Bryceton Series: Tortured Souls

[Kristy_DUke]

-CHAPTER ONE-

Icy cold sweat rolls down my thin smooth face as the darkness clings tightly onto me. I gasp for air as I sit up in my old queen sized bed as the nightmare plays lively in my head as I fight back the images of his still body lying on the living room floor. Though as usaul, the more I fight back the horrid picture the more it haunts me, as if in an odd way it is teasing me or playing some odd and twisted game with me. Silently I wipe my face with my thin lenghty hands as the sounds of house ring out at me, growing louder by the second it seems. Once again the picture of his thick body lying there while I walk in screams at me behind my eyes and I squeeze my eyes close, hoping they would just go away.

Loosing the battle with the images in my head I slowly swin my lean lengthy legs over the side of the bed as I read the digital clock that luminates three in the morning. I sigh as I think of all I have to do today and yet know I won't be able to go back to sleep, leaving me to work with four hours of sleep. An hour more than usaul since the incident had occured only two weeks ago. I stand still in place as the dark room seems to spin around me as the images play tricks in my mind. Slowly I fall into what I have been taught growing up, counting on prayer, of which I have lacked since the horrid incident. I pray to myself for the sight of my uncle lying on the floor to vanish from my dreams and from my head, that I will be strong enough to move on with my life.

Closing my weak prayer I glance over to my right at my cousin who sleeps silently in his single bed. His sheets are tossled around him as he rolls from his right side to his back in his sleep. I watch him sleep filled with my own love and affection toward him, the one that has been there for me through all of this, as he has been throughout all my life. Slowly I shift in place and slowly walk to the door and slowly open it, making sure it don't squeek to awaken my cousin. Slipping out of my caved in room, I quickly close the door behind me and walk into the living room where more darkness invades, taking over the old house. Through the darkness I move through the known living room across the old oak desk that sits against the wall, that seperates the two hallways. Passing the old desk I quickly turn left into the larger of the two halls.

In the second hall I slowly stand in the middle of the hall where a closed door sits to my left and an open door sits to my right. Without thought I abrupty turn to my left and carefully open the door as if afraid that I'd awaken someone. Thick darkness lingers in the old bed room, an almost evil darkness that sends chills racing down my spine as more pictures lividly play in my mind, of that dreadful day. Slowly I move my right arm up as the horrid day's painful memory grabs ahold of me, making everything seem so heavy and forceful. Slowly I flip on the lights from the light switch to my right as numbness grabs ahold of me. In the lighted room I take a look around the large room that once belonged to my uncle, to the uncle that was more my dad than anything, who was so loving and caring. He was always there for me until I had went home early that day to find him spread on the living room floor covered in his own blood, a horrid expression on his face. He is no longer here for me and I feel so lost and worthless without him.

Numbly I step ahead near his sliding light brown wooden door closet that holds his clothes, a dark brown chesnut dresser sits on the other side of the closet, entrapped in the corner. A small window lies a couple of inches from the corner of the room, where a small ray of light from the bright moon beams in through the thin laced curtains. A foot from the window lies a small desk with a large mirror in front of it, the wooding matching the dark chesnut dresser; the desk where he spent so many nights at writing in his journal or in a current story that he loved to write. Against the right wall lies his large thick queen sized bed that remains covered in his thick off white comforter that he loved so much. Besides his bed lies the matching dark chesnut wood night stand that holds more pictures like the dresser holds, within it's drawer his small Bible remains nested neatly in there along with a small notebook that he had scribbled ideas in.

I stand only a couple of feet from his old bed, my feet feeling numb, almost as if my bare feet has somehow grown attached to the old polished light brown wooding floor. Slowly I force myself to walk to the bed where I sit down upon the left half of the bed, slowly running my callused hand over his loved comforter. Memories flood through my head of all the times I had come running to him from a bad dream where he would sit in his bed holding me, comforting me until my tears stopped and my breathing calmed back down to normal. He would then would gently tuck me into bed besides him, watching me until I fell back asleep.

Quickly that day's events display themself behind my eyes like a horrid picture show that continues over and over. The room seems to darken through the light as tears reach my eyes at the realization that he really is gone, that he isn't coming back. I feel myself go weak suddenly and without thought I lie my head on his soft feather pillow, smelling his aroma from his pillow. Tears swell up in my eyes rolling down onto the pillow as I allow them to do so, not caring any more if Luke were to walk in and see me crying like a baby. Through the haze of my tears I look up at the pictures on his night stand, two of them. Both of them was of my uncle before I was born, with his wife and child, both of whom died before I was born. Jesse's eyes shine with pride and love for his wife and child, as well as his love for life. Jesse loved life, but most of all he loved his children, even the ones his wife didn't bear; Luke, Daisy, and I. He loved us as if we were his own, placing us in front of anything else that mattered to him. And now he is no longer here.

Feeling my body begin to tremble in my tears I try to force myself under control, afterall I am now twenty-one years old. I can never remember seeing Luke cry, he didn't even have a tear in his eyes on the day of his funeral, even though I know he was very pained by loosing his uncle, his father. But I haven't even stopped crying since I had walked in and saw him lying on the floor in his own pool of blood, the most blood I have ever seen in my whole life! The memory of that nightmarish moment displays itself clearly in my head, taunting me with the fear that had arose when I walked into the living room that day.

Darkness slowly fades in as tears still continue to flood down my cheeks, my body trembling horribly as the flashback continues to flash in my head. Darkness that I don't welcome, even though I need the sleep, but sleep means that the nightmare will come back and I'll awake once again covered in icy cold sweat and yelling, perhaps bringing everyone's attention. Though no matter how hard I fight against sleep, sleep over takes me and I no longer can feel the trembling of my body or the thudding of my heart or my fight for air.

[Kristy_DUke]

LUKE DUKE

Slowly I awake as the irratating alarm starts to buzz at me, though my eyes remain close. I wait for Bo to turn it off as he always does out of routine, though lately he has already been up and dressed by the alarm goes offf, just waiting to turn it off and make sure that I am awake. After a moment of the beeping buzzing at me I slowly open my groggy eyes and after a short moment of my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the room I find Bo's sheets ruffled, but no Bo. Slowly I yank the alarm off and slowly get up, the cold hard floor sends goose bumps on my bare legs. Tiredly I make my way to the closed door of the room and throw on the lights of the room that rests a foot from the door way and return to my dresser to pick out my clothing for the day.

Slowly I change from my baby blue boxers that I wear during the warm nights into tight light blue jeans, a red plad shirt, and my black leather cowboy boots before I make my way to the door. Opening the door I expect to see the kitchen light to be a glow from Bo being awake and just sitting in the kitchen over some coffee and perhaps the day's newspapers. Instead I am surrounded by thick darkness, sending panic through me as I wonder where Bo is. "Bo," I call out and yet get nothing but silence. Panicly I race to the larger of the two hall ways, expecting to see the bathroom door closed with an aray of light under the door, but find it empty and dark. "Bo," I call out, panic lies thick in my voice, not caring if I awoke Daisy at the moment.

Standing near the opened bathroom door way, I stand silently, trying to think of where my cousin would be. Fear and concern run deep within me of where Bo is, though try to remain calm trying to convince myself that he is out doing chores. But this early? Suddenly I hear a loud moan that turns into a yell full of panic and fear rings out behind the closed door that rests on the opposite side of the hall from the bathroom. Slowly I look at the closed door, trying to convince myself that I just imagined the yell, but as soon as I step closer to the closed door another yell of fear rings out, though this time it is breathless and wheezy.

Tiredly I take a deep breath as my hand reaches the icy cold silver door handle and open the light door that feels heavy as memories of that day Bo had called me, his voice thick of fear and panic, telling me to pick him up from the sheriff's station where he was being questioned. Fighting out the horrid memory of what Bo had went through that day, the day that changed everyone's lives. Slowly my eyes adjust to the thick darkness to find Bo curled up in a fetus position on Jesse's old bed where Jesse always slept at. Though he is asleep he gasps for air wheezily in a beginning of an attack as he seems to fight to awaken from another nightmare that plagues every sleeping moment of the nights, though the nightmare captures tightly ahold of him.

Slowly I step over to him and feel his forehead to feel icy cold sweat roll down his face, soakening into the Jesse's old pillow case. Caringly I run my hand through his thick bright blond hair as I say his name, trying to awaken him, but the nightmare seems to hold on tightly to him, not wanting to let go of him. My heart tightens painfully for my young cousin who has been through so much the past couple of weeks, one thing after another. "C'mon Bo, wake up," I say panicly as I slightly shake him, praying for him to awaken and not to be tortured as he seems to be lately.

Suddenly he begins coughing wheezily in one of his asthma attacks that he has been having often the past couple of weeks, causing his asthma to worsen. Coughing forcefully his eyes quickly open, his baby blue eyes shine with pain and fear as he fights for air through each forceful cough. "Where's your inhaler, Bo?" I question him as he continues to cough chronicly.

"Room," all of what he can manage to say.

Without thought I race out of our uncle's old room, turning the corner my upper right leg is thrown against the corner of the desk, sending pain up and down my leg. Ignoring the pain I rush into the the small hall way and into the room, hoping to find his inhaler as I can't remember seeing it on our nightstand where he usaully places it at night. Panic races in me as I fight with time as I notice it not on the nightstand and turn to my next guess as I pick up his old pair of jeans that sits on a chair at the end of his bed. I sigh in relief as I find his gray cased inhaler in his right hip pocket and race out of the room, being careful of the desk.

Walking into Jesse's old room I find Bo still coughing forcefully and painful as he lies on Jesse's pillow. Quickly I help him spray it in his mouth a few times until it settles down to only quicky breathing for air, knowing it will settle down in a moment or two. "How you feel?" I slowly ask, not wanting to hear the answer.

"It hurts," he answers painfully, the answer I expected, "I didn't mean to fall asleep, honest Luke. I just awoke a few hours ago from another nightmare and came here...I guess I fell asleep. I'm sorry."

"For what? Look there is no sin in sleeping in his bed...we didn't make a rule against it," I say trying to calm him down, "Don't worry about it, ok? Ya wanna go get something to eat? I can try to fix something, it may not turn out, but hey it's the thought that counts right?"

"I'm not hungry," Bo says, his normal answer.

I sigh worrily, knowing he hasn't been eating in the past two weeks as that horrid day continues to haunt him. "You have to eat, Bo, I'm not taking no for an answer," I say firmly, "You can have beer and pizza for breakfast, I don't care. I just want you to eat something, even if I have to force you to."

Slowly he follows me into the kitchen where I slowly turn on the lights, showing his ghostly pale complexion as he stares down at the table. His baby blue eyes remain opaque as they have been since I picked him up from the sheriff's department that chilly and windy day. Though now as I stare at him, his complexion almost seems opaque, the palest I have ever seen him as his thin chest heaves in and out for air. "That's it," I say softly, "I am calling Applebee today and scheduling him to look at you."

"No Luke," he begs me, glaring up at me, "I'm fine, really."

"No you're not, you can say that all day if you want, but you know you're not all right," I say softly, wishing there were something I could do to help him feel better, "Not only have you not been sleeping well when you do sleep, you haven't been eating, you look dead yourself, and your asthma has gotten worse."

"Gee thanks Luke," Bo says sarcasticly.

"Look Bo, I am worried about you, you have been through a lot," I say as I slowly pull out a glass, "you use to hardly ever use your inhaler, except for maybe once a week perhaps even once a month, especially the medication they have you on. And be honest with me, how much do you use it now?"

Bo looks at me with his opaque eyes and I fight to see a reaction in him. "I don't know," he lies.

"You know as well as I do," I answer pouring some orange juice into the glass, "three or four times a day, sometimes more. You need to see Applebee."

"There ain't nothing he can do," Bo says full of anger as I set the glass in front of him and he abruptly knocks it over, causing orange juice to spill everywhere and the glass slowly rolls off the table, breaking upon the old flooring, "What he gonna do LUke? He gonna make Uncle Jesse come back to life and erase that day? Is he gonna do that? If not, then there ain't nothing he can do!"

I watch as he runs out of the room with tears in his opaque eyes and I listen to our door slam shut before I grab a paper towel and begin to clean up his mess. I sigh thinking of all that was said, his anger and pain so powerful and strong, though refuses to talk about it. I look down at the glass as fear and worry runs through me, thinking of how he has never had such a strong outburst as this, he has yelled at me or Daisy, but he never got so angry that he threw things or to say what he just said. Nor did he ever show that much anger or pain. My heart tightens in pain for my cousin as I slowly pray that I will someway be able to help him through his time of pain, but yet I seem to be empty, unable to help him. He has always turned to me when he was hurt or angry, or in any pain, but now all of a sudden he doesn't want anything to do with me or Daisy, or anyone else. Tears blur my eyes as I fight for answers to help my cousin, answers that refuse to come to me, no matter how much I fight to get them.

[Kristy_DUke]

Bo Duke

I watch out the small window that rests to the side of my queen size bed as the dark calm sky slowly begins to lighten up. My mind runs wild within me of all I had said to Luke to awakening in Jesse's bed, I was certain that Luke would be upset. We all had agreed upon that we all should leave Jesse's room as it is for the time being, which also meant that no one would be able to sleep in it. I sigh as a wave of exhaustion heaps over me as I think of what may lie ahead of us, a life without Jesse in it. I fight back tears as I wonder silently how I will be able to do it without Jesse, he was always there for me, always, and now he is gone, to never to return.

The early morning sky slowly grows lighter and lighter, showing a few clouds that linger highly in the sky. Watching the thick clouds that show a tint of blackness in them, I slowly allow myself to think of that day that was suppose to be made up of fun and excitement, which turned out to be a nightmare. I knew I should have stayed home with Jesse instead of going to the town's annual picnic, though Jesse had stayed home, claiming he didn't feel well enough to go. He was determined for us to go without him and we all did so, not thinking anything of it. Staring out the window I wonder who would ever want to kill Jesse and why? Everyone loved Jesse, I mean who wouldn't? How did it happen?

A shrill of fear races sharply through me as I realize that this all didn't happen by itself, his death was brought upon by another. Anger fills me with my fear at who ever did this to Jesse, an anger so thick and an anger that I have never felt before. Tears enter my eyes as the image of someone in our house, bringing evil into the house, and slowly taking Jesse's life and walking out as if nothing had happened; with a large grin of achievement across his face. An evil that still lurks out on the streets and perhaps still in Hazzard, ready to strike again. More fear covers me at the thought of who ever did this to my uncle still out there, perhaps in Hazzard, awaiting for another chance to strike. More anger accompanies it at whoever it is that is so evil to take my uncle's life, taking my uncle's life against his will while he still lurks free on the streets, enjoying his life.

I jump in fear as the door loudly squeaks open and I slightly turn my head to look to see Luke standing in the door way. Quickly I wipe my tear filled eyes roughly with the back of my hand as I return to glaring out of my window, watching the clouds float freely above. Suddenly my mind returns to how I had acted when Luke tried to show his concern for me, showing me just how much he cared for me and I threw the glass in return, instead of saying thanks. I remember the deep anger, an anger I have never felt before, so strong and powerful that had built up within me since I had awaken. As the thought of his death continued to haunt me, with new scary thoughts of something that evil was in our house and just may return for more, or to some other house in Hazzard. But how can I explain that to Luke? The anger that built up within me scared me as much as the thought of that evil man returning for more, an anger that tore my heart apart.

"You feel better?" Luke finally asks and I fight to hear any anger in his voice, but don't find any. His voice is soft and caring as it always is and so understanding. How can he be so understanding? Why can't he just hate me for how I have been acting? Instead of treating me with love and understanding, making me feel so guilt, so horrible inside, making me want to run to him. Though I always fight it back, not wanting to face what he may think of me if I do that; he would really think of me as a baby, if my crying doesn't convince him already.

"I guess," I lie to him, wanting to tell him how I feel, but instead it doesn't come out but gets stuck in my throat. The anger still feels me as I fight to get rid of the anger, by remember one of Jesse's great teachings, how criminals are just people like anyone else with a misunderstanding of life, and in most cases have been wronged badly themselves and feel the need to strike out. Why can't I feel that way? Am I that bad of a person to not see that? Fear remains to build with my anger toward the man that did this to my uncle, even though I fight to control it. "I'm sorry," I finally say, not wanting to face him.

"I wish you would be truthful with me Bo, I really do; like we were to one another before this all had happened," Luke sighs sitting on the edge of my bed, a foot away, "This all has been hard for all of us, but harder for you for you are the one that saw it; had to see it. Everything happens for a reason, Bo, whether we realize it or not. Death takes us all eventaully, taking us different ways that effect their loved ones who will have to learn to live on with thier lives without that person."

"It wasn't his time, Luke, whoever it was killed him!" I hear my voice tremble no matter how hard I fight with the tears, "And whoever killed him, is still out there and may do it again!"

Silence slowly invades our room as the clouds continue to float by carelessly as the sky behind it lightens up slowly by the moment. "Look at me Bo," Luke finally says in his caring, but ordering voice and when I fail to do so he slowly places a caring hand on my right shoulder. Slowly I do as I am told to do, trying to fight the tears back as they push themselves forward. "Look Bo, we all miss him, just like you do, but he wouldn't want to see you this upset or angry about it. Stuff like this happens all the time, and no it wasn't his time, but we have to go on living our own lifes; as Jesse would want us to do. It is ok to cry Bo, don't be afraid what others think, for what we lost was something we will never get back. But we have to appreciate the time we had with him and all that he had done for us."

Slowly I nod, not trusting myself to talk as I wish he wasn't as understanding as he is. Slowly I wipe my eyes out of habit even if he says it is ok to cry and I return to looking out the window, not wanting to cave into him. "It all is just something to think about is all, I'm not trying to lecture you," Luke finally says, "I just hate seeing you this upset and so troubled. I just wish I could help you in some way, but I don't know how to help you or how to make you comfortable to open up to me. I wish there was a way that I could protect you like I have always done in the past, but it is too late. What is done is done, if I could have changed it I would have been the one that went home to check on Jesse not you."

I look at him for a moment, wanting to know what I should say to him or what not to say to him. "No you don't," I finally say, "No one does. I don't know what you want me to tell you, I already tol' everything to Rosco and those other funny looking cops...what else is there?"

"How you feelin' or thinkin'," Luke answers slowly.

"He's still out there," I say instead as I feel my lungs tighten up, "Someone needs to stop him."

"The police is out there looking, that is their job," Luke says patting me on the back, "not ours, not this time. They are trained for this, they'll get him."

"What if they don't? Or don't in time?" I question allowing my fears to take control of me.

Suddenly he draws me into a hug and I allow him as where before I always backed away from him. Slowly I let my tears melt down my cheeks as I feel him begin to rock, like he use to do to comfort me when I was a child.

[Kristy_DUke]

Daisy Duke

Slowly I awake to the sound of my alarm mixed with some movement that seems distant, but somewhere in the kitchen. I sigh as I see the light pouring into my window, wondering what today will bring. Slowly I get out of my comfortable bed where I listen to the boys talking now in the living room, more of Luke than Bo. Silently I pray for my young cousin as I get dressed into a pair of short shorts and a tank top with my sandals, while lost in thought of Bo. Everyone in town has been affected by Jesse's death, more so us since we were so close to him, everyone has been dropping by to send their condulences and to offer some help, though that has been decreasing in the past couple of days. Ever since Bo saw him on the floor he hasn't been himself, refusing to talk or even to eat, he almost acts as if he is trying to hide within himself from everyone.

Slowly I finish dressing and make my way to the bathroom that lies down the hall from my room, across from Jesse's closed door. In the bathroom I slowly get ready for the day by putting on my make-up while my mind becomes a whirl wind of thoughts of the past couple of weeks. My heart sinks in worry for Bo who seems so distant from everyone, unwilling to take any help we offer. Luke has talked about taking him to a counselor but we all know that he would only curl up even more, his already bent up anger would only worsen towards us now for forcing him to see help. It pains me at the thought of just letting him be until he feels ready to talk or to seek help, that may be months or years. HOw can I live watching him wither away as he is?

Slowly I open the door and walk into the living room where Luke greets me, "Mornin' Daisy," he smiles weakly and through his bright blue eyes worry and concern dances free, expressing that an incident with Bo has already occured this morning, but don't show how serious it may be.

"Mornin' boys," I say glancing over at Bo who sits in the old wooden rocking chair in front of the empty fire place, remaining quiet as normal, "You boys, going out this morning or the cows and animals gonna have to starve today?"

Bo glares at me though remaining silent as Luke slowly gets up saying, "Yeah you're probably right. Let's go Bo, if we go now we can head into town to see if Cooter has our parts in yet for the General."

Slowly Bo nods as he slowly gets up, staring into the bleakness of the fireplace as if he had lost something in it. I watch as Bo turns the corner into the kitchen while Luke remains in place awaiting to hear the door close before saying, "We may be home late today, I don't know what time. I do plan on seeing if Cooter has our parts, even though I know he don't. That was just a cover up to get Bo into town, I am taking him in to see Applebee; I don't care if Applebee is busy all day, he will see Bo before we return home. He had another attack today, there has to be something that he can do to help them calm down a bit."

I nod numbly as I take in what he has just told me before saying, "That bad? What are we going to do Luke? We can't just sit and wait around for him to come around, that may be years. We didn't even see how bad he looked, just him and the cops. All this. . .I don't know, but there has to be something."

"I know, but we have to stick with him through it no matter what. Pushing him will only make him more upset, you know how he is," Luke says flatly, "Well I better go before he comes lookin' for me."

I watch as he slowly walks out of the living room and my mind is clouded by all that he has told me. After a long moment of allowing my emotions to take over I slowly I move into the kitchen to grab something to eat for breakfast before I begin to do my morning chores around the house, as I continue to feel numb.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

Silence engulfs within the General while the powerful engine purs to life under the hood as I drive quietly to town, lost in my own thoughts. Quietly I glance over at Bo who sits in the passenger seat staring out of his windows at the tall hills and the tall trees that surround the dusty dirt road and I watch his thin chest heave in and out for air. Glaring back out of the dusty windshield I try to imagine what he must be going through, thinking about after seeing Jesse on the floor as he was; after all I never even got to see him after I had left the house that early after noon.

Guilt quickly takes over me as I think of that day of the picnic where we all had left Jesse behind due to the flu or a cold, thinking he would be fine. Guilt, because I should have agreed or even volunteered to go check on Jesse when he he wouldn't answer the phone the four times Daisy had called to check in on him. I sigh thinking of the day, of how treasurable it was spending it with our dates until she couldn't get ahold of him and I had forced Bo into going to the farm to check on him, guilt tripping him about how my date was going to be moving to New York to be a model a few days after the picnic while his would be around awhile. I sigh recalling Cooter's sullen face when he approached Emma and me while we were caught in a long kiss. I hadn't even realized he was there until he kneed me angrily in the shoulder and when I looked up at him and saw his crazy eyes filled with fear and worry, something he had never showed before unless it was a sheer emergency. His raspy voice echos in my head of him telling me that Bo was on the phone, though wouldn't tell him what was wrong.

