Chapter 12

After what seemed like an eternity to Face the ceremony was finally over. He turned ready to leave the place but found the corporal and his commander had beaten him to it. Just when he wanted to slip out too he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Where to LT? Stand beside the rest I'm going to take the pictures." Ray with a camera in his hand, just what he needed now.

He stood at wherever he was being told to or being pushed or shoved to. Face got increasingly irritated by the whole thing and BA got angrier by the second because of Face's lack of interest. Ray gave the camera to Murdock to also be in the picture and the shoving and pushing and rearranging continued until Face snapped.

"Don't you have enough pictures now?"

"What do you want from me? You been acting weird all the time. You and your bad mood. It's not every day that I get to celebrate a promotion, one that makes me the highest rank in my family even. You go and take the camera from the fool, I anyway don't want to have you in my pictures, you'll only ruin them with your worn uniform and damp mood." He snatched the camera from Murdock and was about to hand it to Face but decided otherwise in the last second. "Nah, you'll only mess up my pictures. Hey pal, do me a favor and snap us some nice pictures." BA had turned and handed the camera to the camp commander's secretary to continue taking the pictures.

Face stood off to the side. BA's words and actions had stung and he couldn't even tell why. He didn't want all this celebration but being excluded and having to watch, the guys were between him and the door, was worse. For some reason he was angry at Hannibal for not coming to his aid while he could have been equally angry at all the others but it wasn't the case. He just couldn't place why he felt that way and that irritated him even more.

Face had arranged the call for five in the afternoon and they were ten minutes to the time already and still snapping pictures. It was quite some walk to the MARS station and he didn't feel like jogging. If he didn't show up with the money the call would be cancelled. "Can we get a move on?"

"You're in deep LT. Better not get BA too angry." Ray who stood closest to Face at the moment tried to intervene before fists flew but Face wasn't about to back down.

"If you knew the things I went through to get this call arranged and now we're here snapping pictures while Mrs. Baracus is waiting for her call."

That got BA to move, if not in the desired direction. Instead of out the door he advanced on Face. "Why didn't you say something sucker? No one makes my mama wait."

"I did tell you your call is at five."

"Five, how am I supposed to know the time now sucker, coulda told me."

"By looking at you army standard wrist watch maybe…"

"BA! Put him down. You're making your mama wait."

Ah, so Hannibal still had a voice after all.

BA shoved Face one more time and marched out the door.

'Great, the bear is finally moving. Now I only have to get there ahead of the others to pay the guy off and avoid BA smashing the place, and me, to pieces. If they reach there before me and the guy tells BA that he needs to pay first I can best hand myself over to the VC for any torture they have in mind. Oh boy, my knee is so going to regret that.'

While the team used the main path Face took off between the various tents. His going round and collecting money and looking for people had given him the advantage of knowing every path in the camp. He knew a way that was slightly shorter than the main path, even so he had to speed up to reach there ahead of the others who were also walking at a brisk pace.

He made it inside the MARS hut just before the others rounded the last corner. His reward was a really throbbing pain in his knee that didn't seem to lessen again.

"Peck, thought you wouldn't show up."

"I'm here now, here's your money. The others will arrive shortly."

"They can take their time. I moved your call to 5:30 since you didn't show up earlier."

"But I'm not late, It's not yet five, I have three minutes left."

"You know how to operate this machine? No? Then you better keep quiet. It's 5:30 or nothing Peck."

Face knew he had no chance. The guy was still pissed at them and used this to show his powers. "Okay, you win. I'll be outside."

Face almost crashed into Murdock when he left the hut. "How? But…? Face, how did you get here?"

"Walking." Face dropped on one of the sandbags standing outside the hut. "Call's been shifted to 5:30."

"What do you mean? You made me stop taking pictures for nothing? Just so I stand in the heat waiting?" BA was looming over him but Face wasn't going to take any crap. He maneuvered himself out from under BA's imposing form, jumped to his feet and was nose to nose with BA in a flash.

