Title: I Can't be Perfect

Author: TigerLily1221

Disclaimer: I only own the characters that aren't recognizable.


Chapter 3- You Can't Change Me

"So, Mr. McNamara, does your daughter have any enemies or people that would want to hurt her?" The older man sitting across from Gibbs shook his head uncertainly.

"Special Agent my daughter was special agent also. I have no clue how many killers she put behind bars regularly. You probably know better than me how many enemies she's made within the last week." He said sadly.

"We understand completely, Mr. McNamara." Ziva said. "How was she as a child?"

The John McNamara's face lit up at the mention of his young daughter's childhood. He stood up slowly, willing his old bones to catch up with what his mind planned for him to do. He walked slowly and carefully until he reached the mantle above the large stone fireplace.

There were many pictures lined up against the wall including a family portrait that showed the complete four members of the family. He gently took it off the hook and held it delicately in his hands along with two more pictures.

"My youngest daughter was the pride and joy in my life. She was a beautiful child and such a happy youngster. She and her younger sister Aurora were inseparable as young children. Aurora was born only three years earlier." He showed them a picture of two young girls.

It was easy to tell one apart from each other, they were very different. The five year old Lily was easy to spot. Her bright blonde curls were tied together with a pink ribbon on either side of her head and her blue eyes were wide. Her tiny mouth was open in an excited squeal of laughter that showed her missing two front teeth. The other girl, causing the little one to squeal was supposedly Aurora McNamara. She was bigger than the tiny five year old and was smiling just as vibrantly as the smaller child. She had long dark black hair and smaller amber colored eyes.

"My daughters grew apart as they grew older. Aurora, Rory, is more of a right side of the brain child. She's creative, exuberant, hates to read and do math, loves to draw. Making her go to school and do her homework was a chore. Lily is—was" he gulped and wiped at his eyes. " Just the opposite. She was a logical thinker, always had a right or wrong way of thinking, enjoyed reading and math. They were so different and I guess there differences were like a stake breaking the bedrock between them."

He laughed bitterly, sipping at the coffee mug in his hands. "You know the saying 'opposites attract'?" The two agents nodded. "It wasn't like that concerning my daughters. They were as different as ever and fought like cats and dogs. When Rory left for school there was no love lost between them. I think they were happy to get away from each other. I know I was, I couldn't stand their constant bickering."

He sorted into the cup, shaking his head. "What drives me mad is how contained Aurora's emotions were. She would never fight with anyone. She would always bicker with her sister but never with me or Leanne." He said gesturing to the separate picture of his wife on the table in the corner of the room.

He sighed and closed his eyes. He picked up a second picture, the one that was hanging above the wall. The family portrait seemed to be about ten years old. The two girls were no older than ten. The mother had the bright blonde hair of the youngest. It seemed that Aurora was out of the loop. The father had dark brown hair that was no where near the color of the oldest.

"My wife was a state known cardiologist. I'm a seismologist. I guess we were more supportive of the daughter that was trying to become something—I don't know—useful. I guess we let our opinion of successfulness instead of happiness. I guess we let our roles as parents slip and our favoritism shone through. Rory wanted to become an artist. Her passion was ceramics, I think, and painting. We thought it was unpractical and basically belittled her chosen career. I suppose that made her bitter because essentially showered her younger sister with praise when she got good marks and showed the beginnings of becoming a Special Agent."

"Personally, I always felt that both of my daughters were loving and had a healthy relationship with each other. I thought that all of the knick picking were just childhood antics. We were a loving family and happy. We might have been a little more caring and loving to Lily but on a much lesser scale we loved them about the same." John said with a note of finality.

He narrowed his eyes when he realized how shallow he appeared to the agents in front of him. He glared at them apprehensively as if waiting for one of them to mutter something disrespectful or rude about the upbringing of his children.

Ziva pursed her lips. Disgraceful, ignorant words that shouldn't be said to the victim's family were at the tip of her tongue just waiting to be expelled by the opening of her lips. More than anything she wanted to smack the man and ask what was the matter with wanting something else you're your life. In Israel, she couldn't do anything different because of the strict laws regarding natural borne citizens with the military and her father being the Director of the Mossad.

Gibbs nodded, his face bearing no emotion. It seemed that the entire team held up strict infallible masks. Gibbs was no exception. He was stoic and never move a muscle as the man finished his thought. Gibbs couldn't stand two things child killers and parents who insulted their children for being their own person. His opinion of the man was shrinking faster than it had built.

Ahem. "Mr. McNamara would you mind if I use your bathroom?" Ziva asked. She discreetly pulled out her flashlight and tucked it into her pant pocket where spare pair of gloves and small evidence bags were.

"What?" he asked. He glanced upward from the second picture frame and met Ziva's cool callous eyes. She repeated the question quietly her distaste barely hidden under the surface.

"Oh yes, its on the second floor, third door on the left. Lily has been trying to persuade me into selling this old house for years. My wife died two years ago just as Lily was accepted into the NCIS. Both of my hips have pins and I have arthritis in both ankles and knees. I can't go up the stairs anymore, I can't move around in my own house! I should probably sell it now that nobody lives here…"

Ziva smiled softly and turned to leave the room. It was so easy to lie about simple searches. So it wasn't totally legal but they could get an idea about what hidden secrets the family was hiding behind closed doors.

She spun around right before the door careful that she was directly behind the man's back and stared Gibbs right in the eye. If she didn't know him any better she would have never seen the small unsuspicious nod in her general direction.

She loudly made her way up the steps, careful to note the creaky stairs. She walked carefully down the hall, peeking into the first doorway, which turned out to be a closet. She searched it quickly noting how much time she had before Gibbs couldn't hold his attention and Mr. McNamara became suspicious.