I had rushed to the phone filled with fear, not only for my uncle but for my cousin who has never seen a dead person, being sheltered from it after he saw his parents die when he was five years old. After that he never seen a dead person or anything and picking up the phone I knew I should have went, I have seen death a lot while I was at war, it would have affected me alot to see what he saw, but it would have been better for me to be there. Bo's tearfilled voice rings in my head of him telling me that I would have to pick him up at the sheriff's station, saying Jesse's dead. Though he had refused to tell the extent of it or how he died, I knew it was something horrid by his voice as I heard old flashbacks in his voice as he said it.

I glare ahead as we slowly head into the small town and I begin to wonder how I am going to get Bo in to see Applebee. Hesitantly I park our prized orange stock car in front of the two story town house that Applebee made into his practice and as I take the keys out I look over to Bo to find great anger in his baby blue eyes. "I'm not going!" he finally says, "I knew you had something planned!"

He stares at me accusatory as I pull myself out as my heart aches at the looks he is giving me, wishing he would know I am doing this because I care for him. "Look I know you don't want to go, but I think you need it," I sigh as he sits grudgingly in the car, "Now you are going in, I will carry you in there if that is what I have to do, I will drag you in there! You make the choice Bo."

He glares up at me with more grudge and accusations with his emotional scarred eyes before he goes to protest with anger. I stop his angry protest by moving closer to him, making an act of go to drag him out and he slowly begins to crawl out of his open window. "Fine, I'll go but you can't make me say anything," he says as he joins me on the sidewalk.

"Well what good will it do if you don't say nothing?" I ask without thinking about it.

"Exactly my point," he says as I put a caring arm around his shoulders as we walk in.

Approaching the front desk where a pretty patite chesnut haired woman sits talking on the phone. Seeing us she puts up a finger for us to wait and I glance over at Bo who only takes in his surroundings and I can see the flash backs of all the times Jesse took him here roll across his baby blue eyes. "May I help you?" she asks bringing me back to her as she hangs up the old phone.

"Yeah, I hope so. I am here so my cousin will see Doctor Applebee," I say hesitantly, "we don't have an appointment, but my cousin here is stubborn and there is no way I could get him here if we did have one. I just want him to check him over."

"For what?" she says impatiently at us, rolling her hazy green eyes at me as I know Bo is doing as well.

"For his asthma, he has asthma really bad and it is getting worse by the day," I sigh as I think of earlier this morning, "look, just tell Applebee that Bo is here to see him, he'll know what it is for."

She glares coolly at me skeptically before she writes something down and looks Bo over. "He looks fine to me, so I don't see your problem," she says, "He's a grown man and knows when he needs help or not."

"Thank-you," Bo finally speaks up, "finally someone who agrees with me."

"Look lady, I am about to loose my patience with you and you won't enjoy that much either! I already tol' you my cousin is stubborn and if it weren't for me no he wouldn't be here now...but he'd also live stubbornly with his ashtma that gets worse by the day when it could possibly be treated to get better! I am sorry to waste your time on my cousin, but he needs help and I'll do anything to get it . . .as he deserves even though he won't agree with it!" I snap at her as the older doctor walks in to check her list.

"Well hi boys," he smiles, his smile brightening up his face before he looks at Bo and he becomes saddened as he realize what this is about.

"These here two decided to waltz right in here without an appointment...the one for the check up is grown and the other is forcing him-"

"Shelly, it is OK, I know them boys, well I know all my patience which is why I will take them as I do all my other none appointment makers, I don't know why you seem to try to make the rules around here...I also know thier, his situation and if he needs to be seen I will see him no matter what," Applebee says, glaring at her before he turns to us, "Follow me boys."

"Shouldn't he wait out here?" Shelly asks as we are halfway down the hall.

"He is fine...you think he will talk to me if he ain't here?" Applebee snaps as he leads us to his first room, "OK Bo, you know how it's done, I want you to get on that there bed...sit on it or lay on it, your choice for right now."

Bo looks back at me, his baby blue eyes soften from his accusations to his need for support and I nod for him to listen to him, just as Jesse had done. I watch as he slowly climbs onto the bed as he was instructed to do and watch as he watches Applebee fill out his chart and I see the worry in his eyes as well as the horrid flashbacks that he fights to fight back with little success.

"Ok Bo, I want you to tell me how you are and have been feeling," Applebee says and as he sees Bo looking at me he adds, "I want you to say it, not Luke...afterall the one that knows best about how you are feeling, is you."

Silence enters the room and I sigh at the thought of Bo fighting against Applebee to cooroperate with him out of his stubborness as he looks around the room with bewildered eyes. "How I feel? I feel like I wanna go home," he finally says full of stubborness, "Luke's the one that dragged me here, so you check him out and not me."

"Beauregaurd!" I yell in shock that he would say something like that to the elderly doctor, especially after all the teachings that Jesse has given us, "You apologize to Doctor Applebee, he is trying to help you!"

Bo looks at the doctor and then back at me with angered eyes and I watch as his chest tightens up, beginning to heave in and out for air. "You don't have to if you don't want to, Bo," Applebee says facing both of us, "you are going through a rough time, it's hard isn't it?"

Bo looks confusingly at him then back at me where I lean against the wall, wondering how Jesse had dealt with his stubborness, though I know Bo wasn't like this for his visits with Jesse. Bo has always been very well mannered even through his stubborness and now it all is at the cause of Jesse's death. "I don't wanna talk," Bo finally says calming down a little bit.

"Well he can't help you if you don't tell him what is wrong," I finally cut in and he glares at me with angered eyes, causing my heart to tighten at his pain that he refuses to talk about, "he can help you, you just have to talk to him."

"It's too late for any help!" he yells at me, ignoring Applebee who is too polite to interrupt even a family arguement. I watch as he climbs off the bed and I quickly grab his arm to keep him in here. "Lemme go Luke! I wanna go. . .go. . .ho. . .me."

I let go in deep sadness as he goes off into another attack coughing chronicly and Doctor Applebee rushes over where I help him to get Bo back on the bed who is fighting too hard for air to fight against us. Caringly I grab his inhaler out of his pocket and help him trigger off a few puffs until the attack eases down slightly and watch as Bo allows him to unbutton his shirt to place the stethoscope on his chest where Bo jerks back at the cold metal until sitting still, fighting for air.

"How many attacks does he have daily or weekly?" Applebee asks after checking his heart rate, asking me instead of Bo who hugs onto his thin knees.

"Well three or four times a day...though it all depends on what kinda day he's having too, some are worse than others," I answer as I look at Bo full of worry, "and whether or not he goes back to sleep after a nightmare, which he normally doesn't. Usaully three or four times a day, I was going to take him in a while ago, but he kept fighting against it."

He nods understandably before he checks him out the rest of the way of his normal check ups before he takes him in for a long while. "Have you thought of taking him some place a therapist or something like that to talk about it?" Applebee asks, "I know he most likely will fight and won't talk, but it may be worth a try."

"No, Daisy and I talked about it, but figured if he won't talk to us he won't talk to someone he don't know. . .you know how he is," I sigh, "but right now I am willing to try about anything, Cooter has offered to listen as well as others, but he just closes up, like that."

He nods before looking at his charts and taking him for another long moment before he walks over to Bo and puts a caring hand on his shoulder and Bo looks up at him before looking back down at the white tile floor. "It may help to talk about it to someone, if not to Luke or Daisy or a friend...I'll be glad to talk to you abou it, or we got a new there-"

"No, I ain't talking to no one about it, surely no therapist!" Bo cries out, "And talking about it won't change a thing!"

"No it won't change what happened, but it may help," Applebee offers and Bo shrugs off his caring hand. Applebee sighs wearily before he joins me by the wall, "Well I know it is hard to do, but I think the only thing you can do is wait for him to come around. . .he hurts too much right now to talk about it, it is easier to close up and keep it too hisself like that right now for him than to talk about it. It may be days, weeks, months or even years for him to come around, but at the moment it looks like the more you push him the more he closes up. I know it's hard to watch him suffering without anything to do to help, but being there is all you can pretty much do right now."

It goes silent for a long moment as I glare back at Bo who wipes at his eyes, refusing to look up at us and my heart aches in pain and worry for him. "And his asthma?" I question looking back at Applebee.

"I've written a perscription for a higher dosage for his medication that he'll be taking every four hours, I hope it works Luke," he says sympatheticly, "if not, come back and I'll be glad to have a look with or without an appointment."

"Thank-you doctor," I say shaking his hand before I turn to Bo, "Come on Bo, let's go pick it up and see if Cooter has our parts."

[Kristy_DUke]

CHAPTER TWO

Above me the ancient brown dusty ceiling fan swirls quickly above us to attempt to cool down the overly hot room as the fan whizzes almost rhthymatically. I stare tiredly down at my paper work that seems to go on forever and I sigh at my mama's lecture years ago back in high school about percrasinating, wishing that I would have listened to her as I look at my stack of paper work of reports. I place another report on the smaller stack of papers that is all that I got done as the doors open and I look up to see Enos stepping in, his face lit up in happiness of something.

"What got you smilin' dipstick? You ain't spose to be smilin' at work, this is work and at work you work," I snap at him and he glares down at the old floor as he fights to hide the grin, "WHat's so good in that little world of yours?"

"Nuttin' sir, it's just. . .it's just," he says embarrasingly, "it's just I got invited to dinner tonight at the farm with Daisy."

"The Dukes?" I question and roll my eyes at him, "Enos! You know as well as I do that them Dukes are bad and are on the opposite side of us, which is the law, mind you! You are a law man and law men don't intergrate with criminals, especially criminals like them Dukes!"

"Aww sheriff, they ain't that bad," he says shyly as he places his black hat back upon his neatly combed dark brown hair and I come to think of the Dukes and all they have been through the past few months, of how Bo is acting to finding his uncle dead on the floor, "You and Boss just misunderstand 'em is all."

Once again I roll my eyes at him, not letting on my sorrow for the Dukes for loosing thier uncle who was a good man, as I notice the thick dust piled up on the fan. "Enos, I got something that will keep you occupied," I reply hastily, "Clean the fans of them dust, dust makes me sneeze."

"Yes sir," he sighs as a tall slender man walks in wearing tight dark blue jeans, black leather cowboy boots, with a brown plad shirt with a white cowboy hat hiding his jet black hair that matches his almost black dark brown eyes that dance with evil and hatred. I sigh nervously at the sight of Drake Shelbon, Boss Hogg's new business partner that he has been working with over a year now doing all sorts of stuff Hogg wants him at a high price; though in my gut I have a feeling he is doing business of his own down here, but know I can't prove anything or what he may be doing.

Shivers race up and down my back as he glares at me coldly with his hard cold black-brown eyes and take in his light tan complexion before he motions me to follow him. "What you wa-" I begin to complain as I show him my paper work as he glares at me even more coldly and before I can say anything I weakly stand up and begin to follow him into Hogg's office where we find Hogg on the phone.

"But Lulu, I can't come home for supper," he is saying as he puffs upon his cigar, "I have a meeting I have to attend to and then I have to lock up the court house and then move over to the Boar's Nest to keep out the rifraf," he goes silent, "No it isn't anything to get the boys into trouble, I know they've been through alot, sugar plum. I know I know, I framed them up several times since then, but trust me it ain't nothing personal, I just have to get them out of my hair so I can run Hazzard my way and not thiers! You know as well as anyone does that Jesse was a long time friend and I dearly missed him, I wish there was something I coulda done to prevent it, I miss him too darling; but I can't keep giving them Duke Boys excuses to break the law!"

Slowly he looks up at Drake who grins evilly at him, showing his gold left upper front tooth. "OK Lulu, I will be home early tomorrow night, I got to go now...so we can make some more dough. Ok honey," with that the over weight commissioner sets down the phone and smiles up at Drake who grins up at him as he welcomes himself down into a chair, "Well Drake, you are here early."

"Don't like being late, being late gets you into trouble," he grins as he glares down at his expensive true gold watch, "ain't that early either. I got your dimwit sheriff in here so he can join us in out my latest idea against them Duke Boys that will get them set away for good!"

Hogg glares at him to me with uncertainity in his brown eyes before expressing his true feelings, "I don't know Drake, them boys have been through a lot and we should lay low on them. BO is really taking it hard I hear, he was exeptionally close to Jesse and -"

"Do you want to make money and get them out of your way for good or not? If not I can take all I got and go elsewhere!" Drake shouts and I notice Boss jump as I set a caring hand on his tense right shoulder and he glares up at me.

"Al. . .right," he stutters as I sense his nervousness, "just nothing too harsh Drake, I may not love them Dukes, but I don't hate them either!"

"Look I will take all I got and go now and you know what that will do to you 'cause when I leave, someone ends up getting hurt!" he yells and I jump in fear as he presses his knuckles against Hogg's desk and cracks his knuckles slowly.

"I'm listening Drake," Hogg says fighting to hide his fear.

"Alright then!" he grins looking up at me and I only nod in agreement, "How 'bout me and my boys rob that bank of yours and no one but them boys themselves won't know it ain't them!"

"What you suggesting, Drake?" Hogg asks skeptically.

"All we need is a few pairs of thier cloths, we got wigs and everything just in case our ski masks get torn off! Now Daryl and Lyle are the same size as Bo and Luke and we have them wear contacts so they have the same color of eyes," Drake smiles as he tells us his plan, "Now you will hide some of that jewelry in there or something big too to rob, they are getting it all! Lionel got a car just like thier car and painted it the same way and we recorded thier voice and we already said into a machine what we wanted to say, so we dubbed it to sound like Bo and Luke Duke! NO one won't know it's them, especially when they don't have an alibi!"

"What you mean? Them Boys will have an alibi with someone, either Daisy or Cooter or someone," Hogg asks.

"Not this time...you see we have to do this Saturday morning when they are suppose to go to thier parole meeting with none other than you and guess what? They won't show up! R.B. will run them off the road and kidnap them through the duration of the time and drug them up so they can't remember a thing or even perhaps enough that they will admit to doing it," Drake laughs evilly at his plan, "My Bo and Luke lookalikes will have guns and won't be afraid-"

"No one, I mean no one, is going to get hurt! If so I am not apart of this and I will -"

"Don't threaten me Hogg or I'll find something against you! Listen to me, no one is going to get hurt...just enough to get them boys in deep trouble, and oh yeah the jewelry we got picked out is wanted, hot jewelry from Atlanta, everyone up there is looking for it. When they find them on the Dukes, they will be wanted for that crime too where a man got slightly injured, nothing too serious, but they won't be getting out for a long time, Hogg," he grins again, "How 'bout it? Afterwards we let the boys go and call FBI Agent Randy Floors, the lead agent looking for them stolen jewlery where they will find it on them Duke Boys."

"I don't like it," I speak my opinion, ignoring Hogg's stare and Drake's evil glare, "look we may have been against them in the past, but nothing like that. I don't like it one bit and I am not going to be a part of this! I may like chasing them and may have enjoyed being apart of Hoggs evil schemes against them in the past, but not now, not when they all are mourning over Jesse's death!"

They all glare at me for speaking my mind as a bad feeling about Drake continues to enlargen within me. "Too bad, you're apart of it sheriff," Drake snaps, "you know too much, you not in it I'll have you put away and tortured until you wished otherwise!"

"Don't threaten Rosco like that!" Hogg yells, "I don't like what you are doing or treating us here."

"Too bad," he says pulling out a large gun at us, "You two better make up your minds, if not y'all will be six feet under and this town will be without a fat, greedy commissioner and a dimwitted sheriff!"

Hogg looks up at me as we both say, "Alright, we'll do it."

"That's what I was thinkin'," he grins sitting back down as he lights a cigerette.

[Kristy_DUke]

Bo Duke

I feel a trickle of sticky sweat accompany the rest roll down my face and down my bare chest and back as I work on one of the several fields that the Duke farm owns. I look up at Luke who works silently a few feet away with the old mule, concentrating on what he is doing as he as well is covered in sweat from the hot sun that pours down upon us. I sigh as I watch him working as I think of the past year and how worried he has been for me, acting even more protective than he was before I found Jesse dead on the living room floor. He has been there for me, offering his open ear, offering to do anything to help my pain with all his best intentions; LUke has always worried about me even over trivia stuff, but he has always been there but yet I can't open up to him. When I try to open up to him, to talk to him of what I saw and how I feel, my heart tightens painfully as flash backs flash through my head of walking into the hot kitchen to smell something foul and then walking in to find his dead body sprawled on the hard wooden floor of the living room. Now watching him, I have a strong urge to join him to tell him what I saw as I was forced to say to them FBI agents, but something holds me back.

Looking down at the fresh soil my unwanted flash backs flash through my head clearly, over and over again, from driving home worried about my uncle not answer, to finding him dead covered in his own blood, to calling Luke at the sheriff's station telling him what had happened. Once again I look up at Luke as the flash back continue to worsen against my fight against them, and I fight to tell Luke how I feel but the words are stuck in my throat. Suddenly the sight of my uncle lying on the hard wooden floor with the large puddle of his own blood covering his chest and the floor shines clearly in my head, stuck there focusing on every little thing about the sight of my uncle on the floor to every detail of the room as I found it. I feel my chest tightening and air coming hard to obtain as I fight back the image that remains stuck in my head as if it had been super glued there and I hear myself start to wheeze.

Panicly I glare up at Luke who seems too concentrated on his work to hear my wheezing or to notice me fighting for air. I try to yell out for him as I fight to get my inhaler only to start coughing chronicly in a attack that seem to be occuring a lot lately. "Bo," I hear Luke's concerned voice ring out though sounds distant even though he is now only a couple of feet away from me. Weakly I fight to stay on my legs as the air don't seem to come to me even though I fight desperately for it. Suddenly I collapse to my knees as I start to vomit through my fight for air and I feel Luke fighting to atrieve my inhaler from my right side jean pocket and after a long moment fights to get it out. Quickly he helps spray a few sprays into my mouth until I stop coughing though I still remain fighting for air, though not as bad as before.

Relief hits me as air becomes more easy to get with each second and along with my strength and Luke slowly helps me to my feet as I notice the large puddle where I had thrown up at. "I'm sorry," is all I can say, even though I fight to say how I feel, what I saw, instead it sticks in my throat and an apology comes out instead.

He glares at me questionably before he places a supporting arm around my shoulders and he walks with me. After a long moment of silence he asks, "Sorry? What for?"

It goes silent once again as I fight for words to express to him why I am sorry and what for, something I have been thinking about lately, though never able to word it or say it in fear that it will come out wrong. Looking at my older cousin I venture out to say, "For everything," I go silent once again fighting for the words that don't seem to come just as air wouldn't come to me only moments before, "for that, for the past year or so." Feeling his concerned blue eyes on me I pause once again at the thought of what he is thinking or feeling, though I refuse to look over at him, "I haven't been worth much lately or done anything that didn't cause you to worry or fret over me. I've only been gettin' in the way and gettin' you in trouble with me, for all that I am sorry. I will understand if you want me to go somewhere else to get out of the way, I've been only slowing you down on the farm by getting in the way of things and getting you into trouble with me, as I said I haven't been worth a damn thing and haven't accomplished nothing in the past year other than to get in your way of things."

It goes silent as he leads to a shaded area under some large trees where he sits on the wooden fence and I hesitantly join him to sit besides him. I glare down at the muddy ground as I feel his worried sky blue eyes on me as more silence comes in between us as the cool breeze cools me down from working under the hot summer sun. "I don't know where you got that idea from, Bo, or who you got it from, either way it surely isn't true! First of all, Daisy nor I would ever kick you out, no matter what, we's family and we stick together through thick and thin; we love you," he says as he places a caring hand on my shoulder and for a slight moment I recall how it was before that horrid day before the flash backs strike again and I pray not to have another attack, "You are worth everything to me Bo, you mean the world to me and it hurts to see you in so much pain and being unable to help you any, to decrease that pain, I would do anything to take the pain you feel for you. Since that day I have been filled with guilt for forcing you to go check on Jesse and I would do anything if I could change what I had done, what I had put you through.

"You are worth so much and I am sorry you elsewise, because without you I am lost, I don't know what I would do without you. A part of me already fills like I lost you to that horrid day as I see you hiding within yourself. I don't want to loose you and I don't want you to go anywhere, I enjoy your friendship, you are more than a cousin to me, you're my best friend, you're my brother and I will do anything in my power to help you with this evil thing that you are dealing with alone," Luke goes on , "I wish it was me that went to check on him, it should have been me instead of forcing you to do so as I had. It may not be easier on me to see him on the floor like that, but I have witnessed death so much in war, I have seen death before whereas you haven't, Bo. That all makes it worse on you. Therefore you are worth so much to me, to Daisy, to everyone, you really are and I wish that I could show you how much you mean to me, but I don't know at the moment how to do it.

"You are definately not in the way, we all enjoy having you in our lives as we had before and I wish I could make you see that. You haven't slowed us down in any way or have gotten me into any trouble that I wouldn't have gotten myself in anyway, you know how Boss and Rosco are as much as I do," he goes on and I hear the sincerity in his thick voice as much as the worry, "And I don't understand what you mean by you don't do nothing, you're doing something now, before the attack, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but not much," I sigh continueing to glare at the ground, refusing to look up at him, to see the great worry and concern clouding in his bright blue eyes for me, "and I haven't been worth much around here lately and you have to admit that."

"No I don't, because it is not true and you should know that, and if you refuse to believe me I will find a way so that you will know how I feel for you. It hurts me to hear you think all that you are or think you are sorry for as much as it hurts to see you suffer like you are. You don't know how much I missed you when I was at war, you were all I thought about, getting home to see you and how you have grown and changed. Your letters helped me fight to live, it gave me something to live for instead of giving up as so many soldiers I knew did. You have done a lot and you mean a lot to me, if not for your support while I was at war, I may not be here today," he says with more sincirity in his voice, "and you have been helping out here on the farm, maybe to you it don't seem like much, but to us it does. You are going through a hard time right now and I understand -"

"No, you don't understand, you nor anyone else will ever understand!" I yell as anger fills my body toward him as I jump to my feet, "So don't try saying you understand how I feel, for you don't, nor does anyone else, how could you? You weren't there, you were too busy playing around with your girl friend to be there! Why-"

"I didn't mean it like that BO, why don't you give me a chance to explain?" Luke pleas calmly to me, though in his eyes I see his desperation to get to me.

