Chapter 5

Cups of coffee passed around the Mountie office as Oswald laid down in the corner, his head propped up by the wall as z's floated off his head. Mickey got himself conferrable in his own cloths before sitting down in the last chair around Russell's desk.

"I've got our men going back to arrest Pete, thanks Mickey." Russell smiled over his cup. "I'll thank Oswald when he wakes up."

"Somebody's loon-"

"Homer!" Mr. Whisker's interrupted, glaring at his son.

"So what happened?" Mickey asked, warming his hands on his cup. "Do you know why he kidnapped you two?"

"He was hoping it would bring Oswald and Sadie." Mr. Whiskers admitted, looking down at his lap.

"Sadie?" Mickey asked, only for it to hit him, "Oh, Ortensia's old name."

"She didn't come with you two, did she?" Homer asked, clearly worried about his big sister.

"No, she's back home in Burbank." Mickey explained. "And since Pete's about to be behind bars, she'll be safe."

"Don't go and say that." Oswald mumbled from his corner, his eyes still closed. "You'll jinx us."

"Colonel Russell!" a voice called out announcing Clyde's return into the building.

Oswald's ears squashed down as the moose rushed into the room.

"Colonel Russell, Pete's escaped!" Clyde exclaimed, sliding to a stop next to Oswald.

"I knew it." Oswald grumbled, standing up. He looked at Mickey and said, "You should've never said something."

"Kid, you're starting to sound like a town crier." Russell realized. He turned to the brothers and asked, "Anyway you two could stay and help us catch him?"

"Sure, we can't just leave you with Pete still out there." Oswald nodded.

"That and our plane's still a wreck." Mickey informed.

"Well, the town's still in lock down, so he has to still be here." Clyde informed. "I'll get a group to stake out the cabin in case he's stupid enough to go back."

"Good idea, Clyde." Russell nodded, glancing down at his watch only to see it was already into the next morning. "And then you go on home. You need some sleep, and so do you two." He looked at Oswald and Mickey and asked, "Do you have a place for the night yet?"

"Um…" Mickey looked back at Oswald only for the rabbit to shrug his shoulders.

"You two can stay with me and Homer." Mr. Whiskers offered, standing up.

"Oh, thanks." Oswald smiled.

Oswald's smile faded as he realized he'd be bunking with Homer. The rabbit laid on the top bunk of the cat's bunk bed only for the bed to lurch as the cat moved in his sleep again. "This is going to be a long night." He mumbled to himself as he stared up at the ceiling.

-.-.-.-

"Morning, Oswald. How'd you sleep?" Mickey asked as the rabbit slowly dragged himself over to the dining room table and flopped down in the last chair.

Oswald half growled at the mouse as he grabbed himself a piece of toast and ripped a bite out of it. He turned to Homer and said, "If we have to stay another night, I'll take the sofa. Someone kept moving the bed in his sleep."

"I can't help it if I move in my sleep." Homer shrugged with a mouth full of cereal.

"Hopefully you two will capture Pete today." Mr. Whiskers tried.

"Pardon my lateness, Monsieur Whiskers." A Quebecer voice called as the door opened. A blond cat rushed into the room only to stop as she noticed the guests. "Oh, pardon moi."

"It's ok." Mr. Whiskers smiled at the cat. "Adele, this is my son-in-law, Oswald, and his brother, Mickey. Boys, my maid, Adele Dumont."

"A pleasure." Adele slightly bowed her head. "Est t'ere anyt'ing I could get for you for your petit-déjeuner?"

"Some strong black coffee would be nice." Oswald admitted, holding his head as he rested his elbows on the table.

"If you've got a hangover, think about how Pete must feel." Mickey pointed out as the blond cat left the room. "Speaking of, Russell called before you got up. Pete never returned to his cabin last night nor did anyone in town notice him. So-"

"So we're pretty much back to square one." Oswald interrupted.

"Ya." Mickey said, annoyed the rabbit was being short. He took a moment before asking, "You know him better than anyone else, any ideas as to where he'd go if he couldn't leave town?"

"How should I know?" Oswald asked, glaring at the mouse as Adele brought him his coffee. "We weren't exactly friends with any stretch of the word. I worked with him ok on screen but off screen we did pretty much everything we could to avoid each other because we couldn't stand each other."

"If I could." Mr. Whiskers said, getting the two to turn to him. "I remember Sadie mentioning Pete had a favorite resort just in the city to the east. Maybe he trekked through the night and got there."

"She never told me." Oswald mentioned into his coffee before taking a sip.

"That's cause she said no." Homer said. "Pete had asked her if she wanted to come up here with him during a vacation, but you weren't invited."

"How do you know?" Oswald asked.

Homer drunk the milk in his bowl before answering, "Because I was with her when Pete asked. And when you lose almost seventy years you learn to remember everything you can."

"Huh?" Mickey asked, surprised.

"Weren't you both in Wasteland with us?" Oswald asked.

"No, I had managed to get a job with a bank here just as Universal was finished with us, but Homer here…" Mr. Whisker's voice trailed off as if he fully didn't understand what happened to his son.

"I guess you'd call it a limbo?" Homer offered, looking at his empty bowl. "At least that's what I've been told to call it. I guess I wasn't special enough for Mr. Disney to want to save me like you."

"I… I just assumed you two'd landed in a part of unexplored Wasteland." Oswald stutter. "No one could make it through all the old jungles in Ventureland but it was better to think you'd landed there then disappeared to oblivion."

"Well oblivion was short, for me at least." Homer said, his words leaving a taste in his mouth as he scrunched his face. "One moment I was helping Papa move out of the old place in California and the next thing I found myself just outside this house."

"How did you not disappear?" Oswald asked, looking at Mr. Whiskers.

"Oh, I think I can answer that." Mickey said, things making sense to him now. "If he was working at a bank, then he was considered doing something of importance and immune to having a heart or not."

"That's what I'd always assumed." Mr. Whiskers admitted. "I never knew anything for sure."

"I found out in 1995." Mickey explained to Oswald's confused face. "Back in the 30's I had used these three crazy professor's hypnoray to convince them to do good for the world. Shortly after they got working in a science lab and helped develop some of the technology we've got today. That is until Professor Ecks broke free from the ray that left him even crazier then he'd been back in the day."

"Don't tell me, was Horace there?" Oswald asked, eyeing the mouse.

"Um, ya, he was." Mickey admitted. "He ended up hypnotized. Why?"

"A Rubbish Cup competition, but I said I didn't believe it." Oswald admitted. "I mean, he couldn't give me any proof, other than Clarabelle standing up for him."

"Ya, it happened." Mickey nodded his head.

"What happened to Professor Ecks?" Homer asked, leaning over the table to get Mickey's attention from his seat.

"Oh, um, he ended up fried by his mind swapping device." Mickey remembered. He turned back to Mr. Whiskers and asked, "So you said the resort's practically next door?"

"Ya, I think it's called the Frozen Swan now." Mr. Whiskers said. "Train's the best way to get there but with the trains being told we're snowed in more so than we really are, I guess by snowmobile or dog sled."

"Well we took his snowmobile when we left his cabin." Mickey remembered as he thought. He stood up from his chair and said. "We might want to call Russell and let him know before we head out to check out the Frozen Swan."

"Right behind you, Mick." Oswald said, finishing his coffee before standing up himself.