To Keep On Keepin' On

[BoJamesDuke]

"Why dont you help us to?! Instead of keeping all this locked inside like you usually do...you cant keep doing this Luke, can't you see what your doing?! Your talking about committing suicide for pete's sake...how would that make Uncle Jesse feel huh?"

Bo said desperatly, trying to say anything that would knock Luke out of the suicidal mind frame and back into a more reasonable one.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Luke grabbed at his hair hugging himself. He didn't want to think of Jesse. "Stop...please...stop..." His tears trailed down his cheeks.

[BoJamesDuke]

"I can't stop! You have to face this Luke, you cant just end it...you cant...your supposed t'make him proud, yer supposed t'stay with us and help us...Luke we're a family, we're supposed to help each other...he wants us to help each other..."

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Luke choked on sobs stuck in his throat. He hated who he was...what he had become. He couldn't imagine anyone being proud of him...not when he was such a failure.

[BoJamesDuke]

"Please cousin talk t'me...calm down enough t'talk to me...I know yer scared...we all are...about the future and everything but...please talk to me Luke...we need to help each other..."

Bo pleaded softly, rocking Luke gently in his arms.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

"Bo...I...I just...can't....take it anymore..." blurted Luke between sobs. "I...I'm so...so...lost...I...I..."

He couldn't finish his sentence. Instead he clung shakily to Bo, his brother, and cried into his shoulder, the guilt for feeling the way he was and the shame at his own weakness consuming him, not knowing which way to turn anymore.

"M'sorry...m'so...so...sorry," murmured Luke against the yellow shirt, damp with teardrops.

[BoJamesDuke]

Bo sighed softly as finally he started to feel Luke coming round, hoping that he could sort this out with Luke so finally he could stop worrying so much and focus on what needed to be focused on. Not that he didn't mind helping Luke, it wasn't very often that he got to. Usually, it was the other way around. Luke would help the cousins and keep everything that was bothering him to himself until he could find a solution to it that wouldn't interrupt the lives or problems of those around him. This time though, that plan had proved to come to a potential disasterous consequence.

"You ain't got nothin' to be sorry for Luke...we're all takin' this hard cousin...but like I keep saying, we need to pull through this together...please talk to me, just tell me what's goin through that head of yers..."

[DaisyMaeDuke]

It would have been easier to sprout wings and fly than for Luke to explain what was going on inside his head. He felt like such a failure...like he had let everyone down.

"I...I... j-just...I..."

He choked on a sob clinging to Bo still, unable to stop his trembling.

[BoJamesDuke]

"You what cousin...just take a few deep breaths an' calm down some Luke...its gonna be okay now...i'll help ya...just please calm down some and explain..."

Bo said as soothingly as he could though inside he was quaking at how clingy and desperate his cousin seemed.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

If there was one thing Luke hated more than failure it was admitting that he had. He figured though that it didn't matter now... they all knew anyway. "I...I failed...an...an I can't...I can't...I..." He drew a couple shaky breaths trying to calm down but feeling as if he never could.

[BoJamesDuke]

"Failed?" Bo interrupted quickly with a shake of his head. "Failed, Luke how have you failed?"

He could understand his cousins desire and instinct to protect the family unit and everything...but sometimes he thought Luke took that feeling just a little too far and this was going to be, he could see eaisly now, one of those times.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

"Un-uncle...Jesse...I...I..."

He didn't finish, choking on the words and tears beginning to fall more and more rapidly from his eyes*

[BoJamesDuke]

Bo swallowed hard as things started to become a little clearer to him. All the cousins had been taking the news about their Uncle hard, but of all of them it was becoming clearer and clearer that Luke was taking it the hardest. How on earth that could be, Bo didn't yet understand but he now was making it his mission to find out. He would sit with Luke for days up here if it meant getting this information out of him and putting him back in a more positve frame of mind.

"Luke...Uncle Jesse...there's nothing you can or could have done to prevent this..."

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Luke simply shook his head. Bo didn't understand. No one did. "Just...go...please..." Tears continued dripping down his face, tears of frustration that Bo didn't understand, tears of anger over what was happening, tears of fear over what was to come, and tears of agony and despair that he could not explain.

[BoJamesDuke]

Bo shook his head determindly.

"No, either you tell me what's going on properly or your coming home with me and i'll get the doc t'come out and see you too. You are NOT leaving the family like this, you are not going to do this to Uncle Jesse. I am not letting you turn yourself into a coward by taking the easy way out!"

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Luke pushed himself away from Bo at his words, sitting beside him physically but trying his best to distance himself. Swallowing hard on the lump in his throat, he wrapped his arms around himself and sat looking out over the cliff as the sun slowly started to peak over the horizon.

[BoJamesDuke]

Bo sighed as he did, scrubbing a hand down his face before moving closer to Luke.

"Luke please...dont do this..."

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Tears were dripping down his face, as he saw Bo scoot closer out the corner of his eye. He longed to just hug him and not let go, to tell him how scared he was, but he didn't. He had already let everyone down. Besides, Bo had enough worries. If Luke left, it'd be one less thing on Bo's mind.

[BoJamesDuke]

Bo could feel his frustration and anger at his cousin growing for being like this now, there was only so much patience Bo Duke had, only so many times he could repeat the same damn thing over and over again. He didn't know why Luke was being like this but if hog tying him and dragging his butt all the way home was the only way to get him there he would do it.

"Lukas please...your scaring Daisy..."

[DaisyMaeDuke]

Luke hardly heard the last thing Bo said, but it was no matter. Drawing his knees to his chest and burying his face in his hands he rocked himself between sobs. "I'm scared...I'm....s-s-so...s-scared....Bo...I...I...help me...help me..." he pleaded.

[BoJamesDuke]

"I'm trying to Luke but I cant when you dont help me to help you! I cant help if I dont know the problem!"

He pleaded gently.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

"S's'sall...m'my fault..." he said in a choked whisper.

[BoJamesDuke]

"How is it your fault?! What in the world could you have done to make this not happen?"

Bo tried to reason softly though he couldn't help but exclaim just a little bit at the absurdity Luke was speaking.

[DaisyMaeDuke]

"I...coulda done more...shoulda...I shoulda told him t' let me plow that day...I..." He stopped sniffing a little. "I shoulda...figured out...a way...I shoulda....stopped it..."

[BoJamesDuke]

"You would never have got Jesse to let you do something he wanted t'do...we get our stubborness from someplace Luke and you know as well as I do its from him...And besides you heard the doc's...if it didn't happen then it would have happened sometime else soon. It's just that Uncle Jesse ain't a young man no more cousin...he can't be here all out lives..."

Bo swallowed softly, hoping that the words he was saying were getting through to Luke because although they were reassuring they hurt Bo to say. Just thinking about that day was painful...they had been out all three of them ploughing the back fourties as usual...cept that day was anything but usual...that day Uncle Jesse had fallen...and hadn't gotten back up again. He had suffered a heart attack and now was in hospital as weak as could be...