that?" he said, going to stand over Sergeant Davis's shoulder as he rewound the last of the tape.  The picture showed nothing except for a burst of light as the MALP's transmission cut off.

"The MALP's been destroyed, sir," Davis said, stating the obvious.

"Shit, they were waiting on us," Ferretti said, echoing the General's thoughts.

"Our plans just got a little more complicated, gentleman," Hammond said.