Author's Note: Another update! I'm so proud of myself! Yay me! Don't forget those reviews!



*******

"Well, I'm all out of ideas," Lorne announced to his three companions. For the past three hours, the quartet had gone into every demon bar and hot spot they could think of and threatened several snitches with physical violence (some more than once). By noon on this gloomy and overcast day in Los Angeles, they came up empty-handed on Dru's whereabouts. "Any of you got any more thoughts on the crazy girl's location?"

"Color me clueless," Gunn replied as he sat on the hood of the DeSoto.

An idea lit up in Spike's mind. "Wait a minute . . . Who said she was in L.A. at all?"

"Hmm?" the other three said together.

"What are you getting at, Blondie?" Lorne questioned.

Spike pulled out a cigarette from his coat pocket and placed it between his lips. "Last time I checked people, or vampires in this case, with the ability to project thoughts and visions and the like into others don't exactly have to be in the same city as their victim or victims." With a flick of his wrist, the lighter in his hand produced a small flame and lit the tip of the cigarette in his mouth. "She's probably been in Anaheim the whole time, if you ask me."

Gunn choked. "I'm gonna kill English. Sending us out on a wild goose chase for nothing."

"It's not his fault, Gunn," Angel defended. "He was just covering our bases, that's all."

"And we did get to beat up six snitches," Spike added with a wry grin. "Which, you have to admit, was fun." Gunn couldn't help but agree.

"You said she was messing with Vision girl and that Head Injury boy?" Lorne said out of the blue.

Spike nodded. "When we went to see Harris at the hospital yesterday, he was all fine and dandy for a while. Then the whelp bugged out and started talking all nonsensical and Dru-like. He even slapped an invisible Miss Edith. It was like she was him or he was her or . . . I don't know. It was just weird."

Lorne rested his chin on his hand. "It's possible she could've used a temporary mind-switching trick. To be able to get her message out in the open without having to leave the comfort of wherever she is. How long was the boy out cold?"

"I'd say two hours or so. Why?"

"That's long enough for someone to pull a mind-swapper."

"But it wasn't right away. Harris talked normally, or what he passes off as normal, for the doctor's amnesia test. It was only after the doc left that *bam*!" He slapped his hands together. "He was Drusilla in a man's form."

"Drusilla was insane, but she wasn't stupid," Angel added. "Probably didn't want to spill the information on unknowing ears."

"You know what's also weird? He just . . . went back to his normal self after a few moments. He was shaking and blubbering, confused as the day he was born."

"His brain probably couldn't handle such an extreme mental transfer. It probably snapped like a fishing pole line. . ." Lorne snapped at the word to prove his point. ". . . leaving him stranded and bewildered once the whole thing was said and done."

"Here's where I'm confused," Gunn said. "Last time Drusilla was in town, she wasn't exactly Miss 'Let's Help the Good Guys and Save the World.' She was more Miss 'Let's Go Out, Cause Mayhem and Then Maybe Go Eat Some Lawyers.' This is the part that gets me: Why the hell is she trying to help us?"

Before anyone could put in their two cents worth on the topic, a catchy ringing sound pierced the air.

"Angel. . . your jacket is singing," Spike blandly wisecracked.

For a moment, Angel actually believed his coat could sing and jumped in fright. When he realized Spike was only joking around, he pulled the cell phone out from the breast pocket. "Oh ha, ha." He pushed the button on the phone to activate it.

"But does it have to be the 'Mexican Hat Dance'?" Lorne shook his head sadly. "Honestly, Angel-baby, I thought you had better taste."

"Angel," he said into the phone's receiver. It was at that instant his ear was assaulted by a near inaudible shrieking noise.

"Oh, Deadboy, thank God you're there, I just had an epiphany, well, it wasn't an epiphany as much as I remembered what happened to me when Drusilla first possessed me after I woke up from my coma, I can remember I was sitting there yelling at Anya about how much I don't care what that crackpot said when I had this sudden sensation that I was being sucked into a vacuum, well my mind was being sucked anyway, I don't think that came out the way I wanted it to, and that I blacked out for a moment and that I don't really remember *seeing* anything when that sucking feeling went away as much as *feeling* afraid and scared and trapped, I could swear that it smelled like cotton candy and popcorn and that off in the distance I could hear 'It's a Small World' and I was gripping something tight to my chest like a security blanket, but it wasn't really a blanket, more like a doll and that for a moment I opened my eyes and the last thing I saw before that sucking sensation came back to me was a diorama of Sleeping Beauty's death scene." Xander took a long deep breath. "Anyway I came back and I was like 'What the. . .' and I passed out and I remember I was in a black tunnel-like thing when a voice came to me and said 'The hero is not who you think' or something like that, didn't really make sense at the time, and then I don't really remember much after that except there were clowns attacking me in my hospital bed which I don't think is very relevant at all." Another deep breath. "We gotta go to Disneyland!"

"Xander? How did you get my cell phone number?"

A quiet came over the injured boy. "I don't know! All I know is that we gotta go to Disneyland and that I gotta be there because I'm the only one who can stop the Apocalypse! I'M THE HERO!!"

