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Theoretically Illogical

Chapter 9: Revelations of White and Green


Hours later found Sam sitting on her bed, clutching her pillows close to her chest. She'd skipped out on the opera with her parents. She told them she had a headache.

In reality, she felt like shit.

"Oh man," she whispered into her pillows. "I can't believe I did that…"

Her hands were still shaky, and her heart was complaining rather loudly at her mind for effectively destroying any potential friendship with one Danny Fenton…er, Danny Phantom…or both. Or either.

Whichever came first.

The events of that night had dragged up memories she'd buried so deeply, she'd nearly separated herself from her own past. It'd been fairly easy, because the few people who knew her past kept it just as tightly under wraps as she did.

"God, I'm such an idiot," she sniffled, wiping her eyes. Her thick eyeliner had smeared, and she knew she must have looked like hell. Good thing she was the only one home. She'd told their old butler to go on home for the evening before she'd completely broken down.

Sam was now holed up in her room, door locked, her bed a haphazard mess of tangled sheets pulled around her frazzled and shaking body. Her mind was in a haywire spiral of images of two men with white hair and green eyes…


She first met him at the opera.

He bumped into her, and she bumped into him, and his dashing appearance as well as his impeccable personality caught her off guard. He wore an expensive Armani suit designed personally for him. "Pardon me, Miss," he said genially. His voice was heavily accented. "It appears your beauty distracted me."

She raised a regal brow at his cordiality. "You aren't from around here," she noted casually. "No one calls me Miss, and no one here has an accent like yours."

He laughed lightly. "Ah, no. I am from Hungary. My name is Gregor Almasi." With a flick of his hand, his chauffeur drove up to the entrance in a sleek, black limo. "I was initially planning to return to my penthouse, but I insist that you accompany me to Le Bijou for dinner tonight." He gave her a sweet smile. "I cannot bear to see you walk away without at least a proper apology for, how do you say it?, 'bumping' into you."

"Oh, I don't know," Sam said, caught between a yes and an absolutely not. She had the slight suspicion that he was like all the others (a cute face, an unlimited credit card, and a disappointing lack of intelligence). And she didn't really want to waste a night on such a man.

But Sam glanced back at her parents, who both looked at Gregor, his limo, and the expensive Rolex on the man's wrist, and they gave her bright smiles and waved her on her way.

She turned back to Gregor and shrugged. "I guess why not?"


The next few weeks passed in a blur of expensive dates, opera houses, and Audi cars. Gregor respectfully kept his distance when entertaining Sam, striving to make her laugh and relax in his presence.

Always the gentleman.

He was ridiculously intelligent and witty, which impressed Sam to no end. That he was handsome, with sharp, chiseled features, helped as well.

But it was nearly a month before he hugged her, two months before he kissed her lips instead of her hand, and three before he invited her up to his penthouse, on the top floor of Amity Apartments. Very ritzy.

And there, that night, they stood on the outside balcony.

"Ahh, Sam," the man whispered in her ear, her name rolling off his foreign tongue in a calm and sensual chord. He stood behind her and enveloped her in a tight hug, his hands wrapping about her stomach. "Is it not a beautiful night?"

Seventeen-year-old Sam leaned into his embrace, reveling in the strength of his arms, the soft breeze of the night air, the distant sounds of downtown Amity. "It's gorgeous."

"Just you and me," he pulled away from her and turned to the balcony table where a bottle and two crystal glasses stood in waiting. He gave her a small smile and poured the bottle's contents into the glasses. "I thought we could celebrate our four month anniversary?" He held out a glass.

She accepted, her violet eyes watching him. "You remembered. I'm impressed."

"How could I forget?"

"You'd be surprised," Sam said. "Most men I've dated could barely remember their own names."

"And that is the problem with American men," Gregor said to tease her. "They do not understand the art of love. Now I must, how do you say it?, 'pick up their slack' and prove the male gender competent."

They clanged champagne glasses. "You might be able to redeem them," Sam teased back. "But it's gonna take more than four months."

"For you, Sam, I have all the time in the world."

She sipped on her glass, eyeing him mischievously. But then she hummed. "Interesting," she said, pausing. "This isn't vodka, or any sort of alcohol. But it tastes different than just water."

He smiled. "It is a mineral water from my home country, called Mira." He whispered in her ear, "It can make you live forever."

"Does it really?" she replied with a rare smile of her own, closing her eyes to feel Gregor close the gap between them. His lips pressed against her ear lobe in a soft butterfly kiss. He breathed in her scent.

"Of course. But to redeem the whole of man, I'd need forever." He spun her black curls around his fingers. "Would you like to live forever? With me?"

And before she knew it, a huge rock (costing roughly $200,000 dollars and about 2 billion years worth of the earth's time) was resting on her finger.


Her mother clapped happily. "Oh, Samantha! A handsome, polite widower from Hungary? Who has lots of money?" She teared up. "Oh, my baby girl is finally growing up! I'm so proud of you!"

Sam rolled her eyes, but she was secretly happy too.

"So when's the wedding?" her mother asked excitedly, somehow dropping decades to look like a school girl all over again.

