Purgatory

Or: Angels and Demons

Prologue: Blinded by the Light

Everything was white.

It was more than just a color, though. The whiteness was overwhelmingly bright, like staring directly into the sun.

It hurt to look at, but apparently, Danny didn't have a choice.

He desperately wanted to blink, to clear his vision, to get a moment's reprieve from the searing pain. But his eyes just weren't working.

Nothing seemed to be working.

Danny supposed he'd been blinded.

It made a sick sort of sense. He couldn't remember how or why, and he was grasping at straws for any sort of explanation, but the never-ending hot light around him seemed to suggest blindness.

Then again, it was really hard for him to think for some reason. He just wanted to close his eyes for a while – or at least a moment – but he couldn't.

That was pretty much his whole problem.

Suddenly, sneakily, a more chilling worry wormed its way into Danny's head: maybe he was dying. Didn't movie characters typically warn against a blinding whiteness – like the proverbial "light at the end of a tunnel" – when death was approaching?

He tried, but he couldn't seem to do a single thing to stop any of this.

Once again, Danny struggled to remember how he could have ended up here, wherever "here" was.

What was he doing before all this brightness started? Had… had he gone down to his parents' library-lab? And if so… why?

"Danny!" He heard his name echo around and around the bleached space.

(At least he knew his own name. Small victories.)

He knew he should recognize that voice too, but it still took him a minute to pinpoint who could be yelling. His head ached too much, and this new voice was so piercingly loud.

Danny felt as though he was swimming against a strong current as he tried to remember basic things…like the sound of his friend's voice…his friend… Tucker!

Danny finally identified his best and oldest friend with a jolt of relief.

Although Tucker's voice seemed to vibrate all around him, there did seem to be a faint center that was the source of the sound… There, Danny detected eventually, somewhat shocked that he could.

He devoted all of his energy toward inching closer and closer to that cradle of noise. He knew he had to move forward, somehow.

Danny suddenly had a new problem, though. The slightest change in movement was debilitating. This all-over, all-consuming pain was something Danny had previously only read about.

But strangely, after a second or a lifetime, the hurt subsided enough before shifting to overall discomfort.

Danny felt tiny, razor-sharp pinpricks traveling up and down his body, and his back arched as he gasped aloud.

After a beat – another agonizing minute, maybe – the pinpricks morphed into a tingling sensation, like an itch underneath his skin that he couldn't scratch.

Finally, the agony and discomfort and prickling flared and just… paused for a moment, suspended in a sort of limbo.

Then every single sensation consolidated into one location: underneath Danny's shoulder blades.

Jesus, the nerves underneath Danny's shoulders clenched and tightened, almost making his eyes water.

Energy exploded all around him, and suddenly, finally, Danny could see something other than pure light.

His head was pounding, and his eyes stung, but shapes and colors started to appear around him at last. A blurry image of Tucker – a sight that looked more like a slow-motion flip book than reality – began to solidify in front of him.

Danny recognized aspects of Tucker's appearance haphazardly: a red beret here, army-green cargo pants there. Then, Tucker's worried voice pierced his skull.

"Danny! Danny! Is that you? Holy shi—"

20 Years Ago

Maddie was a sophomore at Northwestern when she heard the news. Her sister Alicia had already been notified.

When Alicia first called, her sister's normally brusque, brave demeanor instantly crumpled. Maddie hadn't heard from Alicia in months, so this call had to be important. Life-changing, even.

Or life-shattering.

"Mads," Alicia took several shaky breaths before continuing, "I have to—it's ma and da…They're gone," Alicia let out a strangled sob.

Her sister's twang stood out more when she was upset, and it was clearly on display here.

Maddie always tried her hardest to bury her accent herself, to sound more professional at her "city school." Not that any of that mattered now.

Maddie took a strand of auburn hair between her fingers, twirling it absentmindedly. She recognized, in a detached way, that for the first time in her nineteen years of life, she was completely numb.

She couldn't say why, but she could've predicted something like this from the moment Alicia uttered her childhood nickname. It had to have been about their parents.

And it had to have been tragic.

Things had just been going too well. Maddie had been talking to her parents more. They had been proud of her drive, of her scientific interest in a more "traditional" field.

Maddie blinked back tears as memory after memory crept up into her subconscious. She realized that she'd never have a chance to bring up her research with them again.

Ignoring the overwhelming tightness in her chest, heart empty and aching, Maddie decided to turn her attention to what she could do. Maybe she could help.

Maybe, she could figure out what had really happened to her parents.

Because deep down in her soul, she knew that there was more to the story than what Alicia was telling her.

-XXX-

The assigned coroner had been puzzled by the case, to say the least.

The alleged double-murder – in a stereotypically dark Chicago alley – left little clues, save for two pitch-black feathers. The placement of the plumage stood out as well: each dark feather rested exactly atop the location of the victim's heart.

Oddly, there was hardly any blood. Mixed amid the minimal redness was a strange white substance, splattered haphazardly over Maddie and Alicia's deceased parents and spread in spots around the dingy alley.

Nothing – not a single, suggested explanation – made any logical sense.

Maddie vowed then and there to not only solve this mystery, but to make whoever – or whatever – was responsible pay.

"Fringe science" be damned.

-XXX-

A/N: What's this? A Winged! Danny AU, picking up moments after the accident? Guilty as charged. In this story, only Tucker is with Danny when the Fentons' "doorway to death" suddenly comes alive… Picture a The Da Vinci Code-like vibe with this AU going forward.