There were six doors. Three on the left two on the right and one straight ahead. The first on the right was a linen closet and the second was the wife's office, completely intact from when she died. The old man probably didn't have enough heart to remodel and remake the last reminder of his wife.

There was nothing interesting in it. A Large leather roll chair was hidden behind an even larger mahogany desk. There were three file cabinets holding old patient files and bills of the household.

The third on the right was indeed a bathroom. A world class specialty bathroom. Silently saving an impressed whistle for later she closed the door.

She walked a few more paces and opened the door straight ahead. She had hit pay dirt. It was a large bedroom, with a small alcove near the bay window for a closet. She softly and quickly examined the room noting that it was the older daughter's bedroom. Large hand painted letters in bright purple spelled out the name AURORA. The room looked like a small tornado hit it. The black bed sheets was neatly made but what was on top of it was a mess. Piles of too small clothes lay in messy piles, shoes and scraps of paper lay together on the ground, apparently covering the lilac carpet. Even the small TV was a coat rack. A baker's hat was on the top, covered by a denim jacket.

Ziva lifted the end of the lilac bed skirt sneezing as the dust that had lain dormant for so long blew out from the surprise burst of air. She shone the flashlight underneath the bed and squinted through the uneven space. Small boxes littered the space plus even more piles of shoes. She pulled the closest box toward her and peered inside…more clothes. She pulled the second box toward her and smiled contently when three pint size notebooks fell off of another pile of clothes.

She opened them slowly and flipped quickly through the pages, they were all dated and were through only two years each.

She slipped the books in her backpack and slowly stood up. She crossed to the side near a second door that was open only a crack. She pushed it open, going motionless as the door creaked.

No other sound was heard except for the quiet murmuring downstairs. She sighed in relief and hurried into the next room. It was another, much smaller bathroom. It was a conjoining bathroom, which seemed to connect to Lily McNamara's bedroom.

She turned back to the mirrored medicine cabinet. She pulled it open and checked objects inside. They were all normal objects that teenage girls would have in their bathroom. A stack of tissues, four tooth brushes, toothpaste, and mouth wash. The bottom most shelf was medicine row. There were three bottles, all tightly capped and clear orange. She picked the smallest off the shelf and examined it. It was a half empty prescription bottle of the Lorazepam, the anti-anxiety drug. The medicine was prescribed to Aurora. The next two were also prescribed to her. Zoloft and Clozapine both used to treat depression and psychosis.

She stared at the bottles puzzled with what the father said about his daughters both being very healthy. She took out her camera that was still in the bag and snapped quick pictures of the bottles before quickly pulling open the container onto a spare piece of plastic wrap found in the cupboard. She pulled off three small slits and wrapped the pills individually.

The McNamara family seemed to have very interesting secrets. First they had very visible favoritism of the younger daughter than the older one was prescribed drugs to help her mental state. Oh this family seemed to have an ever growing pot of secrets just boiling on the rear burner.

She sneaked into Lily's childhood bedroom. This room was neat and tidy. A large bookcase was in the far corner along with a soft small armchair and a tall lamp. The middle of the room had a small bed that was made perfectly with care. Ziva opened the top drawer of her dresser; the clothes were perfectly folded all in the same direction.

The crazy cleanliness was increasing Ziva's suspicions that the young woman had some serious OCD. There was only Lily's own diary that Ziva photographed and took with her into her bag.

She had just closed the door to the bedroom when the men's voices seemed to be even closer than she thought. She could clearly hear Gibbs speaking very loud for the normal level and the thump of the footsteps on the stairs.

She just loved her sense of knowing time. She had made a thorough search of the entire room and still made it to meet the men coming of the stairs.

She dove into the bathroom angry that she had wasted time running through the office before. Her hands stayed on the edge of the sink as she subtly turned on the running water. She turned it off only seconds later and spun around opening the door while she turned off the light.

She exited the room slowly and pasted a surprised expression on her face as the men came into view.

"Oh, well look at that. I hope you too weren't waiting there for a while." She said shouldering her backpack and slipping past them. She proceeded to walk down the stairs an innocent grin on her face.

"Really? You take an awfully long time in the bathroom. I was in a house with three women and they never took that long." John McNamara muttered.

"Well than you know that women are in the bathroom for longer at certain times of the month," she said accentuating the last words. The older man's eyes widened with understanding and embarrassment.

"Well I think that we have enough information for know. Please if you know anything else give us a call. Stay in the city and do not leave until the investigation is over. Thank you for your time." Gibbs said smiling and shaking the man's hand.

They left the house and waited until they were in the car to collaborate notes.

"Well it seems that Mr. McNamara isn't as truthful as he wants you to believe." Ziva muttered. She opened her backpack and showed the photographs she had taken and the pills taken from the bottles she collected. "The older one, Aurora, had bottles of prescription drugs. They were dated only about five years."

"Interesting." Gibbs muttered plainly deep in thought. He drove the car normally and monotonously as he thought about the facts. " Mr. McNamara says adamantly that his other daughter didn't do it. He gave me her number and said that she is coming from Baltimore and will be here once she meets her father in about twenty minutes. Tony can take care of her interview when she comes."

"I have the feeling that this case is going to get very interesting." Ziva muttered holding onto the side of the car door as Gibbs tore down a street. "Very interesting indeed."


Okay so I know that this chapter wasn't very entertaining but it was a filler that needed to be in here to establish the plot so please I promise that soon we will have more action and DiNozzo appearances and coworkerly (?!) banter.

The next update will depend upon the reviewers opinions. If I don't get a lot of feedback than I'll think that you guys don't like it and well no more story so if you like it so far please give me some reviews!

Thanks for everyone's support.

Luvs, Ari