Title: Five Minutes to Late.
Author: Numb3rsfan
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, Angst, H/C
Author's Notes: I know that some of the songs used in this story are in the wrong timeframe. (e.g. they were written/recorded/preformed after the Dukes was cancelled), but I decided to add them anyway. Also, this is a Dukes/Numb3rs crossover…of sorts. Wrong time frames I know, but still I thought it'd be cool to do this.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Dukes of Hazzard or Numb3rs. This fic was made for the entertainment of the reader.
Summary: 6 months. 2 cousins. 1 argument that convinces 1 cousin to leave.
Chapter One.
"A Woman's Touch. The right woman's touch. This ol' broken heart, was slowly crumblin' in to dust, till he gave it a woman's touch." Bo muttered as he studied the music sheet right in front of him.
On his guitar, he ghost fingered his way through the break, counted down the rests and then came back when the music picked up again.
To him, this was the life. Having a recording contract and actually being paid to play somewhere, heck anywhere around the world, but something was missing, and he knew what it was.
It was his family, and their love, appreciation and support.
Sighing, Bo looked away from the music and towards the door of the recording studio.
In his mind he hoped that his cousin, Luke, would come waltzing through that door to congratulate him on a job well done at last week's performance in Atlanta, but deep down he knew that Luke wouldn't come.
Ever since that day in Hazzard six months ago, Bo had never heard from or spoken to his cousin again. He didn't know how Luke was doing, what he was doing, or anything.
In his heart, Bo knew that he missed his cousin, and the argument between them was still tearing him up inside.
'Was I so wrong in what I said to him? Should I have jus' kept my mouth shut?' Bo wondered.
He supposed maybe he should have kept his mouth shut. Maybe then he and Luke would be back in Hazzard together, fooling around in the General Lee and outrunning Rosco on the streets and roads of Hazzard, instead of Bo being there in California, and Luke being somewhere else around the world.
When he had been in Atlanta last week, he saw his Uncle Jesse, and he had learned from him that five minutes after Bo had taken off, Luke had gone off to try and track him down, and that was the last time Jesse had ever seen either nephew again.
By all means Bo was worried about his cousin, but he had a job now, and people, not to mention fans were counting on him to continue his debut tour.
According to the list, his next stop would be Bakersfield California, before moving on to a place in Ohio, and then some small out of the way town in Oklahoma.
He wouldn't be back in California, or Georgia for that matter for several months.
'Several months huh? Several months of being in the dark in regard to Luke. I hope he's ok. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to em'.' Bo thought to himself.
Suddenly a tap on the recording room door pulled Bo out of his musings as his manager stuck his head through the door.
"Bo, you ready to try it now?" Shawn Thatcher asked his newest charge that he had acquired.
Rising from the floor where he had been seated with his guitar and the sheet music, Bo smoothed down his rumpled shirt before leaning over and grabbing the sheet music and plopping it down on the stand.
"Sure, let's do it." Bo replied as he set his guitar aside and grabbed a pair of headphones and put them on.
Stepping up to the microphone, Bo heard the relays click in his headset before the piano music started.
As he listened to the introduction, the way it was written reminded him of Luke. And as it continued to play, he was drawn back to the last moments he had with Luke. The yelling, shoving and the fist that had been thrown by him, aimed directly at his cousin's face.
Pulling himself out of his musings, Bo mentally got ready, and when the introduction finished, Bo started to sing.
"I boarded up the windows of this ol' heart. A long time ago. It was fallin' to pieces, like a rundown house. Love had gone and left so little hope. But, somehow you saw what no one else could see. When you held me close and said 'All it really need's…
"Is a Woman's Touch. The right woman's touch. This ol' broken heart was slowly crumblin' in to dust till he gave it a Woman's Touch'."
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Luke sat at his desk which was inside the F.B.I. offices located near L.A.
In all his life avoiding the law back in Hazzard, he never thought he would actually become a federal agent trying to uphold the law!
If someone back in Hazzard had told him that he would he here now, working under the 'command' of Don Eppes, Luke would have laughed his head off and called that person a liar.
But, not now though. Not after it actually happened.
Glancing in to the bullpen, Luke saw Don and his little brother Charlie exchanging words, trying to come up with an answer to the latest case they were working on.