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure, Deadboy. Now GET ME OUTTA HERE!!!"

"When did you figure all this out?"

Angel heard Xander shrug. "I dunno. About a minute ago, I think."

"Call me back in fifteen minutes. Explain to me then."

"Do what you gotta to do and get me out of this place! The doctors won't let me out because they think I've gone insane!"

"I'm starting to believe them," Angel said wryly.

Xander was getting miffed. "I knew there was a reason I didn't like you."

"Calm down, Xander. You'll blow a fuse. I'll let Wesley know about your situation and I'm sure he'll do all he can to get you out."

"I'm hating you 1% less now. Which doesn't make much difference because the tally was like a trillion."

"That's oddly comforting coming from you," Angel replied. He actually meant what he said.

"Consider yourself lucky."

"I'm gonna take a stab and say that was Xander," Lorne quipped as Angel put his phone back in his jacket.

"Good stab," the elder vampire replied. "He's discovered he's the hero, with the help of our favorite lunatic vampiress." Angel flipped the latch on one of the DeSoto's back doors only to find it locked. "And you were right, Lorne. It was a mind-transference. But I'm thinking it was a one-time deal because of the trauma it caused him."

Spike blew smoke from his mouth and nostrils. "When did Dru start caring so much about Special Ed and his well being, anyway? The only time she ever knew he existed was when he cast that bloody love spell and every girl in town fell in love with him." He shook his head. "I think she still has yet to tell us something major. Namely why she's helping us in the first place. Time was she would get front row seats for the 'End of the World Extravaganza,' not try and avert it."

"Maybe she's tricking us," Gunn noted. "Leading us down the wrong path, throwing the dogs off the scent. Sounds like the Big Bad thing to do."

Spike flicked the cigarette from his hand to the ground and crushed it with his boot heel. He had been biting the insides of his cheeks in thought. "No. . . That's not it. I believe she's genuinely trying to help us. What's bothering me is *why.*"

"Chauffeur!" Angel cried, banging his hand on the DeSoto's roof. "Can we get moving here? I'd like to get back to the Hyperion and tell the gang about Xander, pronto!"

Spike gave his grandsire an icy stare. "Where do you get off calling me 'chauffeur'?"

Angel returned the icy stare. "I'm your superior, that's why."

Lorne intervened. He didn't want any kind of family dispute to occur. "Boys, boys. Let's stop the fussin' and the fightin' and the bickerin' and go home." He reached out his arms pushed the two in the direction of the car, sending Spike toward the driver's side and Angel to the back.

"Some superior you are, Peaches. At least I don't go around knocking up ex-girlfriends that were brought back from the dead by evil lawyers!"

Angel froze where he stood. Spike knew he had won with that one. "How. . . How did you know. . ."

"Like it isn't so bleedin' obvious! The way you and Mousy were covering the kid's origins back there I'm surprised Buffy didn't figure it out on the spot. I've seen better lies come from the Cheerleader."

"How did you know Darla was his mother?" Angel was still in complete shock at Spike's sudden observation and the stutter in his voice showed it.

"Kid's got her eyes," Spike replied casually. His tone changed immediately. "Now don't call me 'chauffeur' or 'Jeeves' or Buffy will be finding out about the womb in which your son came from post haste." He patted the top of his car. "C'mon, now. Let's do what the Poofter says! Everyone, in the car!"



******

The four males walked into the hotel to find a crowd of busy bodies flurrying about books and maps. Buffy and Faith were back from patrolling, obviously information-less. Willow was the first to notice their entrance.

"Find anything?" she asked as she turned the page of an old text.

"Funny you should mention it. We didn't find the information you were looking for . . . It sort of found us."

Wesley's ears perked at Angel's comment. He looked up from the map of Disneyland he had been studying. "How so?"

A thudding sound came from Cordelia's direction. She had once again collapsed over in the heat of an overwhelmingly painful vision.

"She falls down a lot," Faith pointed out as she bit into a potato chip.

"Adventure Land. . . the Indiana Jones ride. . . really, really bright blue light," Cordelia managed to get out between groans of pain. Angel, Wesley and Gunn ran to her aid and lifted her onto the couch they had carried her to before. Dawn ran to get the aspirin.

"What was it that you saw, Cordy?" Wesley asked after he had made sure she was laying comfortably.

"I told you. 'Adventure Land . . . the Indiana Jones ride . . . really, really bright blue light.' You're the brains of this operation. You figure it out."

"The beacon," Giles blurted out. "It's the beacon. It has to be."

Willow's eyes lit up. "Of course! The ride. . . It's got another name. Not just the 'Indiana Jones' ride. Uh. . . Something like the Forgotten. . . no. . . Forlorn. . . that doesn't make any sense. . ."

"The Forbidden EYE!" Gunn hollered. Willow hopped up and down excitedly and pointed her finger at Gunn.

"Why didn't we see it before?" Wesley took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt cuff.

"We didn't know what kind of eye to look for in the first place," Fred answered. Wesley put his glasses back on.

"Hey Angel," Buffy said. "When you said information 'found you,' what exactly did you mean?"

