2 minutes

She wasn't waiting for Daniel to come home… she wasn't. The briefing room table just happened to be a very comfortable place to sit. The fact that it offered a clear view of the Stargate and Dr. Daniel Jackson was two minutes overdue just happened to be happy coincidences.

She had found her way to the briefing room about five minutes before Daniel and SG-12 were meant to return from the library at Camelot, obviously excited for him to come home but refusing to play the part of his extremely loyal and excited puppy by waiting for him in the gateroom. So she spread his books over the table and forced herself to be studious, fully intending to translate some Ancient, or at least pretend like she had.

Mitchell waltzed into the room and planted himself squarely in front of the window overlooking the gateroom below. Vala continued to study, and Cam decided that not interrupting her vigil would be one of those things that would prevent her from making commentary the next time he paid a little too much attention when Dr. Lam left the room.

Cam like to be there whenever one of his team got back from an offworld mission sans him. That was one of those special tips General O'Neill liked to share when he made his two am calls to see how Cam was handling the crew. He never told the General that they were things that he could've picked up anyway if he read between the lines in mission reports. It was Jack's way of apologizing for not mentioning the rather precarious position (aka nonexistence) that SG-1 was in when Cam arrived, and thanking him for "getting the band back together." Though those were both facts that Jack would never admit too.

"Be waiting for them at the gate every time," was one of the first rules Jack had laid out, and it had proven to be a good one. There was something unifying about having your leader waiting for you when you got home, and he believed it gave them a reason to come back. Though he was entirely willing to admit they all really came back for reasons separate from him, he liked to think that they still expected him to be there. The first few times Teal'c came in from there was a slight hint of uncertainty at Mitchell's presence, as if on some level he was still expecting O'Neill. Cam knew acceptance would come the first time Teal'c came through and met Mitchell with a nod rather than an eyebrow.

As the check-in time came and went Mitchell moved to the table and sat across from Vala, making no attempt to disguise that his focus on the Stargate. He was careful not to make any sudden movements, because Vala was watching the Stargate through him. If he fidgeted she would take it to be a sign that a chevron had engaged, or that something terrible was going on in the gateroom. It was a routine that they had perfected in the few times Jackson had been offworld without her.

They both knew she would've been fine on her own, but Mitchell felt like it was something that only he got to share with a member of SG-1, rather than something filtered through O'Neill's back channels and mission reports. They waited for Jackson together. Vala silently acknowledging that she liked having someone to wait with, and Cam indulging in one of the few moments he would've admitted that he worried his presence might break the infamous streak of indestructible that kept Daniel Jackson around.

They never spoke during these little interludes, actually they were the longest time he ever heard her in full silence mode. For a few minutes of tardiness they were simply the new kids having a moment that was their won. They weren't replacing someone in those moments, or being compared to a cherished routine that had been held with some beloved long since dead.

They fit in during those moments. Perfectly and uniquely accepted. If ever questioned Mitchell would say he was making sure Vala didn't spill something on Jackson's books, and Vala would say Mitchell was coming on to her, but the SGC knew the truth, and they understood. By this time most of them were replacements of somebody, and no one didn't understand the pain of having recognition flash through someone's eyes as they remembered that you weren't the one they were expecting.

New memories were made as the greenies took comfort from one another in their vigil for the first person to make them feel like this was home. They wanted him to still feel like this was home when they got there.