This was supposed to be a small humorish drabble, but it ended up longer than anticipated. I apologise beforehand for any grammar or spelling mistakes. While I have some experience with writing stories, this is the first time that I wrote one in English. I hope you enjoy this litte oneshot and I certainly don't mind anyone giving reviews if he/she feels like it. :)

Oh, and I don't own Stargate Atlantis. If I did, I suspect I would be richer than I am now.

Looking after the kids

When he woke up that morning he didn't expect how weird this day would get. Off course, after years being posted in the Pegasus galaxy John Sheppard had got accustomed to weird, but there is a difference between help-I-turned-into-a-bug! weird, Rodney-has-a-woman-in-his-head! weird and oh, lifesucking-space vampires-exist-weird and well this kind of weird weird.

It started shortly after he woke up and when he encountered Teyla on his way to get something to eat. With a cheery smile he asked if she would accompany him for breakfast. She, politely, declined and then giggled… very girly giggle. It was not a sound he had ever heard come from Teyla's mouth and it took him out for a few seconds. He blamed it on the fact that he still was somewhat sleepy and continued his merry way, while Teyla went to the gym. The mess seemed noisier than normal, but at first glance it didn't look that something strange was going on.

Afterwards he headed to the science labs. He had promised Rodney to help out with a certain experiment. When he got there things didn't look like he expected them too; Rodney was staring at a wall, very intensely, but there was nothing to see (except maybe a dark smudge). When he asked Rodney what he was looking at, Rodney turned around and with a huge grin he pointed his arm in the direction of the wall and answered: 'Look, a glowing bug!'

John blinked and looked again. Nope, there was nothing to see there. He asked Rodney if he was all right, but Rodney didn't hear him anymore. He had returned to staring at the wall and didn't answer any of the other questions John asked. He thought that maybe Rodney was suffering from a lack of sleep and thought it best to leave him alone for a while. He could check up on him later and drag McKay to the infirmary if he still was acting oddly by then.

Things really started to get weird when he thought he saw Ronon driving the Pegasus equivalent of a bicycle, while yelling cheerfully 'Look, without hands!'. He wondered if they all had consumed a bit too much alcohol and was a bit angry that they hadn't thought to invite him. But he didn't have time to ask Ronon, since he was running late for a meeting with Elizabeth. Everything seemed normal there until, when they were nearing the end of the meeting, he asked if she had noticed that his team mates were acting a bit strange. With a smile she answered she hadn't seen acting them acting outside of the ordinary and John began to wonder if it was just him. Maybe he was hallucinating or wasn't still quite awake yet… and then he noticed something looking vaguely resembling a Barbie doll from sticking half in her drawer, while she waved with a cheery smile to Ronon and a marine playing with a soccerball outside of her office.

At that point he concluded he should head to the infirmary. Either something was wrong with him, or something was wrong with the others and then it was best that Carson got notified as soon as possible to find out what was going on. Maybe it was some sort of virus? Something they all had consumed? Things unfortunately weren't going his way today. All day long he was rescuing people who were suddenly acting like kids who knew no boundaries: he had to refrain Lorne from eating a plant that he remembered the biologists telling was very poisonous and a couple of scientist from putting their hands in a big fire (and off course afterwards putting the fire out, not an easy task with the scientist making it bigger by throwing stuff in it). He nearly missed Zelenka wanting to swim in the ocean with his clothes on, because he thought he had seen a mermaid. The list went on and on. There were people playing soccer in the control room and marines nearly shooting each other while playing indians and cowboys. Someone nearly got bitten by a oversized cat he wanted to hug. In between he saw Ronon and Rodney driving that odd bicycle together and encountered a sobbing Teyla who said she had seen a enormous Wraith in her room (he did check that one out! For all he knew someone had let one in in Atlantis, because he wanted to play with them).

