Title: Hide and seek

Author: Jammeke

Summary: After teaching Jinto and Wex the basics of the game, Major Sheppard finds out that the Athosian kids play Hide and Seek for a different reason than he had in mind – and learns that sometimes games are not so innocent after all.

Rating: K+

Disclaimer: It's not mine, which is an absolute shame. I wouldn't mind owning a John Sheppard - or two.

Hide and Seek

"… and then you start counting off." Major John Sheppard flashed Jinto a wide smile.

Jinto stared at him blankly.

"You can count to twenty, can you?" John asked, suddenly concerned. Teaching the Athosian kids all about football and Hide and Seek was something he could do. Explaining to them the basics of math, however, was a different matter entirely.

The Major had done a good job of hiding his knack for math to his co-workers so far. He didn't want McKay or any of the other scientists to know about his loathed talent in math. His father had gone to great lengths to keep him from joining the Air Force ("You can and will do so much better") and the offered math scholarship had made his father protest more than he would have if he'd just taken John's word on John's uselessness.

John was pretty sure his father was convinced of his uselessness now.

There were other reasons why John had grown to dislike math, and though his knack for numbers came in handy every now and then, he couldn't help but associate math formulas with the eager face of his fifth grade's math teacher, and the man's 'friendly' touch. The Major suppressed a shiver, and erased the image of Dr. Walker's greedy face from his mind.

Understanding lit Jinto's face. "Yes, I can count to twenty. When you say count off…" A frown appeared on his face, as he tried to put his thoughts into words.

"I mean count, just count. You need to count to twenty," John supplied. He gave the boy an encouraging nod. "You with me so far?"

"I think so," Jinto said.

"Good." John looked at the kid sitting next to Jinto; Dex or Mex or… something. "You, too?"

The kid nodded eagerly.

John smiled. "The moment the seeker's eyes are closed, the hiders start looking for a place to hide. Obviously."

"Why would we hide from one another?" Jinto asked, looking puzzled.

John stared at him. "Because… that's the point of the game. Hide and seek. The seeker has to find his hidden friends."

"Oh." Jinto still looked confused. "But would I not hear Wex hide himself if he only has twenty seconds to disappear?"

Wex, that was it. The other kid's name.

"Well, I'm sure Wex can be quiet if he wants to be." Of that John was convinced. He was pretty sure the kid's parents had taught the boy to run quietly in case the Wraith came to their village."

Wex nodded eagerly again.

"When the seeker's stopped counting, he starts looking for his friends," John continued, clasping his hands together. "Once he spots one of them, he has to tag them to get them out. Meanwhile, the hiders can try to make a dash for the 'Home Base', which is the place where the seeker counts off."

Jinto and Wex gave him identical looks of incomprehension.

"Touching the base area makes a hider safe," John explained patiently. "The aim of the game is to touch the 'Home Base' without being tagged."

"I thought you said the aim of the game was to find hidden friends?" Wex asked carefully.

John suppressed a sigh sigh. Were children from Earth brighter than children from Athos, or was he, John, just bad at explaining things? Maybe it was a combination of both. In either case, he decided to keep Santa's tale to himself for the time being. They would cross that bridge when Christmas arrived.

"Look," he said, putting on a friendly smile. "The aim of the seeker is to find the hiders and tag them. The aim of the hiders is either not to be found, or to make it back to base without being tagged. The two parties have different goals."

"Oh." To his credit, Jinto finally looked like he was getting it. "I see."

Wex still looked unconvinced, but apparently, he didn't want Jinto and John to know he didn't get the purpose of the game. "Easy," he said with a nonchalant expression.

"All right, then, let's play." John came to his feet, and gestured for the boys to stand up as well. "You want to be it?" he asked Jinto.

The boy looked lost again.

"It," John repeated, groaning inwardly. "The seeker."

"Ah, yes." Jinto nodded eagerly. "I will look for you, is that correct?"

"You are going to try to find us, yes," John confirmed. "This is our 'Home Base'." He touched the Ancient plant in the window sill to his right. "You may start counting to twenty."

