A/N (I meant to write this in the last one): Let's just say that as I wrote chapter 22, I was really reminded somehow of chemistry class last year. I might have slipped in a subconscious reference to one of my many frustrations with my ex-lab partner, where there was no happy ending, as I found out at the end of the year he was cheating off my tests. Okay, there was a funny ending, if not a happy one: the test in question was my absolute worst all year. Then again, that may have been a better grade than he was used to getting...

Chapter 23:

Shaggy had spent the entire four hours since he and Velma had kissed good-bye after work pacing. A million things had filled his head; he wondered what must be filling a brain as complex as Velma's.

Someone knocked at the door.

Shaggy ran to get it. It had to be either Velma or the pizza guy. For the first time in his life Shaggy hoped it was the former (in fact, he had forgotten that in his absent-mindedness over the day's events he hadn't ordered any pizza). He answered the door.

Best of both worlds! Velma was standing there, holding a stack of triple-X-large supreme pizzas.

She really cared about him...

Shaggy invited her in, offering her a seat at his kitchen table. She set the pizzas down, kissed him, and took a chair across from where Shaggy was already opening a box and hungrily gazing at the array of peppers and onions and sausage and olives and mushrooms and ham and pineapple and anchovies...

Velma smiled at him, remembering what her grandmother had told her years ago when they were making thanksgiving dinner together: The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Grandma had been somewhat misleading: With Shaggy you didn't even need to know how to cook.

"So Velma... you think Fred and Daphne will be surprised when they get back? I mean, like, I caught the garter at the wedding, and you caught the bouquet... maybe it was like a... like a..."

"A sign?" Velma gingerly reached for the smallest slice of pizza in the box and started picking off half the toppings. What was the point of anchovies, anyway? Food had, up until today, been Shaggy's only brave point...

"Like maybe..." Shaggy suggested.

Velma shrugged. A thought had just occurred to her, one she didn't really like but that made a lot of sense. She leaned in seriously.

"Shaggy... maybe we shouldn't tell them... at least not just yet..."

Shaggy stared at her, wide-eyed, his cheeks loaded.

Velma continued. "I mean... sometimes I just wonder if we might be drifting apart. I'm happy for Freddie and Daphne, I really am... usually I'm even ecstatic. But occasionally I feel like the closer they get to each other, the farther they get from us. If we were together... do you think we might wind up doing the same thing to them?"

Shaggy thought for a moment. Velma had a really good point. Yet it bothered him that now, just when everything was out in the open and he could finally talk to Velma about everything he felt, he would have to keep it a secret from his best friends.

"But if we're going to be together..." Shaggy pondered. "Will it make any difference whether or not Fred and Daphne know about it?"

Velma looked down, pretending to be very interested in removing every last mushroom from her pizza. Finally she spoke. "I don't know... I mean, I would feel awful if we didn't tell them about this. They told us right away that they were going to have a baby, and get married. They didn't keep any secrets from us. But if we just ended this right now and pretended everything that happened in the last 24 hours never happened, I would still be keeping a secret... from you, Shaggy! I really care about you, and if I acted like I didn't I would be lying!"

Hearing Velma's words felt like receiving a cold cup of water after running for miles. Shaggy had to say something, something quick...

"Are... are you sure this would really push them away, Velma?" he asked her. "Did Freddie and Daphne really push us away, or did they push us together?"

Velma contemplated his words. She had never known him to be at all intelligent or romantic. Yet here it was like the cowardly, outer Shaggy was finally letting the real Shaggy speak up. He had a point: Would they still have wound up together if Freddie and Daphne hadn't demonstrated their own courage first?

The next thing she knew, they were kissing again. Shaggy was whispering softly to Velma.

"We don't really need to tell them right away. They told us things that they felt they needed us to know. We can let them know we're together... whenever it is that we need them to know."

"You're... you're right," Velma whispered back.

That was the end of that discussion. But it was a long time before Velma went home.