A/N: So we're nearly off-world! Yay! I really hope no-one has had this idea before! I'm always so afraid on this site that whatever I come up with will have already been done! Please read and review!

Sam was slumped on her desk, both elbows on the table, her palms the only barrier between her head and the cool, hard surface of the bench in front of her. Looking at the computer screen her vision blurred, reminding her that she probably needed sleep – or at least some…

"Coffee?"

Sam snapped her head up to see her CO standing in the doorway, holding two steaming hot mugs. With a smile of gratitude she held her hand out.

"You're a life-saver sir. I was starting to actually contemplate sleep." She smiled at him, knowing he would find that remark amusing.

"Sleep? You?" Jack retorted gently. "I thought that was one of those activities you only did when ordered!" He looked at his watch briefly. "Besides, it's only 4pm."

Jack sat on a stool across the table from where Sam was ensconced in front of her technology. He looked at her carefully. She looked tired. If he were a betting man, he'd say this latest conundrum wasn't the reason she was so spent. Upon thinking about it, she'd seemed somewhat under the weather for a couple of weeks now.

"How's it going?" he asked quietly.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that the electromagnetic pulses through the gate are some sort of transmission." Sam ruffled her hair absentmindedly. "They're nearly identical in form to the energy that emanated from our 'urgo chips', so it would seem that the signal is trying to communicate with something that-"

"Carter, stop." He interrupted her. "That's not what I meant."

"Sir?" she looked at him expectantly.

"I meant," he paused, collecting his thoughts. "How are you going generally? You seem pretty out of it at the moment – inexplicable compulsions to meet me in a certain corridor at the same time every day notwithstanding." He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

"I'm fine sir," she responded after a marked pause. "It's just been a busy couple of months. I guess we haven't had any leave in a while, eh?" She looked at him hopefully. Perhaps he wouldn't pry.

Jack gritted his teeth. He didn't even know why he was getting into this. All he knew was that her few words in the lift earlier that day had made him realize how selfish he'd been. He found it hard to write his reports because the experience of reliving some events was too painful. That pain was probably minimal compared to what Carter had felt writing about Narim's fate on Tollana.

"You know Carter, I haven't even started writing my report on the Tollans." He saw her breath hitch in her throat as he mentioned the ill-fated friendly culture. "I don't know how. How do I go through what happened? At every turn I want to have done something differently."

"Sir you shouldn't-"

"-waste my time at imagining various 'what if's'?" he completed her thought. "I know, but I can't help it."

Sam saw the pain in his deep brown eyes as he said this and understood immediately that he was just as tired as she, just as worn out by onslaught of adversity that had been thrown at them.

"You did everything in your power, sir." She paused briefly, "We did everything in our power." Her voice was now barely a whisper. "Sometimes our best just isn't good enough."

"Yeah. Sucks eh?" He smiled at her weakly.

They sat like that, opposite each other, steaming coffee's untouched in their hands for some time. Neither feeling the need to speak. It was in this state of contemplation that Janet, Teal'c and Daniel found them twenty minutes later.

"Jack, Sam, we think we know what's going-" Daniel stopped as he hurtled into the room when he saw the uncharacteristic stillness that engulfed the small space. "-on… is something wrong?" He looked from Sam to Jack, and back to Sam again. "Sam?"

"No, everything's fine Daniel." She awoke from her reverie finally, realizing that the room was now full of people. "We're just tired. What's up?"

"First things first," Janet took control of the room with her most commanding tone of voice. "You two haven't been seeing Urgo since you went back to the planet he came from, right?"

Both Jack and Sam indicated they hadn't.

"So two years and nothing?" she let out a deep breath and lay a series of photographic images on the bench. "Remember how the first time the microprocessor was located at the exact same spot in your brains? Of course we checked there the instant you arrived back and found they were no longer there." She indicated with a pen the spot on the scans where the blip should have appeared. "In light of the recent… coincidences… you've experienced and the unexplained gate activations, I went over your most recent scans with a fine tooth comb." This time Janet lay all four scans out next to each other and circled a spot on each of them, in different places. "I've been disregarding these for so long because the resolution of the scan isn't good enough to really distinguish between them and faults in the printing technology. But I enlarged all the inconsistencies I could find on your scans this afternoon, and found these." Janet took four magnified images out of the folder tucked under her arm, each revealing the presence of a microprocessor identical to that which had been implanted when Urgo was 'with' them."

Sam looked carefully at each scan using the large microscope in front of her before raising her head to look across the bench at Jack. He merely raised his eyebrows at her, asking a bunch of silent questions.

"Essentially sir, when whoever we found on Urgo's planet took him out of our brains, he put new microprocessors in."

"Sneaky bugger." Jack growled, incensed that his mind had been violated in such a way. "Why?"

"Is it not obvious, O'Neill?" Teal'c spoke calmly from the doorway. "These devices were inserted to record our activities in some way. Much like Daniel Jackson describes the tagging of lower-species animals on your world."

Jack looked from the tall Jaffa to the others in the room, looking for confirmation. "So Urgo is actually here?"

"No sir, I don't think so." Carter felt her mind working quickly, piecing the puzzle together as she spoke. "Remember when we spoke to whoever it was that created Urgo he said the presence was an 'error', not meant to be? Maybe the microprocessors now inside us are performing their job as they were designed to do – without being detected."

