A/N: All of your wonderful reviews made me want to update right away! But seeing as I didn't have a chapter ready, that was kind of difficult. So here you go.

And, I must give credit and thanks to Musik-luvr, who gave a few very helpful suggestions for my story. (What they were, exactly, I will not say yet.) Thanks!

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Chapter 3 - Scaring the Kiddos

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John was bored.

Very, very bored. Elizabeth had insisted that he be grounded from off-world missions until the cat thing was fixed. It'd been four days since then.

He'd sparred with Ronon and Teyla, several times. He'd volunteered to help in the kitchens. He'd inventoried the weapons stock and re-inventoried the weapons stock. He'd loitered around Rodney's lab until the scientist had snapped at him to either leave him alone, or to stay and risk getting the rest of his body turned into a cat, then getting caged, and then being sent to Madison as a birthday present.

He'd suffered through more people asking to touch/see his ears, and had a scabbing lower lip and tender tongue from his fangs pricking them all the time. He'd been careful to avoid all the scientists of the zoology department, who wanted to examine him like he was some kind of mutant (something John did not appreciate). He'd jogged around Atlantis until he was dizzy, and accidentally knocked down Rodney twice in the process (okay, maybe not totally accidentally, but what was the man doing talking to Katie in the hallways when he could be working on the device?)

Hell, he'd even gone so far as to finish all his paperwork. That was a bad sign. If he was that desperate, then he was really bored.

If he didn't do something, and quick, he'd end up doing something dangerously stupid. Like the time he'd been grounded after the retrovirus incident, and had decided to try and skateboard on the railing of the West Pier.

Elizabeth had been Not. Happy. The kind of Not Happy that made him want to hide in a corner and cower from her wrath.

Even the memory of how angry she had been made his ears flatten meekly. Bad boy. No more pulling life-threatening skateboard stunts on the West Pier for him.

Well, it had seemed like a good idea at the time…

"John?"

Sheppard, who'd been poking unenthusiastically at his breakfast (pancakes with syrup – why did he have this strange craving for catnip?) looked up and half-smiled at Teyla. "Yeah, what's up?"

She smiled back and took a seat besides him. "I was wondering – you have seemed fairly unoccupied these last few days, and I need someone to fly me to the mainland. I would like to visit my people."

Sheppard perked up immediately. "Sure, no problem! When do we leave?"

"After you finish eating, if possible."

"Done," John said promptly, picking up his barely touched plate and throwing it away. Teyla looked amused, and John suspected that she hadn't really planned on visiting the mainland today; she was just doing it for his sake.

Which was perfectly fine by him.

- -

The trip to the mainland was fairly quiet; John was happily enjoying the sensation of flying the jumper, while Teyla seemed content to relax in the co-pilot's seat. When they arrived, he parked the jumper within eye-view of the Athosian settlement, saying cheerfully, "This is your captain John Sheppard, pleased to announce that we've arrived. Thank you for using the Puddle Jumper airlines, we hope you had a safe and comfortable trip. Be sure to throw away your excess trash in the specified containers."

Teyla merely gave him a tolerant, indulgent glance, used to his sometimes-odd behavior. He gestured for her to lead the way, and followed her into the settlement.

Halling was there with a few others to greet them, smiling and doing the head-touching thing. "Teyla! What a wonderful surprise, we did not expect you for another three days," Halling said, confirming John's suspicions.

Teyla sent John a small smile, replying, "Yes, I thought it might be wise to come earlier. How have you been doing?"

As they talked, a shout went up from the settlement; John's ears twitched; it sounded like the kids had just found out about their arrival. The flicking movement drew attention to the little change of his facial features; but it seemed Athosians were more polite (either that, or just used to the bizarreness of the Pegasus Galaxy) than Earthlings, for they made no comment.

As expected, a group of kids lead by Jinto came running up, excited to see Teyla and Sheppard again. It drew a smile to his face –

- until the kids took one look at him, froze in their tracks, and with several squeaks of startled fear, ran away.

