"Unscheduled incoming travellers." Sgt Davis declared as the Stargate started to whirl.

"Are we receiving a signal?" Hammond asked.

"It's SG-1."

"Open the iris." Hammond ordered. Hammond was worried, SG-1 were returning almost a day early from their mission.

"General." Jack said as he strolled through the gate.

"Is everything okay Colonel?" Hammond asked over the microphone.

"Yes sir. We came; we saw and returned with a recipe. Nothing useful." Sam hid a smile at his comments.

"We'll debrief in an hour."

"Yes sir." Jack replied as he handed his gun over.

~ ~ ~

"So, you said there wasn't anything useful." Hammond said.

"Absolutely not." Jack replied.

"There were no signs of civilisation apart from the ruins and no naqquadah, which matched with the MALP scans." Sam added.

"And your translation Dr Jackson?" Hammond asked.

"Nothing of any use General." Daniel stated.

"Oh, I wouldn't know about that Daniel. Depends on whether you're hungry or not."

"Colonel?" Hammond questioned.

"The translation was some kind of Goa'uld stew sir. We brought a copy back in case you were interested."

"I see. Teal'c would you like to add anything?"

"I have nothing to add General Hammond." Teal'c replied.

"Then that's the end of this debriefing. I'll expect your reports by Friday morning." He paused. "Major Carter."

"Yes sir?" Sam replied.

"Delegate the soil sample analysis I'd like you to spend a few days running an analysis of the gate system after the small problems we've been experience over the last few weeks."

"Yes sir. How long do I have?"

"The last team home is expected back sometime Friday afternoon. You can shut the gate down over the weekend but we'll need it functional again by Wednesday at the latest."

"Yes sir." Sam replied.

"I'm sure you have some translations to work on Dr Jackson, so Teal'c maybe you should assist him and Colonel."

"Yes sir." Jack said.

"Once your paperwork is complete I want you to assist Major Carter."

"General?" Jack questioned.

"I think it's time you learned more about how the gate functions Colonel. That's all dismissed."

"So when do you think you'll be joining us sir?" Sam asked knowing the Colonel really didn't want to help with anything related to the gate.

"If I had a choice when hell froze over." He said.

"I'd better go and check the weather reports then sir; I'm not sure what the weather is like over there at the moment. But it's closer to the Artic circle than we are so it could be sooner rather than later." Sam stated. Jack shot her a look. "There's small town in Scandinavia called Hell sir. It even has a sign that says 'Welcome to Hell'."

"You're a freak you know that right."

"Yes sir. I'll expect you when I see you sir." Sam said getting up from the table and leaving the briefing room.

"Seriously what kind of person would know something like that?" Jack asked Daniel.

"We found the website when we were surfing the web doing research a while ago. We checked it out on the CIA's world atlas, it does exist. A former Miss Universe is from there." Daniel said packing up his stuff.

"Kill me now." Jack said putting his head on the table.

"That would not be wise O'Neill." Teal'c said. "I believe Major Carter will endeavour to make this exercise most enjoyable." Jack scowled at him. "Daniel Jackson, I believe we must depart." Hammond smiled to himself as the Jaffa made a hasty departure from the room trailed by Daniel.

~ ~ ~

"So what do you want me to do?" Jack unenthusiastically asked four hours later.

"You've got a few options sir. One, you can sit here with me and I can explain what I'm doing while this diagnostic program runs, two you can go and try and convince Sgt Siler to lend you his large wrench, three you can go and input some test data in to the computers in my lab and run a few simulations which take a while to conduct or you could sit around and pretend to be reading my last report on gate functionality." Sam offered. Sam got a few looks from the control room staff, who would never get away with suggesting anything like that to a higher ranking officer.

"Or 5 run like hell?" He added.

"Or there is always that option sir." She said with a smile. "But I have a better idea. Lieutenant?" She said spinning round on her chair.

"Yes ma'am."

"Keep an eye on this diagnostic; it's still going to be running for at least another hour. If the gate activates you have to suspend it."

