Chocolate and fists fights

AN: A while since an update, I know! I'm sorry! But this is a looooooooooong chapter, so I've made up for it. ;) Here we shall get a closer look at li'l Aiden and Rodney, and general chaos ensues. The plot will start after this chapter, I promise. Have fun!

Exploded Pen: Thank you! I also have a pen that likes to explode. Most irritating, yet somehow... fun. (excuse my random reply, but I'minstant messaging about five other people as I writing this...)

jyorraku: You're welcome!

Jen R: You pose an interesting idea (which I'd already kind of planned in, so you're in luck.)But like I said, i do have a plan, so if I want ideas, I'll ask for them, but thanks for suggesting!

angel: Ford gets more action in this chapter, anyway, so enjoy, and keep revewing!

Frog: Thank you! I don't mind you being a grammer Nazi. I'm one too, but I never see my own mistakes! Hope you enjoy this!

MandyK: Yay! A Scot! I'm fromScotlandmyself, (lower down than Aberdeen, though), so I like to think I can write the Scottish accent ;). Hope you enjoy this as much as you did the last chapter!

Jaws: Chomp on this, my fanged friend! ;)

Guardingingangels86: Ooooookay. I'm just reporting what I've already seen elsewhere. Anyways, did you actually enjoy the story, or did you just review to correct the matter?

prepare4trouble: Well, I'm glad you found this! Have fun reading!

sg1fan33: Ah, here we go. The problem with typing, my friend, is that you can't get across any tone of voice, and its easy for misunderstandings to occur. I didn't mean to come off sounding as wounded as I think I probably did when I answered your questions. Believe it or not, I actually like when people pick my stuff apart! I like being able to get my teethe into a review. Another thing I (and any other author on ) loves? Long reviews. For Gods sake, don't shorten them just because you feel you have to!Long reviews are fantastic! (But don't feel obliged to write an essay every time you review just because of what I've said!) I don't mind you picking up my grammer either, a lot of people do, and it is something I need to work on, but, just a a general pointer for reviewing any work on , if you mention one thing (like grammer) in one review, and then go on to review other chapters, don't mention it over and over again, because you can bet the author will already be very well aware of the fault already by then. Other than that, thanks for all your comments, and keep reading and reviewing and have fun! ;)

Highonscifi: Thank you! Sheppard does act a tad childish sometimes... ;D Anyway, enjoy this, and keep reviewing!

Johnliz4ever: Here's some more, which I hope you enjoy as much!

Bridget N: Thank you!

Kbandy: Thank you! Yes, imagine the possibilities.... -evil grin-. Hehe, of the fun! Hope you enjoy this!

Missmcweir: Thanks! Everybody seems to like that line... have fun reading!

PurpleYin: You'll get to see li'l Rodney in this, so don't worry. ;) Have fun!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The sound of the door clicking open brought Teyla's head up in an instant. Instinctive fear welled up under her skin and she shuddered, struggling not to join the snivelling boy and dive into the cupboard she now had her back to. She was Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tegaan. She was not afraid. She was not afraid…

It was that boy. The boy who had stared at her so, back in the corridor. His clothes were far too big, and he was small and bendy looking, as if he had wire beneath his skin, instead of bones.

He closed the door behind him, and looked around him, doubtfully. He had greenish eyes and hair that needed combing. Teyla watched him warily, pondering how fast she could get the knife she had discovered in one of her pockets to his throat if he should do anything threatening.

But the boy did nothing threatening. Instead he stuffed his hands in the pocket's of his over sized clothes, and grinned at her. An odd grin. It twisted at the edges and made his nose wrinkle up. Teyla wondered what he was up to.

Slowly, easily, he shuffled over the carpet in shoes that were clearly too big for him, and sat down beside her.

She wriggled away, not liking how close he was to touching her.

The movement didn't seem to phase him. He shoved his sleeves up to his wrists, and then pushed his hair out of his eyes, to blink at her, "hey."

She had no response. Hay was a kind of grass. It was an odd thing to say. He was a very odd little boy. Everything was odd and out of sink today.

