BoJamesDuke

"Its eaisier to deal with everything else. What good is it gonna do if I just sit there and cry and moan and shout things huh? Someone needs to take charge and I'm sorry but in order to do that, I Have to have some degree of control over myself..." Bo countered back, not in the mood for being argued with.

"Daisy if there's something you can do then i'll ask ya if you can do it...but you do got your own things to worry about as well alright." Bo reasoned gently, knowing she was as worried as he was.

Bo shrugged her hands off, shaking his head. "Daisy look...dont do that okay. I aint gonna go off like Luke I promise...just right now I need to think clear and figure out what i'm gonna do with Luke and about Uncle Jesse...I aint got time to sit and cry and scream curses at the sky okay..."

Bo sighed and took a deep breath before saying. "Right now, what I feel aint important."

"Course...and you shouldn't be liftin those Daisy, if you wanna help could you go feed the animals?" He answered shortly, quickly changing the subject.

Bo glances up as he shifted some feed bags, nodding a little "S'long as you dont mind me workin while I do..."

Bo was already deep in sorting the animals out for the day, muttering things to himself like what needed to be brought, what needed to be mended and working out some calculations. He never really enjoyed those things but it was keeping his mind busy and right now that was what he needed.

"Stuff..." Was all that Bo replied, drying up his glass and putting it away before heading outside to do his and Luke's chores as he had been doing since Jesse had been hospitalized. Slowly this was all already grinding him down though he was trying to steel himself against all the emotions that were building inside him.

Bo closed his eyes as he swallowed the rest of his drink down, shaking his head again as he took the glass to the sink and started to wash it up quietly. "The state Luke's in I wouldn't so much as put one of Boss' watered down beers in front of him..."

"Seems like you got friends enough...ol' Cooter was in here the other day askin' me if I'd seen ya recently...if I'd heard any news on how Bo was...he seems pretty concerned about ya and if I remember rightly, you two has been friends since you was knee high to grasshoppers..." Ted countered back gently, wiping the bar down but saying knowledgably. "Whoever you talk to...even if you just go to the church and talk yer fears to god or the preacher...its better than trying to make friends with drink...drink ain't ever gonna be a friend Luke."

Bo nodded while he swallowed some down, getting out a glass and pouring her some out too, saying quietly when he handed it to her. "Drink it slow..."

Eventually though, he stopped what he was doing and leant on the bar. "You know it dont help Luke...you can run away from whatever problems you got...use whatever you like to try and escape it but eventually you'll have to face it all over again...instead of doing this...why not go talk to someone who you can just rant and rave to..."

Bo slowly poured himself out a resonable, but not overly ridiculous amount of shine, just wanting something to soothe his nerves some so he could actually get through the day. "No...I cant if I wanted to anyway...visiting hours aint yet..."

Bo rubbed a hand across his aching head. Dealing with Luke was one thing but now dealing with Daisy's anger at Luke and having to defend his older cousin was another and in all truth it was scaring him more that maybe he would have to deal with all this one day by himself. Shaking his head, not willing to argue it out and talk reason right now he got up and headed to the kitchen, pulling out a glass and the bottle of medicinal shine from under the sink.

"I ain't taking sides either Daisy girl...i'm just saying I can see where Bo's coming from but I do admit that he let his own fears from what happened the last time he got shot get in the way...I guess with good reason but...it prejudiced him a lot from the moment Cassie returned..." Walking a little further, heading for the tranquil hospital gardens, he shook his head softly with another heavy sigh. "I don't know....what happens next is down to the boys mainly...there aint nothing we can really do."

Jesse nodded a little. "I didn't say she was involved with those people Daisy, I said she was caught up with them. She might try and escape them but we know from experience they don't give up so easy...eventually they come back until they can't come back no more. I don't think that past will ever really be able to be escaped from by Cassie...and right now its not something we can deal with. When his probation's gone and he's free to do what he wants in life...maybe then they can work something out without all this rukus."

Bo shook his head softly, saying quietly. "Daisy don't...it wont help anything...you've seen what he's like already, you'll only make it worse...he's...he's really...really depressed this time, this aint just something he's doing for the heck of it..."

Jesse sighed as they walked, it had been a question that he had been milling over for some time. "No...I think its what it started with...and Bo's desire to protect Luke from any harm. I can see where Bo's come from...the fact that the type of people Cassie is caught up in now and with Luke still on probation...its neither safe nor practical for them to be together really...Luke is in the police's eyes enough without adding to it..."

