Cam's walked leisurely to his cherry 1969 mustang parked topside in the SGC lot. The usually still summer-warm September air felt heavy on Cam's freshly showered skin. Even in just jeans and a black tee he felt hot, but he couldn't care less because he was just happy to be back from his last mission.

SG-1 had been off-world on another diplomacy mission to acquire new medical tech from P4X-7793 (the third diplomacy mission this month alone), when the city they were visiting on the planet came under attack from secularist rebels, or whatever the Security Officer had called them. Getting out of the city and back to the gate had proved more complicated than they'd hoped, and they'd been forced to camp on the outskirts of the city before they could make it back to the SGC. No real injuries, just lots of sore muscles, migraines, and lack of sleep that had resulted in Cam feeling like hammered shit by the time they'd made it back and debriefed. Landry had given them 72 hours downtime by the end. Saying he was looking forward to sleeping through all of it was an understatement.

As he approached his car, he fumbled through his pockets for his keys, eventually finding them and taking a moment to just lean against his car door and look out at the setting sun now dimming in the horizon over the parking lot expanse.

Another day down, he thought to himself softy. Another day down, and Earth's still here. He found himself reminding himself of that fact more and more these days, never sure what he was really trying to reaffirm in himself, but still somehow needing it at the end of the day. A silhouette on one of the lot's topside lunch benches caught his eye. The man sat with his back to the lot, looking out over the town of Colorado Springs and watching the last of the day's sun fade into the mountains. Cam watched as the man sat there, elbows on his knees and chin resting on his folded hands, spiky hair blowing gently in the soft wind that was picking up as the day ended.

Cam didn't know if it was his damned friendly nature to blame, the way he recognized the slumped defeat in the man's shoulders, or some horrible combination of the two, but soon realized he was ambling over to the man despite the best protests of his exhausted brain. When he had gotten close enough to no longer be blinded by the setting sun and actually see some definition of the mysterious stranger, he realized that he recognized him as Col. John Sheppard, the returning "Hero of Atlantis" as he'd been referred to by some of the airmen on base. Mitchell had heard that he'd be around on base while the IOA "debated" on what to do with the City of the Ancients floating in San Francisco Harbor. Cam could tell the man had come out here to be alone; no other reasonable reason existed, but something about the way Sheppard looked told him that alone was probably the last thing he needed.

"Hey, Sheppard right?"

John never looked away from the view of the world below, but responded nonetheless before slipping back into contemplative silence. "You found him."

"I'm, uh, my names Cameron but everyone just calls me Cam." He offered, attempting to break the silence while internally berating himself for walking over here. When it became apparent that Shepard was content to let the silence draw on, Mitchell added, "I lead SG-1. Kinda surprised we haven't run into each other yet, but I guess the mountain is a pretty big place. So . . . how's being back on Earth? Bet it's got to be nice to be running around on Earth again?"

Sheppard's expression flinched for a flash of a second, highlighted from the shadows cast by his tousled hair and the setting sun, and Mitchell couldn't help but notice. Sheppard turned, finally taking his gaze off the horizon and looked up at Cam.

"It's John," Sheppard drawled slowly, "And between the IOA's meetings and finding my way out of that labyrinth of a base, can't say I've really made it off-base yet."

"What? Seriously? Haven't you been here like two weeks?"

"Almost three, actually."

Cam paused for a moment and stared at Sheppard incredulously. "That's dumb", he finally said.

"What?" Sheppard replied, face and voice both conveying his surprised annoyance at Cam's assessment.

"That's dumb. Every IOA meeting I've ever had to go to were so horrible that I'm pretty sure the Geneva Convention technically classifies them as "Psychological Warfare", so three weeks worth has to pretty much have you ready to jump off a cliff. Which is actually kinda convenient, what with this being a mountain and all. Let's go get a beer."

Cam's instantly cursed himself in his head because, really, what the hell was he thinking?! He was tired, he hurt, he wanted nothing more than to lie in his bed forever and for some reason he couldn't stop talking. John clearly hadn't been expecting his apparent new best buddy Cameron to make that offer cause he raised an eyebrow in surprise and amusement.

"I think I'm just going to stay here tonight. You know, low-key."

"Low-key is what you've been doing. Besides, if you don't go with, then it'll just look like I have a problem," Cam drawled right back. "You have to go with, Airmen's Code or something." And Cam tried his damnest to put on a convincing smile and crinkle his blue eyes just right.

"We're both Officers," Sheppard retorted, "Not airmen."

Cam's smile instantly dropped from his face and was replaced by a look of slightly exasperated annoyance. "You make it extremely hard to be nice to you, you know that?"

Sheppard looked directly at Cam and met his eyes for the first time, and crooked his mouth up into a smirk that Cam couldn't quite read.

"Let's go get a beer."