The boy tipped his head when she didn't say anything, "bet I can guess your name."

Teyla blinked back. Of course he could guess her name. He had already said it, when he had been staring at her in the corridor. Not only odd, but foolish. Boys were silly like that.

"You're Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tegaan, right?" He asked.

Teyla raised her eyebrows at him.

John very nearly doubled over with laughter. It was exactly the same look she had given him when he had attempted to explain the point of junk food, a few weeks back.

"You wanna know how I know?" He pressed on. He wanted her to talk to him. Some kind, any kind, of response, from this solemn, silent little girl and they might be getting someone. He didn't fancy attempting to go for Ford. The kid was even younger, and still pretending to be a dog…

Teyla folded her arms over her knees and put her head down. John sighed, inwardly. "You wanna know who I am, Teyla?"

"No."

Well, there was a word, at least. Not a very helpful word, but still… progress, he supposed. "Why not?"

"I do not talk with strangers." Her voice was muffled, but the message was clear. Suddenly, John had an over-powering sense of deja-vu.

"Well then…" He shrugged, and nudged her with his elbow. She jerked away instantly, as if she'd been scalded, head coming up to glare at him. Rule number one when dealing with small Athosians: strictly no contact… John made a mental note and continued, "we'll just have to get to know each other, wont we?"

"Do we have to?" She still looked rather resentful of his nudge, her eyes cold with something like distain. It was kinda irritating. That, and a sudden instinctive fear of cooties was starting to make John want to take several steps back. But he needed to get the kids talking…

"Look, Teyla," he sighed, "I don't know if you've noticed, but this… uh… situation ain't exactly normal right now. You're… a little lost. In fact, we're all a little lost. We kinda have a mess on our hands. And in order to clean up that mess, and get you, and us… un-lost, we're gonna have to help each other out. Now how can we do that if you're refusing to talk to us 'cause we're strangers?"

Teyla eyed him cautiously for a few seconds. He had a point. Which was annoying. She didn't like being out-reasoned. She prided herself on being the most logical child in her camp.

Taking rather non-plussed silence as a cue to continue, John put a hand on his chest, "I'm John Sheppard. I like football and Ferris wheels and things that go really, really fast."

She stared at him blankly for a few seconds, until he added, "your turn."

She turned away, "you already know my name."

"So?"

"You are a very odd little boy."

"We're suppose to be talking about you, here."

"I do not share secrets with strangers."

"Fan-dabby-dosy. Want some chocolate?"

"What is chocolate?" She turned back to him to stare at him with a puzzled frown.

"Ah, well, that's the question," John grinned and produced a bar, thanking his lucky stars that Teyla had obviously developed her thirst for knowledge of alien cultures early on in life.

He unwrapped the bar and broke off a piece, "you eat it, see?" and tossed the piece into his mouth, "you want some? It's good, promise. No poison." He broke off another piece and offered it to her.

For a few seconds, Teyla contemplated him warily. Her eyes narrowed slightly, then she reached out and cautiously took the chocolate from him. She turned it over in her fingers, sniffed it, looked at John to see if he had dropped dead from consuming the stuff, found that he hadn't, and nibbled off a corner experimentally.

Finding the taste a little odd, very sweet and strange, she nibbled off another corner, then finally placed the whole thing into her mouth and sat slowly sucking it, contemplating what she was swallowing.

John watched her, "any good?"

Teyla shrugged non-commitally. John grinned. "Want another bit?"

He steadily fed her half of the wrest of the chocolate, and found that Beckett had been right. She suddenly seemed a lot more pliable with sugar inside her. "What is this place?" She enquired, finishing a piece and holding out her hand for another.

John handed her the last bit of the first bar, "oh, so now you wanna know, huh?"
She raised her eyebrows at him, again reminding him that this really was Teyla he was looking at, and that she clearly was no less to be trifled with than her adult self.

"Well, uh… it's…" he struggled to find a suitable answer for her.

