Most days of the Mystery Inc household were quiet. When not on a mystery, the quaint little town of Coolsville provided a comfortable place to live. People were friendly, and for the most part everyone knew each other.

*DingDong*

The bell rang out beyond the front door. Fred had disappeared into his room ages ago, like he usually did on some days. Daphne and Shaggy had gone out to grab a second lunch, leaving Velma and Scooby nearby. She had been leaning against one side of the couch arms with her back, and had her legs draped over the back of Scooby as her leg rest. Nose in a book as always. The both of them looked up at the inquiring door.

"You want to get that?" Velma asked the sleepy looking Dane. A long yawn let out from him as he moved his head away from the door and closed his eyes.

"... I'll take that as a no." Velma shook her head and gave Scooby a quick head ruffle before getting the door.

"Hello?" She said as the door opened and she was greeted by a uniformed man. He was tall, and graying upon the sides, Velma thought he looked quite distinguished going gray like that. His name was Walter Ogden, Wally to his friends, and ex-police officer who retired and moved into the mail service. And he looked rather awkward holding onto his current delivery.

"Is Freddy here? I got a rather big box from his uncle. But the underside tape has given way."

"Sorry Wally, but Fred's holed up in his room. I can sign it for him and bring it out. Let me get that from you." Reaching for the box, Velma took the package being mindful of the bottom. But she realized she didn't have the spare hand to sign.

"Um..."

"R'i rot r'it." Scooby had been far to curious for his own good and he padded up behind Velma to help her out. Standing on his back paws, his front took the pen oddly and wigged it around. Surprisingly, it looked rather neat for the erratic movements and had in crisp cursive 'Scoobert Scooby Doo'. Smiling, and giving the Dane a pat on the head, Wally took back his pen.

"Thanks Scooby. You guys tell Freddy, I say hello." He tipped his hat and was thankful to be free of the box. It had become a tad bit heavy so he was happy to give it over. "Have a nice day you too!"

"Bye Wally."

With box in hand, she wished she could wave back. Scooby got the door and then headed back to the couch, curiosity sedated, which just left Velma to bring the package to Fred. Making sure she held the bottom tight, she made her way up to the second floor where Fred's room was. As she expected, the door was closed. Using the box as a knocker, she tapped on the door a few times before she called out.

"Freddie, You got a package here..."

As soon as she said it aloud, there was a huge storm of sounds coming from the room. Her detective sense went off as Fred seemed to be cleaning up something beyond the door he didn't want seen. And it wasn't the first time he has done this, it happened often when he had been hiding himself in his room. Just what was he doing in there?

The door opened and Fred peeked his head through the door.

"I'll take that, thanks." He said really quickly, leaning through the little crack he had opened and taking a part of the box.

"But Freddie..." Velma tried to warn him.

"I got it." Fred said not knowing the box was damaged.

In too much of a rush to prevent her from seeing what might be in the box or his room, (which just made himself more suspicious) He tugged at the box in her hands. Though as soon as the weight came off her hands underneath, the bottom gave way to the contents, spilling them all over the floor between the two of them.

"Let me help." Velma said automatically, leaning down to help with the mess.

"But. Wait. No..." But it was too late to stop her. Fred watched in horror as she picked up each of the copies of the Exxxagerator and neatly stacked them. Confused that she hasn't said a word, he leaned down to help her gather them all. With two of them working at it, it didn't take look to pick them all up. Pushing his door open, since he was still thrown off why she hadn't said anything, Velma made her way into his room and placed the stack neatly by his bed. Then she sat on his bed, spun around and looked at him with a leveled gaze.

"Spill."

Blinking, Fred had followed after and as she said something it snapped him out of his daze. He looked at her as she patiently waited for him to explain himself. He try to play it cool.

"Spill what?"

Which just earned him a eye roll.

"You know what Freddie. You've been doing this for a long time now and this is the final straw. What are you doing that you can't tell us about? Can you not trust us?" She looked a bit angry, but she was also concerned. What could be big enough that he wants to hide it from them all?

"...But, I, um..." He wasn't sure to fight it anymore since she had seen the contents of the box. And she was the smartest of them all, surely she already knew by now. Sighing, he gave in.

"... I. I well, see for yourself. You just picked them up." He pointed to the stack of magazines by her feet. She looked over and stared at the cover. Plucking one, she flipped through it roughly. With her face covered, he could not read her expression. After a long time, she made a sound.

"...So?" Pulling the magazine down, she looked over at him, though her expression had softened. "... You're embarrassed about reading your uncle's magazines?"

