Disclaimer: The characters and themes in this fanfic are property of Atlus. I don't own rights to any of it (a few of the characters were my original ideas, though), and this fanfic is purely for entertainment. Thank you.

a/n: Wow, it took me a year to write this first chapter. A /year/. Worse yet, it's not very good--but I'm writing this for myself, not for everyone else, and I've still got some surprising twists up my sleeve ;D

If I don't update this very much, it's because I've got a lot of…crap going on right now.

As promised, here is the first chapter of Striving towards Tomorrow! (It won't make sense if you haven't read Within the Asylum, I'll warn you ahead of time. It's just a short oneshot, so it doesn't take very long to read if you haven't already.)

--x--

I probably should've eaten lunch. I know I'm going to be hungry, but I don't think I could've eaten if I tried. Maybe it's nerves--no, it was that I just wasn't hungry. No, that doesn't sound right, either.

Derek was still within the confines of his box, which surprisingly wasn't the thing that bothered him the most--nothing had changed over the past month or so; but of course, there hadn't been any plans for change. There were people in the Asylum that reacted… negatively to change. He had seen it before. Everyone here had seen it.

Other than the nurses that oversaw his general care, he hadn't had any human contact. This was normal--doctors had been known to quit, so he guessed that that was what had become of his, and visitors were extremely rare. The amount (or lack thereof) of human contact hadn't changed, his surroundings hadn't, on the most part, changed, and the Asylum itself hadn't changed, so what was different?

He was different; that had to be it.

It wasn't like a huge epiphany had hit him whenever Angie had first visited him a year ago, but more like something that had slowly seeped into his mind, growing a bit more apparent with every visit and less ignorable after every departure. After 48 visits and two months of un-nerving inactivity, it was no surprise that he was jumping at the sound of the door. It reminded him of a dog, loyally waiting the return of his master--not that he was a dog or Angie was his master; it was just a metaphor.

"Derek, we're going to meet your new doctor today." The voice wasn't a new one, but he could instantly tell that the person speaking didn't work on the west wing. All of the nurses from the west wing had a gentle, slow way of talking to the patients here--much as if they were trying to explain something to a child. "I want you on your best behavior." The phrase caused whatever enjoyment he might've gotten from the fact that he wasn't being treated as a baby to vanish. It was just another reminder that even if she didn't work on the west wing, he still lived in the west wing. All the same, the nurse annoyed him to no end.

She had blonde hair and green eyes, and reminded him of Angie because of it. Was everything here trying to work against him?

He shuffled awkwardly down the hall with the nurse, hoping that they didn't have to go far. It wasn't that he didn't like walking--the thing that he hated the most was the way that people looked at him. The world would always remember Dr. Stiles and his efforts against bioterrorism, but…he surely wasn't Dr. Stiles anymore. He was just a pathetic man in a strait jacket that got pathetic glances from people who faked sympathy or had trouble hiding their dislike (or, even worse, fear).

"Nurse…" he trailed off because of the speed that her head had jerked towards him. She didn't stop walking, like one of the west wing nurses would've, but continued at a slightly slower pace. "Why did my previous doctor quit? Am… am I getting worse?"

If nothing else, the question caused the ghost of a smile to tug at the edges of her mouth. "No, Derek, you're not getting worse." She bit down on her lip as she pondered over the answer. "You know, Dr. Simmons didn't tell anyone his reason for dropping your case. If I had to make a logical assumption as to why he did so… As odd as this might sound to you, he probably dropped your case because you're getting better."

And indeed, it didn't make sense to him. "Does this mean that I'm getting transferred to Dr. Freeman?" Derek found the man's name and his profession ironic. He considered freedom as being as far away from the Asylum as possible, but Dr. Freeman obviously never had the pleasure of spending two years as a patient in the hellish place.

She shook her head in reply, which also confused him. Dr. Freeman and Dr. Simmons were the only doctors that worked on the west wing, so that meant that either there was a new doctor or he was being transferred to the east wing. As far as he had heard, people didn't get transferred out of the west wing into the east wing. The east wing was for people who had a chance of recovery. The west wing… was more or less a place for the crazies to bide their time until they finally passed away. "The hospital is doing something different with your case. While you're going to stay in the west wing for the time being, you're going to be escorted to the east wing every other day to meet with your doctor."

His eyes were wide, and while an untrained gaze might've thought that he looked excited, the nurse could tell that he was more frightened than excited. The sudden change of mood wasn't a result of the conversation, but instead the location that they had reached by rounding the corner.

Two doors stood before them, lacking handles and windows. He had heard stories about these doors. It was impossible not to hear stories about the doors. They represented a divide between good and evil in the Asylum--things that passed through them into the lobby were good, things that passed through them into the west wing were bad; things that resided in the lobby and in the east wing were good, things that resided in the west wing were bad. And here he was, just another crazy from the west wing, marveling at this wonderful gateway with his own eyes. The lighting in this area was much better than in the rest of the west wing, at least.

