A/N: Insomnia again... might as well be writing! I realize that the story is against canon, but please forgive me. After all, this is just a bit of angsty fiction.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
And then there were none. They were all gone, no more, finished, ended.
First there were four. Uncle, three cousins. Good life, good times. Happy memories that would last in their own minds until their last breath. Adventures, car chases, saving each others necks more times than could be counted. A life worth living. They lived hard and they lived well.
And one by one, they died well.
Uncle Jesse was the first to go. An old man, by the time he died. Far too old to have been still working on that farm, but that farm was his life and by God it would be his death. He was too proud to die on his back. He had a heart attack while out in the fields, died in the arms of his beloved niece and nephews. Died with a smile on his face. Left behind two strong young men and a beautiful girl.
And then there were three. Luke took charge, became the patriarch. No one could fill those shoes completely, but he did his best and came darn close. Grieve, mourn, move on. Keep living, keep going, cycle of life. Can't die until you're done living, and it wasn't their time yet.
Bo was next to go. A surprise to everyone. He had so much life in him. How could it be gone? He was unstoppable. Undefeatable. Indestructible. Everyone had always expected the younger cousin to die in a car accident, the way he drove. But that was foolishness. Bo had mastered cars at the age of thirteen. No car would ever defeat him. It could have been avoided though. He could have chosen not to step in front of the bullet. He could have let the little girl die instead. No, that was foolishness as well. He was a Duke. He could have chosen no such thing.
And then there were two. Luke and Daisy weren't even with Bo when he died. The bank robbers had stolen his life in Capitol City, while the two other Dukes were in Hazzard. Bo had only gone to try and get a loan so they could fix up the farm. After the loss of his beloved cousin, Luke took a long time to recover. Daisy couldn't bear the farm without the light that was Bo, and so she left Hazzard, escaping to Tennessee. She settled down with a farmer there, and led a good life.
Luke never sold the General Lee, but he never drove him again, either. Without Bo beside him, either at the wheel or as a passenger, there was nothing there. Bo was half the life of the General, and so a piece of their car died with him. The General spent the remaining years under a tarp behind the barn.
Boss and Rosco both met their ends as well. Boss died first, a tiny wad of junk blocking the blood flow to his brain. He had a stroke and died suddenly. Rosco lingered for a while, morose and sad without his little fat buddy. He wouldn't have long to wait before he followed though. Less than a year later, his car would be forced off a cliff while in hot pursuit of a pair of bank robbers.
Daisy was too young to die. She still had a lot of love and light to give to the world when she was taken away. It was a tragedy, but there was no cure for the virus that invaded her lungs, forcing her to wither away and eventually fade out altogether. Her husband brought her body back to be buried in Hazzard with her family, before his own life was taken in an accident with a falling piece of machinery at the farm.
And then there was one. Luke lived alone in the old farmhouse. He had married a wonderful girl, but they had never been able to have any children due to the cancer that developed in her ovaries and pained her for her entire life before eventually claiming it for good. Enos developed a multitude of health problems that killed him slowly, taking his mind along with it. He died in a hospice, not recognizing anyone he had ever known.
Luke had very little left to live for. His friends were all but gone completely, and he had no family. There was no one left to carry on the family name, or the farm. He was a fighter, of course, and kept it up as best as he could, but by himself he was unable to keep the old house from falling into disrepair. At night he would take long walks through the cemetery, staying up until wee hours of the morning by the headstones of his uncle, his cousins, and his friends. He was all that was left.
He would go on to die in his sleep. The doctors said it was a heart attack, but in truth, Luke had died the day his baby cousin was shot down in cold blood. Of all the friends he had known, only Cooter was left to keep the county from tearing down the farmhouse. He died a year later from an infection that spread to his liver and kidneys. The farmhouse, with no one left to defend it, was leveled to the ground, and all the Duke's old possessions sold off at auction or destroyed.
The General Lee, however, was left untouched, having been rescued by Cooter following Luke's death. The mechanic had never had any family of his own, however, and following his death the faithful car would go on to sit in the hands of a used car dealer for years upon years, as no one wanted such a flashy car to drive around in. And so the car sat, ignored and forgotten until the heart and soul of the General Lee was all but gone forever.