Jinto nodded. "One, two…"

"Close your eyes," John warned.

"Of course." Jinto turned his back on John and Wex. "… three, four, five…"

John gestured for Wex to get moving, and ducked out into the corridor himself. There was an Ancient closet – or something like it – just around the corner, and the little room was the perfect hiding spot. It was close enough not to give Jinto too much of a hard time, but far enough not to let the kid know the Major was going easy on him.

John waved his hand over the closet's panel and stepped inside. Just as he made to close the door behind him, a protesting cry from Wex' caught his attention. Before John could shut the door, the little boy had joined him in the closet – or whatever it was. Wex prodded him in the side. "You think he will not find us here?"

John waved his hand over the panel and the door closed shut. He looked down at the boy at his side. "Couldn't find a spot yourself, huh?"

Wex shrugged.

John decided to let the matter drop, and peeked through the stained glass windows in the Ancient door. Jinto had not made his way around the corner yet.

"What happens if we are tagged?" Wex asked, his voice way too loud for a person in hiding.

"We lose," John replied quietly. He peeked through the glass again and drew his head back when he caught sight of Jinto at the end of the corridor. "Here he comes."

"Major? Wex?" Jinto's voice carried through the corridor. "Wex?"

Wex poked John in the side again, and John jumped. "What?" he hissed.

"What happens when we lose?"

John stared at Wex. It was hard to be annoyed with the earnest looking boy, but he found himself gradually losing patience. "Nothing. You start a new game."

Wex smiled. "Oh." John's answer seemed to put his mind at rest, and John wondered what the rules of games on Athos had been. Maybe the losers had been forced to do the dishes for a week, or banned from their tents.

The door slid open. "Major?"

John looked down at Jinto. "Well done, Jinto. You've found us."

"What do I do now?" Jinto's gaze flickered between Wex and John.

"Now you tag us." John held out his arm. "Here."

Jinto hesitantly touched his hand to John's, and after that, he touched Wex' arm as well. "Does this mean that I have won?" he asked hopefully.

"Yep." John beamed at him.

"I want to be the seeker now!" Wex exclaimed.

"Knock yourself out," John said, fumbling with his earpiece. "I have a meeting in ten minutes, and you know how Dr. Weir gets when people are late."

Of course Wex and Jinto didn't know how Elizabeth reacted to late comers, but they nodded anyway. Shaking his head, John shoved Wex out of the closet and stepped out after the boy. "How about you guys practice playing this game for a little while longer, while I tell Teyla all about your new developed skills," he suggested.

"All right." Wex beamed at Jinto. "I am the seeker." Abruptly closing his eyes, he started counting.

"What about the 'Home Ba-" John started, but Jinto had already disappeared down the corridor. Shaking his head, he left Wex standing in the middle of the hallway. The Gate room was a two minute walk away from here, and he figured the boys would be fine for the time being. He'd check up on them again in a few hours.

John couldn't help but smile as he heard Wex' clear voice skip the last five numbers. Apparently, cheating had been invented in the Pegasus Galaxy as well.

oOo

"Who's winning?"

Jinto shot a careful look in Wex' direction. "Are we not standing here talking to you right now?"

John calmly breathed out through his nose. "All right, who was winning?"

Wex beamed. "I was."

John's eyebrows shot up. "Really?" Huh.

Wex was too busy being excited to take offence to his little slip-up. "Will you play with us again?"

John looked at his watch. Only thirty minutes 'till dinner. He could do that, right? Play along for a little while; give the boys a good time… Those kids sure could use a break after fighting for their very lives for… how many years? How old would they be? "Sure."

The kids beamed at each other. John figured he'd have to teach them about high-fiving, too, one day. There was much left for him to do in the Pegasus galaxy.

"All right. That's the 'Home Base'," he said, pointing at the Ancient fountain behind Jinto. Flashing them a grin, he added, "you two had better run fast, 'cause I will hunt you down."

They stared at him in awe.

"Go on." John made a shooing gesture with his right hand. "Run." He closed his eyes and started counting.