He was saved by a squeal from Ford junior. "you got chocolate?!"

The boy flung himself down on his knees next to the older children and held out his hands expectantly, "gimmi, gimmi, gimmi! Come on, gimmi the chocolate! Come on! Come on! I'm hungry!"

"Alright, alright, slow down, kid," Sheppard held up his hands in defence, reaching into his pocket to retrieve the second chocolate bar, "here, have some of this."

"Yummy, yummy, yummy!" Ford proclaimed, "can I have some more? Can I? Can I? Huh huh huh?"

"No, you can eat that first," Sheppard told him, firmly.

"And I'm not a kid," Ford told him, swallowing the chocolate in one gulp, "I'm five. Five whole years. And… six months. That's a half. I'm five and a half. So I'm nearly six. Then I'll be really old. I'm going to be in first grade next year."

"That's great, Ford, really great," Sheppard sighed.

"Ford?" Ford asked, "my name's not Ford. That's my second name, silly! My name's Aiden. Can I have some more chocolate now? Can I? Can I please?"

"One more piece," Sheppard told the five year old, "but that's it. Any more and you'll get… more hyper than you already are. You're one of those kids who gets jittery on sugar, I can tell."

"Awww," Ford looked crestfallen, "promise I wont get hyper. Promise…"

"One more," Sheppard handed him it, "that's it. Besides, we've still got old cowardly wheeze-lungs to get out of this cupboard. I can hear him breathing from here!"

"I have asthma!" A slightly muffled voice, sounding more than a little indignant, came from inside the cupboard, "you shouldn't call people names! It's not nice!"

"Do you have a name?" Sheppard goaded, "or would you prefer we just called you the cupboard-kid?"

"Go away!"

"'Fraid that's not gonna happen, cupboard-kid," Sheppard replied, jovially, "we're a little stuck. Now are you gonna come out? We have chocolate…"

There was a pause, then, "milk chocolate?"

"Yeah…"

"'Cause white chocolate gives me migraines and cavities and I'm not supposed to eat it and I don't like dark chocolate."

"It's milk chocolate," Sheppard confirmed, "and you can't get it if you stay in there."

There was another pause, then the cupboard opened a crack and a hand was stuck out, expectantly. "I'm not coming out."

"Look, McKay, just get out of the god damn cupboard, will ya?" The pint sized major demanded.

Aiden giggled, "you swore!"

"My name's not McKay!" McKay called, from inside the cupboard, "and I wanna go home! I need my inhaler. If I don't get it soon I'll turn blue and die!"

"Don't be such a drama queen," Sheppard rolled his eyes, "now come out and get the chocolate and we can all sit round and figure out how to get out of this mess, okay?"

"I am not a drama queen!" McKay sounded outraged, "I'm serious! I really need my inhaler! I'll die! Swear it!"

Ford proceeded to make things worse, "Drama queen!" He crowed, leaping up to bounce up and down, "drama queen! Drama queen!"

"Shut up!" McKay sounded close to tears, "shut up, shut up!"

Ford didn't shut up.

The cupboard burst open, sending Teyla shrieking across the room with a banged head, and McKay leaping over the floor to fling himself at the bouncing Ford. "I said, shut up!"

The unfortunate five year old found himself flat on his back with a rather heavy nine year old sitting on his chest, pummelling with chubby fists. Aiden shrieked and twisted and kicked with surprising strength. He was much smaller and lighter than McKay, but he was also quicker and more athletic. It took him surprisingly little effort to worm his way out of McKay's grasp, but McKay was enraged, and suffocating, and he continued to land blows on the younger child.

Sheppard bounded after then, "hey! Hey! Hey! Break it up!"

"He started it!" McKay yelled, as Sheppard took a good handful of the back of the mini-scientist's shirt.

"That's no excuse! Get off him!"

"Aaaaaargh!" Ford howled, though McKay was clearly hardly hurting the boy, "Aaaaaargh!"

"Get off!" Sheppard took McKay's collar in both hands and yanked hard, dragging Rodney off his victim. Ford instantly leapt to his feet and dived beneath the nearest table.

