Sorry for the wait and thank you for the reviews! Now that the play I was in is over, I should be posting chapters more regularly.
In the thirty-six hours that had passed since Xana's capture, McGee had returned to Bethesda because his stitches had broken when they apprehended the girl, causing him pain and blood loss. After his wound was re-sewn, and a few hours in recovery, he was permitted to leave the hospital, as long as he remained in a wheelchair for the next two weeks or so. And, while Gibbs insisted that he remained home to recover, McGee insisted that he returned to the Navy Yard to catch up on work, which he was pleasantly surprised to find that Ziva and Tony had done for him.
Xana had been taken to Interrogation, where she was kept while Ducky gave her a quick check up, and then received a horrible lecture from a very angry Abby. Since then, Xana had not spoken a word, and rarely even moved a muscle.
Ziva ran into the blacked out side of the interrogation room, where Tony was waiting, with a bag of popcorn in her hand.
"I am here. I might have burned it a little, but I think it should still taste OK. Has Gibbs started interrogating her, yet?" Ziva asked.
Tony shook his head. "Not yet."
Ziva shrugged and handed Tony the bag of popcorn. He took a handful and passed the bag to McGee, who was also in the room.
"Why do you think he is taking so long?" Ziva asked turning to the teenager sitting alone in the interrogation room.
Tony shook his head and gave a faint smirk. "He's letting her squirm."
Ziva narrowed her eyes. "She does not appear to be squirming." She stated, flatly. "Has she moved at all in the last hour?"
"Nope. She hasn't moved a muscle." McGee answered, stuffing some popcorn into his mouth. He had to admit, he had grown respect for the fourteen year old. But she seemed different now. It was like she'd grown sixty five years older in the last thirty six hours. She seemed so old and frail, like an old lady. It was as though her body had withered away from the healthy stature of the young girl she had once been. But it wasn't just that. McGee felt as though there was something missing from her: The hope had left her eyes.
Xana didn't even flinch as the door opened then shut as Gibbs walked in. He sat in the chair across from her.
"You shot one of my agents." Gibbs said. No response. "Out of revenge. In cold blood." Again, no response. Gibbs pulled out five pictures and strewn them across the table. They were pictures of the men Xana had shot when she escaped from the lab.
"Do you know who these men are?" No response. "They're the men you killed. You shot them. Left them to die."
Finally Xana looked up. Her glare made Tony flinch from behind the glass. "They shot at me first." Her voice was hoarse.
Gibbs asked kept talking, but Xana gave no other response. She was tough. Gibbs didn't want to, but he started yelling at her as if she was a marine. Xana looked up at him and smirked. "Do you think you scare me? I've seen far more horrible things than you." She said smugly.
Gibbs sat down. It was time to try something different. Something far more personal. "You think you're the only one who ever shed a tear?" He asked. Xana almost looked taken back. "Well your not. I had a family once. A wife and a little girl. They're both dead now. Murdered."
Xana lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry. I really am. I know what it feels like to loose a loved one. You stand where I do in misfortune." She said softly. Her eyes narrowed. She glared at him. "But while you mourn your own life, tell me what I, too, am suffering. I lost my home, my family, I lost my freedom! All before I was ten years old. Can you say the same? I think not."
Xana looked at his tie and sat up. "You chose, this morning, to put on that tie. I don't have that luxury. None of us do. And we live in America. Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. Home of the Brave, yes. Land of the Free? For you, yes. But for us, no." She decided to drive it right on back home. "You said you lost your wife. You were married once. I envy you. There are two hundred and fifty kids in this laboratory, a new child created every day. This has been going on for the past twenty years since the project started. And out of all those kids, myself included, many of whom never lived to see infancy, will never live to marrying age."
Xana shook her head. "Out of all of them, none of them have lived to see passed age thirteen." She looked away. "I am the exception. That's why they kept me alive. If anyone else was to break away, they would catch them to keep the operation secret, then kill them because none of the other kids can know about the outside world. But I was kept alive because I was different. I was strong. I was a successful… experiment. So they wanted to keep me alive to study me, to find out why I was so strong."