"Yes ma'am." The Lieutenant replied.

"Colonel, if you'd come with me." Jack got up and followed her in the elevator.

"So Carter, where are we going?"

"I was due a break sir, and as you like to comment from time to time we scientists live on coffee so I thought we would go to the commissary."

"I think this is one of your better ideas Major."

"I thought you would sir." "So what was Jacob doing while we were away?" "He mentioned something about the garden. Don't ask me what he was planning to do but if saves me from doing it I'm grateful." She said as she pushed open the commissary door.

"Do you just want coffee? Or do you want something to eat too?" Jack asked.

"Jell-O. If they've got it."

"Blue, I know sit down and then you can tell me what you're planning on doing." Jack said. He returned a few minutes later with a tray. "So?"

"So what sir?" Sam asked.

"So what are you planning on doing to the gate, because I'm Hammond is going to ask me so I might as well know and then you can tell me why you want me to steal Siler's big wrench."

"Well today I'm going to let the diagnostic finish. Then I'm going home sir. Unless there is a major flaw which jumps out at me I'll analysis the results tomorrow. Then it's a case of fixing any problems with the encoding. I have to write a few update features for the software, include one I have an idea for which should make the gate dial faster. This is all we can do until the gate is taken offline of Friday. After that there is checking the circuitry for faults, replacing anything needs replacing, checking the power connection to the gate. That's why we need Siler's big wrench; he's going on holiday on Sunday for a week."

"So what exactly am I supposed to do?" Jack asked.

"My best suggestion would be to stick with me sir. I'll explain what's going on and you won't get in anyone's way. I'm pretty sure I can figure out a way for you to be able to do something else and no one will notice."

"You're going to help me goof off?"

"If you want to listen to gate theory all day sir, I can tell you anything you want to know or more than likely more than you ever wanted to know. I'll keep you up with the basics, but yeah I'll help you goof off."

"Didn't know you had it in you there Carter?"

"There are lot of things that you don't know about me sir. Which I think you found out over the weekend."

"I think you have a deal Major."

"Good. If General Hammond asks the diagnostic we're running is a complete system check as opposed to the one basic ones the control room staff run when we have a problem, and is more invasive than the full diagnostic. It checks every line of every program that runs through the computers; it also runs small sequences of random test data to check that they are working correctly. The computers run at higher speed in the gate room as opposed to the one the in your office, the one in my lab runs at only a slightly lower speed, so it only takes four hours once it's implemented. If the program is suspended because some dials in, the program is designed to go back and run over the data it's tested in the previous hour."

"So for every interruption it takes an additional hour for the program to run. So if it kept getting interrupted you could be here for hours?"

"Yes, that's why we usually run the programs at night, while SG-1 are on downtime."

"They make you work during downtime typical, there is a reason they call it downtime you know."

"Yes sir. But I usually volunteer they don't expect me to do any work and if there are problems there is time to fix it."

"You really shouldn't work during downtime, we have it for a reason we working in stressful jobs we need to be able to get away from them and clear our minds of everything related to the gate, the Goa'uld and any other little alien visitors who stop by."

"Yes sir but I'd rather."

"Major Carter to the control room, Major Carter to the control room."

"Excuse me sir." Sam got up and rushed out, Jack followed at a more leisurely pace.

"Which key did you hit?" Sam demanded.

"I don't know for sure ma'am. I put my hand by accident and hit a key and them it keeps appearing with unknown error."

"So much for my leaving early." Sam muttered as she tried to fix the error. Jack watched as she tried to fix the problem but in the end exited the program. "We'll have to start again." She stated before resuming the program from fresh. "Well sir we have at least another four hours to wait." She said turning back to Jack. "Maybe we should discuss some more ways to extract information from the Goa'uld." Jack smiled.

"Of course Major."

TBC

A/N - I know this part isn't as shippy as the last few chapters but it really didn't lend it's self to many shippy moments. BTW the town of Hell exist I actually did find it on a map about a year ago and went on the website and saw the sign; I just can't remember which Scandinavian country it was in.