"I don't know, mom. We haven't set a date yet, but we're thinking in a month from now."

Pamela gasped. "A month? Oh Sammykins, only a month! Why, that's hardly any time at all to plan!"

"And look at you!" She gently turned her daughter's face. "You're so pale! When did you get this pale? You need a tan for your dress, dear!"


"Until tomorrow, sweetheart," Gregor kissed her lips and grabbed his briefcase. He lightly such the limo door behind him.

Inside the limo, something caught her eye, believing it to have fallen out of Gregor's pocket. She leaned down to pick it up. It was an eye contacts case. Inside were green contacts that matched the color of Gregor's eyes.

When she asked him about them later, he looked stricken, until the worry faded from his face like water. "I try to keep it a secret, but I'm utterly blind. Glasses and contacts aren't fashionable in Europe."

She smiled, but it was tight. Something in his gaze worried her.


"Miss Samantha," the old butler, really like a second father, said hesitantly, "might I speak freely with you regarding Gregor?"

She was stuffing her face with salad at midnight in her pajamas. "Go for it," she shrugged.

"Sam, I would not trust this man," he warned. "There is a strange light in his eyes."

She waved off his concern. "Don't worry about it. It's just his contacts."

I think.

She felt her initial dizziness come back, and she ate more lettuce, hoping that it was just a case of low blood sugar.


Three weeks later, the dizziness hadn't let up and instead worsened to the point of nausea.

Gregor rubbed her back as she retched into the toilet. Her thin frame shook with the effort. Her limbs felt like jelly, and the Hungarian tile beneath her stung with a cold that chilled her to the core.

Eventually, the nausea subsided enough for Sam to fall back into herself.

Her dull, violet eyes stared back at her fiancé. "I'm so sorry," she said, feeling horrible she'd ruined their night. "I didn't mean to get sick here. I haven't felt good for awhile now."

"I am sorry that you feel ill," Gregor mourned, green eyes soft and concerned. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

She tried to smile. "It's okay. I'm sure it'll pass soon."

"Well, why don't you drink something?" He held out a large glass filled with what looked like water.

She wiped her mouth. "I'm not thirsty," she replied. She grabbed hold of one of the towel railings and hauled herself up. She caught a glance of herself in the mirror and wished she hadn't. Her bloodless face scared even herself.

He pressed on, his heavily accented voice taking a deeper tone. "No, really, Sam. Drink this. It's Mira."

"Gregor, I really don't want to drink that." She smiled weakly. "We drink that all the time."

His green eyes hardened. "-Drink it."

She took it as concern. "No, really."

"Drink it, Sam."

Sam back stepped, her pale face staring up at his in shock. "Gregor, what-?"

He slammed her back against the bathroom wall and whispered in her ear, "I just wanted to give you some fun, baby." His accent was gone. He sounded American. "But you gotta make things so difficult."

He forced the glass up to her lips, holding her body down with his own, his large hand squeezing both her wrists together. "You think I really wanted to marry you, Sam?"

Tears of pain and confusion leaked from her purple eyes as she tried to turn her face away, but he followed her with the glass. He was quick.

Cold glass opened her lips, damning Mira forced its way down her throat, and suddenly the room was spinning, and Gregor was grinning, and…


Police. Forensics.

"Miss Manson, we found traces of a highly poisonous toxin laced in the liquid found in a Mira bottle." He spun a vial in his fingers for them to see. "It's virtually undetectable, unless you know what strains to look for."

A detective.

He flashed a picture of the man she loved. "I know this is a difficult time for you, Miss Manson, but what can you tell us about Gregor Almasi, a.k.a Eliot Smith?"

She stared at him from the comfort of a hospital bed. She'd almost died from the slow and constant supply of poison in her body. "E-Eliot?" she echoed emptily. She stared at the picture.

Add on the green contacts and hair bleach, and she was staring straight at a mug shot of Gregor. In the picture, he had brown hair and brown eyes.

He nodded. "We've been tracking this guy since 2008. Miss Manson, you were… going to be his next victim in a string of heiress murders."

She swallowed hard. "I don't understand. Gregor would never-" She stopped herself, feeling the horrible memory of being pinned against wall return. Maybe he would. "…M-murders?"

"By marrying you, the Manson family fortune would have legally passed to his alias in the event of your death." The detective stared at the vial. "I believe he was attempting to speed up the process."

The wedding day was only one week away, and she'd already signed the papers that connected his accounts to hers.


Gregor was twenty-two, but Eliot was twenty-eight. Gregor had bleach blond hair and green eyes. Eliot had brown hair and brown eyes. Gregor was a rich widower who'd lived a life of love and sorrow. Eliot was a heartless criminal who'd lived a life of murder and poison. Gregor was from Hungary. Eliot was from Michigan.

And yet they were the same exact person.

To celebrate her disillusionment with perfection, she chopped her long, beautiful hair into spikes and shaved one half of her skull. She doubled her eyeliner and burned the sundresses that Gregor had bought her with the blood money of his previous victims.

