Author's Note: Yes I know I haven't updated in a while. Sorry.
Maybe now that the holidays are over I can get back into a routine...
Chapter Seven:
"Thanks for coming, guys..." Velma told her friends as they crowded into her room. "It really means a lot to me..."
Fred grinned at her. "When Shaggy called us to tell us he would be your donor, I almost didn't believe it. I mean, he did mention before he thought he could, but I assumed he was just--"
"Not willing to face the facts?" Shaggy finished, looking slightly triumphant. Fred nodded slightly, embarrassed.
Velma smiled. "I'm glad he couldn't. They weren't 'facts' anyway." Then her expression changed a bit, to a more serious one. "I'm also glad you could all make it here. You know, it won't be long now before they move me to isolation and I can't have visitors."
The rest of the gang fell silent. Then Daphne stepped forward with a package.
"This is for you," she told her friend. "From all of us." In reality, Daphne had actually purchased the gift, but sentimentally it was from the whole gang and Velma understood that.
Curious, Velma pulled off the lavender paper from the rather-heavy (for its size) package. Inside there was a laptop.
"This hospital has wi-fi. I checked," Daphne told her, holding up her Blackberry. "So you can still email the rest of us, when you feel up to it."
"Aw... thanks!" Velma beamed. "And I will, I promise! Then when I'm out of here..." Suddenly, Velma felt an odd lurch in the pit of her stomach. When I'm out of here... She had said that so confidantly, so certainly that it was true. But the reality was that her odds were still no better than fifty percent, and from the looks the rest of the gang tossed across to each other she could tell the same thing had crossed everyone else's mind. Should she ignore it, or confront it?
She thought about Shaggy, and the bold move he had made. Maybe a part of him was worried that if he was wrong, he would look like an idiot. But how might things have been if he had allowed that fear to keep him from being tested? How might things have been if he refused to ponder the possibility that he was right?
Velma confronted it.
"Guys... I really am going to get out of here. I am, I know it. I'm not... I'm not going to die. I won't."
Fred paused a moment. Velma couldn't actually be certain about survival at all, and he knew she knew it. But maybe one wasn't supposed to talk a friend out of it when they convinced themselves that things would work out. After all, Fred had been wrong with Shaggy.
"No," he finally agreed. "You won't."
The gang stayed with Velma for a couple more hours, truly doing nothing in particular-- they chatted, looked through old photographs, reminisced about the mysteries they solved, laughed-- basically all the normal, plain, everyday stuff.
Those were the best two hours of Velma's life.
Finally, looking at the clock, Velma commented, "Jinkies... it's awfully late, if you wanted to go home soon. I bet you're all hungry; I--"
"Nah, we're fine." The gang was shocked to hear those words coming from none other than Shaggy. "We'll stay a while longer."
Fred looked at Daphne, then spoke. "I'll go down to the hospital food court and pick up something for dinner."
Taking her cue, Daphne added, "And I'll go with him." Linking arms with her boyfriend, she stepped out of the room, her heels clicking loudly against the gray-and-white-streaked tile. Velma giggled as they went.
"So cute," she commented.
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Out in the hallway, Daphne cast a worried look at Fred. Fred answered before she even asked any questions.
"She will be okay, Daphne."
"Fred, even the doctors have no idea at this point. I just--"
"Daphne." Fred spoke firmly. "Velma just told me that she would survive. And I believe her. If she tells me something, I believe her, no matter what. I trust my team."
"Fred, it's not like she would intentionally lie to you or anything. But if she doesn't know, how can she expect you to believe it too?"
Fred stopped in his tracks and turned to face his girlfriend. For a second, it seemed like he honestly had no answer to that question. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then, all of a sudden, a flash of extraordinary insight ignited behind the deep eyes into which Daphne stared.
"Daphne... does someone have to feel certain to know that they are speaking the truth?"
"Of course they do!"
"Daphne... think back. Think back to Christmas Eve."
