A/N: Sorry about the length of time between the last chapter and this.

Disclaimer: The Matrix is owned by Warner Bros. and the Wachowskis. Agents: The Series is co-owned by myself and Stormhawk. Tib, Zelda, and Blackbird_King are mine. Movies, songs, web-pages, books, etcetera belong to their respective creators unless otherwise mentioned.

All characters and events in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Chapter 7...

Tib felt a queasy, unreasoning panic fill his stomach. He stared at his mother in disbelief and dismay.

"The h-hospital?" he managed. "But-"

She shook her head and took his hand. "I'm sorry dear, but you have to believe me, this is for your own good. You don't eat, you don't sleep. All you ever do is play with that computer of yours. It's out of my hands."

Tib's brown eyes stayed trained on his mother, unable to quite process the data he was being given. His mind wrestled with the concept and came up with an answer.

"You can't send me to the hospital, I'm over eighteen. You can't do it without my consent," he sputtered.

His mother sighed. "You're right David, I can't. But I can tell you, that if you want to stay living in this house you'll check yourself in."

Now was the time for snap decisions. On the one hand, if he chose to leave his mother's house, where would he go? On the other hand if he went, he wouldn't be able to make his meeting with Morpheus.

He wouldn't have to face that decision brewing inside him, not really. Because he wasn't choosing not to go, per se, he was choosing to not be able to go. That was different, right?

Was the hospital beyond there reach?

These thought swam about his head, colliding with one another all in the space of a moment, until he said...

"I'll go."

As soon as the worlds were out of his mouth, his mother threw her arms around him. And then he gulped, wondering for the second time that morning what in the name of the Valar he'd gotten himself into.

***

Getting checked in didn't seem to take any time at all, he was given some paper work to sign, and then escorted to a small sterile room that was to be his for...as long as he was there.

Tib buried his face in his pillow. He was an in-patient! He was a psych ward in-patient! It was the small hours of the morning, and after contacting a group of terrorists with a literature fetish in an all-night diner he had let his mom talk him into checking in as a mental patient!

What the hell had he been thinking? He groaned into the pillow.

But really deep down he knew why he'd done it. It was a release from responsibility. Just like his mother had wanted not to be responsible for her son, he too had wanted to deny all responsibility for himself.

He wasn't responsible for going to school, or for his thousand and one things to be done on the internet, nor for looking for Blackbird_King, or for stupid whacko cult recruiters, or strange disappearing Russians. All of those things were out of his control.

After all, he was crazy, and the crazy can't be expected to control things.

That was the release that a part of him had longed for, just to be free of all the shit that went on in his life. It was in the doctors' hands now.

Tib wasn't sure though, how much comfort that gave him.

He rolled over, onto his back and stared up at the ceiling through his dirty glasses. It was somewhere close to six in the morning, his first counseling session wouldn't be until this afternoon, and a nurse would come get him for that. Some time before that one would come and try to force some food on him, most likely. The thought turned his stomach.

Lying there in the white hospital bed, in room E-401 of the psych ward, Tib thought about going to sleep. He hadn't slept in, he had no idea how long any more. Days. And laying there was only making him more restless. He stood up. He'd been told by the nurse that he was free to use the patient lounge area if he liked.

Wooee. Time to meet the other crazies.

Dressed in a plain baggy white t-shirt and jeans, he opened the door, grateful he hadn't been put into a hospital gown. Yet, at least. He wandered down the empty corridor to the vaguely open room at it's end. The back of a brown couch faced him, and he could see several more couches and chairs, a table with some books and magazines on it, and a large TV set. In the far corner was a nook with a glass shield, a little office for the nurse on duty, who was typing away at a computer. There didn't seem to be any other people. Wouldn't it be funny if he was the only insomniac currently in the ward?

As he walked around to the other side, to sit down on the couch, he saw the nurse look up questioningly, he nodded in greeting, and began to sit.

"Eep!"

Tin straightened, surprised, to say the least, and whipped around, looking down at the cushions of the couch. There was a small girl there, curled up into an even smaller form. In her hands she clutched a small, ill-sewn rag doll with black yarn hair. The little girl herself had pixie-cut blonde hair and big, soulful brown eyes; she didn't look more than eight years old.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tib replied quickly. He couldn't help staring at her. Why was such a little child in this place?

"Its okay, you didn't see me," The girl averted her eyes, distraught, playing with her dolls hair. "Nobody sees me," she said quietly, "I'm invisible."

Tib wasn't sure how to respond. It wasn't a situation he had a lot of practice with; children in general, mental ones in specific.

He flushed, embarrassed, and thought about just going back to his room. But was it right for him to just leave a little girl sitting there all by herself?

"Ah, I, do you mind if I sit down?" he asked, "or would you rather be alone?"

The girl just looked at him with her over-large eyes, and shrugged.

Tib's lips parted slightly, caught in indecision. If he sat down it would most likely be in a very uncomfortable silence, but going back to his room meant there was nothing to do but sit there. Or possibly try to sleep. He forced a smile at the girl, (she obviously wasn't dangerous, or they'd have her in another ward) and sat down.

She looked at him, penetratingly.

"Erm, my name's David..." he said.

"No it's not!" she snapped. "You shouldn't lie to me."

He was taken aback, and shifted uncomfortably. "Um, well... some people call me Tib."

She nodded, seemingly placated. The girl sat there, playing with her doll's hair.

Tib pressed his thumbs together nervously, and tried not to stare at her.