"Hey!" John called in dismay. "Come back, it's okay…" But they were gone, and he turned to Teyla, his ears flattening in woe. "I don't look that horrible, do I?"

She coughed, probably trying to hide a laugh, and pointed to his mouth. "John, when you smiled, the, ah, fangs showed themselves."

"Oh." Find wall, bang head. "Well now what?"

"Go talk to them," Teyla advised. "They will overcome their surprise soon enough."

So John wandered around for a while, calling, "Jinto? Dunya? Kira? C'mon, guys, it's just me! I swear, I'm not a big bad monster or anything."

A small voice came from the bush to his right. "So why do you have huge sharp teeth, then?"

All the better to eat you with, my dears. "It was an accident. One of the machines in Atlantis malfunctioned and changed my looks a little."

The voice (which John recognized as Dunya, a small seven-year-old girl) replied with alarm. "Are you okay?"

He smiled, being careful to make sure that this time his lips covered the fangs. "Yeah, I'm good. Just with cat ears and sharp teeth… but I'm the same Sheppard."

"Oh, good!" Dunya jumped out of the bush and called, "It's okay to come out now!" Within a few seconds, the kids had surrounded him demanding to know more: if the fangs hurt his lips, if he was going to keep them (because they were "pretty cool," as Jinto put it), if he had a tail, and various other questions.

"No, I'm not keeping them. No, I don't have a tail, thank the Ancients," John replied, sitting on his heels so he was roughly at their height.

"Can we touch them?" Kira asked shyly.

John considered for a few seconds, but at the hopeful looks on their faces, gave in. "Yeah, but no yanking, please."

With a few delighted giggles (alarmingly similar to those that the women on Atlantis had given upon touching his ears) they crowded around to pet the fuzzy flaps. Thankfully they were all pretty gentle, being careful not to pull hard.

John was about ready to stand up when a hand started scratching at the base of his right ear. He froze, almost whimpering as an overwhelming feeling of sleepy content washed over him. Damn, that felt good!

A throaty, thrumming noise was issuing from somewhere, and it took him a few moments to realize that it was coming from him – he was purring. The kids giggled, exclaiming, "He's purring!" "He's like a real cat!" John didn't particularly care – as long as they kept scratching right there, he could stay here forever.

Some time later, when Teyla had finished with her visiting, she found him curled into a ball with the kids around him, some just talking and playing, others at work scratching his ears, with a strange, heavy humming sound in the air.

"John?" she questioned, sounding rather bemused. "Is that – are you -"

"He's purring," Kira supplied cheerfully, rubbing the tip of his ear so that the purring increased.

"Yeah, he's been doing it for a really long time now!" Jinto said, grinning.

Sheppard was sure that the look on Teyla's face was priceless, but at the moment his eyes were closed as he floated in a cloud of pure bliss, and he really couldn't be bothered to open them.

"I see." Teyla sounded as if she didn't know whether to laugh or to be worried. "John, we should be going."

"Imaninut," he mumbled. He was trying to say, "in a minute," but his mouth seemed to be on vacation, or malfunctioning, or something. He really didn't care. Right now, the kids had him wrapped around their pinky fingers. Tien had just asked if he could try and fly the jumper, and John had agreed without hesitation.

"John." Teyla definitely sounded amused. "Now."

"Wha?" John twitched as the scratching stopped; the delicious warmth left, and he opened his eyes, feeling rather desolate. Teyla was shooing the kids away, sending them back to their parents; once they were gone, she turned to him. "I see you enjoyed yourself," she said dryly.

"Mmph," he said in reply, getting to his feet and brushing off some leaves that clung to his shirt. Straightening, he smiled sheepishly at Teyla, whose eyebrow was raised. "Er – I hope you didn't take a picture of that. Rodney would make fun of me for the rest of my life."

"I did not," Teyla said. "But only because I had no camera."

