Chapter Text
“Hey, Hey LBJ, How many kids did you kill today?” —A protest chant that first became popular in late 1967.
“This war has already stretched the generation gap so wide that it threatens to pull the country apart.” —Senator Frank Church (D-ID) speaking on the Senate floor on May 13, 1970.
November 1970
They thought he was dead. For a second, he thought he was dead. That wasn’t the case. All that he knew was that whoever had shot him, a once friend now traitor in his head, had tried to kill him in the jungles that they had bailed from their hit plane. Duke Mitchell, officially, was dead. And a new person was born.
It was for his own protection. That’s what everyone had told him. He tried to beg them to at least reconsider in bringing his family. His father was practically dead to him, he had been raised by his maternal Uncle, his mom’s brother Jackson Gibbs.
He begged them but all he got was looks of pity in return. It could not be done. But he was never one to play nicely by the rules. It would driven all of his friends insane from Mike “Viper” Metcalf and Nikolaj Kazansky to his friends during his probie days at NCIS from Mike Franks to Mary Jo to Lala to Rando to Dwayne Pride. Now he only had Dwanye left of his living friends from the old days.
The Old Days, ha! What a joke that was.
"You with me, Jethro?" Ducky was trying to get his attention. He was ever grateful for the man, for both him and Dwayne's discreetness over the situation since the US Government decided to dump him away forever. The men in black suits - FBI or CIA, he wasn't sure anymore had told him that he was legally dead. That what he tried to do was good but foolhardy. That the Nixon Administration had been grateful for the actual traitor or traitors and had all but deemed Duke Mitchell a traitor to his country, labeling him a Communist and telling basically the whole country he died in Nam.
This was how he ended up with a new name, a new identity, backstory and god knows what else. He took on his late cousin's place as son for his Uncle Jack. His cousins, Theodore Peter Gibbs had been his Uncle and Aunt's only son before he passed in 1968 in Vietnam. His other cousin Leroy Gibbs had gone MIA a few months ago, nobody knew where he was now. He and his older brother had been on the frontlines while Duke had flown above. He hadn't been able to go to the funeral and now he would take his dead cousin's place as a son for his Uncle. The man in question didn't even blink just said okay like it was the most natural thing in the world. He would appreciate it and be rankled by it for years to come.
"I'm with you Duck," He responded. Dwayne didn't look any better. The New Orleans man was ready, itching for another fight. So was Duke but Dwayne knew that it was best to be level headed for Duke's sake. He wanted to beg them to have his kids back here but knew they would refuse. His wife would be pregnant with their second child, a little girl while their eldest was probably confused as to why his father would never come home again. He knew that the men in black would say that "it's for your family's safety that you have to play dead. If anyone finds out your alive... they will go after your loved ones first."
He knew it would be true and he didn't want that to come true.
So, he gave his old stuff to Dwayne for safe keeping. He knew it would be better to keep out of sight and out of mind. Duke also knew it would be best to keep it away, distantly in another state.
Dwayne nodded at the orders and took the boxes carefully like they were housing prized jewels and not cards, birth certificates, photo albums, and a old dogtag that belonged to Duke Mitchell.
"Do you understand, Mr. Gibbs?"
"Lieutenant Gibbs," He shot back. "You have to at least give me that, sir."
The man in the suit looked bullishly at him before conceding. "Fine, "He said flatly. "Lieutenant Gibbs... they'll call you back soon enough for fight but we'll keep you out of Nam for now. And yes, you can still fly."
"I'd rather shoot."
So, in the cold morning of November in 1970, a month after Duke Mitchell's plane went down in the jungles of Vietnam he was pronounced dead officially to the world. In that same cold morning, Leroy Jethro Gibbs was born.
The days went on long and painfully boring.
Letters from Ducky and Dwayne kept him sane enough. He had taken his cousin's place and with it his wife's. Diane Fielding Gibbs was utterly kind and agreed to the switch like it was utterly normal.
