A/N: Reviews! I got reviews! I'm so stoked (that means excited for all you non-Aussies).

So anyways, thanks to jiltf for the compliment! Getting the characters' voices right is always my HUGE worry. I find Sam the easiest to do (maybe it helps that I'm female, studied physics until my second year in college, ended up with a double degree with four majors – pharmacology, biochemistry, french and history… not that I'm half proud of myself!), but it's never easy.

Also, I probably know just as much as you do (if not less) about the floods in Queensland and northern New South Wales – I live like TWO THOUSAND MILES south of there in Melbourne!

Here are the immediate reactions… hope you like!

Sam refused herself the right to open her eyes. She wished she could just wake up and find herself back at the SGC… at home… anywhere but stuck on this stupid mock-dentist's chair with a repeating playback of her and Jack kissing – a kiss she couldn't even remember – in front of her. She didn't trust herself to try and speak. Despite the admission she had just made, she felt the indignation rising within her: her eyes were becoming moist and she felt her muscles straining in her neck and mouth as she clenched her teeth together. Had she been capable of moving her limbs, she knew her fingernails would have been digging painful holes in the palms of her hands. She did NOT want to deal with the Colonel. Most of all, if she had to talk about this, she was certainly NOT going to do it with some emotionally bereft, callous alien in the room taking notes as if they were both test subjects.
In what seemed like a far-away, echoing voice, she heard Togar clear his throat.

"This causes you emotional pain." He ticked a box on the screen that appeared in the wall-panel, as if this piece of data was of particular interest.

"Dammit Togar stop this!" Jack's eyes had not wavered from Sam's face. "We're not lab rats here for your amusement!"

"On the contrary Colonel," Togar's voice was indifferent, as he made another notation on his screen. "You are here merely to enhance my understanding of emotional exchanges between peoples of different cultures."

"Well we're not going to participate!" Jack roared, wincing as he saw that Sam still had not exited from her self-imposed exile from the situation. He softened his voice to address her for the first time since the revelation, hoping against hope that he could choose the right words – or at least not the blatantly wrong ones. "Carter, I-" he stopped, seeing her head flinch slightly away from the sound of his voice. "Sam, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I'm sorry I took advantage of the situation like that. I'll explain anything you want when we get back… I'm just really sorry…"

Sam fought to keep control of her raging emotions as the Colonel's words filtered through the tough barrier she had constructed around her psyche. She heard him apologise, again and again. But the last words he said annoyed her – he asked if she was ok, as if she were too fragile to deal with the situation, as if she couldn't handle him/it.

"Sir," her voice was strained, caught in her throat, and wavered slightly in a vain attempt to stop herself from exploding at the world around her. "I'm fine. It's fine. Let's just get out of here."

"I don't think you fully comprehend the situation," Togar spoke calmly, but with a certain malevolence. "I cannot analyse the data you have provided me with without the appropriate knowledge."

"I don't BELIEVE this!" Sam finally let go of the anger that had been growing inside her. She opened her eyes, finally, to reveal a murderous glare that would put even the worst of the Goa'ulds to shame. "If you've got the 'data' from these stupid microprocessors then you know what we're capable of, you know what we've achieved in the past two years! We're NOT some stupid passive primitive race ready to answer to your every whim and desire! We're NOT here to help you with your… your… study!" she spat the word out as if it sickened her. "You have VIOLATED our thoughts and actions – your actions are no different to RAPE! We DEMAND that you get these things OUT of our heads and return us to our planet!"

Togar looked at the two humans seated only metres away from him with exasperation. How such a promising race could be so subordinate to their unpredictable emotions was beyond him. His people thought they had lost something from their culture in their inability to feel as these humans did. When SG1 first came through the gate, he had been stunned to see the levels of emotion emanating from all of them, even the Jaffa. The opportunity could not be missed. The best ancient civilisation scholars on his planet had, at best, a tenuous comprehension of the passionate tendencies of their ancestors. SG1 provided them with a unique opportunity to understand their own past. Looking at the wreck's now slumped in the chairs, however, he was starting to doubt whether his wondrous people could ever have been so irrational.

"You may as well just let us go." Jack spoke softly, using all his willpower to keep his voice calm. "As you can see, we don't take kindly to this kind of treatment." He chanced a glance at Sam, who was now slumped in defeat, although her eyes were still dangerously pointed at Togar. He hoped she didn't direct them at him.