Her skin still pale from her ever-nearing brush with death made her look like a ghost. Maybe, in ways, she was a ghost of her former self.


Daniel Fenton was human. Danny Phantom was a ghost. Danny Fenton was twenty. Danny Phantom had an unknown birthday. Danny Fenton was an average college student. Danny Phantom was a controversial superhero.

And yet they were the same exact person.

And they had both saved her life. They'd both smiled and helped her out. They'd both protected her.

"Danny's not like Gregor," she realized, desperately attempting to separate fact from fiction. "He had to keep that part of his life a secret. He never lied to me about anything. He didn't have any motives."

He just protected me.

Protected me.

"Danny's not Gregor."

And the more she thought about it, she more she began to realize her irrationality.

But the fact that Danny Fenton was half-ghost certainly threw her for a spin...


Back at their apartment, Tucker sat beside Danny on the couch. "How ya doin', man?"

Danny grimaced, clenching and unclenching his fist to check his reflexes. "Still hurts to transform. I took a pretty big beating."

"So this Sam girl was ticked."

Danny scoffed. "Ticked? Tucker, she was pissed. She nearly came after me with a bat, and she accused me of so much shit…"

Tucker's perceptive gaze saw through Danny's act. "You're really upset about this, aren't you?"

"Upset?" Danny echoed sarcastically. "Why would I be upset? It's only the first time anyone outside of our circle has discovered my secret, and she wouldn't even let me explain myself! She just…flipped."

A very real fear gripped him. "I thought she was my friend, Tuck. I figured she'd listen and understand. But she didn't. What if…everybody acts like that?" He ran a shaky hand through his hair. "And what if she blabs my secret to everybody?"

Tucker sighed. "Man, I think you're blowing this out of proportion."

"No, I don't think I am. I don't know Sam, and I don't know what she'll do next."

Danny was going off in one of his 'moods,' in which he worried and panicked himself into a small coma.

The techno-geek, a veteran of Danny's worry tantrums and nervous habits, stood up and clapped his friend on the back. "Look man, panicking isn't gonna change things. Why don't you call up Jazz and talk to her about it? She could probably give you some advice and calm you down. Maybe she can even figure out a way to keep Sam quiet."

Danny's distracted and bloodshot eyes landed on the phone. "Yeah," he agreed. "That sounds good."

"Great!" Tucker adjusted his glasses. "Problem solved. If you need me, I'll be down in the game room, raging against the machine and drinking orange soda. Just let me know whenever you want me to disrupt Sam's electronics so she can't tell anyone your secret."


7:35 pm. Jazz picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Jazz?"

"Danny!" she recognized him immediately. He sounded stressed and tired. "What's up? You almost never call me. Unless you want something."

He sighed over the phone. "I know, and I'm sorry, but please. I really need your help."

Glancing down at her books, she pushed them aside and sat at the table, a soft, knowing smile twitching her lips up. "Anything, little brother."

With a suffering sigh, he explained the situation (leaving out the rather scandalous details, such as the alcohol and underwear, and instead explained that Sam was just a good friend) and crossed his fingers. "You know why she'd be so upset? I mean, instead of just freakin' out, you know, she was actually angry. She tried to attack me."

Jazz hummed. "It sounds to me like this Sam girl is suffering from some overarching problem. Sure, the shock of your transformation would inevitably catch her off-guard, but she didn't even seem to question that. She questioned the relationship between your human and ghost appearance, and why you had a double life. I think your answer is somewhere in that."

Danny leaned against the wall and sighed, glancing up at the fluorescent lights above him. Shadows crossed his tired face. "I hope so. Man, Jazz, you should have seen her face. I think Mom and Dad would have reacted better."

"That does say something," Jazz admitted. "I'm sorry, Danny. Hopefully she'll come out of it. Think about it this way: I don't think she's gonna say anything. If she's this freaked over something in her past, odds are she doesn't talk about that past, and she probably won't talk about this either."

"I hope you're right, Jazz." He paused. "I just…I just wanted her to…" He blew his bangs out of his eyes and tried to laugh away his stutter. "I dunno."

Jazz caught the strain in his voice. "…You like her, don't you?"

Caught off-guard, the boy blinked, his heart stopping. Then he swallowed hard. "Yeah, I do."


A/N: Blah! Random noises! Utter confoundment at my own inability to update in an orderly fashion! My next order of business is to update Chained, Desperado, and Quantum Paradox, for any of you who wonder if I've forgotten those stories. :)

So here's chapter 9: the background info on Sam, and Danny's reaction to the whole fiasco. I tried to make the flashbacks into Sam's past relatively interesting-hopefully while the descriptions themselves were cliché, the plot wasn't too much. I did enjoy making Gregor into the villain, admittedly. This chapter is my first documented use of Gregor! Yay for firsts!

Chapter updated: Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 1:00 P.M., as promised! If you ever want to track my progress on a story, please check out my profile. I usually try to update it once a week to let everyone know how I'm coming along with chapters.

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2. Characters?

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Thanks so much for reading! Have a Happy New Year!

Lightning Streak

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