Title: Application Essay
Rating: G/K
Paring: Gibbs/DiNozzo
Warnings: AU. Kelly didn't die. Set in Season 1, with Kelly at 17.
Summary: Kelly Gibbs' application essay to Georgetown. One Shot (For now).
A/N: I know, I played with the timeline here, I just hope you'll forgive me. We're set sometime in Season 1, which is wrong for Kelly's canon age, but I'm alright with that. Also, just ignore things like the address and the SSN, I'm not creative about faking those things. I know this is quirky, but I just wanted to see if I could pull something off from Kelly's perspective.
Georgetown University
First year Application for Admission
Name: Gibbs, Kelly Shannon.
Date of Birth: February 2, 1986
SSN: 123-45-6789
Address:
1234 Marine Way
Alexandria, VA 22307
Essay Requirement
Compose a brief essay (approximately one page) on the topic given below. Essays should be typewritten. Attach the required essay to the top of this page.
According to Stephen Carter, we can admire those with integrity even if we disagree with them. Are there people you admire even though you deeply disagree with them? What do you admire about them? How to you reconcile this apparent contradiction in your assessment?
My father is an ex-marine sniper who'd be sure to tell you there's no such thing as an ex marine. He's a Senior Field Agent at NCIS who's caught three terrorists, arrested six serial killers, been awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal twice, received the silver star, a purple heart, and plenty of other medals he refuses to tell me any stories about.
When I was eight my mother and we were in NCIS protective custody while my father was in the Gulf. Our protecting agent was shot while driving us to a safe house, and a twist of fate sent me from the ensuing car crash with cuts and bruises, but killed my mother. Since then, my father has devoted his life to catching criminals and putting them behind bars, so no one else will have to endure the pain he and I went through.
He's courageous to the point of suicidal, and been through more hell then I'd ever be able to endure, but for one thing, I still call him a coward.
My father, the epitome of all things Marine, is in love with a man.
Tony.
Don't worry, I'm not telling you a secret, everybody knows. Even Dad. He just likes to pretend he doesn't have a soft smile when he makes Tony laugh, or that he doesn't blush when Tony turns up at our house for breakfast on Saturday mornings, sweaty from early morning basketball or that he hasn't really been this alive in years.
Really, the only person who doesn't know, is Tony.
Tony is tall, dark, Italian, and has been a source of hormonal giggling to all my friends ever since Dad dragged him home to DC one weekend. They worked a joint case in Philadelphia, and Dad just couldn't leave Tony trapped in the same city as the dirty partner who stabbed him. He slept at our house for one week before finding a place of his own, and at the sight of my uptight father barefoot, rumpled, and making breakfast on Saturday morning, Tony fell in love. I'm not sure of my Dad's moment of realization, because by the time I met Tony, it was already done.
This contradiction in my father is easy to understand. He's more than willing to risk his life hunting down criminals, he's just not willing to risk his heart. Something broke in my father the day we put my mother in the ground, and he doesn't believe he'd survive it if he had to do it again. So instead, he sits, and he watches, and like some patron saint of courtly love, he won't partake.
Though, this doesn't reconcile the contradiction.
Dad can abstain like no monk you've ever seen, but he doesn't realize that telling his heart it doesn't love someone will kill him just the same as the loss. Nothing is reconciled by avoiding, it's just delayed. Tony thinks his love for Dad is unrequited, and someday he'll let go of what he thinks he can never have, and move on to someone else. Someone who'll never love him quite like my father could, but someone who'll be willing to try.
I adore my father. He's made a life selflessly serving those who serve our country, and I could never be without him. But on this one thing, he's wrong. And I think in the end that wrong will rip his soul wide open.