Togar looked at the both of them and realised a change in tactic was necessary. "Very well," he snapped impatiently, already manipulating the control panel at his side with his next move. The video screen replaying Sam and Jack's kiss finally retracted into the floor. "I will question your friends. If they too have nothing to say that can help me I will return you to your world and take the tags out of your minds." He stopped suddenly and with an annoyed click of the tongue looked to the empty space next to him. "Oh it's you again…. Yes I know… Hmmm… you may be right…"

"Urgo!" Jack hissed, "Tell this shrub to let us go!"

"Silence!" Togar slid his hand over a depression in the wall and Jack found an invisible gag preventing him from speaking. "Urgo has persuaded me to accommodate you both in a more… agreeable… environment while I interrogate your friends. You should be grateful for that much."

With those words Togar calmly manipulated a series of touch-points on the wall and with a flash of light Sam and Jack disappeared from the chairs in front of him.

Jack found himself unceremoniously dumped on a bed with a soft thump. He growled with annoyance at all the times alien beings just felt they could transport him here or there without thought, let alone fair warning. Looking around him he was startled to see that the room they were in was an identical replica of the guest quarters back at the SGC. He had landed on the double-bed just inside where the door should have been – in this case there was no apparent way out of the room – while he saw Sam had been deposited on the couch just a few feet away, and was now looking around her with the same expression of disbelief as him. He caught her eye briefly but quickly looked away, not sure of how she felt. The last thing he wanted to do was make matters worse. With a resigned sigh, he lay back onto the bed with his arm flopped over his face, exhausted and entirely sick of the whole situation.

"Sir?" Sam spoke quietly, but without the slightest waver in her voice. Jack lifted his arm from his head and raised his neck to look at her. She was sitting sideways on the couch leaning over the back of it too talk to him.

"Sir you don't have to explain or apologise." Sam suddenly wasn't sure of what she was going to say. All she knew that the awkwardness between them couldn't continue. "I… it was just a shock, that's all. I'm sure you did much crazier things during the time you and Teal'c were 'looping' – I'm surprised you didn't lose your mind." She tried for a small smile, but only managed to form a straight line with her lips. "For all I know you could have jumped Daniel, or General Hammond, in the next loop."

"Well…" Jack said dryly, "You know how attracted I am to Daniel…" He pushed himself up with his elbows before sitting cross-legged on the bed with his arms loosely resting on his knees. "You're know Carter, you're not a very good liar."

"Sir?" Sam tried her best to display complete nonchalance.

"Ok, look…" Jack bit his tongue, wondering if the next few words to come from his mouth would forever ruin the easy relationship he shared with Sam. "I just couldn't let the opportunity go by." He held up his hand, imploring her to let him finish. His eyes were averted from her gaze, fixed on a spot on the wall to his left. "God… I'd been wanting to kiss you for so long… SO long." He ran a hand through his hair. "I can understand if you feel differently…" he still couldn't look at her. "I… I thought that if I kissed you once – just once – then I'd be able to move on." He chanced a look at her, only to see that Sam was intently studying her hands.

"Did it work?" Sam's voice was barely above a whisper, her eyes still directed towards her hands, as she fiddled with her fingernails. When Jack didn't respond immediately she looked up slowly to see a pained expression on his face.

"Not really." He answered simply, conscious of how exposed this conversation was leaving him. He didn't care anymore – if his relationship with Sam was going to be ruined, she may as well know the truth.

"Ok." Sam sank back into the couch with her head on the arm rest and looked absently at the ceiling above, deep in thought.

Jack squeezed his eyes tightly and willed himself to just let it go. 'Ok'! What did that mean? He lay back down on the bed behind him and clamped one of the pillows down over his face with his arms, wishing he could disappear.

"You may be the most annoying thing I have ever had the misfortune of creating," Togar began, glancing to Urgo quickly before returning his attention to the screen in front of him, "but you were right about these people."

Urgo was exceedingly pleased with himself. "So can we play hide and seek now? I'll start, you hide. One… two… three…" He stopped, seeing how Togar was attempting to ignore him. "Fine then, I can hide and you can come find me!"

"No Urgo!" Togar snapped, his eyes still fixed on the image of Jack and Sam collapsed in the holding cell he had created with Urgo's help. "Your plan is working – they are communicating. I cannot afford to miss seeing their method of resolving the issue."

A/N: Never fear, there is more to appear! Please let me know what you think! Also, for those of you who were worried, Teal'c and Daniel will be coming back soon…