"I don't care! You'll never understand, none of it!" I yell as I fight back the tears as the flashback continues to play in my head, "And while you're at, stop making excuses for me, for why I am the way I am! I don't need your pity nor any one elses! Pity gets you no where so stop it!"

He glares at me as a large lump forms in my throat as I fight through my anger of what to do next, fighting back my urge to chicken out and run and hide from hime after yelling at him, but my anger keeps me standing in front of him, looking for confrontation from him. "Help me understand Bo, talk to me, what happened what you feel, you tell me, you help me understand," Luke continues to plea with me, "I can't understand how you feel if you don't talk to me, all I know that you are suffering and I want to help!"

"There ain't nothing you can do to help and you know it as well as everyone else nor will you ever understand! You stopped understanding the day you left on that damn train!" tears streak my face and I quickly jerk to leave only for Luke to grab me by my right elbow forcing me to face him. The anger and confusion in his sky blue eyes sends a large shiver of fear through me though I refuse to show him anything.

"What you mean by that, Bo?" he orders me, his patience has worn thin replaced by anger by me reaching his sensitive area.

"Let go of me, Luke!" I yell back at him as I try to fight him, "You wanted me to talk to you and I did, now let me go! I mean it."

"Whatcha gonna do if I don't, Beauregaurd? You can't run to Jesse no more to tell on me," he says out of anger, of anger that he has never had with me before and more fear runs through me, overcoming my anger at what he just told me. Through my fear I begin to tug at my arm, trying to make him let go though his grip only tightens and pain streaks through my right arm and he quickly traps me up against the wooden fence, "What you mean by that Bo? Tell me and I'll let you go...you know we don't talk about it, and yet...tell me Bo."

I glare at him as I let my tears streak my face freely as I fight for air through an upcoming attack. "I didn't mean nothing by I Luke," I beg him through my fear, giving up my tough guy act, "really I didn't and I didn't mean no offense toward you. I am sorry, now let me go."

Anger glows in his blue eyes and through his eyes I can almost see the flash backs that are flashing in his eyes at me mentioning him getting on the train to go to war. A tear reaches his left eye, of which he never let be seen, him cry, but now it shows as it starts down his left cheek as he continues to glare at me without any emotion towards me. Suddenly he snaps out of his flash back, of staring blankly at me with his angered expression that seemed to stick, and is replaced by great guilt and embarrassment as he slowly lets go. "Bo I-" I interrupt him as I punch him squarely in his nose before I begin to run.

My fist burns as I continue to walk ahead, forcing myself not to look back at Luke who shouts out my name. Ahead I cross the dirt road and down a ravine of trees that leads down to a thin creek where I begin to follow with no clue of where I am going.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

I glare at the empty field where my cousin just ran off at as I hold my handkerchief to my blood nose that he created by his punch, a punch I deserved. I sigh at the sight at the heavy blood flow from my nose slowly slowing down from where it had began as I watch the empty field where my cousin had run off, now out of sight. Slowly I force myself to walk forward where his foot prints are printed in the soil where he had walked off in his temper as I think of what had happened. I force my dirty handkerchief into my pocket at my nose stop bleeding as I walk to the ravine where he had escaped to and glance both ways to not find him anywhere but to see trees and everything that has always been there.

Carefully I walk down to the small creek to find his boot prints in the thick mud along side the creek and I glance ahead to where it leads to not find him anywhere but begin to follow it along. The hot sun beats down upon my bare skin as I walk ahead thinking of all that I said and done that started the argument to the moment I snapped at him. His statement about me not understanding since I got in the train plays over and over in my head as I try to figure out what he means by that, but deep down I know what he means. I was always there for him before I left for war, I placed him ahead of everything, my friends, girl friends, extra school activities, or anything really; I did what he wanted to do and protected him from anyone who meant any harm to him and picked him up and dusted him off when he fell. I was there for him in the past to play with him even when my friends were over or what not to just talking to him or listening to him and I recall the nights we talked to one another about anything and everything until Jesse told us to go to bed. I think of how I have been like since I have returned home and it strikes me like a knife between the differences of how I have been treating Bo and guilt soars within me about everything. Since I have returned from war I have been hanging around with my friends even when he asked me to go look at something, or when he had a race I went with my friends or girl friends instead of his races figuring I'd hear about it when I got home, and I can't even remember the last time we went to bed talking. Glaring into the creek I recall the time at The Boar's Nest when I watched Stephen and his friends beat Bo up badly without stepping in to stop them. I have been too concerned about myself, about my painful past that I could have prevented to pay any attention to him. Then to think of all the nights I have came home drunk, calling him to pick me up who he would obediently do even when he had his friends over or a girl friend without complaining, even though it must have hurt him to see me that way.

Anger soars within me as I think of how I have been treating him and I come to realize that is why he hasn't been talking to me as he use to, because I have treated him poorly. Even after Jesse's death and funeral I didn't treat him much different than before other than to plea with him to talk to me, like he use to, when I knew Bo won't open up to someone he don't know. He don't know me no more, I have changed and I haven't even noticed it, but he has because he has been on the recieving end of my anger of my pained past that keeps haunting me no matter what I do. I knew Bo looks up to me and yet I treated him so poorly and I wonder if he will ever forgive me or if he will return home.

After a long few minutes of tailing his foot prints in the mud I stop as I think of my behavior and attitude towards him, how much it has changed and for the worse. Slowly I begin to head home in realization there is nothing I can do for him now, not until he has had his time alone, not until he is willing to return home. Walking back upon the field tears streak my eyes with knowledge that Jesse would be able to handle Bo, to help comfort him through his time of need and yet I can't even get close to him. The closest I got to it was his apology a few moments ago and I lost my chance in my own anger at my own past and leashed out on him for bringing it up, for bringing up his own pain. "Please help me, Jesse," I finally call for help looking up into the bright cloudless sky.

Quickly I grab my red plad shirt off the post as I lead the old mule back to her stable before I walk past a couple of pastures, one filled with a asortment of colored cows, the other filled with a asortment of colored horses. I watch the animals roam freely in their pastures eating hay or grass or chasing another animal before I walk past them to the dusty dirt road. Glancing both ways and not seeing a vehicle I walk across the street and to the front lawn of the old farm house that seems to be falling apart of which Jesse always kept up with, making it seem like home.

I sigh wearily before I step upon the old wooden front deck and walk into the kitchen where Daisy is folding clothes and watching her dinner in the wood burning oven. She looks up at me with worry before asking, "You home early? Where's Bo? You OK?"

"I have failed," is all I can say before I take my perch in front of the sink and glare out through the window.

"You've failed? At what, Luke?" she questions from behind me as she folds Bo's long legged faded blue blue jeans.

"At everything, at keeping this house up to date with everything, at the work that needs to be done," I sigh as an old dark green car passes the farm on the dirt road, "most of all I have failed Bo, I failed to comfort him and to be there for him."

"You don't really believe that do you?" she questions and I glare back at her, "Well it is not true, so it isn't how Jesse kept it, but it is up and standing, the fields are doing great this year and we got no sick animals. No one expects you to be Jesse or to take his place Luke, you are doing a good job at taking care of this farm, just as Jesse did," she pauses for a long moment, "and as for Bo, he is going through a hard time and you are being too hard on yourself. He isn't about to let anyone get close to him right now, I know it is hard for you to acknowledge that seeing how he confided in you for everything, but he has emotional scars that will haunt him the rest of his life. He don't know how to handle it and as Applebee tol' you, all there is is to wait for him to be ready to open up to you or anyway, all he needs is time, Luke. You are there for him more than anyone else is, so I don't know why you are being so hard on yourself, you know all that."

I look back at her before I glare back out the window at hope of seeing Bo walking up to the house, but instead find an empty yard and an empty road. "Yeah I do. He apologized to me today after he had another attack about everything, about slowing us down, to getting in the way, to him getting out so he will be out of our way, oh and for getting me and him into trouble. I tried to tell him otherwise, but ended up messing it all up again and got him angry at me," I start to tell her what had happened between us and finish off with what I came to realize while thinking of what his statement means and the more I think of it, the more truth there is in it. He's right, I don't understand. "So yes, I have failed him Daisy and there is no way around that. I have failed him when he needed him most and when he slightly opens up to me, I have to mess it up. That may have been my only chance and I lost it due to my temper that I never get -"

"Except when your six years is brought up...we all know it is a hurtful subjest, Luke, he knows it and that is why he brought it up. I won't lie to you, you leaving like you did, hurt him a lot, in ways you will never understand," she pauses dramaticly, "but he won't tell you that because you are his cousin, his best friend and he knows it hurts you to think or mention it all. And yes I have noticed the difference in your behavior towards him since you have returned, so has Jesse...everyone but you saw it. I don't know what to tell you, because I surely ain't no psychologist or doctor, but perhaps if you open up to him, he'll open to you. I don't know, but it can't hurt, either of you even if he doesnt open up, it may do you some good to talk to someone about it."

I shrug not knowing what to say or to say anything at all before I turn to her and say, "I don't know, Daisy, I really don't know any more. All I know is that I have failed and that I may have just lost my best friend for good."

"No you didn't," Daisy says confidently to me, "one thing you surely don't understand about Bo is that he may have a temper, but when it comes to the ones he cares about the most, he always comes around; just give him time. He still looks up to you Luke, which may be hurting him more than anything, and he tries to understand where you are coming from, to why you have changed. He may not understand it, but he is willing to try, Luke. You know why? Because in his eyes, you are his best friend and always will be...he don't think of how you treat him lately, but how you treated him in the past with hope that you will revert back to who you were before you left. That is why he will never stay mad at you, Luke, because he understands that you went through something horrible or bad and that is why you have changed...but the difference between you and Bo is that you see how you were wronged at war, all that you went through and are able to do anything to drown your painful memories, while Bo sees the you, you once were, he sees the potental of who you could be if you were able to move on, Bo has hope. You are his best friend, he may not show it now, but you are and at the end he will forgive you as he has done in the past."

I glare at her with wonder if what she is saying is true or her subtle way to help me feel better. "Well he shouldn't have to fight for an image of me of what he wants...I should be him. It isn't his fault that I left, I left because of me, not him, it was my choice knowing that I would see what I saw, just didn't know the extent of it," I say turning around to face her, "it was my choice and I ended up taking it out on him and all of you for that matter. I'm sorry. If I have to lock myself in some closet to make myself to change back, I'll do that, I will do anything to get his trust again, to be able to turn to him and be able to talk to him freely about anything that is troubling me."

"As I said, tell him what you went through, it may help both of you as I said," she grins getting up and hugs me tightly in comfort before letting go.

[Kristy_DUke]

BO DUKE

I glare up ahead as the hot summer sun shines brightly down through the trees upon my aching bare shoulders as I think of all that was said between Luke and I. Guilt suddenly rushes through me as to what I had said to him about war, I knew better to say and yet I said it anyway, I said what I felt knowing it would hurt him. My mind seems to turn into a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts skipping to the next as quickly as the last had left to return soon after, from one subject to another, from Jesse to Luke then back to Jesse. The sight still shines clearly in my head like a color glossy photo in my head of Jesse lying on the floor when I had walked into the room, covered in a pool of his own thick sticky red blood as my words to Luke echos in my head. Guilt and anger tugs at my heart and soul as I continue to walk along side the old creek, the creek where Brodie and I ran to at times to skip school just to mess around, but now it is only me with no one like Brodie to talk to. I sigh thinking of walking to his old farm house from here, but decide against it at the thought of his dad that hates me so much, not for anything that I did, but for something that my parents did, though I don't know because Jesse never spoke of them and got irratated when I asked about them or if they were to be brought up.

Continue to walk along the muddy edge of the creek my mind skips from finding Jesse upon the living room floor to Luke, to the relationship we once had years ago, before he had left for war. I recall the several times he passed on going on dates to be home with me or to take me fishing, or his friends for that matter, especially when he knew I was upset, no matter how big his plans were, he'd cancel them for me. He made me feel special, as if I was worth something by him placing me first, always by my side to make sure that I wouldn't get hurt, protecting me from the school bullies that use to pick on me and make fun of me because of my height or how I was different than them. He'd make sure they wouldn't hurt me and if they did, he always made sure they would pay for it, but all that has changed. He don't care whether I am here or not any longer, choosing to hang out at the Boar's Nest with his friends most of the nights out of the week, ending up calling on me to pick him up when he becomes too drunk to drive home. I sigh recalling the night a couple of weeks ago when I went to go pick him up from the Boar's Nest, he really wasn't drunk, not by the standards he normally got, but more so didn't feel like driving home; so he called on me to take him home as if I run some sort of taxi services just for him. I sigh as I think of that night picking him up when Stephen and his three big friends swarmed around me while Luke just sat a couple of feet away with a couple of his friends with a beer in hand as Stephen began pushing me to one of his friends before it became into a full beating of fists coming at me in my stomach, chest, and face, none stop. I close my eyes at the thought of the beating that seemed to last an enternity before they stopped at Sheriff Rosco's urging or threat of arresting them, leaving me on the floor covered in my own blood fighting back blackness while Luke sat there and watched over the rim of his beer glass, laughing with his friends.

Emotions rage through me like a raging river at the thought of the past, at how it was like, all the happy memories and sad memories that we shared together, how we did everything together. He was my best friend, my hero who I loved more than anything, him and Uncle Jesse and now I lost both of them. Tears beam in my eyes and I fight to keep them back as my mind races from thought to thought from past to present. Angrily I kick a pebble into the shimmering creek and watch the small splash as I walk along, wishing that I could at least have my best friend back since I can no longer have Jesse back. More memories flood through my head of my loving uncle, how he was always there for me, to patch up my scrapes when I fell, to listen to my exciting stories of what had happened, to wiping away my tears without thinking I was childish. He too was there for me, through thick and thin, no matter how much trouble I had caused him or how much I made him worry with all my crazy car tactics when I went chasing after Brodie and Cooter in our cars, he was always there for me no matter what and now he isn't there for me any more...when I need him the most. He would know what to do now, where to go to, and who to turn to. Now I don't even have that, I no longer belong at the Duke farm, Luke always seems to be angry at me for one reason or another, looking at me out of hatred more than love as he once did, and Daisy, I don't know. Daisy seems to look down at me ever since Luke got home, almost as if she is siding with him, thinking I am too childish, especially after the day I saw Jesse lying on the floor covered in his blood. Now I have no one to go to or nowhere where I belong and I wonder if I should even return home, if they would even notice that I was gone.

Tears slowly shimer down my face against my fight as I begin to think of where to go now that I have ran off on Luke, after hitting him as hard as I did, when he didn't deserve it. I did for saying what I did, I knew it was a touchy subject but I said it anyhow out of my own selfishness. Guilt once again soars within me as I think of Luke of what I had told him out of my own anger, even if it is what I feel, I should have kept it to myself so it wouldn't hurt him. Oh well I did and there is no turning back and I begin to think and wonder if there is no turning back, no going back to the farm that I once called home, felt welcomed at, but don't feel that way any longer. I just want to go somewhere else where no one knows who I am to judge me by my past or by thier past, to not be able to see the anger and hatred in my cousin's bright sky blue eyes that were so full of love before he left for war.

Suddenly I stop near an old large rock that sits along side the creek, marking that the caves are somewhere close as I hear some ruffling up in the hills followed by yells and shouts of pain. Slowly I locate two men beating upon a smaller, but muscular man who has blood racing down from his nose, a taller man than the others stand to the side wearing a large white cowboy hat, tight dark blue jeans with a tight black plad shirt and black cowboy boots. Fear strikes me as the man off to the side yells out, "Dayson, where you put it at? You tell us that, I'll call my men off."

"You expect me to believe that?" the beaten man manages to question sarcasticly to get punched in the stomach and he yells out in pain.

"Your choice, we'll find it sooner or later," the tall muscular man says as his two men continue to beat him roughly and the smaller man stops fighting back for reasons I can't think of.

"I tol' ya to let me out and you wouldn't have that," Dayson grunts to the man as he is kicked in the stomach by the lean and tall man's heel of his cowboy boot and he is thrown to his knees upon the muddy hill and the tall muscular man along side the lean man kicks him in the face with his heel and Dayson drops to the mud full of blood.

I watch as the man that portrays the leader out of the three attackers begins to glance around and I pray that he doesn't see me as I see his piercingly evil dark eyes from the distance where I am at, his dark hair grooming out of his cowboy hat. Though they are a few feet away I notice the scar on the back of his right hand, long and jagged as he grabs for his gun that he had tucked into the waist of his tight jeans. "You say that again?" he asks pointing the gun at Dayson's chest, "Where's the box, you fool?"

"I ain't gonna tell you Drake or your men for that matter. You might as well as shoot me for I know your plans are and have been for over a year that you have been here at this little hick town and I am not going to be a part of your scheme to take control of this hick town, to make it your drug fortress!"Dayson yells through his pain and my heart races in fear, "Go for it Drake, I know it won't be the first or last person you kill...it don't matter, one day, Drake, you will be stopped. You are not unstoppable or invincible, neither-"

He is cut off as lean man kicks him in the stomach before he is motioned back by Drake before he reaims the gun at Dayson's chest. I jump in my anticipated shock as the loud gun fire rings off, echoing off the cliff's walls and Dayson yells a last yell as blood splurts out from his chest and his muscular body goes still and the three men glare over at his body. "I want y'all to search the perimeters, that box gotta be around here somewhere," Drake orders. His two men nod as the begin to seperate to look around, begin to dig around in the thick wet mud as does Drake, but he seems to be too worried about looking around.

I continue to watch as my heart races tightly in great fear of being seen as the men continue to search frantically for some box that they killed the other man over, in front of my eyes. Seeing the dead man lying there, I am reminded of Jesse lying on the living room floor, covered in his own blood and once again I begin to imagine how it had happen, but this time more clearly and more fearfully than I had ever had before. I feel my body begin to tremble in fear at seeing Jesse so clearly in my head as more tears streak my face in that fear as well as the grave fear of them finding me, with thought of what they would do to me if they cought me and I can imagine me turning out to be like the dead Dayson up there.

Within me I feel my lungs go afire as they tighten up and air becomes sparse to me once again and panic soars within me as I fight back coughing for air. Slowly I become to feel dizzy and lightheaded as I hear myself wheezing loudly and as I get my inhaler out of my pocket I yelp out in fear as my right foot slip into the warm creek water, making a big splash as I spray some puffs into my mouth. I glance up in fear just in time to see Drake rushing at me and I try to think quickly of what to do as I quicky rise to my clumsy feet and begin to run as he shoots at me, missing me by an inch. Glaring ahead through the thick sun I hear Drake calling for his two goons to follow in his pursuit of me as I continue to run, with hope of being able to reach the caves, where I may disappear without them knowing it if I am lucky enough.

ANother shot rings out and I pray that it doesn't hit me and sigh in relief as I hear it splash into the creek. I continue to manuver through trees and rocks, criss crossing my paths as I had done many times with Brodie when we got into trouble. I glance back ahead as I hear thier footsteps getting closer behind me, with hope to see the caves and I sigh as I see them getting closer. Concentrating on the caves I fight to think of a plan of how to escape into them without them noticing me going in there, when they are so close behind. I glance behind me to find Drake just out of reach with his men just behind him to ahead where the caves inch closer as I race ahead, fighting to think of away for them not see me escape in there. Quickly I begin to race up the steep hill to fight to get to the top of the arched rocky cliffs, hoping to bid me time and space from the men that seem trigger happy. Racing up the cliffy hill I gasp for air as I fight for footing and I hear them fading behind slowly, though still fighting to keep up. I sigh thanking the good Lord that I am more aquipped with how to do it than they seem to do as they all seem to slipp from time to time, landing on thier chins or so cussing out at me to stop to talk to them.

I sigh in relief as I reach the double arch caves that meet up at the bottom, looking like a big rocy M and I begin to cross over to them, making sure I go over the loose rocks that tumble at my feet with hope they won't be so careful. My lungs seem to be on fire with each breath I take coming more harsher to attrieve as I continue to fight with my footing while I glance back at them who look like the three stooges now that they are out of thier terrotory chasing after me.

Slowly I reach the first cave and I watch my footing as my cowboy boots tempt to slip on the wet rocky cave roof and I pray to make this work, to be able to return home even if Luke is angry at me; at least he won't kill me for it. I hear them cursing as they fight to thier feet and I glance behind as Drake draws his gun at me as he did Dayson, aiming between my shoulder blades and I pray not to get hit, not to die here, and not like this by some evil crooks that is most likely tied in some way to Hogg who don't know who he is messing with.

Trying to concentrate on my footing with only hope to relay on to not getting hit on his aim and as time passes by slowly I think of Jesse and how he must have felt all the times Brodie and I got ourselves in this kind of trouble. Behind me, I hear Drake yelling out that is shortly followed by the explosion of him pulling the trigger as he falls and I yell out in piercing pain as the large silver metal bullet rips it's way through my right shoulder, tearing through muscle that shoots pain throughout my body. I continue to yell out in fear as I am throw forward with the force of the bullet landing face first down the middle of the two caves hitting my head several times harshly against the rocky walls ove the caves before I land awkwardly upon my right hand and wrist in the middle of the two caves, where they meet at the bottom. Blackness edges it's way into my mind as I glance up at the three men looking at one another through my blurred vision and I urge myself to forward.

Through the great pain that rages in my body I roce myself to crawl slowly, military style on my forearms that sends pain shooting through my right arm as I refuse to look at any damages before I am in the clear. After a long few seconds I pull myself into the dark first cave and crawl half way through to where darkness covers, but where I can still see the entry way.

Air is limited as I sit still agains the cold wall as I stare at the entry way, too afraid to move as I watch the entry way before I force myself to grab for my inhaler, to no longer find it my pocket. Panic soars with me as I realize that I must have dropped it when they started to chase me and the cave begins to twirl around me in my lightheadedness as my head throbs fiercely as does my shoulder that burns as I feel the sticky blood ooze from the wound down my shoulder. I sigh painfully as fiery pain shoots throughout my body and I force myself to look down at my pained hand to cause more dizzinesse to rush in my hand. I gasp painfully at the sight of my bloody right hand and lower arm as the bone pierced through the skin at my wrist, splinters of bone seem to have been scraped up as the rest of my hand and lower arm feels all mushy with the great pain that swells in it.

I glance up in fear and in pain as the three men quietly passes by the mouth of the cave, not even bothering to look in. "Where could he have gone?" Drake asks as blackness slowly creeps in and I slowly give into the pain and the blackness with hope they don't find me here.