Jesse nodded a little, gazing back out the window purely because it gave him something different and more peaceful to look at. The fact there were other people leaving the hospital with everything right as rain...people outside casually having a chat...people just coming and going as they pleased. Everything looked calm compared to the storm that was going on in his own life and for a moment he wished that it would all just disappear and magically be okay again. More than anything, he wished that his wife were with them...her touch always had seemed to smooth everything back to how they used to be. It was times like this that he missed her most dearly. "Yes it was him...he flew out here like a chicken with his tail feathers on fire..." After a moments pause he stood up properly and offered his arm to her. "How bout we go walk in the garden..."

Bo sniffed hard, trying to get his tears under control so he could talk to Daisy properly without worrying her more. He knew that he had to be the strong one now, the one that held all his own feelings in and supported everyone else...maybe that was how it would end up eventually... Swallowing, he lifted his head and said softly, looking down at the floor. "Found Luke...at Widow's Peak...sitting...on the very edge...wants...he wants t'..."

Jesse looked down the hallway to see Daisy with his back to him. Sighing gently he called out. "Down here Daisy girl..."

As Luke closed his eyes, Bo finally let his own tears spill down his cheeks - his own frightened, childish tears that he had bravely been fighting back so as not to upset Luke more. It wasn't until Luke was completly asleep that he got off the bed and left the room, leaning against the wall in the hallway with his head in his hands. He was so tired...so upset....so...everything. He was starting to think that instead of just losing his Uncle now he was going to lose Luke too and then everything would be left down to him to deal with - something he had never ever done well. With Luke by his side, yeah he could do things as well as Luke and his Uncle...but left to himself with just Daisy to help...even the thought of it made him tremble. He had never had the pressure of running a farm by himself, looking after a family by himself...was Luke really going to just leave and let Bo deal with it all? Was that actually what Luke was afraid of...being alone and running everything? If that was the case then where was the old pact that he had made with his older cousin long ago...that no matter what happened they would do everything together...that neither of them would ever be alone. If Luke did leave with his Uncle...then it would just be him and Daisy...but then what would happen when Daisy married...she couldn't stay around on the farm forever and Bo certainly couldn't sit there and let her either no matter how much she might protest against it. Eventually she would find someone and fly the nest...and then it would truly be down to him. The worst thing was though...that Bo just didn't know how to help his older cousin. He had no chance of stopping Luke doing what it was he seemed determined to do...he could worry...he could stay up all night and spend every waking minute watching Luke and talking to him but likely it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. If it was advice Luke needed, he would go to his Uncle...or Steve - his best friend next to Cooter...or Cooter...never to Bo. Bo was too young to understand what Luke was thinking, Bo didn't have enough worldly understanding to be able to say anything that would soothe his older cousin. Sliding down the wall as all those thoughts ran through his head, he choked on a sob into his hands, his shoulders shaking.

As the door opened, Ted looked up as he always did. With Boss Hogg running the county, he knew the importance of noticing who came in and what went on as much as the next person. Raising his eyebrows as he saw Luke enter, he had already started pouring the beer before Luke had even sat down. Sliding the drink across to him as the bar stool was occupied, he nodded a little to Luke's question but replied with a serious look. "S'long as its only one or two..."

Helping Luke to drink some water, he then gently and silently got Luke to his feet and guided him to their room. Sitting Luke down on his bed, he took his older cousin's boots off and got him changed into his pyjama bottoms before guiding him to lay down in the bed and tucking him in softly under the warm covers, watching his older cousin sadly. He didn't understand at all how things had gotten to this...sure the situation with Jesse was bad and it was true that his days were severly numbered...limited to a week at best the doctors had told them. But it was something that had always been inevitable. Jesse was not a young man anymore and neither did he have the ability to last forever. Nothing ever did. He could understand Luke's being ashamed at freezing on the spot when Jesse needed them, Bo would be feeling the same....but why oh why did Luke have to go and push himself away from everyone else to seek his own solitude in his mind and deliberatly torture himself some more over it. Why couldn't he just go and tell someone, let them reassure him...why if he cared this much about Jesse couldn't he go to their Uncle in the hospital and talk to him before it was too late. Since everything had happened, Bo and Daisy had rarely left their Uncle's side during the allotted visiting hours...but Luke had always refused to come. In fact the first time that Luke had said it, he and Bo had near come to blows over the fact he wouldn't. It killed Bo and he was sure Daisy too, to see their Uncle's eyes roam around the room when he woke to find only Bo and Daisy...and to see his eldest missing. It wasn't doing Jesse any favours because now he would worry about Luke too and that was the last thing he needed to be doing.

Bo closed his eyes and huddled into Daisy as much as he could as she sat next to him on the bed, clinging to her softly as he began to fall into a sleep that should he not have been drugged up to his eyeballs he would not have fallen into. Jesse watched the blur of orange speed away from the hospital, shaking his head softly and whispering a soft plea that Luke would never hear. "Come back to me son...wherever you are..."