Major Carter stood in her kitchen, leaning with hip against the counter, beer in hand, watching her teammates gathered in the dining room within her line of sight. Daniel was propped on the back of her sofa, bottle of beer held between his legs, facing the table at which sat Megan and Teal'c. Captain Rawlins was decidedly tipsy... at last, someone on SG-1 who was worse at holding their liquor than Daniel. The thought brought a small smile to Sam's face as she hung back, in no hurry to return to the group, content to watch from a distance the way they played off one another, the give and take, the places one would bend to the others and the places that same person would stone-wall.

They weren't SG-1 the way they'd been SG-1 with Colonel O'Neill in command, but they were nonetheless becoming a team. Rawlins was making her place, holding her own in what might have been seen as a very cliquey group, and for that she deserved credit. She was also a fine officer, a woman who thought on her feet.

Colonel O'Neill would have liked her.

Sam frowned at the unbidden thought. She set her half-empty bottle down the counter top and pushed off the cabinets then walked toward her kitchen window with arms crossed, out of sight of the rest of the team. Just when she thought she was moving on, letting go, unguarded thoughts of her former CO would jump into her mind. So many times adjusting to her new status as team leader she'd longed for his advice, someone to talk to who had been in the same position once that she was in now. Not having his guidance to turn to, depend on, felt like going away to college, standing amid a small collection of boxes stacked in a barren dorm room holding all your possessions, feeling cast adrift in a tempest-stricken sea, and watching your parent get in the car and drive away.

"Sam?"

Sam turned at the sound of Daniel's voice to find him standing in the entryway to her kitchen, watching her gently. "Everything okay?"

Sam gave him a crooked smile, one that said 'aside from the things that are obviously not okay?', and nodded, "Fine."

Daniel stepped further into the kitchen, tucking his arms across his chest and moving to stand behind her shoulder, waiting for her to let it out.

Before she had been the one in charge, the leader, she might have turned and accepted his hug, shown him her misgivings, but when she had to consider tomorrow when she would be asked to give Daniel orders, tell him what to do and sometimes tell him he couldn't do what he wanted... it made things different. She couldn't be open with her friend the way she once was; it made command decisions in the field too hard. And always Sam felt like she should apologize to Daniel for that, explain to him it wasn't something he did wrong, but the blessing that was Daniel Jackson was that Daniel seemed to know without being told. He could see in her face, with just a glance, that the shift into a more aloof demeanor meant nothing had changed in their friendship, only their working relationship.

Daniel had become a man of looks to share private jokes, proximity to stand in place of touches that might have comforted, and with a jolt of clarity Sam saw Daniel the way Colonel O'Neill must have seen him. It took being the commanding officer herself for Sam to at last really understand the strange, polar friendship between the military colonel and brainy archaeologist. Daniel could adapt to cling to friendships, adjusting form and function rather than abandon a bond.

Few times had Sam been more amazed than now by the way Daniel was with people, the trust he could engender simply by being himself. She gave him a smile and Daniel's expression in return exuded understanding, completely and without judgment.

"Major?" Megan came into the kitchen. She snagged the wall with one hand and swung the last portion of her entrance as she asked in a voice slighly slurred, "do you have any more beer?"

Sam smirked, cast Daniel an amused look, then said authoritatively, "I think you've had quite enough, Captain."

Megan frowned and her lips pursed, perturbed but not too far gone to make the mistake of arguing with her commanding officer. She did, however, manage a hang-dog look that had to have been a page taken from Daniel's book.

Sam shook her head, fond exasperation replacing her earlier dour mood.

It wasn't SG-1 the way Sam would always think of it, but this team wasn't bad. With a little seasoning, time to learn how they best worked together as an integrated unit, they might even be pretty damned good.