Slowly I awake to great pain and bone chilling coldness as my blurred vision slowly clears up to find myself to still be in the cave where I had passed out at. Blood has covered me as the throbbing of my head, shoulder, and arm shoots throughout my body as I slowly recall what had happened. Fearfully I look up at the mouth of the cave to see the pitch blackness of the night with only a hint of light that must be coming from the moon. Seeing the amount of blood shocks me as I think of all the blood I had seen on Jesse before I force myself up through the dizziness that continues to plague me, causing me to spit up and looking down I see blood mixed in with my syliva.

Forcing myself to step foward through my pain and weakness I slowly reach the entrance of the cave, hoping to see a clear sight of no men lingering around so I can return home to get help. Painfully I sigh as I find air hard to atrieve as I see nothing out of the ordinary lingering around and I force myself out into the humid summer night as the pain increases with each step I take.

After what seems to take an enternity of pain, I reach upon the front lawn at the farm, where I had collapsed several times on my way home. I feel my body weakening and the pain increasing as I fight to get to the front door, in hope that Luke will listen enough to get me help or care enough to get me help. Once again I force myself forward as pain floods my weakening body as I am once again thrown to the ground as I continue to fight for air. Lying upon the muddy ground I begin coughing chronically for air as I fight to yell for help in hope that someone is awake, but nothing but a forceful wheeze escapes through my coughing as the air becomes more harsh to get.

Through the pain and blood that escapes from my wrist and shoulder I fight to get up, dizziness invades more harshly as I once again spit up blood as I cough for air. I cry out in pain and frusteration as I once again am thrown to the ground, too weak to even stand upon my knees for support and I glance up at the front door only a few feet away. Blackness quickly takes over me for a short moment or for a few minutes to awaken gasping painfully and forcefully for air as pain shoots throughout my body.

I jump in pain and fear as an odd noise rings over me followed by a hollow beat and I gasp knowing it has to be them, they followed me! Forcefully I look up to find Luke racing out of the farm house, his face pale with worry and fear. "Bo!" he shouts as he reaches me to check my pulse, "What happened? No wait, let me go get you a blanket while I call for an amulance!"

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

Quickly I slam down the icy cold black reciever of the old phone from talking panickly to the operator with hope that they would hurry. I rush to Jesse's old room with hope to find that thick quilt that Jesse loved so much, carrying it around the cold nights while he sat in front of the fire. Thinking of him, my heart tightens in sadness at the thought that he is gone and feel the shame of using his loved quilt on Bo who is covered in his own blood, but it is the only blanket that will warm him up the most. I sigh in relief to find the thick navy blue quilt on a shelf in his closet and I tug it down as I race out of the room to the kitchen door and fight with the handle to open it. I pray for my cousin as I jump off the deck as I find my cousin seizuring only a feet away from the deck where I see that his bleeding has increased since the few minutes when I was inside.

After what seems to take an enternity, I finally reach my cousin and drop to my knees as I place the quilt around him, tucking the sides under him. Fearful at the sight of his closed eyes and still body, I quickly check his pulse to find a weak and unstable pulse, his breathing is weak and barely noticeable. I continue to pray in fear for my cousin and for help to be here soon as the dark sky seems to continue to darken above us while I watch my deathly pale cousin lying on the ground, covered in his own thick blood. Slowly I drag out a clean handkerchief from my back pocket and I reach over and press it tightly to his thick cut on his right upper forehead and blood quickly seeps through the thin material to show the ugly bruise that surrounds the cut. Looking at my cousin seizuring I try to think of what had happened to create all of this and what all his injuries could be.

Slowly, the distant sound of the piercing siren becomes audible and I glance up with hope before I look back down at Bo who seems to be loosing the battle for life. "No Bo...you gotta be Ok, everything is going to be ok," I say with hope as I flip the blanket off his chest for a moment, his red plad shirt is torn and stained darkly with thick blood, his right wrist bone sticks out of his right wrist and hand, his right wrist and hand is covered thickly with blood, but through the blood I notice the large swelling and bruising that coats it. Covering him back up I run my hand through his thick blond hair that Jesse and I had done when he was a child to help comfort him. "Hear that, Bo? You gotta, buddy...it's help, help is on it's way! All you gotta do is fight to hang in there, so they can help you...please Bo, I beg you."

Glancing up as the sirens become louder, today's earlier events roll through my head, of all that was said and done. More guilt fills me as I think that this wouldn't had happened if I hadn't made him run off like I did, if only I hadn't said anything. I told him to tell me what was wrong and when he did I lost it and snapped on him, I sigh at the thought of him never talking to me again. My heart stops in deep fear as a worse thought jumps into my head, a worse thought of him never talking to me again. What if he don't wake up? "Bo, c'mon Bo, you gotta fight this," I urge him panicly as fear soars quicky through me at the thought of never being able to apologize to him, to never be able to go fishing with him, or to ride in The General with him. Tears enter my eyes at the thought of loosing my cousin and no longer having him in my life any more, to not have my best friend with me by my side. I sigh at the thought of loosing him to my anger and hatred not toward him, but was directed toward him; at the thought of loosing him with us still angry at one another for all that I have done to him, of which he has only repayed me by his love and devotion even after I had allowed him to get beaten up so badly the other night. "Look, whoever did this to you, won't get away with this Bo, I promise you. Please wake up, I beg you...I will change I promise."

I glance up as the sirence pierce through me as they pull up next to us and I slowly stand up as I swipe my tears away to meet up with three men around my height. "He's right there," I point to Bo on the ground as they drag out the old stretcher, "I don't know what happened, he just crawled here and landed there, I really don't know all his injuries, I was too afraid to move him."

The older one nods annoyingly at me before they walk past me to where Bo lies and I watch as the scoop him up on the board to place on the stretcher where they quickly attatche an air mask over his nose and mouth. I watch in continued disbelief as they insert three IVs into his left arm before they slowly begin to roll him into the old modeled ambulance where I ask, "Can I ride along?"

The two younger paramadics look over at the older paramedic who nods for me to join them for the ride. I slowly climb up into the ambulance before it quickly takes off.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

Static rolls over the intercom as an older female voice comes over asking for a Doctor Denzling to report to room two-fifteen as the bright lights of the waiting room reflects off the shiney linoleum floor. My heart pounds in great fear and worry for my cousin as all that was said between us before he had ran off plays in my head with the sight of him lying on the ground, covered in his own blood plays in my head, playing tricks at me. I sigh as I drop into a deep and long silent prayer for my cousin to be Ok, to be able to hear his voice once again whether it is yelling at me in anger or hatred, but to hear his voice full of life once again, to be able to see the life that was absent when I found him in our yard, in his face and eyes. I die to hear his laughter full of childish excitement or to be able to comfort him and to tell him that everything is going to be ok, or to hear him talk to me or to anyone, to tell me exactly how he feels even if it isn't something I want to hear. Thinking of him, I begin to wonder if he would talk to me if he walks away from this, if he would ever be able to forgive me for everything I had done to him, all that I had made him go through.

I glance up as someone walks next to me and I find it to be Daisy who holds a worried look on her face as she sits down next to me. "OK, what happened, Luke?" she questions, "Why did I get a call from a doctor and not you? HUH Lukas?"

I shrug. "I don't know Daisy, I refuse calling you at work with tears in my voice only for your bartender Dave to answer and notice my voice. No it is not a pride thing on my part as I know you will make it sound to be, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get enough through for him to understand," I answer as tears enter my eyes again, "I don't know what you want me to say...I don't have money for the pay phone outside and the only way they'd let me use the phone up front is if I let him say what I needed to say."

"You could have just said that," she says flatly, "so what is this about Bo being here? What all happened...that is all that he told me is tha the is in the emergency room."

"Yeah I heard him," I say as I once again wish that he would have went farther to why he was here, "I really don't know what had happened. I was sitting up staring out the window, everything in the past year was going through my head as I was certain that he ran off and wasn't coming home. It was only a couple of hours ago so it was still dark out side when I saw this figure crawling into our yard, well he was half walking half falling type of thing before he collapsed on our yard. I ran out to see who and what was wrong."

It goes silent as I fight to control myself as a doctor calls out for another couple who cries on eachother's shoulders in the far corner. I watch as they walk to the older short doctor before going on, "When I got out there I saw that it was Bo, he was covered in his own blood and was barely recognizeable. I ran into the house and called for an ambulance and for a blanket...I got Jesse's quilt, I know we agreed to not to use to keep it fresh, but it was the only warm one I knew of," I pause once again, tears streak my face freely, "When I got out he was unconcious and seizuring. I wrapped him up as best as I could and noticed his right wrist bone puncturing through his skin and his hand and arm was largely swollen and bruised under the blood. That is all I know as of now."

She nods as she wipes the tears out of her eyes and I roughly do the same to my eyes as guilt swarms through me as fear and worry consumes me for my cousin and I pray for word on him quickly. "Look, LUke," Daisy says looking at me, "I don't know what happened or how bad he is or if. .. if he could die, but I am going to say this anyway even though I know it isn't going to work. Please don't blame yourself for all of this as I know you are, Bo wouldn't want you to and I am sure he don't blame you."

"Why wouldn't he? Especially over the year, all that I had done to him," I sigh feeling the tears build up even more, "I mean I should have gone and checked on Jesse, but forced him to do it instead, telling him if he didn't go that I'd tell Jesse he didn't care enough to check on him, that I'd show him a few of my new Marine moves on him out back. I should have gone and yet I tortured him with my threats and when he called to tell me to pick him up at the sheriff's station, I didn't hear his tears that rung clear but that he was disturbing my date and I tol' him so...that he was gonna get it for making me go get him. When I got there, I didn't care about his tears, but called him a big cry baby even after he tol' me what he saw and what happened. I was a jackass and then that night at the Boar's Nest when I allowed Stephen to beat him up like that was uncalled for and why? I did it out of hatred and anger, but not toward him, but at what I saw at war, and I took it out on my best friend. I don't blame him if he would blame me and never forgive me, I just wish...I wish I could tell him I was sorry and beg for a second chance...he is my best friend and yet..."

"Well you can tell him now if ya wish," calls a husky male's voice as Daisy is about to whisper something to me. I slowly turn around to see a tall balding light brown haired doctor who looks to be in his mid forties.

"Bo?" I ask standing up swiping at my eyes, "How is he Doctor..."

"Doctor Wayben," he smiles wearily, "Well your cousin seems to be strong and stubborn, or perhaps dumb to fight against his odds that he was faced during the night. I am not going to lie, he still has a good chance to die, but he seems to be improving that as time goes by and he is still in serious condition, but for all his injuries that he has he is better than expected to be. Your cousin was shot in the shoulder and he has lost a lot of blood from that going unattended for so long, he has a severe concusion from hitting his head hard on something very hard, he has internal bleeding, of which we haven't been able to stop all the way. He has shattered his right arm and hand with his wrist bone puncturing through his skin...and his asthma seems to have worsened. Through a CAT scan we have estimated that the shooting and the concussion happened a couple of hours before you called the ambulance, which means he must have passed out."

"So is he going to be ok, doctor?" I ask panickedly.

"Well he went a long while without his inhaler, must have lost it or something," he looks at his clippboard, "that it has caused an infection in his air way, luckily we got it in time or that alone could have killed him. Right now, he looks like he will be ok, he is awake and asking for you Luke."

"Me?" I ask with disbelief.

"If you are Luke, then yes it is you," he grins at me, "follow me unless yo don't want to see him."

"No I wanna see him," I say and Daisy urges me to go.

Slowly I follow him through the long hall ways in silence before he says, "He is awake, well duh huh if he is asking for you? Anyway, he won't talk to us or tell us what had happened, perhaps he will tell you. I can get Rosco here or any police here within minutes if you want that, but if he won't talk I don't see the use of calling the police on it for now, until someone can tell him to tell the authorities."

I nod as he stops in front of a dark wooden closed door and he motions in there. "Well there ya go, I'll be around if ya need me for anything," he smiles before I watch him walk by.

Slowly I open the door and walk in to close the door behind myself before I look up at my lean cousin who lies in the hospital bed and my heart tightens in fear as he seems to be asleep. His skin remains deathly pale as his heart and breathing monitors beep annoyingly and his four IVs drip slowly into him, to echo off the walls, a bandage is wrapped tightly around his wound on his head and his right hand and arm is plastered in a ugly white cast all the way up to his elbow. His thin chest remains bare so the suctors can stick to his bruised chest, looking at him I come to think that most of his body seems to be bruised or cut up.

"Luke?" he asks weakily as he slowly moves his head to look at me, pain shoots from his baby blue eyes and I quickly go to the side of his barred in bed.

"Shhhh I'm right here buddy," I say as I run my hand through the top of his blond hairs and the sight of the strong death in his eyes sends shivers up and down my body, "I'm right here, I'm not gonna leave you, never."

He looks at me questionally with a tint of disbelief that seems to break my heart even though I know I deserved not to be trusted, I broke his trust and I broke his heart at doing it. "I am . . .sorry," he gasps painfully for air, his breathing, even with the air tube in his nose, is forceful and wheezy, "I didn't mean what you-"

"Don't apologize, Bo, and yes you did mean it...and it is the truth, I just didn't want to admit to it. I should be the one to apologize, not just for yesterday afternoon, but for the past year that I have treated you like crap! You are my best friend, Bo, you still are and I love you more than life itself...I know you don't believe me, because of how I have treated you and I don't blame you, but it is the truth. I guess I just had this need to take my anger and hatred of war on someone and it ended up to be you. I am so sorry Bo," I say as tears streak my face, "There is no excuse for how I have treated you and I don't blame you if you never forgive me or want to hang out with me again or be like we were before. But I want that and am willing to change to do so, I promise you right now Bo, I will change back to who I was before I had boarded on that train years ago; I will be the Luke Duke that you know and not the Luke Duke that I have become over the years. I am sorry, Bo...I don't-"

"Now you stop it," he forces out as the pain seems to increase by the second, "Look, I don't want you to change for me or for anyone, but for yourself. Yes, you have been a jackass, but you have also been through a lot and I imagine you seen alot, though I don't know what all you went through or to the amount of how bad it was, but I know it must have been horrid to go through what you went through. It is only natural to have to find a way to get over it, to not see it or to take it out on someone else. I may not have understand it all the way, heck I don't understand all of anything, but I was never that angry at you to never forgive you for it or to look past it. I love you too much to not be able to forgive you, especially when you took it on yourself to apologize, to say your sorry, to make it past your pride to tell me how you feel. Thank-you Luke...I don't want you to change for me, but for yourself."

"Ok," I say as I bend down and hug him tightly, not wanting to let go, "I will, for both of us. OK? I really mean that, no one tol' me to tell -"

"Well duh Lukas...we all know you would do the opposite if someone were to tell you to apologize," he smiles weakly at me and great fear enters his eyes, almost as much as the pain that radiates in his eyes.

"OK," I answer taking his left hand, "What happened, Bo? Who did this to you? I want to know...because who ever it is, I promise you, won't get away with this."

He glares at me with fear strong in his eyes as I see the flashbacks rolling in his eyes as tears slowly begin to break through and I hug onto him once again while telling him that it will be ok

[Kristy_DUke]

Bo Duke

Quickly I force myself to lie back down on my pillow as pain shoots throughout my body and I flinch at the pain as I try to block more tears from falling as I wipe away the tears that streaked my face. I sigh as I look up at Luke trying to figure out if it is worry I see in Luke's eyes or anger or perhaps even disappointment at seeing me cry once again, or perhaps all three of them. I sigh as I think of how confusing he is, a minute ago he was saying he was sorry and now anger is written deeply in his sky blue eyes. "I'm sorry, Luke," I say again trying to apologize, not wanting to see the anger in his eyes or the disappointment.

"I already tol' you you have nothing to be sorry for, I am the one that is and should be sorry," he says softly to me as he sits down into the hard metal fold up chair that is sitting next to my bed, "I have no excuses, I mean I can tell you all that I saw, all I heard, and what I went through at war, but none of that will ever be enough, because there is no real excuse for all that I have done to you. I am sorry and I hope one day you can forgive me."

I look at him as tiredness shines through the emotions he fights to hold back, but some of it shines through his strong armor that he has always had to shield away his emotions. "I already have, a long time ago," I almost say in a whisper as it pains me to talk or to try to breathe.

He looks at me for a long moment as tears clog his eyes, something I had never seen in his soft gently sky blue eyes before, tears. "Bo, what happened?" he says looking at me as more anger enters his eyes and I slowly begin to realize that it isn't me he is angry at, but toward who had done this to me; almost like in the past before he went to war when he would get so angry at anyone who would push or hit me or say something to hurt my feelings, the same anger shines in his eyes that shone in his eyes back then with the need to seek revenge on them. A sense of relief enters me to see the same worry and concern in his eyes as he had back then, almost as if things were returning to the way things were; but they never will or never could return to the way it was, because Jesse is dead and now I know who did it! "What happened? Who did this to you? Please tell me, I know you wouldn't tell your doctor, but please me. This is important to me Bo, whoever did this to you must pay...I am not about to let them -"

"They're dangerous," I cut him off in fear of what he is capable of doing as the sight of him going out by himself to seek his revenge closes in on my mind, ending with a similar occurance that had happened to Jesse. "You can't go out by yourself, they'll kill you too, like they did Jesse."

He looks up at me from glaring down at the pale white flooring that reflects the lights back up at you. "You mean," he says unable to finish.

"I don't know," I shrug, "that is only what I am thinkin' and nine times out of ten I am wrong anyway."

"Well we don't have much murderers hanging around Hazzard, but I would have figured he woulda gone elsewhere to hide other than sticking around," Luke says as more anger fills his eyes as well as confusion, "the same kind of bullet was in you that was in Jesse...Bo, you gotta tell me what happened...I want to know, so I can protect you from whoever did this to you, I am not about to loose you too, especially not to the same jackass that took Uncle Jesse away from us!"

I glare up at him as a stray tear rolls down his right cheek as what had happened shines clearly in my head as my lungs go afire with more pain as I fight to breathe and panic quickly sets in. "I didn't know where I was going after I had left or to be honest what I was going to do, I should never had punched you, you had the right to be upset with me; that was all that I was thinking about when I got to the large rock by the creek. You know it?" I ask and he numbly shakes his head, "When I heard these men fighting and I looked up to see these two men beating up on this other guy, real bad like and the other guy wouldn't even protect himself anymore. There was a tall guy that stood off to the side wearing this cowboy hat and he kept asking him where the box was and the guy wouldn't tell him, because he didn't want to be a part of it anymore, saying something that he wouldn't be the first victim of his that he killed or the last, that he knew his plan of taking over Hazzard to turn it into his drug hideout," I say choking back my pain, fighting against blacking out that keeps threatening me as the sight of it remains clear, "then the guy in the hat shot him and I couldn't breathe and all I could think about was Jesse. I tried not to cough knowing they would hear me but as I got my inhaler it slipped into the mud, when I tried to get it, my boot slipped in the water and they saw me."

I pause and he glances up with pain sketched in his face, pain for me and Jesse while anger flares in his eyes. "I tried running, but they kept shooting at me, I figured all I needed to do was find a way to hide in the caves without them knowing I went in there. So I ran to the tops of the two caves joined together at the end and the guy in the hat tried shooting at me and would have shot me in my back, but slipped on the rocks. When he shot me I was on the caves and I fell in between the rocky caves, landing on my arm, hitting my head on the wall. I crawled into the cave and watched them go by before I passed out."

"Good thing you made it home as you did," Luke says sadly as he wipes away his tears, "if not. . ." he lets his sentence slip, not wanting to finish what he was thinking.

"I'm scared, Luke," I finally say through my pain that throbs through my body, "They'll come back-"

"I won't let them get to you, Bo, I will do anything that I can for them not to get to you," Luke says running his hand through my tops of my blond hair above my bandage, "I'll have Cooter, I, Brodie, and Dobro standing by your side twenty-four seven if need be. I am not going to let them get to you, to hurt you any more than they already have, I promise you, Bo."

"But they need to be stopped, Luke, before they kill someone else," I insert as the pain flare up within me and tears enters my eyes, "I hurt...everywhere. I can't. . .breathe, Luke...I'm scared."

"I know buddy," he says as fear enters his eyes over coming his anger for the time being as I hear a monitor hit a flat line before I fall into blackness once again.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

His words stick in my head as I once again find myself alone in the waiting room as the doctors work upon my cousin who had blocked out when his monitors reached a flat line. Fear races through me as I think of his deathly pale skin that was mostly bruised or cut up, or the death that had shone in his baby blue eyes before he passed back out. Quickly I force my eyes tightly shut to block the last images before I was ushered out of the room only to see a life that may lie ahead of me, a life that is empty and lonely without Bo in it. Slowly I reopen my eyes and pick up an sport magazine that was on top of the pile of magazines and try to concentrate on the baseball photos mixed in with a few articles on football and basketball but find hard to do so. Quickly I slam down the magazine back upon the pile at the thought and the baseball pictures in thought of Bo who is the sports fan of the family, mainly baseball and Nascar, and the few people in the waiting room glare up at me.

I glance back up at the clock that etches upon three fifteen in the morning, forty-five minutes of waiting in the waiting room. Once again I pray for my cousin to be Ok, to be able to see him again, for him to see me to hug onto him to tell him it will be OK. Thoughts swrill in my head from all that he has told me so far to loosing my cousin and I feel my hands become sweaty as I realize I have been clenching my fist tightly closed in anger at the men that had done this to Bo. If only I'd have...

"Luke," his doctor walks in and I look up at him before I quickly get to my feet.

"How is he doctor?" I ask not bothering with fighting back the tears that is apparent in my eyes and in my voice, "Is he ok? Please tell me he's going to be ok, I mean I knwo you see this every day with thier mourning visiters. But he has to be OK, doctor, he just has to be!"

He looks at me as if I am crazy and I sigh worriedly for my cousin in realization to how pathetic I had sounded. "It looks like he was a lot weaker than what we thought he was," he says sadisticly.

"No...no," I utter unable and unwilling to hear the rest, "Look you can't have lost him, he was my best friend. I mean just last year I. . .we lost our uncle who raised us, and now him? He is a brother to us and he don't deserve to-"

"You didn't let me finish, Luke," he smiles wearily as to show that he feels my pain, "He was a lot weaker than what we thought or saw, but don't give up on him yet, he needs you there to believe in him, that he can do it."

"What are you saying, doctor?" I ask confusingly.

"Look, his infection in his air way was a lot worse that cut off any air from getting to him and his asthma made the fight unbearable to him," he explains, "and the internal bleeding...gave him a cardiac arrest. We were able to get to him in time to save him, but he is very weak right now...we had to stick an air tube down his throat to help him breathe and to fight off the infection."