Angel looked at Buffy for a few moments with a confused look on his face. Then he realized what she was talking about. "Oh! Oh, that. Um. . . yeah. Well. . . just as we were about to come back to the hotel with nothing new to report, my cell phone rang."

"Angel? I really must talk to you about your choice in ring tones."

"Not now, Lorne. The caller, it was Xander." Those who weren't out on the street with Angel gave him dumbfounded looks.

"How'd he get your number?" Wesley asked.

"Beats me. The kid was freaking out, going on and on about Drusilla switching his mind with her own and telling him later on that he was the hero."

Cordelia guffawed. "Xander?! Since when did he become the hero type?"

"Sometime yesterday, I estimate. From what I understood from his rant, and believe me there wasn't much I could, Drusilla's one step ahead of us."

"In what way?" Giles asked.

"She's already at the park. Been there since yesterday or even before then. From what Xander remembers of the mind-switching ordeal, Dru's apparently holed up in Sleeping Beauty's castle. He said he felt afraid and scared and he was clutching something that he thought could be a doll. I don't think Xander was the one who was frightened. I'm thinking it's her."

A stifled laugh came from the doorway. "And what do you have to say about all this?" Buffy impatiently asked.

"Being the resident Drusilla expert 'round these parts, I think I should say something here." Spike's eyes were settled on the cloud-covered sky. "It takes a whole hell of a bloody lot to scare her into hiding like that."

"Not really. . ." Angel said slowly.

"Okay, okay. I'll admit, she spooks easily. Comes with the madness and the seeing. But no Apocalypse in the 118 years we were together ever scared her like this. The Armageddon was usually her cup of tea, you know? She was extremely brassed off when the Judge thing fell through and she went so far as to attack me when I was helping to stop the Acathla ceremony." He shoved his hands into his duster pockets. "Unless. . ." Spike grew silent and kept staring at the sky.

"Unless what?" Dawn enquired of the gazing vampire. The rest of the group had been wondering the same thing.

"Unless. . . She's all protective. Something, or someone, is so special to her that it is more important than the destruction of the Earth." Spike let out another laugh. "I'm surprised she chose Sleeping Beauty's castle as her retreat. Dru was always a fan of Snow White, if I remember correctly."

"What?!" Every voice in the room asked in unison.

"Yeah. She liked the fact that Snow White was pale and had black hair and had dark crimson lips. Let us not forget she had dwarven slaves to do her bidding. Kept telling me that Snow White was one of our kind. For weeks after we saw the movie, she thought she *was* Snow White. Why do you think I called her Princess?"

"I'm a Cinderella fan myself," Buffy commented out of nowhere.

"Sleeping Beauty for me," Dawn added.

"I always pretended I was Belle," Fred stated, holding the book she had in her hands close to her chest.

"Jasmine kicked ass!" Cordelia cried out. "She didn't take crap from nobody!"

Willow flipped her hair. "I thought I looked a lot like Ariel. It's a red-head thing."

"Ursula appealed to me." The other girls gave Faith a questioning look. "Her human form, I mean. She was the Queen Bitch of them all."

"Alice was cool," Tara said. "I know she wasn't a princess. . . But she was still cool."

Giles cleared his throat to get their attention. "This is all well and good and I'm a better person knowing who your favorite Disney Princesses are but could we get back onto the topic still in progress?" Giles shifted his attention to Spike, who still had his back turned to everyone. "Who would she be protecting?"

"Do you think I'm a bloody mind reader? I don't know!" Spike shifted his weight from the left foot to the right and crossed his arms in the process. "All I know. . . Actually, that's about all I'm near sure of right now."

"What's got your attention right now, boyo?" Lorne walked up behind Spike and peered over his shoulder. Spike replied by pointing northwards.

"Now there's a sight to see. . ." Lorne mumbled when he noticed what Spike had been enthralled with for the past five minutes.

The whole lot of them gathered up behind the two demons and craned their necks to catch sight of the image in the sky.

"What is it?" Dawn asked in awe.

"It's so. . . shiny. . ." Gunn said stupidly.

". . . and glowy. . ." Fred continued.

". . . and blue. . ." Faith finished.

"What is it?" Dawn asked again.

"Dude! That's the light from my vision!" Cordelia exclaimed.

"That beacon's got some good range," Lorne quipped.

"It needs to call every Ch'Nalin demon in the world," Giles responded. "It needs to have good range to get the whole bunch of 'em."

"Does this mean this ceremony's getting closer by the minute?" Buffy inquired.

Wesley nodded. "We better get working. We want to be in Anaheim before every Ch'Nalin demon on Earth beats us to it."

"But don't we need Xander?" Willow pondered. "Can't exactly stop this thing without the hero himself."

"He said the doctors won't let him out. They think he's lost his mind," Angel said.

"If Dru was in my head I'd have lost it too," Spike remarked.

Wesley was the first to step away from the crowd. "Getting Xander safely to Los Angeles is our first priority. But getting him out is the problem. Doctors usually keep a close eye on mental patients, which Xander seems to have become in their eyes."

"Any ideas, Wes?" Angel asked without breaking his eye contact with the beacon.

Wesley stood there a moment. "Well. . . There is one. . ."