The door was flung open as Doctor Weir and Beckett, with several other medical staff tumbling in after them. Beckett scrambled to assist Sheppard with the thrashing Rodney, "What in heaven's name is going on in here?"

"A little late, aren'tcha?" Sheppard demanded.

"Well we didn't expect you to come to blows quite that quickly!" Beckett replied, looking down as Rodney's squirming slowed, "okay, okay, sonny-boy, let's take a breath here, shall we?"

But Rodney was having trouble taking so much of a gasp. His wheezing had increased two fold, his breath juddering and shallow, his eyes bulging.

"Aw, crap," Sheppard moaned, "he wasn't exaggerating."

"He's asthmatic?" Beckett froze.

"Well done, Doctor!" Sheppard rolled his eyes.

"Bloody hell!" Beckett groaned, "alright, come on lad, up ye get, let's get you some oxygen, come on now, come on, not time tei loose."

The wheezing nine year old was helped away, as Ford reappeared from beneath his table. "He's a psycho!"
Sheppard punched his arm, "you started it."

"Awww, phooey!" Ford waved his hand, "I coulda taken him."

"You?" Sheppard demanded, "you're a titch!"

"I'm almost as tall as you!" Ford leapt up and down, grinning.

Sheppard gave him a shove, "hey! I'm vertically challenged! Leave it out, will ya?"

"You're a titch, you're a titch!" Ford sing-songed.

Sheppard rolled his eyes, "I'm starting to see you being beaten up a lot in kindergarten. Come on. You want some more chocolate?"

"Yeah!"

In the commotion and confusion, Elizabeth found that one small and quiet member of SGA:1 had been forgotten.

Teyla had relocated to the other side of the room to get out of the way of the scrap, and had taken up her old silent curled position, rubbing the back of her head where the cupboard door had clipped it. Elizabeth raised an eyebrows, then cautiously approached the Athosian child.

"Hey."

Teyla jumped and looked up, wide brown eyes staring at the woman. Elizabeth felt her heart melt. The child was adorable. It was disturbing, because the Teyla she knew was many things, but cute was definitely not one of them.

"Do you feel like coming out? Following the boys?" Elizabeth suggested.

Teyla shook her head.

Elizabeth dropped down beside the little girl, "me neither. My name's… Doctor Weir. But you can call me Elizabeth. Are you going to tell me your name?"

Teyla eyed her warily. She sort of liked the look of this woman, but… looks could be very deceiving. "Where did they go?"

"Well…" Elizabeth considered, "Rodney will be going to the medical bay, and I suppose John and Aiden will have followed."

Another pause. Teyla was examining her hands, picking dirt from beneath her nails. "Will they be coming back?"

"Maybe," Elizabeth shrugged, "why? Do you want to see them?"
Teyla chewed on a finger nail, "where is my father?"

The Atlantis expedition leader stopped short. What in the world could she tell the child? She knew Teyla's family had all been killed off at various stages throughout the woman's childhood. Clearly her father had been taken when she was slightly older than this. But that didn't change the fact he was most definitely dead.

"You know, I'm not sure," Elizabeth lied, "he's not here. And I think… maybe we need to get you back to him. Get you home. And we're gonna need your help with that."

"Why?" The Athosian child asked, still chewing a finger nail.

Elizabeth wracked her brains in an attempt to come up with some way of offering a digestible summary of the situation to the girl, "because… because… you've been changed. And so have the boys. You've been changed in a way that's not… not bad, exactly, but… difficult… and you've lost your memory. And we're hoping that we can get your memory back, so we can find a way to… change you back. You see?"

"And then I can go home?" Teyla asked, hopefully.

"Then you can go home," Elizabeth agreed.

"Oh." Said Teyla, and she frowned, as if contemplating the situation in a very serious manner. She looked up suddenly, "do you have any more… chocolate?"

Elizabeth smiled, "no, but I know just where to get some. Come with me, and I'll show you."