"Will he be ok, though? Will he be able to walk through here when this all is over with?" I ask, wanting a for sure answer.

"As of right now, it is hard to tell," he shrugs apologeticly, "he shows promise and he is fighting it...but he sure isn't out of the forest, yet. We did all we can, it is up to him now...some help from you won't hurt any either."

"Yes sir," I answer sadly, "Can I see him?"

"Yeah, he is still unconscience," he sighs, "his chances would be better if he would awake."

I nod before he slowly shows me the way once again where we walk in silence and I stop at Bo's door to watch his doctor walk down the hall, his heel of his shoe echos off the hollow walls. Slowly I face his blank door trying to prepare myself before walking in before I force myself to walk into the room. My heart seems to stop within me as I step foward to my cousin who lies alseep on his hospital bed, at the sight of my deathly pale cousin that a tube sticks out of his mouth with the tubes in his nose still in. Looking at him, he almost looks peaceful lying there as if he were only sleeping, though the bruises and his pale skin says otherwise.

"C'mon Bo," I beg him as I sit next to him as I run my hand through his hair for comfort, "please wake up BO, I am right here...I am not going anywhere, unless you want me to. Please wake up. Everything is going to be alright, you just have to fight it, buddy."

[Kristy_DUke]

Bo Duke

Annoying beeping of the machines ring out in an un-rhythmatical form, sounding unclear and very distant along with the slow dripping of the IVs that sound as if they are echoing off the walls. Slowly I win the fight to open my heavy eye lids to find bright lights shining into my harshly blurred vision and for a moment I wonder where I am and what had happened. My vision slowly clears up as I stare into the harsh piercing lights as I fight to remember where I am and what happened that slowly comes to me. Lying still upon the stiff hospital bed harsh pain shoots through my body as fear once again takes me as it's hostage.

I close my eyes in my struggle to fight against the fiery pain that ripples through my lungs, that ripples throughout my whole body. Loosing the battle I open my eyes back up at the dull and bright ceiling as I fight to readjust my position that sends a larger ripple of pain that shoots through my air ways and lungs with the harsh pain as if something was rubbing against or scratching against my air way. Slowly I glance down at my worn and battered body to find a large tube shoved in my mouth and down my throat in my answer to what was causing the pain. Seeing the tube in my throat my fear esculates within me along with my pain which is accompanied with confusion of what had happened.

The room seems to spin crazily around me as I search for answers in my head that winds up turining into flash backs of the past year, at seeing Jesse lying on the floor to being shot the other day. Franticly I search around the small room as the beeping of the machines slowly beep and I recall the piercing silence before I had passed out, figuring it is for the best that I am stuck listening to such an annoying sound. Gradually I look at my right side where I find Luke asleep as he sits closely to my right side on a hard cold fold up chair, his head leans against the ugly brightly painted white wall. Looking at my older cousin, I notice his tear streaked face that looks to still be a little damp from his tears as his right hand rests over my right casted hand.

I glance up as a thin doctor walks in with a couple of nurses and he smiles at me as he looks over my chart at the end of the hospital bed. "How you feeling, Beauregaurd?" he asks and I go to snap at him in anger for using my full name only to get choked upon the large tube in my throat, causing more pain to tear through my body, "Calm down, son...you can't talk with that tube in your throat. This is for your best interest...I am glad to see you awake."

I glare at him as tiredness welcomes it's way into my body as I look away from the doctor as the nurses change the bags to my IVs. I look over at Luke as if to ask him for help even though he lies asleep in an awkward position against the hard wall. I glance up as the doctor seems to mutter something before he slowly turns around and the nurses close the door behind him. I feel the pain increase within me as I glare out the bright haze that shines in through the window, that only allows me to see the bright blue sky that holds a couple of white puffy clouds.

Glaring out the window, my mind plays back flash backs once again, seeming to stop at the sight of Jesse's still dead body covered in blood. I feel my body shudder in great fear, fear at the sight of Jesse, fear at thinking of witnessing the men kill another, fear of them coming back to get me, and a greater fear of dying because of them. Feeling the shudder roll down my body, great pain quickly ripples through my body before I slowly feel the pain slowly begin to edge away to the pain killers they must have given me; leaving my body numb.

Besides me I hear a slow moan as if in pain and I slowly glance over to see Luke stiffly sitting up from leaning against the wall. For a long moment he glares out the window as if too afraid to look at me, staring out the window in a deep trance-like stare. "Bo," he says softly as he glances down at me and I fight to say something only to get choked by the large tube, "It's alright, I'm here for you buddy. Don't try to talk buddy...it's there to help you breathe and to. . .to help fight the infection."

I look up at him as tears enter his sky blue eyes as runs a caring hand through my blond hair above my bandage as the scenes of what brought me to here runs through my head. Slowly I dare to reach over and grab an old piece of a reciept from the hospital's cafe and an hospital pen. Using my casted arm I write against the pain that it causes to write: "DRAKE" onto the piece of paper as best as I can and hand it to Luke. Luke looks at it for a long moment before he looks up at me with a tear that shimmers down his cheek. "Drake? He's the one that did this to you?" he asks and anger begins to cloud his fear filled eyes, "Look Bo, he won't get away with this...I promise you that, I am not going to let him get away with this! I will-"

Forcefully I shake my head to go into a painful coughing spasms into the tube that tears at my air way and lungs and it slowly stops though the pain continues to soar through my body. Luke looks at me worriedly and I slowly close my eyes for Luke to yell, "No Bo," slowly I open my eyes and look up at him before I take the paper back from him and slowly begin to write painfully, "You no, Luke! I don't want to loose you too!" He looks at the paper for a long moment and I feel as if I am back in school and passing notes back and forth. "Ok, if you don't want me to seek reveng on them, I won't," Luke finally says, "But they are not getting away with this...I'll think of a way to do it. Perhaps go to Atlanta and report it to the FBI if Rosco don't listen. I am not letting them go free for doing this to Jesse...and especially not this to you!"

Looking up at him fear soars within me at the thought of not making through this, of dying as I wonder if this fight against death is worthless, perhaps it is best if I were to just give up, give in to the pain, in to death. "Look Bo," Luke says sitting back down as he runs his hand back through my hair, "I see that look in your eyes. It hurts don't it?" I nod numbly, "I see it clearly in your eyes and your fear...but look, Bo, you can't give up on yourself, you can't give into this this! Dammit Bo! Can't you see?! I can't loose you!"

I look at him as he hides his face into his muscular hands as he trembles in his temper that he just lost, in his own fear. Slowly I reach over and caringly take his right hand and he forces himself to look up at me to show me the tears that streak his face. "Please Bo, you have to fight this...you have to make it through this, to fight against this," Luke pleas with me as fresh tears enter his eyes, "You are going to be OK, Bo, you have to be. Please, Bo...please don't give up. I can't afford to loose you, I can't afford to loose my best friend, the one person that means the most to me. You are going to be Ok Bo, you have to be."

I look weakly up at him before sleep takes over me and everything flashes in my head in a beginning of a nightmare.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

I jolt awake from another cat nap that had taken over me as I feel Bo's casted right arm jump from under mine. My heart races within me as I see him jump awake and from the look in his baby blue eyes I read the nightmare that played so lively within him while he slept. Tears quickly enter his eyes and begin to spill over to run down his soft pale skin. "It's Ok, Bo, it'll be ok," I say to him feeling my heart tightening painfully within me as he glares unbelieving at me, "You gotta trust me Bo...you are going to be OK, you have to be ok. If I loose you..."

I can't force myself to go on as thoughts of a life without him rushes through my mind once again as I feel a cold salty tear escape my eyes as I glare down at the floor. I glance up at him as his weak casted arm lifts up to catch my tear from my cheek and I embarrassingly wipe my face from my tears. I look at him as he smoothly looks away, glaring out the window and I slowly grab a one-subject notebook I had bought from the store in the hospital, that had laid on his night stand. "What are you thinking, Bo?"

He glares at me as his tears shimmer brightly in his pained eyes that shines as brightly with pain as it does fear. Slowly he takes the open notebook and the black ink pen that I bought along and for a long silent moment fights with the pain to be able to hold the pen. I watch as he slowly begins to write his answer, his writing looks more like a first grader's hand writting than his with his pained arm and hand. He looks at his covered answer for a long while as the tears continue to roll freely down his pale cheeks before he shows me his answer, "JESSE."

My heart weakens as I stare at his answer for a long time and once again I feel the tears swell up in my eyes, not so much for loosing such a great man, but at the thought of all the pain Bo is in; physical and emotional pain for over a year now. "He'd be proud of you," I fight to say through the large lump in my throat, "You know that, don't you? He always proud of you...of us." He nods, but the sadness in his eyes tells me that knowing that isn't enough for him, "I know buddy, it hurts...if it feels any better, I feel it too. We just have to go on with our lives, that is what he would want us to do. As he always said he is going to a better place to fulfill the good Lord's plan, we can't be selfish can we?" Slowly he shakes his head no but the tears still run down his face.

Slowly I watch him reach for the pen that had rolled off his lap besides him on the bed and he slowly writes something on the notebook, fighting to write through the pain. After a long moment of listening to his irregular beeping of the machines he shows me what he has painfully written, "I wanna go home."

"I know buddy," I say fighting back more tears as I run my hand through his hair and behind me I see Daisy walk in out of the corner of my eye, "it will come, I promise, you just have to get better."

Bo glances up at Daisy who smiles weakly and from her swelled eyes is apparent that she has been crying. "Hi y'all," she fights to say, "how are y'all?"

It goes silent before Bo goes back to writting painfully and through his baby blue eyes I see his frusteration as clearly as his pain and fear. "What if I don't get better?" he shows me his sloppy hand writting and Daisy leans against me to see it.

I look up at him as my body goes weak in my chair and the fight with my tears almost seem impossible to hold back as I stare at his words on the page. The words that has been tearing at my heart since that night I found him on our front lawn. Carefully I take his casted hand with my other hand as I say, "Don't say that Bo, you gotta be Ok...you are going to be ok," I say as he only stares at me with his defiante eyes, "they say it is up to you, you have to fight it Bo...you hafta. You understand? I can't loose you."

"We can't loose you," Daisy corrects me.

He continues to stare at us and looking into his ghost like face and his half empty eyes, while the other half is vacant of great pain and great fear, my heart tightens even more painfully within me. "I don't know if I can," Bo shows me his message that I didn't notice him writing, which only tightens my heart even more.

"You gotta try, that is all we can ask for; for you to try, please Bo," slowly he nods and he winces in pain at the tube in his throat. Longly he stares at the ugly tube that is stuck down his throat and I try to imagine how he must feel with that in there. I look up at his monitors before I stare into an almost trance into the tv shaped monitors only for his breathing to go flat and Bo begins to cough hoarsly. I glare down worriedly as Daisy runs into the hall way, to find that he has pulled the air tube out of his throat while he continues to glare away from me. "Bo!" I yell at him, not knowing what else to say, "You trying to kill yourself??!!!" I close my eyes as tears streak my face freely and I open my eyes when he yanks at my hand for my attention and in his baby blue eyes he asks for understanding on my part. "Why Bo? I can't...no I refuse to loose you!"

I look up as Daisy returns with his doctor who glares angrily at Bo before moving by his side. "You're gonna wish you didn't do that, cause it's gonna hurt more going down than it did you yanking it out," he threatens as he picks up the tube from Bo's chest and I protectively grab Bo's right arm as his doctor fights with it and as he closes on Bo's mouth Bo grabs at it with his other hand and his doctor motions another doctor to come in to help hold him down. Bo squirms in pain at the dotcor's grip before fighting for air painfully to yell out in pain as the tube is once again shoved down his throat and taped to his mouth. "Look, this is your warning, y'all...one more time and I will be left with tieing his arms down to the bed."

Together we watch as they walk out together, talking and laughing about something. Slowly I glance down at Bo to find his eyes shut and tears roll down his cheeks freely and Daisy puts a firm hand on my shoulder. I look up at her and she whispers, "He'll be fine, Luke...that there was him caving into his pain and fear. He don't know what he wants or what to do."

I nod as I glance back down at Bo to find him with his eyes open, his baby blue eyes show how sorry he is as well as the pain and fear Daisy had mentioned. "I know buddy...I didn't mean to yell at you," I try to apology, but sorry gets cut off at the lump in my throat, "you just scared me...I know I haven't been there for you Bo, lately, but I promise to change. I will. We will start a new now and after you leave this place. I promise you that...if I don't you have permission to run me over with the General."

A thin smile reaches his mouth before he writes down, "Really?" he looks at me for a moment as I nod and he goes back to writing, "LIke before?"

"Like before, little cuz," I smile using his nickname I had called him before I had left for war, "now you gotta rest and get better. OK?"

He looks at me in fear to Daisy who nods at him, telling him to get some sleep. He nods as he fights with sleep visibly before he writes back on his paper, "I don't wanna be alone."

He looks up at us almost as if embarrassed and I smile comfortably at him. "They're gonna hafta pick me up remove me, cuz, even then to win my fight, which they can't do," I smile at him as I still hold his hand for comfort, "i'm not goning no where, cuz, now you get some sleep and that is an order."

He nods slowly before he gives into his sleep and I look up at Daisy who hugs me from behind. "Have faith in him, Luke. He can pull himself out of this," she smiles weakly at me, "He's a Duke, ain't he? Sure he is and he will be just fine, all he needs to know is that we are here for him. Now, sugar, I am sorry to leave y'all alone, but life does go on and therefore I have to go to work...you know how Hogg is when I'm late. You wanna order something? I can send Enos to send it to you, he has been asking to see Bo in awhile."

I look at her before ordering thier breaded chicken sandwich with tater tots and watch her walk out before glareing back at BO who lies a sleep, flinching every so often in another on coming nightmare and I can imagine the nights to come where he will awake with the nightmare.

[Kristy_DUke]

CHAPTER THREE

The hot humid summer sun blairs down upon me as I stiffly climb out of my old model patrol car and into the humid summer day. My mind races from thought to thought as I stare up at the beige colored tall and wide hospital as I stand upon the concrete parking lot. Slowly I begin to step ahead as I think of what I am doing here, of what had brought the Duke Boys here to start out with. My heart races in anger toward Boss for ever dealing with the likes of Drake, even more so after all this time, knowing how Drake is like, what all Drake is capable of. As I slowly reach the double glass doors, my heart stops weakly as I come to realize myself, that the only one possible of killing Jesse, with reason, would be Drake. More anger swells up within me at the thought of Hogg dealing with not only a dangerous violent man, but also a murderer who don't seem to regret all that he has done. A sour and spiteful man is what he is and Hogg working with him only shows the little conscience Hogg has for what he is doing.

Abruptly I stop at the steps of the entrance into the hospital as the sight of Jesse soars within me, how bad Bo is taking it. Chills race up and down my back as I fight back images of what Jesse had went through, what he saw that brought him to his death. More chills of fear races up and down my body as I think of if Drake is the one that killed Jesse, then we still have a murderer walking free around Hazzard, a murderer without a conscience and willing to kill anyone for anything. Anger fills me toward Hogg for continueing to work with Drake through my protests and complaints, as well as warnings. Who else will have to die at the hands of him before Hogg comes to see what he is dealing with? Hogg had brought in a murderer into his town and me being the sheriff, I have the responciblities to arrest him. But if I attempt doing that, Hogg won't ever talk to me, I'll loose my job; that is if I don't get killed trying to bring him down.

Slowly I force myself to take the steps and swing the heavy door open to walk into the halls of the dreaded hospital and the powerful smell of sick sweat, vomit, and heavily sprayed lysol explodes around me. I quickly walk through the brightly lit halls as I think of what all Luke had told me over the phone a couple of hours ago, what had happened to Bo. Thinking of Bo, my heart swells in sadness and worry for the young Duke Boy who was the one to find his uncle dead on the floor covered in his own blood. I sigh sadly at the thought of the past year has been like for the Dukes with Bo not being himself, while they fight to help Bo as well as to keep up with the farm after Jesse's departure. More anger fills me as Luke's paniced voice in the phone goes through my head, anger at Drake for all the hatred and violence he has sprayed over Hazzard with, and more anger at Hogg for continueing to work with him.

Silently I press the up button to the elevator and the bright silver door's ding open and I slowly step into the elevator with a tall gangly doctor and a small patite nurse. "Howdy sheriff," Doctor Lenbrock smiles at him, who is a known doctor that lives near Hazzard, "What floor?"

"Three," I answer barely audibly as he presses the white circular button that has the number three boldly etched upon it.

After what seemed like an enternity, the elevator jerks to a stop as the elevator clings onto the third floor and once again the doors ding open. Stiffly I step out of the elevator and back into another brightly lit hall that's orders are strong and ill. Approaching the medium sized waiting room that's floor is of a turquois blue design as the chair cushons are of a blue material, the walls are as brightly painted white as the halls with bright lights. Slowly I walk past the empty row of bench seats to the small desk where the receptionists sits behind a type writer and a phone, though thumbs through a PEOPLE magazine. "Can you tell me Bo Duke's room number? This is business," I say half way telling the truth, it is business, but for me it is mostly personal. I may not have been in the best terms with the Dukes, but I still care, they all are good people with big hearts. They only do what they think is best, which is opposite of what Hogg is.

She rolls her brownish green eyes at me before she thumbs through a stack of papers before she pulls one out that has Bo's name boldly typed on the top. "One nineteen," she finally says before going back to her magazine.

I glare at her for a moment before I walk past her and down the hall, another white lineolum flooring that reflects the bright lights and with brightly painted white walls. Trying to block out the strong order I remove my old beat up black cowboy hat and hug it by my waist as I walk past the numbered closed door before I slowly and finally reach one nineteen. For a lont moment I stand at the closed door, fighting back my own personal emotions, fighting with words to say from business, to how sorry I am. I sigh wearily, wondering if they would even accept my apologies for being woven in this mess, thanks to Hogg.

I sigh once again fighting back the tears that seem to have grown in my eyes without my notice and fighting back my anger toward Boss, toward Drake for doing this to them again. Slowly I open the door and the beeping of the machines that seem to be off by a long shot rings out at me, making my heart ache. Though as I step in to see Bo lying asleep on the bed with an air tube down his mouth and in his nose, his IVs placed carefully into his arms stops my heart even more painfully. HIs faces is harshly cut up and bruised, while a thick cast lies on his right arm, covering his thumb down to his elbow.

"Hi Rosco," I hear Luke say and I jump as he stands up besides Bo's bed, letting go of Bo's hand. Though Luke had carefully wiped his face clean of the tears that once fell from his sky blue eyes, it is apparent that they were there before I had opened the door by the dampness look of his cheeks.

"How is he?" I ask looking over at Bo who lies asleep, barely moving, almost looking dead.

"He's not as bad as he was when he came in here," Luke sighs, his voice trembling, "though his asthma is worsening and his lungs are weak, and his air way is blocked due to infection. He gets better, then gets worse, then better, then worse. I don't know, the doctors don't make sense here to me...Jesse was always better at this. He didn't have the tube in his mouth until last night, he stopped breathing after an hour out of the emergency room."

"I am sorry Luke...I really am, I know it doesn't help any, but I am sorry," I sigh as I take in Luke's posture, looking like a man about to cave in, to give up hope, "If there is anything I can do to help out, I will be glad to. I know we haven't been exactly friends in the past, but . . .I never planned on anything like this happening. I would never want-"

"We know Rosco," Luke says looking over at Bo who's machines beep longly before going back to short beeps ever few seconds, "you wouldn't want this or had anything to do with this. Bo just happened to be at the wrong spot at the wrong time."

I look at him for a long moment and back at Bo before glaring back at Luke as I decide on what to say. "He say who did this?" I ask, not wanting to jump to conclusion.

"He wrote it down after he woke up after he stopped breathing," Luke sighs as he hands me a reciept and I turn it over where Bo had written messingly, "DRAKE". "So that may be the guy who did it."

"Then it was more than just the wrong place at the wrong time," I sigh wearily as Luke abruptly glares back at me from Bo, "Hogg has been working with this Drake for over a year now, they'r latest plan has been to kidnap the two of you so that a couple of Drake's men can rob the bank wearing masks and a dubbed tape to sound like the two of you...where they'd drug the two of you to confessing to robbing the bank. Well this isn't what they had planned..."

"You mean you knew about this man Drake for over a year now and didn't do nothing?!" Luke yells out of anger and I jump at hearing his harsh anger and the anger that dances in his normally gentle eyes, "This guy may have killed our uncle...and he just may be killing my cousin as we speak! You know he ain't outta the woods yet! And you let him walk away with this?! This is the lowest y'all have ever come!"

"I know," I sigh fighting for words to say, "I didn't have nothing to do with it, well OK to an extent I did. But I couldn't stop Hogg, I have tried over and over again since he came and all I get is threatened and yelled at."

He looks at me long for a long moment before speaking up," I know, but I ain't about to let him get away with this, "he points to Bo, "Bo don't deserve this...Jesse didn't deserve what he got either. Thanks to Hogg's partner, we have lost our uncle, and we just may loose my cousin!"

With that a stray tear runs down his right cheek and he harshly wipes it away and my heart aches for the two cousins. "Well I am going to make it right," I finally say, barely audibly, "look I can't take back Jesse or make this not have happened, but for once in my life I am going to do what I think is the right thing. I'm calling the FBI, they'll help me catch him...them. I won't tell Hogg...and when he finds out, I'll be without a job, but...that's life."

"That shoulda been done awhile ago," Luke pauses, "I'm sorry Rosco, I know you are doing your best, this isn't your fault. I am...I'm just angry at this man for all that he's done to Jesse...to Bo. I mean Bo is so . . .I don't know, he would never do a thing to hurt anyone and yet. . . Anyway, thank-you."

"It should have been done along time ago, you're right," I finally admit to him and he looks down at his boots.

It goes silent for a long moment before Luke looks back up at me, ready to say something until he is interrupted by Bo grunts to say something only to get choked by the tube. I watch as Luke hurriedly walks back to Bo's barred in bed and caringly takes Bo's hand while running his hand through Bo's thick blond hair. "It's OK buddy, I'm right here," Luke says comfortly, "I'm right here...I am not going to leave you...never. You understand me? It's going to be Ok." It goes silent as Bo seems to fight with his casted arm to write and he shows it to Luke, whose body seems to tremble at reading what Bo had said. "I know it hurts, buddy, I know. It'll get better, cuz, it'll get better. OK? " slowly Bo shakes his head before closing his eyes and Luke grasps at his hand, making Bo reopen his eyes, "It'll be OK, you will be OK, you gotta be."

