Disclaimers: Don't own the anime. Don't own the song. Don't own Matt Damon. Damn.

Warnings: Kinda sad, I guess. Maybe a little OOC because it involves Psychological Stuff. I tried not to have it OOC, but it might seem that way, just because the situations are different, etc. ~.~() so I hope it's okay. Oh, yeah…this is also the best title I could come up with at 5:00 in the morning. So it's kinda obscure and silly, but…gahhh, whatever. ^___^

Name Stuff: Okayyyy…see, I do too many reincarnation fics, I guess. But I used up all my creative and unusual names when I did Fires of Destiny!! ~.~;;;;; So all the guys in this fic have the same names that they usually do in reincarnation fics, so I don't get confused. **nodnod**

Notes: Whoah! This is my first new story in…a while!! Figured it was time, maybe, eh? ^_^ I stayed up all night writing this, because I am a loser. But all I have today is a drawing class, so I should be able to handle it. I hope. Anyhoo, hope you guys don't think this is too boring. ^___^

BLACKBIRD

~~*~~

Chapter One:

The Window

Dr. Myojuan Yamada
Apt. No. 425
1532 W. Springhill Dr.
Pearson, IL, 66449

Dear Dr. Yamada:

Thank you for your patience in seeking a position with Bentley Park Hospital. After reviewing the transcripts of your interview of 5 December, we are pleased to inform you that we would be happy to give you the position for which you applied. Please contact us at (776) 555-0449 to confirm.

Sincerely,

Dr. Roman J. Lewis
Head Physician
Bentley Park Hospital and Home
Lake View, IL

He looked at the letter, read it over a few times, and sighed. Leaning back in his chair, he proceeded to examine the cracks in the ceiling of his small third-floor apartment, as if they would somehow tell his future, which was now…rather uncertain.

A therapist in private practice: that's what he had been, before this new crisis. Private practice. It meant rich hypochondriacs who would be happy to rattle on for hours about the lint between their toes. It meant psychopathic aristocrats who would bring in their dogs for therapy…not that he disliked animals, quite the contrary, but they had a tendency to be rather unresponsive where Freudian tactics were involved.

And most importantly, it meant money.

But no one wanted an analyst who told the truth, and therein lay the problem. He would gladly have accepted their generous paychecks if he was actually helping his patients. The fact was, however, that very few of them were sick beyond the normal amount of worries and troubles that come with everyday living. He tried to tell them these things, thinking that he was thus doing at least a small bit of good. But it seemed like those people didn't want to be cured. They wanted to suffer, God knows why…maybe out of boredom. Whatever the case was, though, it had made him decidedly unpopular in upper-class circles—a shrink who actually did his job!! The horror!—and money had become more and more scarce as the months of unemployment ticked by.

He'd considered moving. He'd considered going back to school and getting a proper medical degree with no sketchy psychological corners to skirt around. Christ, he'd even considered becoming a bloody professor. But every time he'd decided on something, some strange reason always arose to put it off.

And now this.

A position at Bentley Park, the best-reputed asylum—psychiatric hospital, to be politically correct—in five counties. The pay wouldn't be high, but it would be something…enough to keep him in Herbal Remedies and Tama-neko in Iams Dry Cat Food, anyway. If only he could shake the stereotypical, violent images of such places from his mind: Jack Nichalson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," getting shock-treated to vegetable status; straight jackets, scruffy patients, sadistic nurses, daily meds, and people with honest-to-goodness mental problems. People who thought they were Napoleon, or Betty Crocker; people who took eighteen baths a day and refused to wear the same pair of socks twice.

Pleasant picture.

But again, it was something. He saw himself as fairly sympathetic in nature. Going over all the Movie Asylum Staples in his mind again, he pictured himself making a marked difference in the lives of the inmates…patients. He would crusade to end the stereotypical shock therapy. He would keep an eye out for the stereotypical sadistic nurses, and perhaps encourage the scruffy loons to shave.

Quite the Giant Killer, aren't you?

"Indeed," he mumbled aloud, gently folding Dr. Lewis' letter and placing it back inside its envelope. Setting the thing peremptorily down on the kitchen table, he tried to get up and make some coffee…but his eyes always fell back down to it, and he drummed his fingers on the blue and white tablecloth, frustrated.

He caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up just in time to see his white cat, Tama, jump up onto the table by way of the opposite chair.