After a moment, without looking up, she asked, "Why are you here Tib?"

"Um, well..." he adjusted his glasses. Why was he here? Because of his mother? Because of Blackbird_King and Morpheus? What if none of it was real? It was so fantastic, it couldn't be real. But it was. Wasn't it. "Because I don't eat much, I suppose. Or sleep."

"I don't like sleep much either," she confided. "Why don't you eat?"

"I'm not hungry, I suppose. Sometimes I guess, it's like I don't need to eat."

"Huh."

They lapsed back into silence.

Was it strange, how little he ate? He never felt hungry. Most days the thought of food just made him sick. Maybe he really was one of those few male anorexics.

The sleep, though, that had a good reason behind it. He was much too busy on the net to have time to sleep. And when he did have time he was too keyed up and anxious to do so. These days he was just plain twitchy.

"My name's Maiyumi," the girl said suddenly, breaking him from his reverie.

Tib blinked. "It's nice to meet you," he replied.

She nodded, and they were silent again for a while.

Finally it was more than he could bear. He turned to her. "Would you like to watch some TV?"

"Okay."

He stood, and picked the remote off of the table, turning the power on.

"Make my monster grow!!" the television shrieked.

Tib snorted. Power Rangers. He turned to Maiyumi. "Is this okay with you?"

"Sure."

He slumped back down beside her on the couch.

***

Several hours later Tib was back in his own small room. He and Maiyumi had watched television for quite a while, though neither had spoken to the other again. But slowly other people had drifted into the patients lounge and Tib had grown increasingly uncomfortable. Among the patients he had met were Jenny a college student who had been brought in for stalking her Theology teacher, Sean, a supposedly harmless paranoid schizophrenic who believed that any day the Venusians would free him, and Thomas an older man who was bipolar. They seemed nice enough for the most part; Jenny was very talkative, and insisted on reading him a large number of the poems she had written for her professor. Sean on the other hand, kept asking him if he was sure he'd never seen a alien.

Tib had been very much the center of attention, being the new person, and everyone seemed to want a piece of him. It was when he'd met the last members of the delightful psych-ward posse that he'd folded under the pressure. A man, probably forty or so, impeccably groomed with sandy hair and a neat beard, had strolled into the room. The man had walked up to Tib, shook his hand and very politely introduced himself as Alan Greene. Alan had a scholarly air about him, and was amazed that this seemingly calm, level-headed, charismatic was in this place. Finally, after a conversation that touched on such subjects as their current accommodations, and the stupidity of the talk show that Jenny was enjoying, Tib had to ask what the man was doing in the ward.

Alan had then, dropping his voice slightly, said, "well, you see, it's because of Lancelot."

Tib blinked. "Lancelot?" he'd asked confused.

"Yes, Sir Lancelot. You'll meet him eventually, I'd wager. The doctors all insist that I have multiple-personality disorder. But you see, we are in the latter days of the earth, David, and Arthur, the once and future king, will be waking up soon. I am the reincarnation of Sir Lancelot of the round table and every once in a while, my past self takes over to look for the kind. Damned incontinent if you ask me. Why the first time I regressed I was in the middle of a date at a nice French restaurant. Terribly disoriented the boy was, left my date, wandered around demanding to know where and when he was, apparently. Even challenged a waiter to honorable combat. Next thing I remember is being at the police station."

It was at this point in the conversation that Tib had made his excuses as politely as he could, and came back here, to his room.

Tib heaved a sigh, slumped over the edge of his bed, and looked drearily up at the digital clock. This was just the most normal month in the history of the world, wasn't it? First BBK disappears, then you trace him to a cult, then you meet a weirdo Russian who disappears and knows stuff, then you meet the cult, and then you go to the hospital.

It had seemed like the right decision when he'd made it, but wasn't that always the way with such things? Did anyone deliberately make a bad decision? Just this morning before the diner, he'd been gearing himself up about not being a coward, and then what did he do but take the coward's way out! Didn't he want to know what had happened to Blackbird_King? To Vincent? Hadn't he said he wanted to meet Morpheus? And then he's chucked it away in a moment of unreasoning panic!

But what was he supposed to do? His mom was going to kick him out. Tib choked at that thought. He was so pitiful, almost nineteen, in college and worrying about living in his mom's house. Surely Mikhail would have let him crash with him until he could find some place else. Why oh why hadn't he thought of that earlier? And now he would be stuck here until they saw fit to release him!

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

What about his friend on the net? He didn't have any way of letting them know where he was. Zelda, Zelda would think that he'd disappeared like Vincent! And, oh god, he'd told her to go straight to the FBI hadn't he? He'd make both of them look like idiots, if she went to them, talking about mysterious cults and disappearances, and her source of information was found in the nut ward!

He'd have to hope that she wouldn't be stupid like him, and would at least call his house before she jumped to conclusions.

Meanwhile what could he do? They wouldn't let him out until they were satisfied that he wasn't crazy. That meant, well, first and foremost he would say nothing, nothing! about Morpheus or about BBK. Secondly, he would have to eat, all his food, every time they gave it to him, and at least pretend to sleep. If he acted absolutely and completely normal, maybe just maybe he'd be out before his meeting. After all, this wasn't some big facility, this was just the state hospital. He'd have one evaluation in two days, and another three days after that. He'd be out in a week at the most. That was, if he could keep his food down and lie in bed with his eyes closed for eight hours at a stretch. But really what other choices did he have?

to be continued...