The next morning and four members of Mystery Inc. walked downstairs feeling refreshed. Fred was still asleep, and they'd decided against waking him.
Daphne was full of thoughts on Fred's excursion over breakfast, for some strange reason (or not). Velma talked about it because it was better than watching Shaggy and Scooby eating the hotel's canteen empty.
"Maybe he heard the van alarm go off. Why would he hide that from us?"
"Did he come down here or go out to the van, or what?"
"What would he be doing that he would be keen to try and hide from us?"
Velma smiled as she listened to Daphne making up about a million scenarios. She knew Daphne was trying to convince herself that Fred was still hers.
Eventually Fred himself arrived, with dark shadows under his eyes and yawning. Velma noticed a large bruise under his fringe that hadn't been there yesterday on the drive from Ohio.
"What happened to your forehead, Freddy?"
He shrugged as if to say, It's nothing, then sat down in the empty chair next to Daphne. Daphne leaned over and pushed his hair up, looking at the bruise.
"Ow! It's nothing, Daph, really."
Daphne sighed and let him go. He was looking down at his plate, which had half a bagel on it, but he wasn't eating the bagel and didn't appear to notice when Scooby leaned over and stole it.
"Scooby!" Velma chided, but Fred didn't look up. Shaggy leaned over and clicked his fingers under Fred's eyes, but Fred didn't move.
"Like, Earth calling to Planet Freddy…"
Fred jumped and looked over at Shaggy.
"Hey, what was that for?"
Shaggy laughed.
"Like, you were in some kind of trance, man!"
Velma broke the banter up.
"OK, if we've had breakfast, why don't we go down to the beach? It's what we came here for, a vacation!"
A/N: Another shorty, I know. Sorry! Just keep reading. Jazzola