A word of warning and a disclaimer. The following story is not my usual fare. While we in the Fan Fiction world write stories for established shows [in this particular case, NCIS and JAG] we rarely try the ole 'cut and paste' method [which is used infamously by students for papers they are supposed to 'write']. However, in order to tell this tale of redemption of a certain character who we've all talked about, certain liberties had to be taken to write this story which you will note is in the 'Christmas Carol' vein.
That being said, this is basically a rewrite of the events from January 2003 to April 2003. Timelines have been scrambled where necessary, but hopefully not too badly – essentially all the events that occurred in Season 8 do take place, just not in the original time established by the show.
Now on to the most important part. My prose is used to fill in the gaps in this story that I have put together, but original credit for most of the character dialogue in this story goes to the following writers – Donald P. Bellisario, Philip DeGuere, Jr., Don McGill, Paul J. Levine, and Darcy Meyer.
My thanks to Donald P. Bellisario, Don McGill, Charles Johnson, and company for creating such wonderful characters and allowing us in the Fan Fiction world to create scenarios for their characters. I hope I have done them justice with this tale.
And finally, this story is dedicated to one our own Fan Fiction writers who is facing that long walk into the Twilight. He certainly has shown me that he has more Intestinal Fortitude than I could ever hope to have if faced with a situation like his. This is for you, my friend, I hope you enjoy it.
Postscript – for those of you into JAG trivia, this incident in the JAG world took place ten years ago this week on 5 January 2003. I hope you like my version of how things turn out.
And now, on with our tale…