Shepard wasn't quite sure how he ended up with a bunch of little children and a baby, but he wanted out and now. He left the Normandy for 10 minutes and came back to see his crew, both former and current, as children. Thank God it hadn't been the whole ship. Why they were in the ship wasn't a mystery. They had been talking about what they had wanted to do for Shepard's birthday as well as what to get him. Shepard had only went off for a little while and had come back to spy on them least he needed to drop hints on what the perfect gifts would be later. What he found was that all of them were either babies or children and EDI unresponsive.

He had thought about dumping them off on relatives, but of course he couldn't. Actually it was more like he couldn't considering he was ordered to take care of them so a cure could be found more easily. Besides all of them seemed more comfortable with him so it was his duty to care for them. Even if he wasn't being ordered, he still didn't have a choice. Jack, Tali, Wrex, and Grunt didn't have any parents, Miranda's father was dead and a horrible choice even if he wasn't and he didn't know about Oriana, and Chakwas's mother was too elderly to care for her. He had fixed up the crew quarters to make it more kid friendly with toys, the bunk beds replaced with regular beds with the covers being of popular children's shows, and of course shopping for clothes. It took forever, but he had managed to find everything he needed in order to satisfy the little runts.

"I'm home!" said Shepard announced himself to his little wards. Little Tali in her environmental suit greeted him by reaching up for him. Well that was what he thought she was doing. She was much more interested in what he was carrying the bags he had with him when he had placed them down to pick her up, she went straight for one of them.

"Cookies!" She squealed holding up the box of cookies he had bought and started doing a little dance in celebration.

"You're welcome," He said chuckling softly at Tali's dance moves. "Just make sure you save some for the others, okay?"

"Okay!" She took off running for the other room. While he was putting away the groceries, it suddenly came into his mind that the ship was quieter than usual. Usually he could hear giggling, shouting, footsteps, and talking from the kids, but for some reason it was really quiet. As a matter of fact, it was too quiet. They hadn't snuck off the ship had they? He had Rupert looking after the kids for a while so where was he to tell Shepard he was leaving?

He got this strange feeling in his gut to check up on the kids and Rupert. He snuck into the crew quarters and found a knocked out Rupert tied up to a chair with glitter in his hair, marker drawings on his face, arms, pants, and shirt, and a purple feather boa around his neck. The kids were nowhere to be found though. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, laugh or be concerned for Rupert.

"I'd better check to see if he's still breathing," Shepard checked for a pulse and was relieved to find he was still alive. "I hope they didn't do any permanent damage...whatever the heck they did. I wonder how they knocked him out?"

MEANWHILE

"Daddy's gonna be mad at you, James," Ashley said poking James hard on his chest. Ashley was referring to the fact that it had been James' doing and decision to knock out Rupert. To make matters worse, Rupert sure as heck would get them for not stopping James. Now they were probably getting a spanking by both of them though Shepard was yet to spank any of them yet.

"Me? You're the one who put the glitter on his head, ugly!" James said poking Ashley. "And that was before I knocked him out!"

"He's still going to be more mad at you, you...you..."

"You what, big lips?!"

"You stupid monkey poop head!" yelled Ashley shoving James down hard despite the fact that he was much bigger than her.

"Get her, James!" encouraged Garrus as the two started fighting and pulling each other's hair. Liara covered up her eyes while Jack, Tali, Miranda, Grunt, Chakwas aka Karen, and Kaidan looked on with interest. The fight had been cut short when Shepard came into the AI Core and pulled them off each other. Actually he had to pull Ashley off of James and even then he had a hard time getting her off him. When he did finally manage to get get her off, James had scratches on him while Ashley didn't have a scratch on her. Her hair long black hair that was in a messy braid was undone though. Besides that, it was pretty clear James had his ass handed to him by Ashley.

"That's enough you two," He said still holding the girl back.

"JAMES HIT RUPERT OVER THE HEAD WITH A FRYING PAN!" Ashley yelled right away. "AND GARRUS WAS THE ONE WHO DREW ON HIM AND KAIDAN AND JACK HELPED HIM! AND I SAW LIARA WRITING THE 'A' WORD ON THE WALL WHEN JAMES TOLD HER TO EVEN THOUGH SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO!"

"Tattle tale!" said James.

"Snitch!" piped up Kaidan sticking his tongue out at her.

"N-no I didn't!" said Liara.

"And you put glitter on Rupert!" said Jack.

"No I didn't!" lied Ashley.

"That's enough all of you," said Shepard. "All of you are going to go in there and apologize to Rupert...after I take a picture."