It was a string of break-in's and robberies. Nothing really major, until they started hitting bigger targets and taking lives. Only then had the F.B.I. been called in.
After the last attack, Luke had managed to take one of the perps down, but not before receiving a graze from the perps gun.
When Don had seen that, he had quickly rushed over to Luke's aid.
Luke remembered the look on the perps face when Don had put his pistol to their head and ordered them not to move. It truly had been a sight to behold.
Looking back down at the papers strewn all over his desk, Luke thought back to the time six months ago when he had chased after his cousin.
He had nearly caught up with him too, but just as Luke had come running up to the bus depot, the bus had pulled out of the station, taking Bo with it.
Luke had tried to follow the bus but after three states and who knows how many miles, he had lost it.
He was left to walk along the road for what seemed like forever until he had heard the sound of someone honking behind him.
When he had turned to look, Luke saw a dark black, tinted Chevy SUV pull over to the side of the road and a young man with slightly short, spiky hair get out.
Upon further inspection of the man, Luke saw the dark blue shirt and the very small FBI logo on his shirt.
"Hey, you look like you could use some help." The man had said to Luke.
Luke had nodded and approached the man cautiously. The man had moved slowly, getting Luke in the shade, which just happened to be the cool interior of the SUV.
It was then that the man introduced himself as Don Eppes, and when asked if he was an FBI agent, Don had nodded his head, and that was it.
Luke had been about to leave the SUV and continue on his way when Don's cell phone rang, alerting him to a problem back at home.
Don had acknowledged the request and closed the phone before turning to Luke.
Luke guessed that he was wondering if he should leave Luke behind, but Don's sense of duty prevailed.
"Listen," Don said as he slammed the backdoor of the SUV closed before he opened the driver's side door and jumped in before slamming that closed.
"I've got an emergency back home which I gotta tend to, but I am not going to leave you behind. You've already taken in to much sun as it is, so after I take care of the situation at home, I'll take you to the hospital, or have one of my agents do it."
All Luke did was nod his head as Don had taken off full speed.
Don had handled the SUV like a pro, but Luke knew that he and especially Bo were the better drivers by far.
Within minutes buildings were whizzing by, and soon after houses were whizzing by the tinted windows.
As Don rounded a corner Luke looked out the windows and caught sight of a California license plate on a car.
At first Luke had been surprised, but he quickly got over that as Don ordered him to stay put as he screeched to a stop outside a beautiful house.
The front lawn was well taken care of, and there were deck chairs out front, but what Luke noticed more were the two other tinted FBI SUV's and the three other agents hiding around their SUV's with guns drawn.
"LET EM' GO!" Don had shouted at someone who was apparently in the house.
Looking to the house, Luke saw the door open and a masked man came out holding a younger man with brown, curly hair in a tight headlock.
"THE SECOND I GET A CAR WITH A FULL TANK OF GAS, YOU CAN HAVE THE PROFESSOR BACK!" The masked man had replied as he had backed back in the house and slammed the door.
Luke ignored Don's order and crept out of the SUV. He circled around the vehicle and approached Don from behind.
"How can I help?" Luke asked quietly once he was close enough.
From his time in the Marines, Luke had learned from hard and painful experience to fight back when one of his team had been taken, and right then he had felt that same burning anger he was sure Don was feeling.
"Sir, I asked you to stay in the SUV!" Don shot back, giving Luke a look.
A black man who was to Don's right, a gun also in his hands, also took a look at Luke.
"Don, who's that?" The black man had asked.
"He's just a hitchhiker I picked up a little ways out of town. He was close to suffering heat exhaustion so I knew I had to pick em' up." Don replied curtly to David.
Looking around the yard, Luke took in possible hiding places that he could use to his advantage in helping to take out that creep when he showed his face again.
"Listen. I've been in the Marines, so's I've been in situations like this. Let me help." Luke pleaded with Don.
Don had taken another look at Luke and was about to tell him no a second time when movement inside the house demanded his attention.
"Mister, this isn't your concern, it's the FBI's, so stay out of it." Don ordered Luke as he readied his gun.
Sighing, Luke knew that Don wasn't going to let him help of his own accord, so he might as well do things the hard way.
Using all of the tactics he learned in the Marines, Luke left the safety of the SUV and snuck towards the first of many hiding places.
