Author's note: Sorry, I didn't mean to go so long between updates. I just found myself second guessing certain decisions I'd made about this story and considering changes. I decided to trust my initial instincts and hope that was the right choice.

Like I said in the last chapter, the story follows canon for a while. You'll start to really see what I mean with this installment, I think. The silly chapter names will give you some idea of where we are in the series, since I am incorporating parts of the episode titles in them.

Forgot all my disclaimers last time. About how just about every character you meet in this one is not owned by me, and in some ways, the plot of the early chapters isn't entirely mine either. I don't earn anything for the things I make those characters do, and I mean no harm to, well, anyone with what I write here.

Thanks for reading!


Chapter 2 - Of Songs and Babies

Sunday dawned gray and soupy and Bo wasn't exactly quick about getting out of bed. Chores were one thing and he'd never been in a hurry for those, not if he thought he could get Luke to do them for him. Any other day of the week and Luke would have sworn that was the beginning and end of the reasoning for that pillow over his cousin's head.

But, "I don't want to go to church," came mumbling out from underneath.

And that was just silly, because it was an hour. Two, if the trip there and back counted, three if the bathroom wars between his two pretty cousins got factored in. Four, tops, if there was some sort of an event after, but those were usually painless. A picnic, a bake sale, a few moments spent serving something sweet to the town's kids, and all told it was just a fraction of the week when they had to be on their best behavior. Not much to ask, but it wasn't like Jesse asked it of them anyway; it was a lot closer to a demand. Barring communicable disease, there was no way out of it. Jesse swore it'd do them good to set foot in the Lord's house at least once a week.

And it did. After Luke had all but wrestled him out of bed, shoved him out to the barn for chores and listened to him grumble throughout, after he'd pointed him off to the shower and just about dressed him in his best jeans and button-down shirt, once they'd made it to town, all sandwiched into the pickup's front seat, and then settled in precisely the same tight configuration in their usual pew, once the preacher had said his piece and they'd all sung their hymns, there was the impromptu gathering on the church lawn. Where Bo was the center of a flutter of girls, and by the time Jesse was herding the family back to the pickup, he'd made dates with at least two of them without second thought to the fact that Jill Dodson had headed off to Macon just yesterday. Luke figured, right then and there, that maybe church was good for them. Just not in the way Jesse (or the Lord) intended.

Monday started out just as slow for no reason other than the fact that it was Monday. Even if they weren't kids catching a school bus anymore and they didn't have to run down to the mill to punch a clock, the Duke boys still knew it was Monday. The goats knew it was Monday, too, and they must've told Maudine. The chickens pecked against the notion of starting another week and even Daisy was grumpy when Luke left the milk bucket on the counter for too long while he washed his hands.

Tuesday didn't hold much promise, at least not when dawn forgot to come. Early morning thunderstorms leaving the sky just as black as night, but the livestock didn't get any less hungry in the rain, so they'd been good boys and gone out to feed them. Came back into the house all water and mud, with barely any room for farm boy underneath. Got glowered at by their supposedly-sugar-and-spice cousin for tracking the outside into the inside, but Jesse had just tutted and told them to get cleaned up for breakfast. Bo had insisted on first shower (and shivered in his wet clothes, so what was Luke to do but let him have it?) and Luke had stood near the oven because even if his blood wasn't quite as thin as Bo's he was still wet and the house was still drafty. Daisy let him steal a sizzling sausage right out of her pan, so she must've gotten sympathetic after all. Jesse rolled his eyes when Luke gave up his vigil in the kitchen and went to bang on the bathroom door because Bo was using up all the hot water. Back in the old man's day there was no such thing as indoor plumbing and his nephews were fools for arguing over the use of it now. When they were no more than filthy little brats, their Aunt Lavinia used to shove them both at once into that old steel tub in the kitchen and tell them to stop fussing at each other and get clean; Jesse might just have wished for her to be there to do that to them now even if there was no way they'd both fit without arms and legs hanging over the edge.

But the day got better as the weather got worse. No point in farming or brewing when water was coming out of the sky fast enough to drown a man. No way to stay in the house when Daisy had designs on cleaning everything in it, including any cousin that was fool enough to be home while she was in that mood, so they had no choice but to take Jesse's pickup to the Boar's Nest and relax there. One beer each that they had to nurse through the hours filled with flirting and dancing with anything in a skirt, because as the rain let up the skies stayed dark. Sniffing the air like cats at dusk and the Duke boys knew – it would be a good running night. Said their goodbyes to the young ladies (and if that kiss Bo planted on sweet little Della was any indication, the boy's lips had forgotten all about one Jill Dodson) and headed home to trade in a white pickup for a black Ford.