"No, well, yes, but no." Fred tripped over what he was saying. His mind was in a tizzy and he wasn't sure what to say to the young detective sitting on his bed. Unlike all the monsters they had caught in the past, at least they had time to come up with things. He was running on a short amount of time to be creative. He caved and bowed his head, he would tell her the truth.

"... I thought you guys would laugh." He murmured, finally admitting saying it aloud.

"Do you really believe in this stuff? Like Bat boys, or kids getting their leg's spliced into kangaroos to be great at basketball?" Velma used some references she saw from the magazine she just seen. They looked pretty fake to her, she had seen better photo manipulations on a cereal box.

"Well, no. After running into two aliens, two werecats, good pirate zombies, real ghosts and a warl... Sorry. Anything there seems kinda silly in comparison." Fred felt bad bring it up, but she shook her head.

"It's alright. But why were you afraid we would laugh at you? If you don't seriously believe in these things, then what is there to laugh about?" Velma commented.

"... Well you guys used to bug me when we were little..." Fred played with his thumbs, feeling and looking sheepish for the whole thing. But Velma's stern look earlier had broke him and he knew better not to lie to the detective. Fred was then surprised when Velma scooted closer and placed a hand on his shoulder to lean on him.

"You silly man. You have to have more faith in us. We made fun of you when you were little since that is all you talked about back then. But you were just a kid, and kids are supposed to have active imaginations. Maybe if you still acted like that now, then we would, but you are an adult and you know the difference between reality and fantasy."

Velma never liked talking to much about the actual, far out things they had experienced. Especially the hardest one for her to accept. But she didn't write them out of existence, her mild denial usually covered for that.

"There is no crime in liking something." Velma added.

"... Yeah... But there is more." Since his secret was out, he might as well show her everything. Then she could decide if she would laugh or not. But he had a feeling she might not, and he was going with that impulse. Gently taking her arm off his shoulder, he laid it on her lap. Getting up, he moved to the door of his walk in closet. Pulling out a key from his pants, he unlocked the closet and opened it. Offering a hand, he indicated the dark inside and motioned for her to come and look herself.

Curious, Velma could not help herself. More? What could be more then collecting the magazine? She had to know, so she got off the bed and came over. She was a bit excited, (she wouldn't tell him that) since she loved finding things out. It was just her nature. Peering into the dark closet, she looked at him and he motioned for her to go in deeper. Entering the closet, she found it rather roomy and large, though something in the back caught her eye.

"... Is that what I think it is?" As Velma tried to peer into the darkness, Fred switched on the closet light. Blinking from the sudden light, her eyes were greeted by the object she was looking at. A small UFO plushie with a glow in the dark alien. Velma had won the little guy for Fred a long time ago in a Carnival and she hadn't seen him since. But he wasn't alone. Hanging from the ceiling, looked like a horde of model kits. From Star Trek ships, to Star Wars Death Stars. He even had some Buck Rodgers stuff flying in some organized space battle on the top of the closet. Beside her, there was rows and rows of shelves, though the bottom ones she had best ability to look at were taken up mostly by glass protective cases on one side.

"What are these..." Peering into the glass, Velma squinted to make out the figures. They were alot of them, around the size of some smaller action figures like GI Joe's.

"Hold on, let me turn on the light." Clicking a second light switch inside the closet, the displays hummed and then came on showing the figures. Velma gasped.

"These.... These are..."

"Yeah." Fred murmured bashfully, his secret out. "... I have been making them all these years."

Row upon row of monsters looked back at Velma. Well, monsters, aliens, ghosts and the like, each looking familiar as the day they had caught them. Fred, with an unknown ability to sculpt, had been making little action figures of each villain they had come across and had them hidden all these years in his closet. Talk about Skeletons in your closet, their had to be at least three in here. Each also had a small label of the date, monster name, and location where they had caught them. Velma was in awe, she never knew he was this talented at sculpting nor that he had been doing this for who knows how many years.

"I got bored one day after one of our mysteries and played with some mash potatoes Shaggy was serving. Then again it was easy to make the Tar Monster from potatoes. But it gave me the idea. Do you remember when I asked you for your database collection of all the monsters?"

"Yeah. You said that you wanted to look for something, but you never found it." Velma was catching on.

"Yeah, I lied. Sorry. I actually took pictures of all the reference pics you had and then started making the sculptures. Though some of the earlier ones didn't have any evidence and I had to make them up from scratch. But they are the ones hiding in the back. They aren't as good as some of my newer ones."

Fred blushed, she was taking this all rather well, and in fact she was showing interest. He didn't expect it to be going over this smoothly.

