Chapter 35:

Thanksgiving. Janice still hadn't arrived yet, despite November 14's having come and gone.

"Well, if she takes after you," Fred joked, "you know she'll be late."

Daphne tried to don an offended expression, but she was laughing too hard.

She and Velma were setting the table. Shaggy and Scooby were in the kitchen. Shaggy's college major was definitely an asset at this time of year. Freddie was half-watching football, having been shooed away from every other task. Velma and Daphne often laughed at his inability to remember that the knife's blade always faced the plate, or that the fork (four letters) went on the left (four letters). If he weren't in such a good mood, Fred could have described the frustration of the mnemonic device in his own four-letter-word.

"Hey, Daphne, could you get the door, like, my hands are greasy!" Shaggy called from the kitchen.

Daphne didn't even need to be asked. She ran to open the door the moment she saw him out the window.

"Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Glad you could make it!"

Mr. Blake smiled at his daughter. It was obvious that not only was the cancer healed, but he had been restored to the health he had possessed a long, long time ago.

Daphne led him into the dining room, where Velma had just finished pouring his apple cider, now that they were sure he was coming. The treatment, while thorough, had taken two long weeks, and they hadn't been sure whether he would be finished by Thanksgiving. Good thing he was.

Shaggy was finally finished with all the food preparations and summoned everyone into the dining room. He had shown remarkable restraint in not eating everything before it reached the table, but his willpower certainly had its limitations.

Mr. Blake offered to say blessing, and the rest agreed. Head bowed, Daphne could hear the very things she was thankful for echoing from her father's mouth: Food... friends... family... health... Janice...

This was a good feeling.

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When any holiday has so much snow on the ground, nobody who was ever a child can pretend not to notice. That was more or less what Velma told Shaggy when she invited him to go for a walk in the woods behind Fred and Daphne's house. There really wasn't much about the woods that Daphne hadn't already explored with Freddie, though, so both of them declined. Mr. Blake and Scooby stayed with them, drinking hot chocolate by the fire, Daphne rooting through ads for the after-Thanksgiving sales.

"How cute," she commented, looking out the window after she was sure her friends had come back from the woods. "They stopped to build an igloo."

"I bet you a buck they'll only finish it halfway. It's probably just a fort for a snowball fight." Fred smiled over the rim of his cup.

"Naw... Shaggy's probably forgotten all about that decade-old grudge by now... I bet if you watch they'll even be next in the line of fire."

"What line of fire? Oh... Shaggy and Velma, eh?" He laughed. "It'll never work."

"Bet you two dollars, then," Daphne offered. "Just remember our wedding."

Out the window, Shaggy himself was still questioning Velma's enthusiasm for an igloo. Why did she want one so bad? What was so great about an igloo? Yet every time he asked, she would simply explain, "You'll see once it's done."

Finally, the last blocks were added to the very top of the structure. Then Velma slipped in, beckoning for Shaggy to follow.

"Despite its temperature, snow often acts as an insulator," Velma explained. "It should be cozy in here."

She kissed him.

Now Shaggy got it...

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It was getting dark. How long had they been out here... an hour, maybe two?

Velma looked at her watch. Jinkies. How could three and a half hours fly by without you feeling them slip past you?

"We should go in," she told Shaggy, suddenly worried as to whether anyone would ask how they had whiled away 210 minutes on a walk that usually took 20.

Shaggy nodded sorrowfully. Velma climbed out first, with her boyfriend close behind.

Mr. Blake was walking across the snow towards them, smiling as though he knew what they were up to. Maybe he did. Whatever. He wasn't their father.

Yet as they grew closer his smile widened, something exciting just burning to spill past his lips.

"Fred and Daphne told me to let you know that they have gone to the hospital." He allowed the elating news to sink in. "Daphne is in labor."