Tilly loved them better than any human female ever could, guiding them over slick clay like it was dry blacktop, hiding them amongst the trees and shrubs, and laughing right along with them as they left poor Andy Roach to spin out in a puddle-filled rut.

Wednesday didn't seem like much at first. Lazy day under still-gray skies, slow and sloppy. Bows too taut, arrows out of balance, targets that somehow never moved and yet dodged the arrows the Duke boys slung at them all the same. The kind of quiet day they'd earned after a night of wild driving, and that must've been why Daisy turned on the radio long enough to hear her own song playing back at her.

There was, of course, no way to plug up their ears and pretend they hadn't heard it, nor was there any means for them to dull their wits and ignore the fact that if Daisy's song was on the radio, they all ought to be a lot more rich than they currently were. Since there were no diamonds on their fingers or minks in their closets, and since tonight's dinner wouldn't be a fine side of beef but more like a sow's belly, there was nothing to do but make a run into Atlanta. Some man had taken advantage of their pretty little cousin and it was up to the Duke boys to see that he never did that again. And if that meant that a boring morning of letting Bo beat him in an archery competition (all in the name of rebuilding the boy's bruised ego, of course) got interrupted in deference to a trip into the city, well he could muster a grimace about that. And then a smirk, because Bo was already elbowing him in the ribs about the fun they could get up to in Atlanta.

After, that was, they gave a city-slicker some basic lessons in decency and manners, and how you didn't go taking advantage of dreamers like Daisy. Shouldn't take more than a minute or two, even with Jesse's insistence that they play fair and not take advantage of those poor fools in Atlanta.

Except those poor fools had guns, and big ones. They also had Daisy's money, so there was nothing to do but persevere, to take those guns away and even the odds, to demand either royalties or a refund. Of course what they got instead was nearly busted in a suddenly-emerging raid, then tossed an open-reel tape that Luke instinctively held onto even as he skidded down an embankment and slid over the General's hood to dive face first into the window, got chased halfway back to Hazzard, and finally made it home to face down one Jesse Duke without having accomplished their mission. (But in the middle of it all, Bo had paused to stare long and hard at a marginally attractive female, so that just went to show that Wednesday wasn't going to be all bad. Jill, at least, was just about completely forgotten by now.)

Their uncle wasn't without mercy. He gave them lunch before sending them back to Atlanta to get it right this time. To bust up a piracy ring that their innocent cousin had set her foot into without meaning to, but then the girl always had been an overachiever.

So much of an overachiever, in fact, that Wednesday turned into Thursday before they got done making trips to Atlanta, and pretty soon this whole escapade would wind up costing so much in gas that they really were going to need those royalties that Daisy's song wasn't earning them. Then again, Thursday's journey to the city was probably worth it. He and Bo spent time around a pool filled with pretty little fillies dressed in nothing more than strategically placed strips of cloth while Daisy did some fine undercover work up in an apartment on the second floor. Luke watched the windows for any sign of trouble while Bo flirted his way from one end of the pool to the other, and it seemed like a perfectly normal day.

Friday dragged by as Bo played with fireworks while Luke tuned the old yellow car and Daisy pouted over lost chances at stardom.

Saturday made it all worthwhile. Oh, sure, they failed more than they succeeded. They just about got caught up in a raid on Miss Mabel and her mobile prostitution ring when they stopped by to ask for her assistance (and Luke's reputation took a few hits from last summer's fling of a girlfriend who claimed hooking was a step up from being with him), they drove around in a big and pointless circle from Hazzard to Atlanta and back, they lost track of Daisy then found her again and they never did get any money out of any of it. But they dynamited Rosco's cruiser and threw an impromptu party with Miss Mabel, some syndicate men, the Hazzard County Commissioner and a few Feds in attendance. And then, because they hadn't been destructive enough, they blew up a record-pressing plant. Orange streaks of fire in the sky, Bo's giggle in his ear as they admired their handiwork, and in all it had been a good day.

Sunday Bo got his wish from the week before. Jesse joined them in the barn for chores, and mumbled something about how church could wait until next Sunday for his boys – they needed to make one more trip to Atlanta. The preacher's sermon went on without them as they grinned their way through a morning with a beautiful woman (and though she was married, Bo showed no signs of recognizing that fact, so it was a good thing her manager was along to chaperone or they might have found themselves in trouble all over again), had themselves a little fun in the city, and still managed to make it home in the afternoon with good news. Daisy's song, a fine bit of music written by a sweet country gal (who had a nasty right hook and could shuck and jive a revenuer with the best of them), would be recorded by famed country singer Jessi Colter.