"... Are you sure you're not, well..." He didn't know the words to say that wouldn't make himself sound silly or rude, so he just left it hanging there. Velma sighed.

"We've known each other this long, and yet sometimes you seem to forget who you are dealing with. All of us will not make fun of you for this, in fact I think you should shows these things off! They are really well done." Velma looked over at him, trying to talk to him while looking truthfully in his eyes. He could be denser the Shaggy at times when he was worried about something.

She continued, "Truth is, I have always had a soft spot for your uncle's magazine as well. When I was little, I used to swipe your old magazines and look at them when no one else was looking. The ideas of far off places in space and monsters dwelling in the depths of the earth, fascinated me. I have to even admit when we were kids, you sometimes even got me going on some of your cockamamie ideas of who had been behind the mysteries. But in the end, even after we witnessed a few things, I believe that there is only so much truth to these things and the rest is hogwash."

"But just because something is fake, doesn't mean you can't like it. Like people liking watching certain shows on tv, or book series. There is nothing wrong with liking something, even if it's not real. There is nothing to be ashamed of. As long as you don't go dressing up in these costumes or something and run around in public making a fool of yourself. Then I don't think we can help but to laugh at you." She snickered and had to add in the lighter comment at the end. He joined as well.

"If I start doing that, you have my permission to laugh then. It would probably be due to being over tired or sniffing to much model glue fumes... Or both." He laughed.

"As long as it isn't a sharpie, those older ones can surely send you to space." She retorted back to him, wobbling in pretend as if she sniffed one. He chuckled.

Straightening up, she looked at the rest of the objects in the closet. Action figures, model kits, his sculptured and hiding in the back wall shelves was something that amazed her.

"... Is this what I think it is?" Her eyes growing wide. Fred had been watching her and came over to look at what she found. His grin grew as he beamed with pride.

"Oh yes. I do have the whole collection of Babylon 5, The Whole thing of Twilight Zone AND Outerlimits seasons. Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon. I've always been a big movie buff, so I had some of my connections track these down for me. I even have all the current seasons out on DVD for X-files."

Velma's eyes grew big as she looked over at him. The look was kinda creepy coming from her and made him jump back.

"Freeeeeeeeeedddddyyyy..." She drew out, using a sweet voice.

"Thats creepy. Don't do that." Fred backed up, raising his hands in front of his in defense, she in response laughed.

"I'm sorry but I always wanted to see alot of these, including X-files but I had never gotten the chance to see how season one ended since we had to leave on a mystery before the episode ended... You got to let me borrow these!" She elongated her last word to stress how much she really wanted to see the series. Fred laughed, he always knew she was a sucker for anything with a mystery, but she always was hiding behind a book when they watched TV so he never knew exactly when she was watching or not.

"Fine, but in exchange you keep this a secret for now... till I'm ready to tell the others." Fred asked in a pleading voice, VElma kinda felt bad for the guy, though there was little to be afraid of.

"Do you remember how afraid you were of the others finding out you were wearing glasses? That worked out fine, right?"

Fred remembered the whole situation and sighed. He had been worried they would laugh at him too for that, but they didn't.

"Yeah, but I heard from the Library lady, Miss Gracken that there was more then one of you there that day, looking for me. You and a particular-red-head-who-we-will-not-name..." Fred said giving her a look. She put her hands up in defense.

"Hey hey, now I never told her anything. Just because she over heard wasn't MY fault. You think she would have listened to me to tell her to go home?" Velma said in her own defense, they both knew the other girl well enough that Velma wasn't lying.

"... Still... Well. She does have that mysterious ability to show up at the least expected..."

"GUYS! We're home!" Came a high pitched voice that sounded like it was coming from downstairs.

"... See." Velma snickered, pointed her open hand towards the door they heard.

"Sigh, your right. But still, not a word." Fred put a finger to his mouth. Velma snickered again.

"Fine fine, but you're secret will get out eventually. You are in a house full of detectives." Velma wiggled her fingers at him, before heading to leave out his door so he had some time to pack up his stuff.

"Oh and Freddie?"

"Eh?"

"Watch out, the bottom of the box is broken. Don't hide them in there and let Daphne find out."

"... Gee. Thanks."

Velma chuckled, leaving him to clean up. She would ahve to bug him later about the DVD's, since he would owe her for her secrecy. Trotting down the stairs, she met Daphne and Shaggy who had just came back.

"Oh, is Freddie still hiding up there?" Velma just looked back where she had come down from the stairs that led to the second floor.

"... What you hiding Dinkley..." Daphne crossed her arms and gave her a look, Velma just shrugged.

"It's a secret."