"So that's probably why we've been meeting outside the locker room for the past couple of days?" Jack still didn't see why a microprocessor would cause such a banal simultaneous action. "What's this got to do with the gate activation?"

"Well think about it Jack." Daniel was leaning against the wall behind where Sam was seated. "If you're going to tag an animal, you want to check on it every now and then – collect the information."

"So if the electric thingy coming through the gate is a transmission like Carter thinks," he paused to give her a small nod, proving that he had been listening earlier, "then whoever put these things in our heads wants to collect the data?"

"Exactly!" Daniel's voice was rising in intonation, showing the increasing excitement. "I think the reason me and Teal'c felt the need to come back – and the reason you and Sam keep finding yourself on the way to the locker rooms – is because we're being recalled somehow."

"So what do we do?" Jack looked to Carter briefly before directing his eyes back to Daniel, fully aware of what the archaeologist was about to say.

"Well, why not go back? We've been there twice and come back in one piece – albeit with some moderate memory loss." He conceded the last point in response to sounds of objection from both Sam and Jack. "Maybe this time we can convince them to let us retain our memories?"

Jack looked at Daniel skeptically. Going into a situation without the appropriate intel was unacceptable. The blatant lack of intelligence regarding this idea of Daniel's seemed too ridiculous for words.

"Sir, I don't think we really have a choice in the matter." Sam got up from her seat, collecting her jacket from the back of the chair and preparing to leave the room. "The urge to get kitted up has been getting progressively stronger over the past three days. I think that if we don't act now and depart as prepared as we can be, we'll just end up going anyway somehow."

Jack looked to the ceiling in a silent prayer for a normal life before wrenching his tired body of the stool to follow Carter – who he presumed was headed to talk to General Hammond.

"Let's get this show on the road then." He motioned for everyone in the room to follow Sam, and the five of them traipsed down the corridor towards the General's office.

If General Hammond was surprised by the sudden appearance of his flagship team, accompanied by Doctor Frasier, in his office with determined expressions on their faces, he did a good job hiding it. His gaze surveyed the five of them briefly, noting particularly how excited Sam and Daniel seemed, before he brusquely dropped his pen onto the desk in front of him.

"I take it you've got something to report, Colonel?" Although he spoke to Jack, he looked at Sam, who was the most likely to have a coherent answer to his question.

"Sir," Sam's voice was uncharacteristic of her usual conciliatory, even educational, manner – instead it was strong, forceful. "We have reason to believe that the gate activations have been in an attempt to lure SG1 back to the planet Urgo originated from." She looked to Jack quickly for support before continuing. "We're requesting permission to return to the planet sir."

General Hammond couldn't stifle the surprised jolt he felt at this request. "Why on earth would you do that, if something appears to be luring you there?" This time the steeled character of his eyes dictated that Jack answer the question.

"Apparently we'll just end up there anyway sir." Jack was slouching slightly against the wall as he spoke, his arms crossed on his chest. He raised his hands in a demonstration of the helplessness he felt. "The Doc has found more of those 'Urgo chips' in our heads and Carter here thinks it would be best just to go back to the planet well-prepared rather than eventually give in to temptation." He looked coyly in the direction of his 2IC. "Of course, we also thought it preferable that we go there following your orders – not in direct contravention of them."

"General," Daniel interjected at this point. "Not one of us was harmed two years ago when we first encountered whatever it was at this planet." He looked uncertainly at Jack, unsure if he was helping or hindering their cause. "We think whoever they are, they're just curious and want to learn about our culture. Perhaps we can learn about theirs this time? Perhaps our memories won't be erased?"

"Teal'c?" General Hammond addressed his attention to the Jaffa, who had remained framed by the doorway.

"I believe that we have very little choice in the matter, General Hammond. The urges to act contrary to our conscious thoughts have been growing in intensity. It is highly likely that we will in fact be unable to resist them in the future."

"And what if this is some sort of Goa'uld ploy?" Hammond voiced the thought that no member of SG1 had dared entertain.

"It is unlikely, General, that a Goa'uld would undertake such a slow-moving plan for action." Teal'c pretended not to notice the relief evident in the rest of SG1's body language. "However, I remain convinced that for better or worse, we will soon have no choice in the matter. It would be preferable to depart fully armed and in control of our actions."

General Hammond sat back in his chair, exasperated. It seemed as if they were all decided on the issue.

"Doctor Frasier, couldn't we try to disable the microprocessors or somehow stifle these 'urges'?"

"I don't think that would work sir," Janet fished the team's medical files from two years ago out of the folder she carried with her. "If you'll remember correctly, the EMP field Sam created to disable Urgo wasn't permanent. And surgery is of course out of the question – the technology is far too advanced."

"It appears as if we have no choice then." General Hammond picked his pen up again, poised to continue with the paperwork in front of him that never seemed to end. "SG1, you have a go. You'll be departing tomorrow at 1100 hours, dismissed."

"Thank you sir." All four team-members spoke at the same time, before turning to leave.

TBC

A/N: Ok, so the Sam/Jack bits won't be coming until probably chapter 5… but please keep reading! I'm getting more and more into this as I go!