AN: I'm aware I have other stories going on that I need to write more chapters for. However, I'm making an exception to my own rules and starting this because it's part of a challenge a friend of mine laid out on LiveJournal. The challenge simply is to write a complete story in five days flat. It's supposed to kick writer's block.

But please bear in mind this is a hard T. I almost rated it M for some of the concepts that are going to be introduced in later chapters. I can't warn you for specific triggers without giving away the entire plot, but this is going to get squicky, especially at the end. If you start to see where this is going or you feel uneasy, I would advise just putting this one down.

Pamela, this is likely the last letter you are going to receive from me. You were meant to have a normal childhood. I did everything I could to prevent my past from destroying your life. I tried so hard to leave it behind me. Everything was supposed to be the American Dream for us, but that dream twisted into something you now view as vile. I love you, and your siblings, and your mother. By the gods, how I loved your mother once. You will never know how she pulled me out of the darkness. She is the reason I gave up everything I used to be, the push to try to make myself into the all-American father you needed. But you, you are what kept me alive after all was said and done. You alone forgave me my sins, and so you are and have always been my favorite child.

I cannot apologize enough for leaving you. But please know I was always sincere in my dedication to you. Those walks in the park, those days spent pouring over art, those moments where you tried to understand my faith and I yours, and those precious instances where we were unknown to the world and free as birds… All of it was felt in my heart and remains with me in my memories as I leave you. I leave only to keep our secret from leaking out to the community. You need to have some normalcy. You cannot be turned into a pariah for the sins of your father.

My only request is that you tell the truth when you have this child. Do not hide me from them. Otherwise they will find out, and he or she will feel towards you what you feel for me now, in this moment as I depart. You have to tell them what I am, the good and the bad. It is a certainty and not a variable that as your husband to be is so rich, one day people will dig into your past. And if they find out any of this, they will use it to destroy your – our – family.

I can't tell you where I'm going, because I know you would follow. You are as loyal and kind a daughter as I could ask for, conservative and yet outspoken, cheerful and optimistic. You will make a wonderful mother, but you must be honest. Take this to heart: lies are like glass wings. They are beautiful until they shatter, and the pieces cut deeper than anyone ever thought they could.

Your loving father,

Philip Trommler

Sam blamed Mr. Rybak for assigning a family history project.

It was supposed to be a simple Advanced Biology project, just a bit of genetic mapping. They were supposed to write down colors of eyes and hair, and other genetic traits of their ancestors to the best of their ability. Then they were supposed to map out what countries their families came from. It would show the distribution of traits across varying countries and how recessive and dominant genes worked. All in all, it was absolutely boring sounding to everyone involved. Tucker had his done in a day due his family's meticulous record keeping, Danny enlisted Jazz's help to get it done before ghosts attacked and caused him to fail any more classes in something approaching a blind panic, and Sam had hit a brick wall with hers immediately.

There were ample records on her father's side of the family. They were rich even before they became millionaires. Sam could trace her Manson side all the way back to seventeenth century England, hitting a few other countries along the way. But her mother balked at the idea of the project. Sam knew something was off when her mother froze at being asked if there were old family records. There was a look of pure horror on her face before the mask of genial niceness slipped back on and she laughed it off. Idly, Sam's father mentioned there might be something in the attic, and so on a Friday night when most teenagers were relaxing, Sam found herself scrambling to get the homework due on Monday remotely close to being done. She hadn't been able to pry so much as her grandfather's name or eye color out of her. It was unsettling.

Then she found the letter. She overturned it, noting the pristine way it had been preserved. She reread it with uncomprehending purple eyes, and sat back in thought.

Sam's father had a family of redheads, blondes and one or two brunettes here and there, never skewing towards the darker hair colors. Her father's family had blue eyes with a few green exceptions. Her mother's mother's side of the family was a short list due to poor record keeping and immigration after WW2 decimating what records there were, but they were all brunettes. Dark brunettes, in some cases, but not black haired. Their eyes were sometimes purple but more often than anything else were blue. It was possible Sam was purely a photocopy of her grandmother, but if that were true there was no reason to hide her grandfather from her like a skeleton in the closet. All her life he'd been missing without her questioning it. Now she held in her hands the puzzle piece she'd been missing, but it was only one piece, not enough to put together everything that had happened.

Maybe she took after her grandfather. Two sets of purple recessives on her mother's side and two dark haired genes would make it all make sense. But why not hand her a picture of him, say that was all they had and call it good? Why lie? Why snuff his existence out like a candle?

She opened the journal she'd found the letter in. It was entirely in German; beautiful calligraphy at that, neat and uniform and crisp. Unfortunately, Sam knew about five German words total. What it did reveal in and of herself was that she was German. Her grandmother had come over from Poland, and her grandfather, going off of this, had come over from Germany. Looking over at the letter again, she noted the usage of the word 'gods' and the mention of 'my faith and yours'. So he wasn't Jewish. Sam knew that back in those days it had been a bit of a taboo for Jewish people to marry non-Jews. Maybe her Grandma Ida's family had decided to erase the records because of that alone. They were Jewish on both sides, had a good standing in the synagogue for many years, her uncle Aaron was a rabbi. A non-Jew married to a Jew right after WW2 might have caused waves.

Gods, the letter said. A polytheist religion – so not Christian, then. Sam frowned. She didn't even know there were any religions like that in Germany. If there were they'd have to be extreme minorities. Maybe that was the nail in the coffin. It could've been fine by everyone if he'd been Christian, but if he worshipped some pantheon of gods, then even Sam's free spirited grandmother who'd lived her wild teen years whirling through Amity Park would have to pause. There was rebellion and then there was crossing the line. Apparently it had been enough to last at first – loved, he'd said, not love – but over time that hadn't been enough to keep it going forever. Opposites attracted, they didn't necessarily hold.

So Sam had her answers. She could walk away, put this stuff back, write down her grandfather's information, claim she didn't know the rest and leave it be. Clearly he'd really hurt her mother by leaving. Some part of her felt a flare of anger on her mother's behalf. As much as she didn't get along with her, she pictured her mother, young and about to get married, abandoned, and something in her just despised the man who'd written this. He had abandoned his oldest daughter at one of the most critical moments of her life and expected a single letter to soothe it over.

She wanted to know this man who had broken her mother's heart. She wanted to know the things he'd told her mother to tell Sam. She wanted to unveil the monster in the shadows she'd never known existed.

Want is a dangerous thing.