Happy Father's Day, guys! Sorry, haven't had much time to write. I wrote this because my parents are divorcing, and my dad's a jerk, so I wanted Hestia to know what it feels like to have a really great "father-figure" because I don't know what it's like, but still keeping with the plot. Enjoy!
"She's hiding something, Jethro. I know she is." Ducky whispered to Gibbs, as they waited for Hestia's cardiovascular scan to be complete. Although it might have seemed a little bit overboard in retrospect, Ducky wanted it, just to be sure, because the girl's heart was beating nearly twice as fast as it should, and she seemed to be having frequent heart palpitations, although she was taking no repercussions as a result of this overly fast, and extremely unsteady heartbeat. Tony and Ziva had been ordered to stay behind at the Navy Yard, while Hestia, Ducky, Gibbs and Abby went up Bethesda for the cardiovascular check-up. Abby had originally been ordered to stay with Ziva and Tony, however, she insisted on going with Gibbs, as McGee was in this hospital, and, although his condition was improving, she was still worried about him. Especially since he had another surgery for the bullet wound, today.
"How are you feeling, McGee?" Abby asked cautiously as she walked into his room.
"I feel OK. My side sort of aches from surgery, and I feel kind of funny from the medication they gave me, but other than that, I feel great?" He said, trying to act happy in front of her, despite the fact that he actually felt like crap.
Abby raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
"So, I saw you guys with a little girl, earlier. Suspect or something?
"Her name's Hestia. You know, like the Greek goddess of the hearth?" Abby beamed to McGee, sitting on the edge of his bed while she waited for the results of the scan.
"Yeah, Hestia was one of my favorite Greek goddesses in ancient mythology, second only to Athena." McGee responded. His breath mask had been replaced with nasal cannula.
"Ah, Goddess of wisdom and battle strategies, I do believe. Excellent choice, Timothy. Athena is my favorite Greek Goddess, as well." Ducky chimed in, walking in from out in the hall.
McGee smiled for a moment, but his smile faded. Hestia… a voice like those you hear in a dream, whispered that name from the dust. Realization caught him so off guard, that his face went pale.
"What's wrong, McGee?" Abby asked, noticing the sudden discoloration of his face.
McGee shook his head. "No, it's nothing. So where's Hestia, again?" He asked.
"Down in the Cardiovascular ward." Abby responded.
"Why?" McGee asked.
"Ducky thought she had frequent heart palpitations, so he wanted to get her scanned, just in case the palpitations were some 'prelude to some much more horrible disease'." Abby said, using air quotes, quoting Ducky
McGee laughed, sort of loopy from the medication they gave him for the pain, since. Suddenly the doctor, Dr. Moore, and Hestia walked in. He looked pale, like he'd seen a ghost, and she looked like was a kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. There was shame in her eyes, shame and fear.
"Agent Gibbs? Doctor Mallard? May I have a word with you?" Dr. Moore asked.
They nodded and followed him and Hestia farther down the hall to talk in privet. "What's going on?" Gibbs asked.
"Hestia… Hestia- err… This is going to sound out of the ordinary, but I assure you I am not lying. I redid the test three times, just to make sure…" He trailed off, his face paling.
"What is it?" Gibbs barked.
Dr. Moore swallowed. "Hestia- err- Hestia has two hearts." He said. And when seeing the confused and shocked looks on Gibbs' and Ducky's faces, he continued. "The odd thing about it is, that both hearts are functioning normally. The increased flow of blood and oxygen to the brain is stimulating the processes of self-healing, metabolism, and the rate at which nerves send electric shocks to the brain." The more that Dr. Moore spoke, the more Hestia looked like she wanted to sink into a pit. Gibbs could see tears brimming at the edge of her eyes.
"I don't know if it's because of the fact that she has two hearts, but she has strength, immunity, reflexes, mental capacity, sight, and hearing that are super-human. I have reason to believe that this girl has been the subject of serious genetic engineering-" That's all that Dr. Moore could say, because Hestia could no longer take it and pushed free of his hold and ran away, down the halls, crying.
X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.
Gibbs walked into the cafeteria, after two hours of searing for Hestia with no luck. She'd come out when she wanted to be found, he decided. The cafeteria was totally empty. He got a tray and sat down at a table, and started eating in silence. Suddenly, he heard something that sounded like quiet whimpering. He stood up and walked over to some vending machines, where he though he heard the sound coming from. Sure enough, Hestia was sitting behind a machine, crying. Gibbs move the machine and sat down by her.
There was silence for a long time. "You're gonna send me back, aren't you." Hestia whimpered.
"No." Gibbs responded quietly. He sat up a little. "Did you know about this the whole time?" He asked.
"Of course I did." She said, bitterly. "I wasn't in a hospital before, I was in a laboratory. That's all any of us are. Just genetic lab rats. That's why we disappear. Because our DNA can't handle the stress."
"What do you mean by 'we'?" Gibbs asked.
"There are about two hundred and fifty of us in the laboratory. It's a project funded by El Diablo. We're supposed to be genetically advanced soldiers. To fight in the war." Tears steamed her face. "We're not even technically 'people'. The them we're more like 'pets'. Like lab rats."
"Is that why you ran? Because you don't want to go back?" Gibbs asked.
Hestia narrowed her eyes and stood up. "You don't know what it's like, Agent Gibbs! The tests we're forced to endure are horrible, and brutal! They teach us how to endure pain, so they shoot us in the stomach! They teach us how to fight, sometimes killing kids during the demonstration! They teach us many, many things, about science and math and history, but it's brutal! I once had to memorized Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, in a week!" She hissed.
Hestia sat back down again. "That's why none of us have every seen color before. They don't let us stimulate or creativity. They say it's distracting. So we don't get to do it. And so, out of two hundred and fifty kids, only two have ever seen color, or the sun before. Me and Xana."
"Xana?" Gibbs asked.
"She was the only one who'd ever gotten away. I don't know how, but when she was really, really little, she escaped. Got adopted by a family, too. But they wanted to get her back, so captured her again, five years ago. They killed her whole family while doing it. Xana was like a big sister to me. When she came back, she had a purple and red bracelet. It got taken away, but there was one piece of purple string that she kept, and showed everybody. She gave everybody real names instead of just numbers and letters. She even told us about the sun, and the moon and the stars, and the sky and the trees, and flowers." She smiled. But then tears of fear fell back down.
Hestia looked back up at Gibbs, with sad, grey eyes. "I'm not like you. I was born in a laboratory, raised in a test tube. I never had a mom. I never had a dad." She hugged Gibbs really tight, pressing her face into his shoulder. Please don't make me go back, Agent Gibbs. Please." She whimpered, helplessly.
Gibbs wrapped his arms around the little girl. He tried to keep gentle tears from falling as he though of his own little girl. "I won't let them take you. I promise, I won't let anybody hurt you, again. I'll protect you. I won't let them take you away from me, Kelly."
R&R! Thanks for reading! Happy Father's Day!