At times he poked himself, wondering if he was having a bad dream or was drugged up by Carson, but it didn't seem to stop. There were people yelling at each other, or crying because they weren't allowed to play with others. There were people sobbing because of scraped knees and people cowering in corners claiming to have seen evil and malicious things. And always they were coming to him, like they sensed that he was the only acting like an adult here. At the end of the day, after putting people in bed who were demanding bedtime stories or goodnight kisses (it really freaked him when Ronon demanded the latter and didn't let Sheppard go until he fell asleep), he finally found the chance to go to the infirmary . By that time he was completely overwhelmed, exhausted to the bones and thinking he was near crazy. But when he noticed Carson holding a needle in his hand and asking, with a cheery smile that was totally unlike the doctor, a nurse if she wanted to play hospital with him, he gave up. He sat down against the wall, just outside the infirmary, his shoulders sagged in a way indicating defeat. Completely exhausted he closed his eyes and hoped this nightmare would be over tomorrow.

'John, John, are you awake?' he heard a female voice say in the far reaches of his sleep. Someone also seemed to poke his shoulder. Slowly he awakened to the sight of Teyla sitting kneeled beside him and Elizabeth standing at his feet, looking bemused at him.

At first he was disorientated, remembering falling asleep outside of the infirmary, but now waking up in one of the large guestrooms that were prepared for offworld inhabitants who had to spend the night in Atlantis. Something heavy seemed to cling to his legs. When he looked he saw a small boy, with a fluffy mountain lion in his hand, using his legs as a pillow.

Slowly he remembered how he got there. Yesterday Lorne's team had come through the gate, taking with him a large family of around fifteen, most of them kids, in means to protect them against the Wraith who had been planning on culling their homeworld. Most of the inhabitants had been able to flee beforehand to other worlds using the stargate, but this particular family had lived much further from the stargate than the rest of the inhabitants and wouldn't have had the time to reach it in time. They had been saved by using the puddlejumper and were permitted temporary sanctuary in Atlantis. Somehow he had ended up being the babysitter, because everyone else in Atlantis was too busy with other important things and the parents themselves had been in a meeting with Elizabeth. In a claim that John still had to recover from his surgery a week before and wasn't allowed to do any heavy work, needing to rest, they had shoved babysitting duty on him.

He didn't remember babysitting the kids being restful. He had run himself ragged trying to break up fights between the ten year old triplet, and stopping two of the older brothers wanting to climb the outside towers. In between he constantly had to console the two year old sister and listen to the boy, now lying on his legs, demanding stories. That was not counting in the rest of the kids, apparently nephews and nieces taking in by the parents after their particular parents had been killed by Wraith, fallen deadly ill or deadly wounded after encountering a huge fallen tree in a nasty storm. The grandmother had been there, but somehow she had manage to sleep throughout all the noise her grandchildren had been making . He remembered Kate Heightmeyer and Zelenka wandering in at a certain point and telling the kids stories about mermaids, and some other scientists playing with the kids for a while, but mostly he had been responsible for looking after the kids. Within hours he had been exhausted to the bones (as had the kids) and falling asleep on the pillows that had been laid against the walls a couple of hours beforehand.

'John?'

He looked up and saw Elizabeth looking at him concerned. 'Are you all right?'

With a still drowsy voice from sleeping he answered affirmative. Meanwhile the kid who had been sleeping on his legs had wandered off and was playing with the terror triplet. Elizabeth looked at him bemused for a second and then opened her mouth, wanting to ask something.

'Okay. If you're awake and well, would you mind looking today after the kids again? I-'

Before she could finish her sentence, John had sprung up and yelled loudly 'NO!', remembering the terror of yesterday and the god awfull nightmare of last night with the whole base suddenly acting as kids. With a swiftness he had never had after only being awake for such a short while he bolted up and raced outside the room, nearly unbalancing Rodney who had come in at that precise moment.

'Wha… for crying out loud-' Rodney cursed, wanting to berate John for nearly throwing him to the ground in his haste, but the colonel had managed to reach the end of the hallway before Rodney had even been able to say that. He looked at Elizabeth and asked confused.

'What's up with him?'

Teyla and Elizabeth looked bemused at him. Elizabeth answered.

'I have no idea.'

In the background of the room was Ronon, busy trying to keep the two year old girl from eating the plant, put in the room for decoration, while keeping the two oldest brothers and a younger nephew from climbing on the balcony.

FINI