Daphne didn't need to think hard at all to remember. The whole scene played back for her immediately. It was not last Christmas Eve, nor the year before, but it was the Christmas Eve that mattered more to Fred and Daphne than any other occasion had.
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"Good dip, Mrs. Jones," Daphne told her childhood friend's mother, who beamed.
"Why thank you, Daphne." Daphne had not really even paid much attention to the words. Every Christmas Eve party was the same, and had been for years. The Blakes, Dinkleys, Rogerses, and a few other families all congregated at the Jones residence. Daphne would comment on Mrs. Jones's blue cheese carrot dip. At age seven, when she first started coming to this party, she had been obsessed with blue cheese and took great delight in this recipe. Now she just ate it out of habit. Virtually every "traditional" gathering was a habit. After sampling the dip yet again, Daphne and Velma would wander to a staircase across the room and sit, holding their red plastic cups filled with eggnog, chattering about whatever their latest phase was-- princesses at age seven, horses at age nine, pop music at age twelve, boys at age fifteen, cars at sixteen, college at seventeen, etc.
And Daphne would stare across the room. She couldn't help it; even if she was entirely immersed in the conversation, her eyes wandered on their own. They wandered to the doorway, where Fred would be bustling in and out of the room as his mother put him to work serving the food. They wandered above the doorway, where, as always, there was a sprig of mistletoe carefreely swinging in the air currents generated by so much movement in the crowd. Nobody ever actually kissed under it, except for a few grown-ups who had consumed a couple too many sips of champagne. Still, the thoughts were generated. One thought in particular.
Every time she went to this party, Daphne couldn't help wondering. She wondered about it on plenty other occasions, but now was when it really blossomed inside her. It ate away at her thoughts. She knew what this really was, but the black curtain of uncertainty veiled her ability to recognize it.
Still, she had to tell him. This year, she would. Did she know how it would turn out? Was she sure of what she felt? These questions went unanswered as she stepped forward to say what she wanted to say.
"Fred?" she whispered as he started to leave the room. Now the fear pounced on her. She didn't know what she was saying; she couldn't know for sure. But she said it anyway.
"I love you."
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Daphne practically had to be awakened from the trance-like memory.
"So were you sure about that?" Fred asked.
"No... I wasn't..."
"But you were right," Fred whispered. He put his arm around Daphne. "You were right, deep down."
Daphne hugged him back. "I'm not sorry I told you about that. Not sorry at all."
"And I think," Fred told her, "that when Velma is better, she will not be sorry at all she told us she would be. I'm sure of it."
A kiss sealed his conclusion.
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Back in the room, Velma and Shaggy were left alone together, unsure how to break the ice, somehow. It was like there was a huge conversation practically scripted in both of their heads, but there was no introduction, no way of expressing exactly what was meant. They made light chatter instead, talking about the weather, TV, sports, anything unimportant. It was straining, really, for two people who could talk about so much more to be restricted by themselves.
Finally, trying to sound casual, Shaggy commented, "Hey, um... Velms?"
Velma nodded, and her eyes told him to go on.
"Here," he said. He opened a drawstring bag that only just now Velma had noticed he had. He reached in.
"For you," he told her. "Get well soon..."
It was a dozen roses, stems cut shorter than conventional length (presumably to better fit in the bag), in Velma's favorite shade of orange. Velma stared at him, speechless.
"I'll get them some water," he said, looking for an excuse to turn away from allowing her to see his blushing face. He stepped into the bathroom and pulled out one of the standard, pink plastic cups ubiquitous in all hospital bathrooms. He filled it with water and set the makeshift vase on Velma's tray.
"Shaggy... thank you... that's really, really sweet..."
"It's nothing," Shaggy told her.
But in reality, for the rest of the evening the flowers shone as a warm beacon of cheer in the cold, sterile, white hospital room. Even after her friends finally said goodnight and went home, the orange roses were not "nothing"; rather they became everything in Velma's world.