Once again they go silent as Bo writes something down and a tear seeps through Luke's eye and down his left cheek and Bo caringly reaches up to catch his cousin's tear. "What you mean don't worry about you? OF course I worry about you...you are my cousin, you are more than just a cousin to me, you're my best friend, my brother. So of course I worry about you! IF I loose you...well...I don't know what I'd do Bo; I can't loose you and..."

Bo stops him by handing him back the notebook that he has been writting in and Luke slowly looks it over. "I will always worry, Bo, it's in my nature to worry about you; just like I have been over the past year; I worry about you no matter what. I can't loose you too," Luke says smileing wearily at Bo before looking up at me for the first time, "Hey look, you got another visitor, Bo."

As Bo looks up at me, my heart seems to melt within me as I see the great pain that invades his baby blue eyes as well as great fear. "I'm sorry, Bo," I manage to say, "but look, I'll get Drake for you...for you and Jesse, if he is the one that did it to Jesse. Hogg has gone too far this time, I don't care how much money this could give him or how upset he will be at me for trading sides on him. But I will arrest Drake if that is the last thing I do."

Bo looks up at me with weary and pained eyes as my anger turns to hatred toward Hogg for doing this to him, for working with the man who could do such a thing as he has done to Bo. Seeing Bo so much in pain, to see how beat up he is because of Drake, my heart aches and for the first time I know I am going to turn my back on Hogg and turn to the FBI to arrest the man Hogg is currently working with, the man who could possibly have killed Jesse and the man who has done this horrible thingto Bo Duke.

I look up as Luke reads another thing that Bo has written to him and his eyes brim up with tears. "You gotta fight it BO, you have to be Ok. I know it hurts buddy, I know; but I'm right here you hear me? I'm right here!" Luke says running his hands through his hair and Bo slowly falls back asleep, "He tol' you, to be careful...he don't want you turning out to look like Jesse."

My heart sinks as Luke reads off what Bo had told me and I take Bo in for the last time before I tell him good bye for now and leave the room with tears in my eyes that slowly begin to roll down my cheeks.

[Kristy_DUke]

Rosco - three hours later-

My mind races quickly within me of all that has been going on over the past year and a half to how I could possibly change that. I sigh wearily as I continue to glare out the smeared old window that lies above the silver rusted sink. I stare across mama's green grass yard where her asortment of flowers lies to the hilly pasture that lies on the other side of the barb wire fence that cuts off where our back yard ends. Slowly, I reach across the clean sink and I yank open the window and smile to myself at the cow scented aroma that floats in through the open window with the little breese. In the pasture John Parlen walks near the barb wire with one of his bigger cows that follows him freely before he comes to a stop. I watch him momentarily as he smiles at mama who is now covered in dirt from digging in the soil before she had stopped to talk to the closest neighbor.

I feel myself jump in startlement as a loud pounding rings on the front door and I abruptly remind myself of the troubles that I had helped bring upon Hazzard from thinking aboug mama. Casually I turn away from the sink and walk out of the kitchen and into a hall as I feel my heart racing in fear of what I am about to do. Through the hall way I slowly step into the living room that lies on the other side of the farm house kitchen and I sigh with anxiety as whoever is at the door knocks once again. "I'm a comin'," I finally call out a few feet from the closed wooden door and I sigh wondering why mama had closed the front door when it is so hot outside.

Feeling my heart race with a mixture of anxiety, nerves, and of fear I slowly reach out and place my hand upon the handle and I begin to open the door. I look up through the old screen door at a man who stands an inch or so shorter than I with neatly cut and trimmed sandy blond hair with thin and small sideburns. The man stands confidently upon the wooden deck wearing dark blue khakis, scuffed athletic shoes upon his feet, and a blue jersey that holds a Cubs patch over his left chest. "Sergeant FBI Agent Frank Mills," the man states his voice is as confident as his posture, though not cocky, just enough to tell you he knows what he's doing, "Sheriff Coltrane?" He shows me his walleted badge and I nod.

"Y...yeah," I stutter as I slowly open the screen door that slowly squeaks open and he steps in and I watch as he takes in the living room almost as if he were expecting someone to jump out at him, "I'm Sheriff Rosco Coltrane."

"You run this small town?" he asks as he steps in and takes a seat in the off white old recliner and I slowly walk over to the ugly whitish yellow couch that sits against the wall that the chair sits on the other side of a scratched end table.

Looking at him I try to decide if he had said it with distaste or as a compliment, but figure that he hadn't placed any emotion in his statement. "I'm the sheriff of it, Commissioner J.D. Hogg runs it mainly," I reply nervously and I wonder if he could hear my heart drumming quickly within me.

"I see," he answers glaring around the room, his voice confident and sure, and remains flat of any of his feelings. "Now onto business, of what you called me about? Captain Durbank must think this case of yours is important, he don't send much men down to Hazzard for anything, not alone a sergeant."

I glare up at him trying to make out what all that he was trying to tell me. "Well good thing that Hazzard has been blessed with a great sheriff as myself then..khee," I look at him and he grins at me, his soft creamy blue eyes lighten up, "if not, we'd be in all sorts of trouble being on our own and all."

"Ahh a sheriff with a sense of humor," he smiles friendly at me and his change of behavior, from rough and cold to smiling at me almost like friends, "I like that. So tell me about this problem, this case you have on your hands."

"Well uh," I stutter trying to think of the best way to tell him this without getting my brother in law into big trouble, "Well Commissioner J.D. Hogg, we all call him Boss here...well he has this business partner that he has been working with for the past year to year and a half now. A year and a half ago, a citizen and farmer of Hazzard, Jesse Duke was found dead in his living room from being shot to death...y'all were down here for a day for that one and didn't get no where."

"Yeah I remember something of that," he says going back to looking cold, "they all had to come back to Atlanta for some bank robbery due to the lack of men in our department and due to not finding anything or anyone to connect it to."

I look at the FBI agent or seems to sink into the recliner through his tense posture, looking as if he could spring up in any second. "Yeah well," I pause as I fight through my nerves to go on, "well nothing much has gone on since then, but now Jesse's nephew, the man that was killed, his nephew that he raised was shot at a few days ago, sent him down these cliffs nearly killed him...woulda if he didn't seek into hiding, and he is still in the hospital in very serious condition, it is the same kid who had walked in to find his uncle dead."

"So," he pauses, "so they decided to chase after this kid after a year of not doing nothing or anything? That don't make sense, if they wanted to take him out for finding his uncle dead, they woulda done it as soon as they could have and not after a year."

"No, I don't think it has anything to do with him finding his uncle dead," I reply and I feel myself begin to relax as my years at the acedemy slowly come back to me, "no, I know it didn't have anything to do with it. According to Bo's, the nephew, cousin, they had a fight about something and Bo took off to be alone when Bo heard yelling and looked up in time to find, Drake, Boss' partner killing this other guy over some drugs...overheard them talking about taking over Hazzard for their drug fort."

"Drake?" Mills questions looking at me.

"Yeah Drake Shelbon," I reply nervously, "A real scary type of guy...I keep telling Boss that he is dangerous, but he won't listen to me, fact is he gets angry at me for even saying it."

"Well Boss ain't very smart then," Mills says and I abruptly glare up at him, "anyone with brains can tell Shelbon is dangerous as anyone can get! Ol' Shelbon has a rap sheet longer than my arm of armed robbery, possession of drugs, selling drugs...almost went down for murder a couple of times and both times his name got cleared. Prosecution could never prove it, but he did it...his men cover quiet nicely for him...dangerous as dangerous can get."

"Boss is too smart," I finally reply trying to sound as confident as him but come up shy, "he just lets his money do his thinkin' at times, and it all misleads him."

"Money can be an evil thing if you let it power you," Mills answers thickly as he slowly stands up to glare out the screen door for a long moment before turning around to look at me, "So what kinda business was this man, Hogg running with Drake?"

I glare up at him abruptly as my heart begins to race quickly within me as I fight for what I should tell him. "They were," I pause longly as I stiffly stand up and glare at the picture of me on the wall that shows me on my first day of duty in Hazzard, "they were trying to sell insurance on their land, money, and health...all sort of stuff, cheaper than anywhere else they could get it...most the citizens...heck everyone but Boss is poor and can't afford insurance or any sort of leisure item."

"Insurance?" he questions glareing at me, his creamy blue eyes become hard and cold causing me to take a step backward, "I have a feeling that this is some scam of yours to protect your buddy Hogg...he in it with Drake? You have the responcibility to protect your county sheriff, arresting anyone who is harming it, even your friends or the town commissioner!"

"Arrest Boss?!" I exclaim in Boss Hogg, "Look Hogg would never, I mean never do a thing to hurt anyone. I will give you that he is money hungry, but he would never stoop low enough to hurt or kill anyone for money. Sergeant...he is the richest man in Hazzard, probably of the surrounding counties as well, he don't need to kill no one for it and he would never kill or harm anyone!...Look, I don't like lying to a brother officer as y'all seem to call yourselves, but Boss is my buddy, my brother in law, and my boss. I have known him since I can remember and he has never done anything that would harm anyone not alone kill anyone...you can check up on that."

For a long moment he glares at me with his hardened creamy blue eyes, his eyes are of a color I have never seen on a man or anyone before. I let go the breath I didn't realize I was holding in as he slowly runs his right hand through his sandy blond hair. Looking at him I see the thick wide and deathly pale scar that is etched verically on his lower outter right arm. As I take in the thickness, the paleness, and the length that seems to be three inches long shiver run up and down my body as I fight to figure out what it is from. Slowly he places his hands into his pockets as his posture remains confident before he says, "So, does Hogg know that Drake could possibly hurting his citizens of his county? That Drake most likely is the one that killed that man? Does he have anything at all to do with why I am down here?!"

"No sir," I sigh wearily taking in the thin man who looks to be in his thirties, "as I said, Hogg wouldn't do such a thing not for nothing or anything. Like I said Hogg is greedy and would do about anything for money, but he would never ever hurt anyone or kill anyone for that matter, that isn't him. He may not seem like he cares that much about other things than money, but deep down he does care, he cares for Hazzard and he cares for the citizens of Hazzard."

"We ain't in boot camp, sheriff, you can call me Sergeant Mills or Frank," he smiles thinly before it disappears, "so...if Hogg doesn't know how Drake really is like and that he's hurting and killing people, then why we have to meet in your home instead of at the police station? Y'all have a police station don't you?"

"Yes sir, I mean Frank, it is in town with the court house, in the court house," I say nervously, "Hogg would have or will have my hide when he finds out that I called you out on his number one business partner. He don't believe all that I have been telling him about him, about Drake that is, and how I feel about him. He gets angry when I say how I feel about it or what I think I know. He won't believe until he sees it with his own eyes."

"Well your house it is then," he grins at me before he moves back to the recliner, "but if I catch Hogg in this in any way, he's going down town to Atlanta and I'll make sure the state'll take that badge away from you, sheriff. YOu got me? So if he is in it, you better come clean now."

I look at him for a long moment as I feel my body begin to tremble as I think about thier plans, about what has been going on, and what he is saying. "I understand Sergeant Mills, I understand it fully...but I will garrantee you that Boss Hogg didn't have anything to do with Jesse Duke's death or with Bo's shooting...he wouldn't have it if he knew it was him, he'd have Drake arrested or something if he knew for himself that it was him doing all this," I pause to sit back down at the end of the couch, our knees an ince apart from eachothers, "Boss don't like anyone getting injured in his county and he will not have a part in it or tolerate anyone injuring others...not alone killing them. You won't find him in on this with Drake...I promise you that."

"OK then," he says thickly, "so we do this investagation behind Hogg's back then? I mean he is the commissioner of this county and he has the right to know what is going on here."

"Look, it hurts me to go behind his back on this, on this investigation, sir," I respond as I continue to take him in as if he was a magnet, "but I don't see any other way to do it, to bring Drake to an end...I can't let him keep going on with what he is doing and I can't arrest him by myself, because Hogg would just let him go. He may have my badge when I am done with this, but . . .but I am not having anyone else in my county hurt or killed because of his blindness. If you can think of some other way to do it, but if and when Hogg finds out, he'll have my badge and will find some way to end this investagation...it is just who he is, once he has the evidence, once he sees the Drake that I see, the Drake we see, he'll be all for the investigation and will help out in any way, but until then..."

"OK Sheriff," he sighs wearily as he runs his left index finger in the crease of his scar, "looks like I have a partner...if it gets out of hand I have the go ahead to call for a couple more agents...I will be getting two men down here before sun rise tomorrow. But until we get into something deep it will ust be the four of us...that is unless you have any deputies that may be able to help us?"

"Well Enos Strate," I sigh thinking of my naive deputy, "but he may leak it to Boss...I mean I know he don't mean to, but it just happens."

"Well, bring him aboard," he sighs wearily, "we may need as much help as we can and we can always think of something to cover up those leaks after they happen."

"Right," I nod, "Enos ain't bad, he's loyal and he'll get the job done, and he listens well too."

"Well it sounds like we got a case goin'," he grins standing up, "I want to get a chance to talk to that nephew...and his cousin perhaps. But for now, I am going to go back to my hotel room and get this all straightened out, put notes down on paper. I'll give you a call later tonight."

I nod as he walks to the door and guilt begins to eat away at my chest for doing this to Boss, my own buddy, my own brother in law, but I know there is no other way. I watch as he slowly steps out of the house and slowly walks over to an old blue Chevy truck and climbs in.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

Abruptly I am thrown awake from a realistic and all too clear nightmare of watching Bo die in front of my eyes, his funeral, and what life would be like if he were to pass on. I sigh wearily as the air around me seems to be thick and heavy as the nightmare plays itself in my head. Slowly, I sit up from leaning against the hard wall and start to work the kinks out of my neck as I look down at Bo who sleeps still in bed, the tube in his mouth makes a loud wheezing noise. I sigh tiredly at how vulnerable he looks lying on the bed all broken and bruised and I close my eyes trying to see what all that had happened to him only to be filled with anger. Slowly I open my eyes as I recall Daisy sitting on the other side of the barred in bed before I had fallen asleep now empty.

Abruptly, I jump slightly in my hard cold metal chair as the door behind me slams shut. I quickly look back to find a man an inch or so shorter than I with thinly cut sandy blond hair with thin small sideburns wearing tight dark blue jeans, a pair of scuffed athletic shoes and a tucked in gray shirt that holds a logo of some sort upon his chest. "I didn't mean to awaken you," he smiles through his strong and bold posture and I look up out the window to see the brigh sun shining in.

I look back at the intruder and take in his muscular upper arms that seem to buldge out of the gray short sleeves and on his right upper arm I see half of a dark tattoo. Welcoming himself into my cousin's room he steps forward to a foot from me at the end of Bo's bed, his hands tucked away in his tight pockets, almost looking like a kid about to get in trouble. Though, his posture don't look like anyone who is about to get into trouble without reason, a posture that shows everyone that he is sure of what he does and who he is, but not too much. I sigh wearily as I feel the anxiety within me grow as I take the man in longly before I look at my weak and pained cousin who remains asleep. Looking back at the muscular man, his right lower outter arm catches my attention where I find an at least three inch long verticle scar etched thickly into his skin. For a moment I glare at scar that seems to be a half inch wide and ghostly pale and I become mesmorized by it for a moment as I think of how he had gotten it.

"I'm awake now," I finally say looking up at the man's slightly tanned face to notice his creamy blue eyes, that are hard and cold. Chills races up and down my back as he stares at me, almost as if he is looking right through me, "What you want and who you are?"

For a long momemt that seems to go on forever he stares at Bo with his hardened evil looking eyes and I fight to hold my anger back from him. Suddenly as I look over at Bo I become to know who the man is and what he wants. Before he can say anything I jump out of my seat and I grab his tight light gray shirt tightly in my hands and he yelps out in surprise as I harshly thrash him into the brightly white walls. "You son of a -" I stop myself thinking of how I was raised, "Isn't it enough you killed my uncle? Isn't enough you about killed my cousin, my best friend?! Of course it isn't, a man like you enjoys killing people, enjoys watching them die at your hands!" Tears begin to streak my face in my rage of anger and hatred, "You aren't about to get to him...EVER! You want to finish him off, you'll be having to go through me and a whole other bunch of men that would tear you apart...If I were you, I'd hand yourself to the cops when you walk out of here...if not I will!"

Abruptly I stop as a large lump forms in my throat and the man stands in my hold glaring into me with his creamy blue eyes that sends shivers up and down my back. He looks at me lathargicly as tears escape from my eyes and his right hand begins to move for his back pocket and I thrash him against the wall again in fear of what he is getting and I can imagine a gun at my forehead within the next moment. Instead, he snaps open a black wallet in front of my face to show a bright gold badge with his ID on the other half. Slowly, I let go of him and I feel my body go weak and I become nauseated at what I had just done. "Sergeant FBI Agent Frank Mills," he says in a confident voice with little emotion in it and I slowly sit back down in my seat.

"I'm...I'm sorry," I stutter in embarrassment as I wipe at my eyes harshly, "I thought you were...were the guy that did this to him."

"I know," he smiles at me for a short instant, and in that short instant his eyes had softened to be almost gentle before quickly reverting back, "I could tell, but I am here about him, about what he did."

"He killed my uncle is what he did," I respond a little too hastily, "and thanks to the jackass, my cousin is in here almost dead, could die any second...and there ain't a damn thing the doctors can do."

"Well, I am here to try to capture that jackass as you put it," he responds as he slowly walks over to the window to glare out over the dirt road and a large pasture of assortment of colored cows, "I just need to know what all had happened."

"With who? Jesse or Bo?" I ask looking down at Bo who remains asleep through my yelling.

"Both," he responds, "let's start with Jesse...can you tell me what you know?"

I sigh as I glare down at the bright lineoleum flooring before I look up at Bo. "I don't know much about that...the town was had a picnic, the same one that we have each year when it happened. He was sick and didn't want to go along, but urged us all to go without him and we hesitantly did as he tol'...that's who Jesse was, you do as you were tol', you listen," I sigh longly as I stare at Bo, thinking of how he had been acting after he saw our uncle dead upon the living room floor, "Daisy, our other cousin, kept trying to get a hold of him while we was at the picnic and couldn't get a hold of us and tol' me or Bo to go check on him. I orded Bo to go, I had a hot date that was leaving in the morning and I didn't want to leave her. Anyway, Bo went to check on him and found him dead and covered in his own blood on the living room floor."

"Yeah, got his statement," is his reply, "is that all you can tell me?"

"No sir," I sigh silently, "I'm sorry...I didn't really pay that much attention to detail at the time, all I knew was that I shoulda went to check on him. Bo well, he never seen a dead body not alone...well you get the picture and at how he will be affected by what he saw. I mean, Bo woulda been the most affected by it if he wasn't the one to find him, Bo had this special bond with Jesse...it was beyond describing."

"You really care about that cousin of yours?" he asks as more of a statement.

"Yes sir...he's my best friend," I sigh looking at Bo taking in his darkly bruised face, "and his world crumbled upon him when he stepped in to find Jesse like that...he will never be the same after what he saw, and he hasn't been...kept himself tightly closed and locked up in that deep shell of his."

The room goes silent except for the irregular beeping of the machines, the drippings of the IVs, and of the wheezy sound coming from the tube that lies in his mouth. "What all you know 'bout what happened to your cousin?" the FBI agent drawls.

Slowly I go into my explanation of the arguement we had to all he had told me when he dropped in the yard and closing with him handing him the reciept that Bo had sketched "DRAKE" upon in messy hand writting. He looks at Bo for a long moment with a warmth look to his odd looking eyes and I notice him involuntarily tracing his scar with his left index finger. "Thank-you for cooperating with us, Mr. Duke," the sergeant says remaining looking at Bo, "we will take it from here, Sheriff Coltrane explained how y'all work," he smiles as he seems to relax, "Drake is a very dangerous criminal and we don't want anyone else to get hurt in any attempt at playing hero for your cousin. We will get him, don't worry."

"Worry is my middle name Sergeant," I respond dryly, "especially when it comes to Bo."

He smiles at me showing me more warmth that I didn't think existed in him when he had walked into the room. "I have been with the FBI for seven years now, Mr. Duke, have been assigned to twenty-three other cases before this one and not one has gone unsolved."

I look at him for a long while who bites upon his lip as he watches Bo sleep upon the hard bed. "Bo won't be able to tell you what happened with the tube in his throat and all," I slowly reply not knowing what else to respond with, "You may have a perfect career of stats there Sergeant, impressive if I say so myself, but not even that is good enough for my cousin. Or for me not to worry...but I will tell you this, I am not about to risk my life like I would in the past. You want to know why? He depends on me to be there for him and I know it would be kinda hard for me to be there for him if I were dead. He has been through that enough with Jesse, he don't need me to go wind up being dead either, sergeant. Now don't go thinkin' that I am 'bout to give into him or my fears, I could take him down easily without going down with him, but I promised Bo I wouldn't go after him and therefore I won't. I would never break my promise with Bo."

Numbly he slowly nods at me as he continues to stare at Bo and I slowly bring my attention down at Bo. "He must be something," the agent says softly, "I mean for you to talk about him like that...for you to stick up for him like that."

"Yeah...he sure is something. He is very special...and very amazing," I reply, my voice thickly etched with my worry for my cousin. Abruptly my attention is broken away from the sergeant as I feel Bo's casted arm rub against my in an attempt to search for me. Quickly I place on a smile for Bo as I take his hand and look down at him and say, "Ain't that right, champ?" Bo stares blankly at me seeming not to notice Frank and I fight back tears as I see his tears, his pain, and his fear, "Right. Look you gotta hang in there for me Ok? Can you fight this? You gotta be OK, Bo."

Before I can finish he is writing back on paper and Frank leans over to see what he is writing. Picking it up I read his messy scribbling hand writing, "I don't know, Lukas," I smile slightly at seeing my full first name, "It hurts...real bad. I don't know...I don't want to die, Lukas," my heart throbs at reading his cut off sentences of how he feels, even more so when he talks about his fear, "I'm scared, Lukas."

I sigh as I fight back tears that builds up in my eyes and I feel one break loose and begins to leak down my right cheek. Bo glares at me with his deathly filled eyes and I am surprised as he yanks his hand away from me and catches my tear and he stares at it on his finger for a long while. "I know buddy, I know. But look at me Bo," he stops looking at my tear to look at me, "you are going to be alright...I mean you hafta be, cuz...you keep fightin' it." His baby blue eyes plead with me for me to cure him, to make the pain to go away, or to give in and let him give in. "Never Bo, I will never give up on you no matter what you want...you know how you feel to me. You just want to keep hearin' me say it."

A thin smile reaches his lips behind the tube as he scribbles something down on paper though the small smile quickly disappears. Taking the notebook from him I read his handwritting again, "I try for you Lukas, for you - so you no worry for me -so Lukas has no more tears."