As he tried to block out the sound of their loud footsteps, he couldn't help but smile. They were both running in the same direction, and he would no doubt find them both hiding in the same spot. Kids could be easy to predict sometimes – when they weren't busy scratching you surprise drawings in the lacquer coat of your car with a pebble.

"Twenty," he yelled, giving them a fair warning.

Of course, he started looking in all the places they were not first. After aimlessly wandering through the hallways for five minutes – peeking behind a crate every now and then for good measure – he decided he'd played nice long enough. The boys hadn't come running for the 'Home Base' yet, and he would have to explain that aspect of the game to them again some other time. For now, he was content just to watch them enthuse over hiding from him and each other.

They were cowering behind a comfortable-looking white couch, and were too caught up in being silent to notice him. John coughed, and they turned around to look at him. "You have found us."

"Seems that way." John put his hands in his pockets. "You might want to try walking on your toes next time you run off to hide."

The boys nodded. "We will," Jinto assured him. John noticed he was holding his Wraith mask in his right hand, and was surprised he didn't see it there before. "Are you telling me I just caught a Wraith?" he joked.

Jinto looked down at the mask himself, and blushed. "It's Wex'," he said quickly, pushing the mask into the hands of his friends. "He went to his room to retrieve it."

Wex put the mask on. "I like wearing this mask," he announced, looking up at the Major, and John found himself startled at the sight of a Wraith gazing up at him. To say the mask looked unsettlingly real was an understatement. "Looking through the eyes of the enemy makes me understand the way they think better," the boy continued.

John was startled at the kid's words. Childish though the boy acted, he'd obviously aged beyond his years in his constant battle for survival. The kid's wise words echoing in his mind, John forced a smile back on his face again. "Well, I'm glad I've caught you," he said lightly. "Catching Wraith is good, right?"

Jinto cleared his throat. "You have caught Wraith before, have you not? You went to save my father from a Hive Ship."

Wex put down the mask again, and John was touched by the expectant faces looking up at him. He sighed. "Yeah, I suppose I have found and grabbed Wraith before." Not to mention piss them off and wake them all up.

They were looking at him admiringly again, and John found the experience strangely unflattering. Did these boys not know he'd single-handedly unleashed a threat on their galaxy the likes of which their generation had never seen before? Didn't they understand that he wasn't a hero – that he'd merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time? How could he make them see?

"Will you look for us again?" Wex asked expectantly, tugging at his sleeve and shaking John out of his thoughts. "We are the Wraith," he pointed to the alien mask with his free hand, "and you may hunt us down."

"Yes, you can practice on us," Jinto suggested.

John closed his eyes for a second. "Yeah… yes, that's… Go ahead and hide." He gave them a tight smile and turned around.

As he tried to block out the sound of their footsteps again, John tried not to think about how the boys would react if they found out that he'd screwed up their already messed up lives some more. "Six, seven, eight…"

"You have no idea what you have done…"

"… nine, ten, eleven…"

"We are merely the caretakers for those that sleep."

"… twelve, thirteen, fourteen…"

"When I die, the others will awake…"

"… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…"

"All of them…"

"Eighteen! Nineteen! Twenty!"

oOo

"Psssst."

The door to Wex' room slid open to reveal his best friend standing behind it, holding his Wraith mask in his hands. Wex handed the mask to Jinto. "Your turn to be the Wraith," he declared.

Jinto shook his head. "You can be the Wraith. I get to be Major Sheppard."

Wex shot him an awestruck look. "Ohh…"

With a smile, Jinto handed the mask back to Wex. Looking around for a 'Home Base', he decided on a nearby container containing dead branches. After taking one of the branches out to use as a rifle, he leaned against the wall with his face against his arms.

"One, two, three…"

Wex hurried off into the dark, and Jinto peeked to see which way he went. Smiling, he grabbed the branch a little tighter. He would become as good at this game as Major Sheppard. In the morning, he would tell the brave Major that he had won this time. And then they would hunt Wraith together.

"… nineteen, twenty."

Jinto opened his eyes and aimed his riffle. He was ready to face the Wraith. He would kill them all for taking his mother away from him.

With that thought in mind, he started hunting.

The end