author's note: this bit has bouncing around my head and my hard drive for months now. I feel like there's more to the story, but I'm never going to get to it, so in the tradition of "if you love something, let it go" maybe it will inspire someone else, and come back to us as an actual story with an actual plot )

Vocation - the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet

Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell understands hard work. He understands necessity. If he hadn't understood commitment and work ethic, putting his body and his life back together after Antarctica would have fixed that, or he wouldn't be here now. He understands the duty to and honor of protecting and representing the people of earth to the rest of the galaxy. That said, he loves his job more because of what it represents than because he really loves the minutiae of meetings and reports and politics that the nominal leader of SG-1 wades through for the day or two off-world. On top of that, though, Cam understands finding joy in things, in good people, in appreciating what it is they're fighting to protect. He understands the value of goofing off.

Cam knows that Sam also works hard because she believes in doing her best, but for her, the minutiae of her job is the best part. She doesn't want a break from it, even when she needs a break, which is why it is such a victory, why it is huge, really, the first time she shows up to drag him out of the mountain rather than the other way around.

It starts off like any of their hundreds of past visits have, with one or the other showing up with coffee or offer of rescue-via-other-problem, depending on whether the project required attention or escape, but when she hovers a bit, after the conversation dies off, instead of heading back to her lab, he looks up from his pile of paperwork and notices her slightly nervous eyes and fidgeting fingers around the coffee cup.

"Sam? You okay?"

At the sound of Cam's voice, Sam shakes back into herself, and meets his eyes. "Yeah, I was just wondering if... do you... want to go get some dinner? Somewhere that's...not here?"

Cam gasps in mock horror. "Samantha Carter! Are you advocating that I... play hooky? Shirk my duty by failing to file the report of our entirely uneventful and unproductive trip in triplicate before the end of the day?"

Even though they both know he's teasing her, it seems that Sam was teetering close enough to the edge that even a mocking admonition is enough to send her back to work. "Actually, on second thought, I should..." she starts, when Cam realizes the opportunity he's botching and jumps up, moving around the desk to her side in record time.

"...go get your keys, and your jacket, is what you should do. Let's go." As he steers her down the hall, he keeps up a running commentary, lest she try to finish her thought. "I love hooky. Hooky is great. An American institution, to be celebrated. You know what rhymes with hooky?"