Xana leaned back in her chair, as if remembering something from a long time ago. "I escaped the first time because of a fire. The whole lab caught fire, and they had to get as many of us experiments out and moved to a different location, as they could. We are not allowed to leave the 'test tube' we were created in until we are two years old. We're not stable enough to survive in the outside world until then. I was still in mine. I was only one and a half. The lady who carried my test tube out, dropped me, breaking the glass. I shouldn't have been stable enough to survive. She knew this and knew I was a lost cause. She left me alone to die. Everyone left."
Xana closed her eyes. "But I survived. I survived until morning when the firemen did a check for survivors. There I was. And since no one claimed me, I was placed in a orphanage where I was adopted by my family. I wonder… if I had died… would they still be alive now? Hm. Death is a funny thing. The debt that every man must pay for his life. We live each day, almost longing for death. But we don't take our own lives because we have hope that someday we may be freed."
Tears pooled in her eyes. "I admire the other kids in the lab. They endure each day with such strength… While I am barely able to pull myself through. We suffer the same things, so I wonder why it is so much harder for me to pull through. But I think I know. They, who have never left the that building, have never known evil, and do not know grief. While I, who was happy once-" She stopped. "Oh, do you see how far I fall?" She yelled at Gibbs.
Xana sat back down shaking her head, as if in shame. "Oh hypocrite. How can I mourn my own life while they have never even seen the sun?" She looked at Gibbs, her eyes glazed. "Oh take me away, quick, to the house of death, where I may weep these miserable last hours before my own murder. El Diablo knows now that I posses far more trouble than I am worth." She snapped.
Gibbs shook his head. "I have no intention of turning you back over to El Diablo."
Xana shook her head. "Must you always be the hero, Agent Gibbs?" She snapped, but there was relief buried in her eyes.
Gibbs leaned forward. "If you want to free them so badly, why didn't you come to the police when you were free?"
"I learned many things in that lab, Agent Gibbs. We are human. We are a xenophobic species. How would the citizen of D.C.- of America, react to learn that two hundred and fifty genetically altered super-humans are running around? I can guarantee that we 'experiments' do not want to leave that lab for the first time, only to wind up as the Little Rock Nine."
Gibbs sighed. He understood what she was talking about. She had a very good point. And it brought up another problem. He needed to discus this with Ducky. So he picked up all of his papers and left the room.
When Gibbs opened the door, he looked up and saw Hestia standing in the hallway. She walked into the interrogation room.
Xana looked up. "Hestia!" She cried, her eyes bright with joy and wet with tears. She stood up and ran over to hug her.
But Hestia did not show the same happiness in return. Her eyes were narrow and dark. She pushed Xana away.
"Hestia, what's wrong?"
"You broke your promise." Hestia said coldly.
Xana looked into her eyes. "Hestia…"
"You're no better than El Diablo! Hurting people just to watch them suffer!"
"Hestia… I didn't…"
"You didn't what? Shoot him because you wanted to see him suffer? Why then?" Her voice was icy, and filled with hurt.
Xana offered no response. "That's what I thought." Hestia snapped. From behind the glass, Tony, Ziva and McGee watched with slight horror as the scene unfolded. "You shot him because you wanted to cause him pain."
Tears began to streak Xana's face.
"That's why I turned you in. I won't let you become another El Diablo. I won't let you hurt anyone else."
Xana's face turned that of horror and pain. "Hestia…"
"EED8-97IL. That's how I will be referred to now. The name you gave me means nothing to me. Just as you mean nothing to me." Hestia hissed, her voice full of spite. She turned around and exited the room, leaving Xana alone in the silence.
Xana out stretched her arm, tears running like rivers down her face. "Hestia! Come back! Please, I'm sorry!" She said in quivering breaths, as she lost the one person that she knew would be there for her. The ground called to her. Her knees gave way and she crumpled, fell length, the foot of the door. She buried her face into the concrete floor, as she had done every night for five years. Except this time, there was no hope, there was no where left to run.