I fight a smile for him as I take his hand again before I say, "That's all you can do is try, that's all I'm askin' you for, to try to fight it. And I'll always worry, you know it's in my nature, but you getting outta here will help a lot," I sigh silently as I take him in as he continues to stare at me before he closes his eyes for a long moment before reopening them, "You gotta be OK...you hear me Bo, you gotta be OK."

Once again he writes and I read his writting, "OK Lukas. It hurts real bad, but I be Ok."

I fight back more teas as I notice Frank back at the window and I glance back at Bo. "I am proud of you Bo...very proud of you," I tell him and he looks at me with his pain filled and death filled eyes, "I know it hurts, I wish...I wish it woulda been me and not you -" Quickly he cuts me off as he takes the notepad away from me while shaking his head at me until he begins to make a gurgling noise from under the tube. I sigh sadly and worriedly as I watch his monitors that go flat for a long moment and I look down at Bo who's eyes are shut before his monitors slowly go back up short ways to a flat line then back up a little and so on. As he reopens his eyes I glare worriedly down at me that turns into anger as I think of how I could've lost him to it. "Don't you ever...ever do that again to me! Do you know what you just did to me? Damn it Bo! I can't loose you...I just can't."

Tears streak his deathly pale face, tears of pain and fear and my anger turns on me, causing myself to be angry at my outburst on him. Slowly I take the notebook from him to read his message, " Sorry Lukas. I didn't mean to." Two white spaces of nothing seperate to his other message, "No you don't - I don't."

"OK Bo, it's OK...I'm sorry Bo, I shouldn't have yelled at you," I find myself saying as Frank looks at us from the window, "I know you don't want me hurt...I don't want to see you hurt. . .I can't loose you Bo."

I look up at Frank to find him watching on patiently and caringly and I come to wonder what his story is. Slowly I look back down at Bo as he hands me the notebook and I read what he writes, "I try for you - it hurts real bad - I'm scared, Lukas."

"I know, buddy, I know, but I am here for Bo, I am not going to leave your side until they capture that jackass and put him where he deserves, whenever the danger and the threat clears...then maybe I'll think about leaving your side, but not until then," he smiles thinly through his pain at that, "and they are going to get caught real soon, you hear me? They'll get thier punishment real soon where they won't be able to hurt you no more. You see that man?" I ask pointing to Frank and Bo stiffly looks at where I am pointing before he looks at me and painfully nods. "He's with the FBI, Rosco called him down here to catch Drake...he'll take Drake and his friends down and away from you."

"Sergeant FBI Agent Frank Mills," Frank smiles kindly at Bo as he shows his badge to Bo and Bo's eyes brighten up like a child's at a candy story with excitment at seeing a real FBI badge. I watch as Frank patiently hands his wallet to Bo who stares at it with disbelief while he traces the gold badge with his casted arm's index finger, "I'll make Drake wish he had never entered Hazzard once I am finished with them."

Bo looks at him with trust in his eyes before he goes back to staring at the badge and I recall his dream of being a police officer when he was a child, how fascinated he was by them. The only police force he hadn't been fascinated in had been Hazzard's police force, or lack of. "See Bo," I say running my fingers through his thick blond hair, "everything will be Ok, it all will be OK. It just gotta be OK."

[Kristy_DUke]

-Bo Duke-

Abruptly I am thrown awake from another nightmare that taunts my every sleeping moment to force the large painful tube to scrape and scratch at my throat. Icy cold sweat seems to pour down my painful face and down my bare chest that is connected to the ugly wires and the ugly TV shaped monitors, to send chills racing up and down my body. Tears swell up in my eyes as the nightmare plays itself clearly through my head as the monitors beep irregularly and sounding distant even though they rest right next to me. Fighting back the flash backs that taunt me I force myself to glare into the black square monitors to watch the thin neon green line. I feel my heart tighten in great fear with tears of pain and fear that begin to streak my face as I watch both of the lines straighten before slightly moving up to go back down to a straight line, until it goes up slightly again. I feel my left hand clenching tightly onto the cold metal bars that surround the sides of the bed as more tears streak my sweat dampened face.

I allow the tears of fear and pain streak my face, one after another as my flash backs quickly come to a stop as a more startling and fearing thought quickly flashes through my head. What if I don't make it out of here? What if I die? Facing the fear that I had fought to keep away, tears seem to flood down from my eyes with nothing to stop them. Thought after thought races through my mind as I try to tell myself that it wouldn't be so bad to die, to ease the pain. I mean Jesse always said, you go off to a better place, but the more I think about it the more fear races through me. Instantly fear seems to paralyze me with the thought of dying, of leaving Luke like he left me for war, but the difference is that he had returned.

Gradually I close my eyes as a sudden realization where my true fear lies of dying, not in the act of dying, but at loosing Luke or at leaving him. Luke is strong, tough, he can be fine without, probably better and happier knowing I am not around to bug him. I feel tears slowly seep through my closed eyes as I think of how Luke would act if I were to die before the image quickly turns into Luke laughing at me, at why I am afraid of dying. I fight back more tears as I wonder if you are able to feel as lonely as I did the years Luke was gone at war after you died, if after I died if there was such a thing as being lonely. Quickly I open my eyes as the old feeling of loneliness returns and I force myself to turn away from the monitors.

My heart slowly seems to loosen in great relief as I notice Luke asleep beside me, with his head back up against the hard work. As if he could read my thoughts in his sleep, he slowly begins to stir. As I watch him momentarily, I am reminded of the past before he ran off to play hero in some war. Though as everything it is remined of the years I spent by myself when he had left, of how the bullies had treated me after he left, how empty and lonely I had felt.

Quickly I wipe my face clean of my tears of pain and fear with the palm of my left hand as I watch Luke slowly awake. Seeing me awake he abruptly sits up to stretch out any kinks that had entered his neck and back while he had fallen asleep. "Mornin' cuz," he grins thinly at me as I read the thick worry that clouds his icy blue eyes. Seeing the great worry in his eyes I decide not to correct him at how it is no longer morning. "How you feelin' cuz?" He slowly asks and I roll my eyes in more irratation as he hands me the notebook and pen.

"Fine," I lie down on paper as I feel the pain radiate down my body with each passing second and hand it over to him.

"Fine?" he questions puzzled as he looks at me, his blue eyes seem to thicken with more worry and he begins to run his hand through my hair as I look away from him.

Tears sting my eyes as I glare out the window at the darkening night sky at the pain that increases, more so at the thought of giving up the fight to death. Once again, the fear of death strikes me hard, at leaving Luke, not for Luke, but for me. I knew before Luke left that life without him in it would be miserable and now I know for sure, but to leave him, to not have him by my side seems worst now; even though it is a selfish though or a dumb one. "Bo look at me," Luke finally says and once again his voice is etched with tears, something I had never heard or seen in or on him before I had waken up in the hospital. Hearing the tears of worry, of deep worry and fear, I out of instinct do as I am told and look at him to forget to wipe the tears out of my eyes. He looks at the tears that streak my face for a long while before going on, "tell me the truth, Bo, how do you feel?"

Slowly I look at the paper that sits upon my lap before I slowly and painfully begin to write my answer upon it, "I'm scared Lukas. I don't wanna die."

Handing it to him I watch him read it slowly before he looks up at me with tears in his bright blue eyes that had so often brought me comfort in the past. "Don't talk like that Bo...everything will be fine, it hasta be," Luke goes silent for a long while as he harshly wipes at his eyes. "And if you want to hear a secret...I am scared too. Look Bo, I know I haven't been there for you like I once was before I left for war and I have treated you poorly. But I will change, I promise. You are my best friend...and you always has been. You have been there for me when no one else was, you were there for me no matter what was going on in your life or how much you were hurtin' or feelin' at the time. You have helped me in so many ways that I never let you know or even thanked you for. Thank-you Bo. I can't loose you Bo, you are my best friend...that I had taken for granted. I can't stand to loose you or to think of a life that doesn't have you in it, you are very special to me Bo, you are a very special person. You mean the world to me, and that is why I am begging you to fight this as much as you can...that is why I am scared."

I look at him for a long moment as more tears streak his face and this time he doesn't bother to wipe them away. "What do you want? Want anything from the farm?" he asks with a quivering voice, "Damn it! I feel...I am so helpless here watching you ...watching you like this and there ain't a damn thing I can do! So damn helpless."

I watch him for a long moment as he anchors himself to the chair by gripping onto the bars of my bed stopping him from doing his pacing. His words seem to echo in my head of what he said, the tears that rolls freely down his cheeks and how he is feeling. I feel something within me change, something that I can't put a finger on, perhaps confidence or pride, I don't know. Abruptly my his words go silent in my head and his tears dry up to display a new image within me, an image of Jesse. Not dead on the living room floor, but alive and smiling. Tears swell up in my eyes as my uncle's face in my mind comes fixated and I see the pride in his crystal blue eyes along with love and the wisdom he brought everywhere he went. His smile radiates the love, care, respect, and great pride that he had for us, his farm, and his dear friends. Seeing his warm and happy face clearly in my head the tears go from feared and pained tears to happy tears to see the real Jesse. Uncle Jesse seems to speak silently to me with his bright smile and his radiateing danceful crystal blue eyes.

Quickly I grab the pen and paper and write, "Uncle Jesse. Uncle Jesse would be proud of you, was. He talked about you all the time, how we had a "war hero" in our family now...to anyone who would listen."

His eyes tear up with tears as he reads what I had written him as the nurse finally walks in to change my IV bags and quietly leaves as she had entered. "No...he'd be proud of us," he says silently, "he always said how you'd always be his baby no matter what your age was since you were the youngest," he goes silent for a long moment, "and he was right...I mean that in a good way."

Once again silence lingers in the room as I fight against the pain and my tears turn back to fear and pain tears and no matter how hard I fight to keep the image in my head, Jesse abruptly disappears just as he had came. Slowly I write, "It hurts Lukas...everything, I'm scared."

"I know cuz, I know," he smiles understandably at me through his deeply worried clouded blue eyes, "I am right here for you...right here, I am not going to leave you for nothing. Daisy says I should go home and get some rest, I can't even do that. Look Bo, Drake or whoever did this to you, they aren't going to get away with it. Sergeant Mills and his men will handle them and put them where they deserve and Hazzard will go back to almost being like it was." tears overflow his eyes and I wonder if it is at the thought of loosing Jesse or the pain he sees in me, "look at me Bo," I do as I am told as I fight against more sleep, "they aren't going to hurt you anymore, I won't allow them to get close to you. I don't care what I have to do to prevent it, I'll do it. You're gonna be OK Bo, you hafta be OK, you just need to fight against it all with all you got. You got to show how stubborn you really are...how tough you really are. Can you do that for me?"

"OK for you Lukas," I messily scribble down before sleep kidnaps me and throws me back into another nightmare.

[Kristy_DUke]

Frank Mills

Silently I stare out of the old broken out window of the old shack-like building that we had switched to our headquarters to. My mind wonders deeply from thought to thought, from the case I have been assigned to, to the boy in the hospital, and back to my past. The trees stands silently still out of the old building a squarrel races up the nearest tree as the voices of my men seem to echo off the harsh rotting wooden walls.

"Hey Frank," shouts a man and I look back to find it to be the young Shawn Lewn leaning back in his metal chair before he abruptly stands up to rush at me and as he approaches at me he snaps, "this is bull! You have us all camped out in this hick town waiting for what? Looking for what? For some monster that could get us killed! Mind you, I would rather die up in Atlanta than to be found dead in this hick town!"

"Well Shawn," I slowly say as I take in the peacefullness that surrounds us, "if this is how you feel, then I suggest you to resign and take up some desk or office job."

His dark green eyes narrows in great anger at me as he fights for words only to come out with, "What the hell is that suppose to mean, Frank? You have lost it! You going loco on us?"

"No...the only one crazy here seems to be you, Shawn," I answer glaring down at the wanted poster of Drake in my right hand, "and what I mean is that if you are unwilling to put your life in danger, if you are too chicken to do the job properly, and if you are too cowardly to camp out in a small town outside of Atlanta...you should go find another job that won't acquire you to be placed in those, these predictments. Such as a desk and office job, the worst thing there for you would be perhaps some traveling."

"Chicken? Coward?!" he yells and I gasp in surprise as he grabs me by my Army t-shirt and thrashes me into the wall. Quickly I block his angered punch to grab it and wrap it tightly behind his back, applying pressure.

"This is my case Officer Lewn and when I am in charge of a case, no one questions my motives, my actions, and most of all no one will disrespect me! I don't care if you don't like camping out here in Hazzard while we plan our attack on Drake...because you better start liking what you doin' officer, or this will be one rough field trip for you! And, you will respect me, your fellow officers, and the people of this county whether you like it or not. You have one more outburst like this I'll send your sorry hide back to Atlanta and will make sure you are sited as far as I can!" I yell at him as I apply more pressure to his hand and he grunts in pain, "You hearin' me Officer Lewn? You better, because I'll be more than happy to send your sorry hide up to Atlanta so your self pity won't slow us down! You understand me?"

"Yes," he whispers.

"Yes what?" I snaps applying even more pressure, "I'm thinkin' you need some classes in being polite and in disipline...it is obvious you ain't got neither. What I hear?"

"I understand, sir," he grunts and I slowly let go before I turn around to the table we had put up in the middle of the room.

"I hope you all learn by other's mistakes," I say to the other three who only seem to smile in pleasure of what they just seen. Though I know two of the four and they both are young, but respectful and loyal who put the job first and will do about anything to get it done, "because I ain't scared to ship you back up to Atlanta for some other officers that will respect eachother and me...that goes for how you treat your fellow officers here. As of now, we are a team, we may not be that big of a team, but we will work as a team. If any of you can't work as a team, you best speak up now. We need to work as a team, plan as a team, and attack like a team to put down Drake to where he deserves. Y'all understand?"

"Does that mean we have to work with this hick police station?" Shawn speaks up with fire in his eyes, "Namely Rosco P. Coltrane and that naive deputy of his."

He laughs at his mocking of the town's sheriff and I glare angrily at me. "Not only are you going to be working with them, you will listen to what he tells you, do what he tells you to do, and you will respect them! This is your last warning Lewn, one more rude remark or anything you're on your way back to Atlanta, where I'll make sure they'll put you behind a desk and behind a phone instead of with a badge!"

He pouts into his chair and the other three stare angrily at him for continueing with his rude behavior. "We understand sir," Officer Kordell Rayfield says after glaring coldly at Lewn, "we, I am talking for Officers Braggs, Mondsen, and myself will do as told and will do what it takes to get the job done."

I smile at Rayfield who I have worked with on several cases before to know how he works, to know how polite and respectful he is despite his fearful looks. "Good," I smile before I walk back to the window as my mind goes back to wondering from thought to thought. Fear rushes through me as I think of the cases in the past that men had chased Drake, how dangerous he is. I sigh tiredly as I watch the local sheriff slowly pull up outside carrying five bags of food from the cafe. "Lunch is here."

[Kristy_DUke]

CHAPTER FOUR

Walking into the small hospital room I silently close the door behind me before turning around to find both of my cousins asleep. I sigh with pained emotions that have swarmed over me since they had rolled my cousin into the emergency room, for both of my cousins. Silently I walk to the end of Bo's stiff old hospital bed to watch Luke sleep against the hard wall in his stubbornness to not leave Bo's side before I slowly turn my attention to Bo. Anger quickly knaws at my heart as I see his wounds as I do everyday, anger toward the men who had done this to him, and to Jesse. Though like always, my anger is taken over by great fear as I think of the men who had done this to him, of what they may be planning next. Fear for what they plan, not only to Hazzard, but to Bo when they find out they didn't kill him as they most likey planned.

"I take it, your thier other cousin," says a thick male's voice to send chills of fear and startlement rushing up and down my body. Slowly I turn to the window where the bright sun shines in to find a tall muscular man with thinnly cut dark sandy blond hair with thin short side burns. I take in his built figure that is dressed in tight dark jeans, well worn white sneakers, and a untucked sports shirt. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

I watch with caustious curiosity as he steps forward and I notice the odd color of blue his eyes are to gentleness of his eyes that only seem to be as flawed as the color. "Yeah...yeah I'm thier other cousin," I answer as he approaches me and he smiles a bright smile showing his smile wrinkles at his temples.

"Sergeant FBI Agent Frank Mills," his smile slowly disappears as he lends out his right hand and as we shake hands I notice a thick long scar on his outter arm, "I am in charge of this case...well along side Sheriff Coltrane."

I nod as I recall Luke telling me something about Rosco calling in the FBI from Altanta. "Daisy," I smile looking back down at Bo, "Daisy Duke." It goes silent as my heart churns for my youngest cousin, "Sergeant, you have any leades on the men who did this to my cousin? Is he in any more danger?" He looks at me before staring at Bo and I see the hesitancy to tell me the truth, "Look sergeant, I want to hear the truth, I don't want some sideways answer just cause I'm a girl and not no male...I can take it and do about anything any boy here can do!"

He grins thinly before he suddenly goes seriously and is replased by a roughed up look that anyone would or should be afraid of. "Well Daisy, we are doing our best with what we got and with our inside help, we are avising a plan as we speak," he pauses longly as he stares at Bo, "though who knows how long it will take to get him, them...we just got here," he pauses again as he continues to look at Bo before looking up at me, "and about if your cousin is in danger...well knowing Drake as I do, there is no doubt he is still in danger, I'm surprise he hasn't tried anything as of yet. Look, Ol' Drake he's real dangerous, as dangerous as they come, and your cousin overheard a lot of info, and one thing about Drake is, he don't appreciate anyone knowing any inside info."

I feel my body begin to shake at hearing what he just informed me, even though I had fought to bare the answer. "So what do you plan to do about my cousin?" I ask fighting back the tears of fear, "You gonna post men out there for protection or something? You can't expect Luke to fend them off for him, do you?"

"Boy a lot of questions there, huh?" he asks as he looks at Bo once again, "No we don't expect him to do that...we are placing Deputy Strate there, he is coming to relieve me in a moment or two."

"You can't expect Strate to be able to deal with them if they do strike!" I exclaim thinking of the modest deputy, "He may be able to hand some ticket to someone who breaks a street law, but to be able to stop some men who come with the intent to kill? He isn't equipped in dealing with that...we just small country folk down here sergeant!"

"You give your police force too little confidence, he'll be able to do the job well, trust me, we wouldn't place him here if we didn't think that," he sighs as he holds his scar, "look he's all we got right now, I can't spare any of my FBI men, they only gave me four and I need Sheriff Coltrane to help me know Hazzard. I'm sorry."

I sigh worriedly knowing that I have no reason to doubt him as lying to me about it as I watch Bo lie on the bed as he begins to move. Slowly I move to his right side across from Luke as Bo slowly awakens from his sleep. As he opens his baby blue eyes my heart tightens in fear and grief as I read the pain and fear that radiates in his blue eyes. "Hi Bo," I fight to smile at him as he looks at me and his eyes seem to smile slightly at seeing me and my heart seems to melt within me. "How it feelin' today?"

He shrugs and I help him grab the notebook and pen and watch him painfully write something down before he hands it to me. I read what he says, "My lungs don't hurt as bad...I still hurt."

"I guess that's better than nothing," I sigh optimistically and he only shrugs as he takes in Frank for awhile with interest in his eyes, "Hey that's the man that is going to bring those -"

"We met," Frank interrupts me, "he seemed to like my badge."

"Sergeant Mills?" I look up to find Enos standing there holding his black hat to his chest, "I am here to sit gaurd for you."

"OK deputy," he smiles to me before he walks to Enos and leads him outside where I invision him putting a chair up for him to sit gaurd.

[Kristy_DUke]

Luke Duke

Tiredness and stiffness streaks down my body as I hesitantly awake to find myself once again leaning against the wall. Angrily, I cuss myself under my breath for falling asleep once again on my cousin and for falling back to sleep against the wall as I have been. Wiping my eyes of the sleep that blurs my vision I look over at Bo to find him looking at some picture that he clings tightly onto with his left hand. Slowly I look up at Bo as I sit up to find tears in his eyes that he don't even try to fight back, tears of clear sadness and more emotional pain than physical pain. I grasp as I see the shelled in look in his baby blue eyes, the shelled in look that has covered his eyes the past year since he found Jesse dead. Pain and fear streaks my body as I force myself to glance at the picture he is looking at to find it to be a picture Jesse with all of us, with Jesse in the middle with a proud and loving smile on his thick bearded face.

"Bo," I hear myself whisper at him not knowing what else to say or what to do that will help my cousin. What I know is that I can't let him to sink back into his depressed shell he was in before he was attacked, where it had distracted him from the deep shell he was in before. Slowly I reach across his bed as he don't look at me or seem to acknowledge me and I take the picture from his hand. I sigh wearily seeing the angered look he shoots me as I place the picture back into my back pocket. "No, I ain't about to loose you back to that shell of yours...that will only complicate things." He continues to glare at me with his shelled eyes before a hint of an I-don't-care attitude hits them and he fights to regain his emotions. "Dammit Bo! Can't you see that I can't loose you? This isn't just about you, you know?! Dammit!"

Angrily I snap out of my chair, no longer to keep it in, and walk over to the small window to look out over the dust covered parking lot. My mind races from thought to thought sending different emotions raging through my body with different thoughts. Tears quickly sting my eyes as once again as so often plagues my nightmares lately, is an image of life without him in it.

I gasp as suddenly I hear the the soft stiff wings of paper before there is a large thunk upon the floor a foot behind the heel of my boot. Slowly I look around to look at Bo who pleas me with his half shelled eyes before I slowly bend down to pick up the notebook that he had tossed at me. Standing back up I slowly read his messy handwriting that writes, "Please don't be mad at me, Lukas."

I take a long deep breath as I look at him as I let it out to find him glaring up at his monitors before staring at the off TV that is stationed across of his bed. "I ain't mad at you, Bo," I slowly say as I walk over to his bed and he glances at me as he wipes the tears with his left palm of his hand, "I have never been mad at you...look, I ain't very good at telling how I feel, as you have noticed in the past couple of days, but I can't afford to loose my little brother. I can't afford to loose the little brother who had given me the courage to fight my way home from war, who gave me the courage to fight for my life after seeing all that I had seen and not give in to death. I know, I haven't been around lately to show you that, or showed you that period since I got home, but things will change, Bo."

He glares at me for a long moment with disblief before he grabs the notebook out of my hand and I feel my heart pump with pride at the courage he has to even fight to make it this far. "Really?" I read as he hands me the notebook.