And Bo hadn't mentioned or mooned over Jill Dodson throughout the whole mess. All in all, it was a good week.


Luke was (and he was fairly certain that he could get the backing of his friends and family on this one) a jerk. And a fool, too, but since most of the town thought he was a genius, Bo didn't reckon on getting much support about that part.

When's the baby due, he'd asked in all his smug righteousness. Babies are messy.

Hardly more than two weeks ago Luke had been brimming with all manner of cleverness about why Bo couldn't go to Macon with Jill. (Not, he'd come to realize, that his cousin was wrong. Hazzard's mark on him went deeper than his flesh or even his bones – it was the air in his lungs and the water he drank, it was life to him. He belonged here like the sun belonged in the sky. But that wasn't the point, oh not at all the point.) Because with Jill there'd be babies and kids and snotty noses and dirty diapers, and Luke just wanted to save him from all of that.

When's the baby due – just smirking with superiority because that big old brilliant brain of his had thought it was so clever in pointing out had badly Duke boys and babies mixed.

And then that same too-smart cousin had gone off and picked up Mary Kaye Porter from the side of the road. Honey blonde hair, baby blue eyes, five-foot-five, loads of dimples and a big old bun in the oven. A baby all but bursting out of her, and sure, Bo could see how they had to look out for her. Sure he could, what with how she walked all tipped backwards, her face pinched and flushed all at once as she heaved that rounded belly from here to there. Helpless, really, weighted down by a child that hadn't even see fit to get born yet, and what else could they do? They had to stop for her.

They had to keep her safe, too. She was a wanted girl (she was a thief, but for whatever reason, Luke was all for overlooking that little fact), the sort of wanted that would bring a sneaky, crude mobster like Quirt McQuade to little old Hazzard in search of her. So Bo could agree to most of what was happening. (Except the parts where Luke's bony elbow kept nudging at the muscle of his upper arm – don't drive so fast, Bo, can't you hear the way the pregnant girl's moaning? She's with child.So what if she bit you for no good reason, Bo, she's got a baby in her belly and her life's hard enough.) The money they tried to give her, though they had less than usual thanks to all those trips to Atlanta last week, the way they allowed gangster's guns to be aimed in their faces just so they wouldn't be pointed at her, hiding in recessed corners of the county instead of running full speed but in plain sight, Bo worked his way around to understanding all of that.

But the pickled peaches, that horrid excuse for fruit, the juice running over Luke's fingers as he held the jar for her, the napkins in his pocket like he'd been domesticated and actually liked helping the girl deal with her pregnancy cravings, that was too much. After that there was their confinement in the kitchen, watching water boil while they tore up sheets, as if Luke had ever tolerated sitting still and doing anything that useless in his whole life. And then the final straw. "For that lady in there—" Lady, his foot. Left foot, because the right one was kicking out where Luke's shin should have been, except his cousin was too busy standing up to receive the pain that Bo so deeply wanted to dole out. "I wouldn't halfway mind."

Luke Duke. Wouldn't mind marrying a girl that was just about to give birth to another man's baby? Luke Duke, the same cousin that had spent a whole night of running whiskey down one mountain and up another, across detours and rutted trails, skirting lakes and skidding on loose dirt, all while jabbering nonstop about how foolish Bo would be to follow after a girl that wanted kids someday in some far distant future? That Luke Duke wouldn't halfway mind wiping both ends of a messy child that wasn't even his?

Mary Kaye was a girl in over her head, and they had to save her life. Luke was just too big an idiot to see that it was too late to save her reputation, too.

All right, so after they made a fiery show of protecting her, when McQuade and his henchman had been wedged into the back of the sheriff's cruiser while their rights were read to them in that squeaky, overexcited voice of Deputy Strate, Mary Kaye had taken her baby and gone back to Atlanta. She rebuffed all of Luke's attempts to make her a halfway honest woman, and to his cousin's credit, he never even thought of following after her. Out of sight, out of mind, and there were no broken hearts involved.

But there was no denying it – for just about wrenching Bo away from Jill and her baby-making threat and then making goo-goo eyes at Mary Kaye a scant two weeks later, Luke was a jerk. And for considering raising a child himself, Luke was an idiot.

But, despite what anyone might ever say to the contrary, what happened with Roxanne a little further on down the road was in no way an attempt to exact revenge on his smug cousin.