"Tamaaaa," he said warningly. "You know the kitchen table is not a place for cats."

Tama ignored him, strutting toward his master with a gleam in his eyes, grey-tipped tail twitching back and forth. He stopped in front of Myojuan, and the big doctor could hear him purring. Ruffling the cat's ears, he offered a small smile. "Well? What do you think of this recent turn of events? Should I be a doctor in a loony bin?"

In response, Tama promptly sat upon the letter in question.

Myojuan sighed. Ever-helpful, as always. "I didn't really think I'd get this job," he confessed to his feline audience. "I don't have that kind of training. Should I take it as some kind of good sign, that they want me anyway?"

The cat crouched down and flopped over on his side, rolling on his back in hope of a kind, scratching hand. His master chuckled and obliged. "I can see you're deep in thought over the situation," he said, then sighed and tugged the envelope out from under his pet. "Well. Better sacrifice pride and reputation for food and shelter, eh?"

He dialed the number and waited for the automated receptionist, not exactly sure whether he regretted it yet or not.

//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\

"Well, Dr. Yamada! I must say, it's an honor to have you join our staff!" said Dr. Roman J. Lewis, standing and reaching across the desk to shake the hand of his new employee. He was a tall, thin man, balding, with a brown mustache and a pair of round wire spectacles perched on his long nose. His eyes were in such a perpetual squint of cheer that it was almost impossible to determine their color if one did not have pliers with which to pry them open.

"The honor is mine," Myojuan assured him, determined to be polite, even if it was not precisely the truth. "When do I begin?"

Dr. Lewis gave him a sheepish grin. "Funny you should ask…"

Wonderful. They've already got me booked until next Christmas, I'll wager.

"We have a young man here who could be waiting for someone like yourself," the head physician said casually, opening his top drawer and rifling through the papers there.

"Oh?" said Myojuan. "How so?"

"He's been seeing private therapists since he was nine years old," Lewis explained. "He'll be used to your style. It will be…comforting, I imagine."

"If the private therapists he's seen obviously couldn't help him—otherwise, he wouldn't be here—what makes you think I'd be any different?" Myojuan asked. "Not meaning to be offensive, of course."

Lewis chuckled. "Of course not, of course not… Ah! Here we are." He pulled a file from the drawer, gave it a lingering glance, and handed it over to Myojuan. "His name's Ryuuen; Ryuuen Chou. Seventeen years old, middle-class family, fairly normal life…no great tragedy, or anything. Not even a pet dying."

Examining the file, Myojuan cocked an eyebrow. "So…what's his problem? He see dead people? Think he's from the planet K-Pax?"

"Hehe. No," said Lewis. "I must say, I'm glad to find a man with your sense of humor in this profession, Doctor."

Myojuan grinned wryly. "Why, thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your saying so, especially since most people don't actually believe I have a sense of humor."

His new employer looked appalled. "No!"

"Sad, but true." He examined the list of maladies that had afflicted his new patient. "Hmm. Sexual identity crisis; hallucinations; delusions; early stages of anorexia. Interesting."

"That was what resulted in his coming here," Lewis explained. "The hallucination/delusion bit has always been there, as far as we know. Family tried to take care of them, but for some reason, they only seemed to get stronger. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was his father coming home one fine evening to find his young son dressed in his sister's clothing."

"Hm," said Myojuan.

"Well, you can imagine what a row ensued, in a run-of-the-mill conservative household." Raising his eyebrows, Lewis blew out a sigh. "Ended in a sort of hunger strike for the boy. And they finally decided that they…just couldn't deal with him on their own. And lo, voila! He is here. And you are here."

"How long has he been here?"

"Ohhhh…a week, give or take. Still not eating properly; got him hooked up to an IV at night. He's not really talking much, so it's been trying attempting to figure out how his bloody little mind works…or, rather, doesn't work." He laughed a bit at his own joke. "Mind you, Yamado, if you talk to him and discover yourself to be unprepared to deal with whatever ails him, no one at Bentley is ever penalized for making a judgment call. If anything, they are commended, for a good doctor knows his own limits."

With a sigh, Myojuan closed the file and nodded. "All right. Well. When can I meet him?"

//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\*//*\\

Gingerly closing the heavy door behind him, Myojuan gazed across the too-tidy room to his new patient.