The nurse walked a step away to a phone that was hooked to the wall, picking it up and waiting for a response on the other end. "Nancy, I'm at the doors with Derek. Mind opening them for us?" There was a pause before she looked at Derek and smiled. "No, you won't have to worry about that. He's a good kid." There were a few more words said that he missed before she hung up the phone, grabbing one of the sleeves on his strait jacket. "There aren't any people in the lobby right now, but there might be on some of the other days you'll have to pass through here. Mind you don't pay attention to them."

He barely heard her words as he stared, awestruck over the slow event of the doors opening outwards into the lobby.

Am I still in the Asylum? This…isn't real. It must not be real. The last two months were a dream. In a moment, one of the nurses is going to wake me up and tell me that I've got a visitor, and I'll see Angie again and tell her about the strangest dream that I had…

Yet, the lobby seemed too nice and novel and…well, too real to have been something fabricated in a dream. It was spacious, sunny, and had a domed ceiling with skylights that gave him the idea that it hadn't always been an asylum. This was definitely the closest he had ever gotten to freedom. And it would be so easy to escape-- No; I don't want to be back out in the real world just yet. I'm…just not ready for it yet.

"Come on, Derek. We don't want you to be late to your first appointment, do we?" the nurse asked, pulling him back to reality as she more or less dragged him along by the sleeve.

"No ma'am," he muttered politely, picking up the pace a bit. The front desk secretary glared at him as they walked by before turning back to the paperwork she had been doing before, causing his cheeks to flush in a bright red. Why do people glare at me like that? They don't know me… they don't know me…

The nurse caught the end of Nancy's glare and the beginning of Derek's blush out the corner of her eye, ignoring it until they stepped out of earshot. "Just ignore her. She doesn't mean it."

Despite being his first time in the east wing and such, it was all he could do to keep his gaze from hitting the floor. His feelings were hurt, and it dampened the mood quite a bit. It almost reminded him of a sulky teenager with a bit of broken pride. "I'm sorry."

"Eh?" She cast him a strange look before piecing it together. "Derek, you didn't do anything wrong. I'll talk to her after I take you to Dr. Schwehn's office." Her lips pursed together in a thin line, doing her best to keep pace with him whenever he wanted to go slow and take everything--or worse, sulk over the fact that Nancy wasn't too fond of the west wing's inhabitants.

He said nothing as he examined the east wing, trying to put guesses of what he might've done wrong, despite what the nurse was telling him, to the back of his head. "…this is the east wing," he spoke, more to himself than to her.

There were no doors at the beginning of the wing; just a long, spacious hallway filled with apartments, offices, and the occasional piece of medical equipment every now and again. It lacked in windows, but not in people. To his dismay, most of the people coming out of the apartments ducked back in their rooms whenever they saw him coming. West wing patients tended to idolize east wing patients, but what did east wing patients say about west wing ones?

They stopped outside of an office that seemed completely alien compared to the ones that he was used to, but he assumed that this was because everything was different outside of the west wing. Hell, even the brass nameplate on his door seemed shinier.

She knocked a few times on the door, getting no answer. "Dr. Schwehn?" she queried, looking as though she wasn't sure if he was even in his office. "Derek Stiles is here to see you."

It wasn't but a few seconds after she said that that the door swung open, revealing who Derek guessed to be Dr. Schwehn. At first glance, he really didn't look like much. His hair (that, despite age, seemed to still be rather thick) was completely devoid of color, giving away his age almost as much as the lines under his eyes. The eyes in question had a calming gentleness to them--and, most likely because he was especially sensitive to things that reminded him of Angie, he noticed that they were almost the same shade of green as the nurse's despite the fact that they were slightly hidden behind his glasses. He stood upright and carried himself with the pride of someone of a younger generation, smiling slightly as he looked over both of them.

"Ah, so this is the Derek that I've heard so much about? Please, come in and make yourself at home." Home. The word was strange to him at this point. What he knew to be home was exactly what he was trying not to think about. "Thank you for escorting him here, Nurse Krause. I'll page you whenever it's time for him to go back to his room." She nodded before departing, allowing him to shut the door.

Derek paid no attention to Dr. Schwehn as he absorbed the details of the room from the mint wallpaper to the potted plant in the corner and then to the picture frame on his desk. The cloth on the chair that he had chosen had a small stain on it, from what substance he didn't particularly care to know.

"How has your day been so far, Derek?"

The question barely reached him, and he didn't make an answer until the question had finally absorbed in. "Just like every other day in here, Doctor. I can't really say if it's better or worse." Actually, that was a lie. He had distinguished a difference between good days and bad days--good days were ones in which Adam didn't cross his mind, and bad days were ones in which he did. But, if he told Dr. Schwehn that, he'd probably be transferred back to Dr. Freeman. He didn't want to leave the east wing until he absolutely had to.

"Even after getting to see the lobby and the east wing?" he pushed forward, glancing down at Derek's records while he spoke. From what he could make of Dr. Simmons's notes--actually, he couldn't really make much of them. He reported Derek having extreme hallucinations and reacting negatively to things from outside his cell. There was no telling how accurate these would hold, seeing as the younger doctor had dropped the case quite a long time ago--almost over one year. Had Derek known the size of the gap of inactivity?