"Don't you go blame me. Your call was shifted because you were not here in time. If you had listened to me in the first place you would be talking now and we all didn't need to wait in the sun. You're lucky it isn't cancelled."

"You were to arrange everything so it goes smoothly. 'sides we ain't late, it's just a minute past five."

"Ah, so you can read your watch after all."

"Face!" There was a clear warning in the colonel's voice. Face didn't much mind a fight with BA right now but getting on the bad side of the colonel was never a good idea, his position gave him way too much power. Darn Army.

"BA, why don't we go on snapping some pictures? The signboard 'Voice of the Green Beret' looks like an ideal background to me." BA grumbled something in Hannibal's direction but finally went over to the signboard in front of the MARS station and started arranging the people he wanted on the picture.

BA looked at Hannibal who held the camera. "Give that thing to the Faceman, he's no good for pictures today and since this is all his fault he can snap them."

"Oh no, I won't. And what do you mean…."

"Face, take the pictures."

Why was Hannibal getting in on this? Nothing of this mess was his fault and Hannibal knew that.

"No, I won't."

"Lieutenant, do I need to order you?"

Double darn the army. Why did he have to do that? Not only did he treat him unfair in front of the team but humiliate him in front of the other soldiers waiting. And if he refused now, Hannibal would have to react because of their audience. Anyway, he should have known. BA was on the team longer and he was able to bodily harm anyone else while Face was not posing any threat to Hannibal and was easily interchangeable with another supply officer. The big guy was clearly favored but this wasn't anything new to Face. He figured that it wasn't worth spending the night in the stockade and took the camera from Hannibal with as much dignity as he could muster.

After a few minutes of picture taking a jeep arrived. The corporal got out and gave the keys to Face who had to sign some form.

"What was that Lieutenant?"

"That's our ride to get to town."

"Coulda got it sooner then we wouldn't have needed to walk here and arrived in time."

Face just rolled his eyes. "You wanna take pictures or stand around here babbling?"

"Watch your mouth pretty boy."

How he hated to be called that. He made sure to cut off the heads of the people on the next few pictures.

The next 30 minutes passed by far too slow for Face's liking but finally BA was called to come on the phone and Face let himself slide down the wall until he was sitting on the sandbag again. He just hoped the others would get into the station too so he could quietly slip away. They knew the address of the restaurant and the hotel so he wasn't needed again. He felt drained and empty and just wanted to be alone, well, just him and an icepack for company.

One by one they followed BA inside, the plan seemed to work. Face sighed in relief as Ray, who was the last one, entered the station. However, before he could get up Ray was out again and dropped on the sandbag beside him.

"Oh man the place is crowded. You choose a fine place to chill LT. Can't wait for the party to start…."

Face listened with one ear to Ray rambling on about how great the promotion was and how great the party would be. Why couldn't they all just leave him alone? Just when he had given up hope Ray announced that he needed to take a leak and vanished behind the building. Face pushed himself up and started to limp towards the cover of the next tent when…

"Face!"

'Oh, this can't be happening.' He turned and saw Murdock frantically waving for him to come into the station. The picture was even more funny seeing that he was just three steps away from the man.

"Come on inside, BA's mama wanna talk to you buddy."

'Yeah, and that's about the last thing I want.' "Sure thing." Trying to conceal his limp as well as possible he walked in and took the call from BA.

"Hello Mrs. Baracus."

"Templeton dear, my son has told me so much about you. I just want to thank you. This call means so much to me. I'm sure your parents are so proud of you."

'Oh yeah, he told you a lot about me.' "Don't mention it Mrs. Baracus. I'm glad I could help."

"If my son ever gives you trouble, just call me."

'One day I'll talk to you about the last two weeks.' "Oh don't worry. I'll pass the call back to him. Nice talking to you." BA continued talking and Face left the place. The last thing he wanted to do now was to talk to some proud mother. Unfortunately Ray was back so the chance to leave had passed.