"Hey! Get back here!" Don had ordered when Luke had taken off, but Luke didn't listen.
He snuck from hiding place to hiding place till he got up beside of the house. Then using the drainpipe as a ladder, Luke climbed up till he was on the roof before sneaking over to the edge.
No sooner had he done that before gunshots echoed inside the house, seconds before the front door was wrenched open, and the curly haired professor ran outside, followed closely by the masked man.
Luke only waited until the professor was clear before he jumped off the roof, judging it so he landed on the masked man, quickly tackling him to the ground.
After that Don and his team had swarmed over and taken the man into custody.
When the scene had been cleaned up, Don had approached Luke, and after chewing him out a little, he praised Luke for helping take down the perp.
Luke had smiled and accepted the chewing out and praise with reservation.
As Don had started to walk away, it was then that Luke made his choice.
Swallowing, Luke had gone after Don and asked him point blank what it took to become an FBI agent.
Don had been a little surprised at the question, but he had told Luke everything he needed to know, before he even offered to put in a good word for Luke if he applied.
Luke had readily accepted that offer and weeks later Luke had found himself in the FBI training center.
Months of training had in sued before Luke graduated from the academy and found himself assigned to Don's team, per Don's request.
Now Luke was best friends with everyone on the team. Don, David, Megan, Colby and of course Don's mathematical genius of a brother, professor Charles Edward Eppes, or as everyone called him, 'Charlie.'
Sighing, Luke glanced down at the open folder and took out another piece of paper and compared it with the list of known perps the FBI had on file.
It was then that Luke noticed something significant.
Rising, Luke took both sheets of paper and headed over to the bullpen to tell his boss, who was still arguing with his brother of the possible location of the next robbery.
"Are you sure you want to go in there?" Megan asked as Luke passed her.
Luke stopped and looked over at her for a second.
"I've got somethin' that Don has to see. The people he's been chasin' aren't the people we're lookin' for." Luke said.
"What do you mean?" Megan asked as she rose from her desk and went over to Luke, looking down at the evidence in his hands.
"Witnesses say that the robbers carry one semi-automatic, two pistols and two grenades, right?" Luke asked.
From her place beside Luke, Megan nodded her head as she studied the sheets of paper, not sure what Luke was getting at.
"Right. That's what those reports state." She replied, looking back up at Luke.
"But," Luke said as he brought up a picture taken from a video camera from the latest robbery.
"Those guns aren't semi-automatics. Their cult commando's, plus you can clearly see that they don't carry any extra fire power." Luke said.
Because of the poor resolution of the picture, it was hard to see, but then Megan saw that Luke was right. How Don had missed this she didn't know, but it was obvious that he had.
Nodding her head, she followed Luke in to the bullpen, where Don and Charlie were still arguing.
"For the last time Don! These latest robberies don't add up to the original ones! They couldn't have been done by the same hand! It's a statistical fact!" Charlie said.
"He's right Don. We have proof that suggests that Charlie's right." Luke said, coming over to the two arguing Eppes brothers.
"What are you talking about, Luke?" Don asked.
Quickly Luke handed the picture and the reports over to Don and explained what he had found out.
Upon hearing this, Don had cursed, but Charlie had said that once he knew which robberies were not committed by the robbers they were looking for, he could factor out that bad data and make a new equation for Don.
Sighing, Don had nodded his head and said, "Alright Charlie."
"I'll uh, I'll get right on it." Megan said to the both of them before she exited the bullpen and headed back to her desk to begin the work.
Meanwhile, Don had forced himself to calm down.
"Thanks Luke." He said curtly before he exited the bullpen and headed back to his desk to begin looking over the information again, to see if he could find the right trail.
Luke and Charlie watched Don leave, and knew that he was taking this case way to hard, but it was hard not to, because the last place that had been hit had been another FBI office, and a couple of Don's friends had been injured.
Turning, Luke watched as Charlie began to look over the data and start to formulate a new equation. As the youngest Eppes worked, Luke was reminded of his cousin and made up his mind to continue his search for Bo once this case was over.
Little did he know that he might see his cousin a lot sooner than he expected.
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A/N: The weapon known as the Colt Commando may not be a real weapon. The name of the weapon came from the game Max Payne.