Derek paused, debating over what to say. The lobby--no, it was the lobby ceiling, was awesome, and the east wing was open and seemed welcoming if you subtracted the actions of the people residing in it. "It was nice," he finally responded, refusing to make eye contact with the unfamiliar person.

By the end of the session (roughly an hour or an hour and a half by his guesses), Dr. Schwehn hadn't found out anything that he didn't already know, but that was such with new patients. "It's been nice talking with you, Derek. I'll see you the day after tomorrow. Tell me while we're waiting for Nurse Krause, are you expecting any visitors?"

Derek's gaze flicked from the spot on the floor up to Dr. Schwehn as soon as he had said that. "Angie," he spoke quickly, getting what was more or less a blank look from him. "Angie is coming to visit me again really soon. She told me herself. She's never forgotten about me before."

There was a knock on the door, interrupting what was the longest response he had managed to get out of him. He got up from behind his desk, opening the door to the same nurse as before. "Nurse Krause, do you know of Derek having any visitors by the name of 'Angie'?" he asked under his breath so that he wouldn't be heard.

She nodded before pausing. "The name rings a bell, but even so, Mr. Stiles hasn't had a visitor in over two months."

Dr. Schwehn nodded before turning back to Derek. "Derek, Nurse Krause is here to help you back to your room," he spoke, forcing the other out of the chair and towards the door. "…Derek? Angie is a busy woman, so I don't want you to be upset if she doesn't come whenever you expect her to."

His expression went from calm to angry as soon as he said that. "Angie is coming. I know it," he growled back, glaring at his new doctor from over his glasses. "You don't know her. She wouldn't forget about me." He didn't move while he was glaring, finally stalking back over to where Nurse Krause was.

"Glenn, what are you getting yourself into?" she asked under her breath, grabbing onto Derek's sleeve once again as Dr. Schwehn turned around, shaking his head slightly.

"I'm not getting myself into anything I can't handle, Jennyth. Please take Derek back to his room." She hesitated before finally walking out the door, listening to it shut quietly behind them.

Her attention turned back to Derek after that, being surprised over the fact that his anger had changed into him just being upset. Upon further inspection, it was obvious that he was trying to hold back tears. "…Derek, are you alright?"

His gaze stayed firmly on the floor as he failed to acknowledge her. "I don't like him."

She shook her head in the same manner that Dr. Schwehn had. "Dr. Schwehn means well. Please don't judge him on first impressions. He's a really nice guy when you get to know him and an amazing doctor to boot--if he upsets you, I could try to get you transferred back to Dr. Freeman--"

"No!" he snapped, cutting her off almost as soon as she had brought up the suggestion. "I can handle having a doctor on the east wing. I just don't want him calling Angie a liar."

Nancy was gone whenever they re-entered the lobby, which was probably for the better since Derek was in no condition to have strange people watching him.

"You just assumed that he was calling Angie a liar. He only said that he didn't want you to be upset if she didn't come when you expected her. That just means that if she doesn't come tomorrow, she might come…the next day," she explained, pushing the doors to the west wing open. "I don't think she'd want you to be bitter at Dr. Schwehn over that."

The answer caught him off guard, and he was even more so whenever he looked up and realized that they were back in the west wing. "…you're right. I'm sorry that I snapped."

He's like a little kid, Nurse Krause thought as they walked, going a bit faster than she had originally been going. The west wing wasn't exactly her favorite place to be. "I'm not the one that you should be apologizing to."

"…could you tell Dr. Schwehn that I'm sorry?" he asked innocently, doing nothing to suggest that he wasn't being serious or sincere. Innocent like a little kid--but he must've been doing something to get him in that strait jacket.

A slight smile spread over her face at that as she opened the door to his room. "I'll be sure to spread the word. Good bye, Derek."

"Good bye."

He stood in the middle of his room, his eyes narrowed at the drab surroundings. Home Sweet Home, he mused to himself before sitting down and closing his eyes. Had that really all been real? Yes, he had seen a world outside of the west wing--a small wonder. He had passed through the doors--

And it was then that he realized that what they said about the doors were lies. He had been over the doorstop and through the lobby--and he was still just Derek Stiles, resident of the west wing and the Angeles Bay Asylum. He was no better and worse.

Now all he needed was to see Angie again, but for now he was able to content himself with a picture of her face as he lied down and drifted slowly to sleep…

--x--

a/n; Sorry for not putting Angie in this chapter--I've got other plans for her. -evil cackle- Expect to see her in the next chapter, which should take considerably less time since I actually know what I'm doing past this part. -dances- Oh, and a cookie to anyone who can correctly pronounce "Schwehn" (and I'll give you a hint--his name is Glenn Schwehn and it does /not/ rhyme) 3 Auf Wiedersehen, loves

I totally beta'd this :)

--Tay

a/n; I'm only leaving that up there because I love you, Tay xD