There had been no picture in the file Lewis had given him, and to tell the truth, he wasn't sure exactly what he'd been expecting. But whatever it had been, it certainly wasn't the slight, fragile-looking boy before him.

Ryuuen Chou had turned one of the padded chairs to face the barred window, and was now sitting in it, cross-legged and slightly hunched, clad in a white cotton outfit that resembled nothing so much as pajamas. His chin was tilted toward the blue sky, showing off the graceful, almost feminine curve of his neck, trailing down into the hollows of his collarbone, exposed by the loose shirt he wore. His small hands rested gently on his ankles, pale enough to rival the white of his clothing, as was the rest of his skin; a mass of dry-looking, purplish hair trailed down his back, the long bangs tucked behind his ears. The signs of the young man's eating disorder were evident in the dark circles beneath his eyes, the sunken cheeks, and the dryness of the hair.

Seventeen? Myojuan exclaimed inside his head. He looks about twelve. Maybe in his early teens. MAYBE.

In that first moment, that very first glimpse he had of the boy, the young doctor's heart went out to him. Which was strange, all things considered; despite his love of helping people, Myojuan had never really had his heart "go out" to anything or anyone except his animals.

But this boy, this child…he looked like an animal himself. Like a bird, a brittle, caged little bird, peering out into a world that was no longer his to inhabit.

Maybe it never had been, in the first place.

Ryuuen didn't seem to have noticed him coming in, so he took a few delicate steps in his patient's direction.

"Ryuuen?"

Silence. Not even a glimmer of recognition that there was someone else in the room besides himself.

He tried again, heading over to the neatly-made bed near the chair, clearing his throat. "Ryuuen, I'm Dr. Yamado. I'd like to talk to you, if you don't mind."

A few moments passed. Still no response.

Well. So far, so good.

"What're you looking at?" Sat down on the bed.

Still nothing. What the heck did he have to do to make the kid…

Wait! There…a slight movement of the throat.

He swallowed!!! My catatonic patient SWALLOWED!!! Saints preserve us, if THAT'S one of the perks of the job, I'm in for one hell of a career.

"Ryuuen?…I know you can hear me," he proceeded gently.

And there it was again, a slight flicker of movement around the smooth jaw, a tiny flutter of the eyelashes.

He's hesitating. Come on, kiddo. Come out of the old shell.

"What are you looking at, through that window?" he pressed, keeping his voice soothing and quiet. Just like a bird; can't make any sudden moves, can't frighten him away.

Another long, drawn-out pause, and Myojuan had conceded that the effort had been wasted. He tried to think of something else he could use, some other phrase to strike up an interest…but the room was painfully bare. No posters, no pictures…nothing to talk about. Nothing.

"Do you like…music?" he was about to inquire lamely, but was silenced—thank God!—by another swallow from young Ryuuen…quickly followed by…a voice.

"I'm…waiting….for the stars to come out," the boy said in a small, croaky voice, as if he'd not spoken in days…which, according to Lewis, he hadn't. Still not tearing his eyes away from the bars and glass.

HE SPEAKS!!!

"Why? Why are you waiting for the stars?" Naturally, he betrayed none of his inner jubilation on his face.

"Because…" –faded to a hoarse whisper, now—"then I won't be lonely anymore."

"Well, that's why I'm here," said Myojuan. Right. Build on the friendship. Build on the trust. "I'm here to keep you company, so you won't be lonely."

And then, without warning, the exhausted-looking face turned to face him, and he was stricken full-on by a pair of beautiful violet eyes—yes, beautiful, but sad, so very sad—which went suddenly wide as saucers at the sight of the oversized psychiatrist sitting on his bed.

And then…

A smile. Ever so slight; just the very shadow of a shadow of a smile. But it was there.

"It's…" the boy gasped, painstakingly twisting his thin body in the chair. "It's you!"

~~*~~

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

TBC…

AAHHHH!!!! ^____^ heehee. Okay, so the song lyrics are cheesy. **shrug** Ah well.

Okay, just wanna let y'all know that I haven't really proofed this AT ALL…because it's almost five in the morning and I'm a freak for staying up too late. ^_^ So if there turn out to be any typos or weird things in it, I'll be sure to fix 'em later. But if you have any comments, I'd be glad to hear them. ^_____^ Thanks for reading!