They basically played roommates as she raised her daughter Kelly, their first and only child. It broke his heart all over again at the reminder that his own wife was probably grief stricken as she raised their children by herself. He hoped that Viper reached out. He knew that Dwayne couldn't, now that he was helping Duke out.
Kelly called him Dad but in the privacy of their home she called him Uncle Dad which drew a smile on his face. He couldn't replace his cousin, he knew that now but he would damn well help raise Kelly that was for sure. She was the same age as Pete would be right now.
Once again, his heart broke at the thought of his family in San Francisco.
1973
He was in one of the many dense jungles when he was ordered to head back to one of the bases. "Gibbs! Go!"
It had been three years and it would still feel as though he is wearing someone else's skin whenever someone referred to Duke as 'Gibbs'. He was rising up the ranks as a Gunnery which was good and kept him slightly out of the eyes of many others.
The CO looked at him with pity as he handed him the letter.
We regret to inform you... your wife and daughter are dead... NIS agent shot in line of fire along with your family...
Duke wanted to scream. He wanted to flat out tell the CO that this was all bullshit. That Shannon and Kelly couldn't be dead. They wouldn't.
They were.
This was his fault. If he hadn't agreed to being his cousin... they would still be alive.
This was his fault. Everything was his fault if he had just kept his damn mouth shut.
Shouts were heard as there ambush took them by surprise. Duke didn't care anymore. There were shouts at him to get away from the firing but he didn't care anymore. Something sharp hits him and everything goes black.
When he wakes up, it was to the sound of beeping. His Uncle is looking at him as is Ducky and Dwayne. Duke weeps and shuts down. He feels like he should have died in the jungle but which years, he did not care. He should have died when his plane was going down into the jungles of Vietnam.
That's when he should have died.
1993
After leaving the Navy with a very impeccable career, he is recruited by Mike Frank to be an NIS Agent. He cannot muster the strength to see Shannon and Kelly's gravestones. Discreetly, his Uncle puts the last name Gibbs twice with Jethro Leroy's name next to Shannon and Kelly's.
The difference between his and his cousins name are the placements. His middle names is arranged as Leroy Jethro as is his name now since the 70s. The only one to call him Duke is Dwayne and that's it. If anyone asked when Dwayne came from the New Orleans NIS office and called him Duke, they say it's a nickname.
He doesn't allow anyone to call him by that name except Dwayne.
Randolf and Lala want to ask why but they don't. Franks doesn't ask anything at all because he thought he knew everything about Gibbs.
None of them did nor did Gibbs future team members did as well.
2019
"... Why are they wanting to open a case from the 70s?"
Gibbs paused in his work to hear the skepticalness from Torres. "Because," McGee said to the agent. "This Lieutenant Commander wants to clear her grandfather's name. It was a huge deal considering that this man, Duke Mitchell's death is still scandalous. I doubt this administration wants to touch it with a ten foot pole now but the granddaughter has been making noise and knows people. I mean, bringing Agent Pride to help is big enough." McGee and Bishop didn't look towards their boss who was silently in distress.
He was going to kill King.
He was also grappling with the fact that he had a granddaughter. Well, he sort of knew thanks to his Uncle who had informed him of what was going on in his own children's lives. How Pete was a Captain and Penelope was a bar owner in Fightertown, San Diego. They had children - Peter had a daughter who was now in the Naval Air Forces that made Gibbs chest burst with pride at hearing that his granddaughter and son followed in his footsteps.
What he did not know is that NCIS had been keeping tabs on his family.
That made him spiral.
Did Vance know? Did Jenny know before she died? Who else knew? He damn well knows that his teammates, his pseudo children did not know jackshit. He knows that Ducky and Dwayne knew but that was it.
He tells the three that he wants to see this file and to continue to work on the dead petty officer's case. He takes the files and makes his way to Vance's office. He wants to punch something but he won't. He wants to scream but cannot.
The waves that came to take him back in the 70s is threatening to take him under again.