And then there were none. There were no more Dukes left in Hazzard. Nothing of them survived but the name. The good people of Hazzard would go on to tell the stories of the four Dukes and their friends for at least another generation. But with or without the Dukes, life moved ever on. Not even the loss of the Dukes of Hazzard could keep the hands of time from ticking on. Time passed, years flew by, stories died and were forgotten. Eventually, not even the good name of Duke could be recalled by any of the citizens there. Their time had passed, and they were gone. There were none.
But as fate would have it, the world was not ready to be finished with the Dukes. Years upon years later, a man would stop by the car dealer, dropped off by a taxi. The poor man was not having a good day. He had been trying for months to sell his creative genius to the television companies, but no one was buying anything he had to offer. After much frustration, the man had driven down south in search of a muse, some sort of inspiration that would make a hit television show.
All he found was dust and potholes, blowing his tire and causing him to hit a tree with so much force his car was totaled. It was just not his day.
The man grumbled to himself as he paid the taxi driver and looked around the lot. He barely listened to the eager young man who made extravagant lies about the cars available for sale.
The man sighed. He wanted the salesman to go away and let him look for a car in peace. He scanned the lot, looking for something, anything, that looked even a little reliable. His eyes could not help but notice the orange racing car in a far corner of the lot. Ignoring the man beside him, he walked slowly towards the car, drawn in a strange way that he could not understand. Laying a hand on the car, the man inspected it.
It had seen better days, this was obvious. The car was rusty, dirty, ignored. Underneath a thick layer of dust, the man could see an unusual orangish-red base color, with what appeared to be a rebel flag on top and an 01 painted onto the side. Underneath the flag, the name of General Lee was still proudly present.
"I'll take this one," he said suddenly. He didn't know why, but the impulse was tugging too strongly on him to be ignored. The salesman stuttered, surprised, but unwilling to let a good deal pass by.
Paying the salesman more than what the car looked to be worth, the man tried fruitlessly to open the doors, but they wouldn't budge. Chalking it up to disuse, the man shrugged and climbed in through the window. He was afraid at first that the old car would fail to start at all, but the engine roared to life as he turned the ignition, sounding forth almost like a battle cry. Pleased, the man drove off until he hit a small town.
"Hazzard," the man muttered to himself, reading the sign. He shrugged and headed into town, deciding it was as good a place as any to spend the night. As he pulled into the hotel, he wasn't surprised to be receiving some strange looks at the odd car, and the fact that he had to resort to climbing out the window. Not wanting to have to carry the registration papers with him, the man walked around to the passenger window and opened the glove compartment to put them away. As he did, a book fell out onto the seat.
The man picked it up curiously, inspecting it. It appeared to be a diary of some kind, probably belonging to the previous owner of the car. Without thinking, the man stuck it into his pocket as he headed inside to the hotel office to get a room for the night. He settled down onto the bed, feeling the diary still in his pocket. With nothing else to do, the man pulled it out and began to read, wondering if perhaps his muse would be found in the pages within.
Ain't no more Dukes of Hazzard, it read in uneducated but painstaking writing. There's only me, Cooter Davenport, left now. I ain't gonna be around forever. When I'm gone, ain't gonna be no one to remember them. But some things shouldn't be forgotten, an' the Dukes is one of 'em. So, to whoever finds this, know that the car yer drivin' has more stories than you could ever imagine. This here book is written so something of them will still go on. I remember this one time…
The man turned the page, greedy for more. The entire book was filled with the most outrageous stories of adventures that the author had shared with these people, the Dukes of Hazzard. By the time the man was finished reading, he could barely sit still from excitement. Although it was already evening, he went downstairs and checked back out of the hotel, then went to sit in the car.
"General Lee, is it?" he said, not knowing why he was speaking to the car, but feeling it was right. "You've had some life, old boy. That man, Davenport, was right. Some things shouldn't be forgotten."
A week later, the man came out of the network offices with a big grin on his face. The last half hour replayed over and over in his mind, as he had introduced his newest idea to the producers. By the end of the meeting, the man knew he had them. When he finished, they had stood and shook his hand.
"Congratulations, Mr. Waldren," they said with a smile. "You've found a winner at last."
Gy whistled happily to himself as he drove the bright car down the road, patting it on the dashboard. "Don't worry, General," he said. "The Dukes are coming back to life." The engine, still powerful after all those years, growled beneath his fingers. Was it his imagination, or had the General Lee just answered him? Gy shook his head. He must have imagined it. Patting the dashboard again, he couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. "From here on out, it's number one all the way."
A/N: So... what do you think? Leave me a review and let me know!