He grinned, briefly ruffling a hand through his hair and ears. "Good. Let's head back, I'm hungry."

- - - - -

"E-liz-a-beeeth, Sheppard is driving me crazy!" Rodney stormed into Elizabeth's office, crossing his arms and he stood in front of her desk. "He's disrupting the labs and being a pain! Make him stay in his quarters, for godssakes!"

"I'm not doing anything," John protested as he entered the office as well. "He's overreacting."

"Overreacting?!" Rodney spluttered indignantly. "You broke two of my best coffee mugs, spilling it on a pile of perfectly good mission reports, and knocked over three different tables! All over chasing some imaginary noise!"

"Just because you can't hear it doesn't mean it's imaginary."

"Oh please. Even if it is real, who cares? You don't have to go destroying my lab just to follow it!"

"Gentlemen!" Elizabeth said, holding up her hands to get them to fall silent. "Thank you. Now start from the beginning. What's this noise you're talking about?"

"It's this sound I've been hearing," Sheppard replied, a little embarrassed. "Since I got the ears. It's been driving me nuts because I can't figure out what it is."

Elizabeth was doing the eyebrow thing. Shoot. "Okay… and you basically caused chaos in Rodney's lab because once you heard it…"

"He ran all over the place trying to find it," Rodney finished.

"Just how much damage did you cause?"

"Not that much -" John began defensively.

"Lots. It'll take hours to clean up the mess," Rodney butted in. John glared at him; he glared back. Elizabeth sighed.

"John, I thought you knew better," she said, looking disappointed.

No! Not the disappointment! Anger he could take, but Sheppard hated when Elizabeth was disappointed in him. The ears drooped dejectedly, and he said, "Well, I'm bored. If you would just let me go on missions, maybe it wouldn't be so bad."

"True," Rodney admitted. "Ronon is getting restless too. And I think the cat thing is contributing to his abnormally high energy levels." Rodney reached out to tug an ear, emphasizing his point. "Plus, we figured out how to power the device, but it's going to take a while for the energy levels to built up to a sufficient amount that will be enough to change Cat Man here back to normal. So there's really no point in waiting around."

John looked hopefully at Elizabeth, who was nibbling at her pen in contemplation. "Alright," she agreed. "How about we brief for a mission tonight, and you go tomorrow? Does that sound satisfactory, Colonel?"

He grinned happily at her. "Yup."

"Good," she said, mouth quirking up at the corners. Nodding to Rodney, she asked, "Wasn't Dr. Zelenka needing your assistance with something…?"

A look of rememberance passed across Rodney's face, and after muttering something about "idiot underlings who need babysitting twenty four-seven," he left.

Elizabeth turned towards John, coming to the other side of the desk so she stood before him. He gulped. "You know, I really am sorry about the lab," he said, trying to look as pitiful and remorseful as possible.

She tried to look stern, but couldn't quite manage it – the forlorn look on his face was eating right through her heart. Smiling and shaking her head, she asked, "It's fine. Just be glad you didn't break anything important, or Rodney would have killed you before I could have reached you."

"Don't I know it," he muttered, and she laughed.

"So I hear you had a good time on the mainland," she said, eyes teasing.

Uh-oh. "Yeah, the kids were great. We had… fun."

"I'm sure. Did they scratch your ears in all the right places?" Elizabeth looked like she was having way too much fun with this.

John crossed his arms. "Maybe."

"And you purred." It was a half-question, half-statement; she looked disbelieving at the idea.

"Maybe."

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. "Well, now I'm curious, Colonel. Did you purr or did you not?"

He stepped forward, voice low and flirtatious. "Maybe you should find out for yourself."

Her eyebrows went up at the dare, and she cocked her head. "Maybe I will." Elizabeth paused, and John half-expected her to reach up and touch the ears right now. But instead she whispered, "But right now, you have to go help clean up that lab."

She stepped back, smirking triumphantly, and John knew he was beat. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

-TBC-