Quietly I nod as I am at a loss of words as I see great admiration in his baby blue eyes as he has removed his shell, the same great admiration that shone in them for me before I had left for war. "Yeah really," I find my voice to say, "I am proud of you, Bo, and so is Jesse, and I know for a fact that Jesse wouldn't allow you to give up as you were just thinkin'."

He stares at the fresh paper as that I turned for him for a while before he winces in pain as he starts to write. "Yeah, Dukes never give up," I smile reading his hand writing.

"That's right, we don't and neither will you," I answer as the door opens and I watch as his older doctor walks in and watch him silently look over his chart and then back up at the monitors.

"Well well well, I see you're a tough little guy, eh?" he asks smiling slightly at Bo and me before he goes serious, "You have gotten a lot better since my last visit. What would you think of getting that tube taken out of your mouth?"

Bo looks up at me and then back up at the doctor only giving a slight bit of excitement as he numbly nods his head. "OK, but I'll need your help," his doctor says untaping the section that is taped to his mouth, "I'll need you to blow out when I count to three, can you do that?" Bo nods, "One. . .two. . .three..." I watch as Bo does as he is told to do showing visible pain as the tube is pulled out and he harshly begins coughing like in an attack.

"Doctor -"

"It's alright Mr. Duke," he says as I express my anxiety, "it is only natural...especially seeing how his asthma has worsen."

"Worsened?" I ask, my heart almost stops and I watch the young nurse handing Bo his new inahler and I watch him breathe in a couple of puffs to settle down before looking up at his doctor.

"Yes sir...but it is better than what his other concequence coulda been Mr. Duke," he sighs and I nod in understanding, "look, he will be fine, I'll perscribe him with new medication and we'll watch it tighter than before."

"Is he going to be OK?" I ask looking down at Bo who looks at me before his eye lids fall against his will to sleep.

His doctor smiles slightly looking up at me before saying, "It looks to be so...we're giving him a couple more days here for observation and then he can go home."

I can't help but to smile in my happiness at hearing that and he nods at me before he gathers up his equipment and leaves with his nurse. Slowly I sit back down besides Bo as my mind goes back to racing from thought to thought.

[Kristy_DUke]

-Bo Duke-

Anger rises within me as I glare angrily out through the dirt spotted windshield that sits ahead of me. Glaring ahead at the bumper of the rusty dark green truck that lies a couple of feet ahead of me, I feel the rage boil within me. My older cousin's thick voice seems to echo in my head as his earlier actions react themselves clearly in my head. "Damn it Luke!" I yell aloud as I rub my right upper arm where he had grabbed me at to thrash me into tree, his harsh words that he had spoken rings clearly in my head. Anger seems to accelerate within me with each passing second as the fight we just had plays itself clearly within me with flashes of the past that seems like so long ago. The past being six years ago before Luke had boarded upon that aweful train for war when he spent every spare second he had with me, where he loved me. Where as now where he comes up with any excuse he can think of to get away from me and is clearly and highly dislikes me. "Damn you Luke!" I yell aloud once again as I fight for answers to why he dislikes me so much now that he has returned home and answers on how to fix it.

Slight relief eases into my anger and frusteration as the old farm house slowly comes into view. I watch the farm house as it slowly grows closer and closer by the second, taking in the chipped off white paint and the rotting wood of the house. I sigh thinking of how Luke and I should get down to painting it for Uncle Jesse and a new roofing job if and when we get the money for it.

Carefully I drive the car I share with my cousin into the farms dusty dirt drive way and park a foot away from my uncle's dirty old white truck. Throwing my car into park I sit silently for a moment to take in his old truck as my mind races with memorable thoughts of my uncle and I am filled with love and affection for him. Quickly a deep fear strikes me as I glare at his old truck and I quickly pull myself out of the orange Chargers and race up the old wooden porch.

"Jesse!" I yell running into the kitchen to run into the corner of a forest green chair with hope to hear his response, "Uncle Jesse!"

My heart races in anxiety and fear as I am answered with an eery silence and I quickly run into the family room. As I reach the metal desk that sits against the yellowish wall that seperates the two hall ways, I can't help but to scream out in fear as I find him lying face down in front of the back door. I stand silently still for a long moment as my heart pounds tightly within me as I spot the thick blood soaked into the back of his thick denim overalls. "Uncle Jesse!" I scream out as I race to him where I drop to my knees besides him to gently roll him over to find him gripping tightly onto the shot gun with his right hand. "No!" I scream aloud in disbelief as I spot a thick bullet wound in his chest forcing his overalls to be soaked in his thick red blood. "No...no...no. Uncle Jesse." I bet as tears quickly begin to roll down my cold cheeks as I stare down at my uncle who glares wild eyed up at me. Chills race quickly up and down my body as I look into his blue eyes and I slowly notice them to be a darker shade of blue than I have ever seen them to be before. "No...please Uncle Jesse!" I yell out as I grip onto his icy cold hand to notice the pool of blood on the floor.

"Uncle Jesse," I finally say as I fight for air while I notice a tear roll off my chin and onto his overalls, "Please...no...no. I love you Uncle Jesse!"

"I love you Uncle Jesse!" I yell in a husky choked voice as I awaken from the pain rippling down my throat from where the tube once was.

"Shhhh," I hear the soft caring voice say as I feel a hand running through my thick hair. Slowly I glance over to find Luke sitting besides me holding my left and uncasted arm.

"Luke?" I question for a second as my nightmare runs quickly through my head clearly, the voices echoing through my head, "He was there...on-"

"I know buddy, I know," he says fighting back his own tears that build up in his sky blue eyes, something I seldom ever seen, "It'll be OK...it all will be Ok Bo."

"Not without him," I finally respond as I glare up at the monitors before looking back at Luke, "not without Uncle Jesse."

"I know how you feel, Bo," Luke finally says and I notice his eyes cloud up more so before he wipes at his eyes, "I know it is hard, but we all need to move on in our lives, we all do, that is what Uncle Jesse would want...what he would demand of us to do. You know that."

Slowly I nod as I feel the pain soar within my beaten up body as I once again think of the image I had the other day of Jesse that showed up so clear, as clear as if he were sitting in the room with me. Regrettfully I force myself to think of the Jesse I saw on the living room floor with his pool of blood, his dark blue eyes. Thinking of the odd dark blue eyes that stared up at me that was filled with more evil than fear, more surprise than fear that stared up at me and an strong realization hits me. "He ain't dead," I finally whisper.

"What?" Luke questions in surprise, "Look Bo you found him and you were there at his funeral! I am as upset by his death as you are Bo, but we have to accept what is."

"You don't understand...you didn't see his eyes, the funeral people closed them when they arrived," I finally brave to say, "they weren't Uncle Jesse's! I didn't say anything before, because I tried to block his image. When I saw him there, when I turned him over, I noticed they were different shade of blue, they were dark dark blue! You know how his eyes were like! But now that I think of it, as I had forced myself to see him again, they weren't filled with fear, but filled with great evil and surprise, but not fear!"

He stares at me silently for a long moment as I think of the clear image I had of Uncle Jesse, wondering what all this means. "Maybe they just seemed different," Luke says slowly gripping my hand, "I have seen a lot of good men die over at war, Bo, and seeing them dead, I have seen a lot of different expressions in thier face, in thier eyes. It is just how people are when they are faced with life and death, they go through different expressions, making them look different. That and you're own wishful thinking...not that I don't wish that, but -"

"Look, you don't have to believe me, but he is out there somewhere!" I yell as I allow my tears to trail down my cheeks, "I know feelings don't count, but I have a strong feeling that this ...that this is just some mistake or something. I don't know, but I know he ain't dead! Please Luke," I plea with him, "please believe me...I saw him, I can feel him, and have a strong feeling that he isn't dead!"

"Well if he ain't dead, then where is he Bo?" Luke asks impatiently glaring concernly down at me.

"I don't know...but I ain't crazy either," I defend myself as I fight for answers, "all I know we all were mistaken taking him as being Uncle Jesse, that's all I know. I will go out and find the answers by myself if I have to!"

"You will not! You aren't leaving here til they permit you to do so and you will not go out there and try to be a detective to prove what you are saying!" he yells at me, "Sorry. Look, I don't know what you feel, it could be just you wanting to believe he ain't dead, but you are right I didn't see his eyes. He looked pretty much like Uncle Jesse at the morgue to me. . .I don't know what you are talking about, Bo. But I will bring them down for you and for Uncle Jesse."

"With me?" I question and he smiles patiently down at me before he nods, "Thank-you Luke."

"You rest now, you need your rest...and perhaps Daisy will be here when you awake," he smiles sadly down at me, "but I suggest you not to mention your crazy idea to her, she's upset enough about you as it is, and would kill me if she heard that I agreed to go after those guys to search for your crazy idea!"

"Yes sir," I smile at him as I feel the tiredness creep back into me that I fight to fight off in fear of having the nightmare again, "but what if I have that dream again...the one I've been havin' since...well you know."

"Well first of all, it is just a dream, second of all it is all over and done with, and third of all, I am and will be here for you as I will be from this day on out," he smiles caringly at me, "Now you rest before they charge me with disturbing your rest!"

I laugh tiredly as I hug him tightly before I let go to lie down upon my soft pillow and sleep quickly takes me in.

[Kristy_DUke]

~Frank Mills~

Anger and resentment quickly resides within me toward Drake as I listen to the young blond hair Duke boy tiredly and weakly slowly finishes his story. A story he had started with the day over a year ago when he had found Jesse dead in thier living room to him dropping upon the Duke farm's front lawn after being shot and beatten up so badly the other day. The other day? I have been in Hazzard only a couple days now and yet it seems as if I have been here close to an enternity searching for a mad man that has seemed to drop off the edge of the earth. He has to be in Hazzard only because the sheriff told me the other day that the commissioner is still doing some sort of business with him, but what? And where?

I sigh wearily as I watch my left hand numbly and subconciously trace the length of my wide scar that is tightly etched upon my right outer lower arm. Gradually I force myself to look up at the young Duke boy that lies tiredly, but awake, in the old style hospital bed as he looks up at his older cousin, Luke, for some sort of approval. Chills race up and down my back as Bo glares over at me for a short moment to see his baby blue eyes haughted with a terrified look of fear mixed with great pain. Guilt quickly settles in with my anger toward the men responcible, guilt for me asking him the questions I needed to ask to hear his story, to force him to think about it once again and to talk about it.

"I'm...I'm sorry," I stutter as I slowly stand up to shove my small notebook into my back pocket and both boys look up at me and I notice the protectiveness and concern in Luke's eyes for his cousin.

"Don't worry 'bout it Sergeant," Luke says patting Bo on the shoulder who glares back at him, "if talkin' what you need him to do to catch those...those jackasses, he'll talk. I'll make sure of it...he'll be fine, he's a Duke and Dukes' are strong."

I smile thinly at him as the door is swung open to catch all our attention to see a male nurse walking in pushing a silver car, half of his mouth remains covered by a mask but his haunting dark brown eyes sends shivers of fear through me. "It isn't time for any more medication," Luke speaks up confidently, "Or for his IV bags to get refilled, nurse, his normal on-call nurse did all of it for him little less than an hour ago."

I watch as the nurse quickly glares at Luke who refuses to budge to the evillness that lurks in his dark brown eyes. "I know what I'm doin' Mr. Duke," he says in a thick southern accent, "now let me get this done, what I need to do, as his doctor tol' me to do, so I can get out of y'all's way."

The room goes silent except for the loud annoying beeps from his monitors as the nurse moves directly in front of me and I quickly move out of his way. Panic of an unknown source creeps in as he yanks at Bo's left arm to wash it with a wet cloth and Bo watches him in fear as he does so. "It's him," Bo slowly says fighting to regain his arm back from the nurse.

"Who's him, Bo?" Luke asks shooting accusatory glares at the nurse who pulls harder on Bo's unharmed arm making Bo yell out in pain, "Watch what you doin'!"

"The other guy with...Drake," Bo gasps painfully, his chest heaving painfully in and out with fear, "That was beatin' that other guy...it's him!"

"That's crazy," the nurse says and I watch his hand tighten around Bo's arm as he grips a full needle and thoughts race through me of what he is saying.

"Hand it over, mister," I demand as I display my badge to him and I yell out in pain as he elbows me in the stomach before I quickly pull forcefully on his gurney to jerk him in to the wall. I jump as his needle lands unbrokenly upon my chair where I was sitting before and I quickly yank the mask off his face. "Jay Braden," I softly say and he grins crazily at me before spitting in my face and I quickly shove him in to the wall as I pull out my hand cuffs, "you are under arrest Jay...again, why does this surpise me! I guess you get to visit your jail bird friends once again behind bars."

"I missed you Frank," he grins, "where you been hidin'?"

"Somewhere where it don't require me doin' somethin' illegal like you always are in," I answer before I read him his rights and call in an officer who takes him away. Slowly I turn around to face the two Duke cousins to explain, "that is one of Drake's main partners in crime, you hardly see one without the other which means Jay won't say nothin' as always. But we can always try." Luke nod sullenly as I pick up the needle with a kleenux as Bo's doctor walks in and I hand it to him by the kleenux, "Please run a test to see what this is and tell me as soon as possible what it is."

"Yes sir," he says softly before disappearing again.

Slowly I glare around at Bo and Luke who look at me questionably before back at one another. "I am going to let your deputy know what to look for, to not to trust every nurse or doctor that looks to be one," I sigh thinking how to do this, "it will be hard, but he should just have a certain few doctors and nurses and to only let them in...and of course family. . . I ain't gonna lie, it is mostly something that coulda and woulda killed him. Drake don't want him by alive now that Bo knows or heard his plans and will try anything to force him to be quiet...it is too late for that. But we will do our best -"

"It better be more than your best, sergeant!" Luke snaps hastily, "We already lost our uncle to this man and I ain't about to loose my cousin to him either! Your best may not do it and I won't allow him to get hurt worse than he already has, I'll go after him if that is what is needed! You understand?"

"Yes sir. But I highly despise you from going after him yourselves, you know what they are capable of doing," I warn them.

"I know, but as I said, I ain't about to lay low and watch them or allow them to kill my cousin without a fight from me! He means the world to me and I ain't about to loose him!" Luke yells angirly as he rubs his face for a moment to regain himself, "I'm sorry sergeant, you just have to understand that Bo and Daisy is all I got and I ain't about to loose either of them to them! Bo is more than a cousin to me, he's my brother, my best friend, and I ain't gonna loose him...I refuse to!"

"Yes sir, I understand," I sigh numbly, "we'll stop them Luke, Bo, we will and we will put an end to this...to them."

He nods sadly as he gives in to his emotions. "I know...the best is what y'all can give and I respect that," he sighs looking down at Bo who has fallen back asleep, "I just don't want to loose him."

"I know Luke, I know," I smile thinly at him, "I know how you feel whether you want to believe that or not, I do. I will catch Drake if it is the last thing I do and I can promise you that...your cousin has guts, you both do. I'll catch back with you tonight to get the answer to the test and to relay any news if any. It'll be ok, Luke...I'll fight to make sure of that."

"Thanks," he smiles weakily at me as he sits back down besides Bo and runs his hand through Bo's blond hair above the bandage and I slowly walk to the door. "And Frank."

Slowly I stop at the door before opening the door to turn to him and ask, "Yeah?"

"I believe you," he answers and I nod before I exit the hospital room.

[Kristy_DUke]

~Luke Duke~

Tiredly I glare out through the old hospital window as a few old vehicles pass by every so often upon the sun sprewed muddy dirt road that lies a few feet below. Behind me, I listen to the weak monitors beeping more strongly and more rhythmaticly than before. I sigh thankfully at seeing him slowly recover over the past day or so since they had taken the tube out of his mouth. Silently, I say a soft prayer for my cousin to be able to walk out of here safely and healthy, as his doctor's husky voice echos within me of him telling us how his asthma has worsened. Worsened? How could it get any worse than what it had been? It has been steadily getting worse since Jesse's death, with each nightmare that awakens him, with each episode he faces. How can it get worse?

Sadness and worry quickly creeps into me at the thought of his asthma worsening worse than what it already was before he ran off that horrid night. Thoughts of the past year and a few months race through my head, of how I have been treating him, to the shell he has or had hidden himself in, to the several asthma attacks he had. And now it is worse? Now he has the men that killed Jesse after him? Why? Because I had to yell at him, to make him upset, saying what I had to make him upset. If I had kept my mouth shut I wouldn't be here staring through my reflection in the window over the empty field that lies across the street. "Damn it," I finally say in a harsh whisper in my own guilt that weaves in and out of frusteration and anger.

Wearily I sigh as I hear my cousin's wheezing as he sleeps upon the old hospital bed between his moans and groans that signals another nightmare, most likely of Jesse. If only I had gone to check on Jesse that day, it would have cut down the pain and frusteration that the past year have evolved in. Tears build up in my eyes as I think of what he must have seen, what he must of felt like that day to how he feels now. If only I hadn't been so self centered as I had been, I would have gone and I would have seen and felt the way he had that day. I've seen death, looked death in the eye, all those years at war, I would have been pained at see my uncle like all them soldiers I had seen on the war field, but at least I've known it, known how to act to it. Bo doesn't and most likely never will.

Abruptly I am thrown out of my thoughts as Bo quickly starts yelling out in fear, in his pain before his yelling quickly turns into harsh chronic coughing in another attack. "Damn," I say silently as his eyes quickly open to display the fear and pain in them, more emotional pain than physical. "Bo?" I ask stepping forward to his bed as I see him clenching tightly onto his inhaler but not moving it to help ease his pain and through his pained baby blue eyes I see the shell that he had wrapped himself in the past year or so in slowly returning in them. "No Bo...no. Use your inhaler, you know what to do."

Angrily he glares up at me as he fights for air and through coughs he gathers enough strength to yell, "Damn you Luke!" Confusion and worry run through my body as he harshly throws his inhaler and I watch it hit the wall near the window.

Glaring sternly at him I fight for my patience as I quickly walk over and pick up his inhaler and as I walk back to him I see the hurt in his eyes as the shell slowly continues to work it's way through to him. Patiently I move to help spray it in his mouth only for him to hit my arm away as he fights back my help I offer. "C'mon Bo!" I yell at him as I fight for answers of what next to do, "This will help you and you need it to help you."

"How you...know...what...I," he fights to say before coughing chronicly, "need, Luke?!"

Quickly I take a deep breath before I attempt to shove it into his mouth once again only for him to hit my arm with his cast and I have to reach down and pick it back up. "Bo," I finally say as his doctor walks in and looks at me to him, "he won't use it on his own and he refuses for me to help him use it," I explain to him and he glares angrily at Bo.

"You want me to put that tube back in your throat?" he asks sternly and as Bo glares up at him, I am certian that his shell is back to stay this time.

"I . . .don't...care," Bo says though his voice says differently and I look up at his doctor who shrugs.

"If he won't use the inhaler we will have to admit the tube back in which means the longer his stay will be," he says defiantly, "I will hold his arms down and you trigger it. OK Luke?"

I nod as I watch him lean over Bo who fight to fight back his grab the doctor has on his arms only for his arms to be slammed back down upon the bed. I sigh tiredly, wishing there was some way to get to my cousin, to get him to care about life once again as he had before Jesse had died. Looking at his doctor I quickly reach over and force the inhaler into his mouth as he coughs wheezily and forcefully and spray a few sprays into his mouth before it starts to settle back down.

"OK," his doctor sighs before letting go to look sternly at Bo, "Next time I will handcuff you to the bars if that is what is needed for Luke to help you with your attacks. I don't think you really want that, now do you? Idon't want that and neither does Luke."

"He don't care," Bo says and I quickly look down at him hin surprise, "he never has."

"That ain't true and you know it, Bo. I do care and I have always have cared," I respond to him as his doctor nods sadly at me before exitting the room, "I don't know where you are getting that from...we have talked and I have told you I have changed. If I didn't care about you or what happened to you, I wouldn't have spent every second in this room with you for the past week. I told you I wouldn't leave you and I won't! Look, I'll be the first to admit that I treated you poorly and I am sorry, things have changed and will change. You are my best friend, Bo. Please don't do this."

"Do what?" he asks softly.

"This...don't do this, you know what I am talking about," I sigh as I take a deep breath, "Look you have came a long way this past week, more than you have the whole year and a half. You have gone too far to return to that shell again. We all care about you, we all are here for you, we all will be glad to listen, and we all will do anything to help you...you know that."

"Not everyone and you know that," he shoots back at me, "Jesse ain't -"

"Jesse wouldn't want to see you walkin' around in this shell of yours either and once again, you know that. He wants you to be happy, he always did," I say soflty as I slowly remember the past to when we all were growing up with Jesse, "we all miss him Bo, we all do, but death is a part of life, hard yes, but we have to move on...we all do. Jesse wants us to so are you going to not to listen to Jesse or do what he would wish?"

He glares up at me with teared blue eyes and for a moment I see his struggle against the shell he had wrapped himself in only to loose. Slowly he shrugs before he looks away from me to say, "I wanna go home."

Silence quickly interrupts our conversation as his last sentence eats at my soul, echoing through my head with his tear filled words. Slowly I sit down and I run my hand through his thick blond hair and glare at the large burise that lies under his bangs with a thick and ugly stitched up cut. "I know buddy, I know," I finally answer fighting back to hide my tears, "it won't be long, I promise, they just makin' sure you are well enough now. OK? It won't be long before you will be able to sleep in your own bed and eat at our table and -"

"I ain't hungry," he says stubbornly and I recall the struggle it had been to get him to eat anything in the past year, "I wanna go home...and find who did this to Jesse."

"And to you? You forget that part? Or the part with that man dressed as a nurse walkin' in here with that needle?" I ask thinking of the drugs they had found in the needle, "Look Bo, I want those men put away as badly as you do, but you goin' out there and lookin' your self isn't the smartest idea either! They are after you...after you to shut you up, I am not going to loose you Bo...not after this or Jesse!"

He glares angrily at me before the tears quickly run down his cheeks and the fear seeps through his shell. "I'm scared, Lukas, and it all hurts, bad," he finally says as he allows his salty tears to roll down his pale cheeks.

"I know...so am I buddy," I smile wearily at him as I wipe his cheek of his tears, "but look, I will make sure they won't hurt you again, I promise. You understand?"

Slowly he nods tiredly up at me before he wipes his face again of his tears. "Thank-you Lukas," he finally says fighting the shell that remains, "for being here and all."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, cuz," I smile reassuringly down at him, "now get some rest, I'll be right here."

"OK," he smiles wearily at me before he caves into his sleep and I am taken over by his fear, his anxiety with hope that he will be ok, and be able to live a normal like like he had before he walked in to find Jesse dead.