A/N: So here is the next part. Sorry it took so long. Real life just got too crazy. Enjoy it. Didn't like how it turned out the first time so I fixed it. Still unbeta-ed.
By mid November Bo, after yet another visit to the hospital emergency room, was placed on oxygen permanently and told jokingly by the doctors that if he came in again because he hadn't been using the oxygen they would place a shock collar around his neck and give Luke the remote.
One day, after coming home from school, Jessica got the biggest shock of her young life. Her dad offering her a beer. She took the beer from him, but didn't open it. Bo shrugged. "Drink it, Jess, it's alright." She still stared at him. "You're not goin' ta get in trouble." He laughed. "I'm right here."
Jessica lowered her eyes and stared at the beer in her hand, then looked back up at her dad and asked, "What's this for?"
He shrugged again, took a deep breath and answered with, "I figured since I won't be here for you 21st birthday, why not give you your present now?"
She stared at the beer again and then pointed at it with incredulous eyes. "A beer?"
Bo stared at the label of Jessica's beer for a bit before turning his attention to her. "Well, there would have been more, but I gave you the beer because…look, Jess, when I turned 21, your grandpa gave me, what he thought was, my first beer." He smirked at Jessica's deadpan look. "And I'm sure he would have done it for Luke if he hadn't have been in Viet Nam and I'm sure my grandpa did it for him and my dad when they turned 21…it's a tradition, kid."
Jessica snorted. "Ya, for males!" she looked down at her chest then back up at her dad and smirked. "And if you haven't noticed, dad, I'm quite female, albeit by gender only."
"Yes I have noticed you're a female, Jess, I've noticed it longer than you have." Bo laughed out loud. "But your brother's not here so…" he jerked his head toward Jessica's beer."Drink up." He quickly did a 360 and grabbed a beer for himself out of the fridge then limped over to the island and sat on one of the stools. He sighed when he realized Jessica hadn't moved. Not even to open her beer. She just stood staring at it. "Jessica Lynn Duke, would ya get over here, open that beer and sit down, please!"
Jessica slowly dragged her feet across the kitchen and sat on the stool across from him. "Here," she twisted off the cap and threw it beside her. "Better?" She looked up at her dad for approval. Bo smirked and nodded slightly as he took the first sip of his beer. Jessica soon followed suit, but quickly cringed and choked several times before pulling the beer away from her mouth and gagging. "That stuff awful!"
Bo laughed out right again. "Glad to hear it."
She stared at her dad with pinched eyes and shook her head in disbelief. "How anyone could become an alcoholic all by drinking this stuff is entirely beyond comprehension."
Bo's laughter was quieter than it had been before, but it was still there. But as quickly as it came, the laughter quickly died as he set the bottle on the counter and started picking at the label. He was silent for a while before speaking again. "You're a smart kid, Jess. I only wish I was half as smart as you."
Jessica rolled her eyes. He was going into brooding mod. Couldn't reality just go away? At least for a little while? "I know, dad." Bo looked up. Jessica smirked slightly. "Ya tell me all the time, and if you don't tell me, Uncle Luke does."
Bo smiled. "Cause its true kid. I don't want ya ta do anythin stupid when yur done high school." He cast her a warning glance because he knew what she aimed to do. "That includes racin" He quickly dismissed anything Jessica was about to say with a swipe of his hand. "No. If ya go anywhere after high school, Jess, it'll be ta university." Bo pointed his finger at her and squinted. "I'll be telling yur uncle my plans for ya, so don't think yur gettin away with anythin."
Jessica bit her lip and lowered her head.
Four beers and two hours later, Jessica was so far beyond blitzed it wasn't even remotely funny. Sometime between her first and third beer her uncle had joined the couple. Now the three of them sat in the kitchen, enjoying the silence and peeling the labels from their beers as slowly as they could. Somewhere beyond the hazy fortress walls of the alcohol induced buzz she was currently trapped in, she was able to hear her uncle say, "I can't believe you let her have four, Bo."
"She jist kinda got them."
"But four? Ya can't tell me you're too sick to actually stop 'er from gettin up and walkin the two feet to the fridge, can ya?"
That's when she spoke up. "No! But he shureeee….is sick 'nuff ta die." She turned to her dad and stared at him through dazed eyes, which were unable to register the shock within her father's eyes. "Aren't you, dad." She nodded in her uncle's direction. "Tell 'em."
"Ok!" she whipped her head towards her uncle. "That's definitely enough fer you, young lady." She felt her uncle take the bottle from her numbing finger tips and saw him place it on the counter beside him, far away from her as he could put it, but for some unexplainable reason she didn't really care...
She had gone beyond caring. She jist turned her bleary eyes back to her dad. "Yur dyin…dead!" she swiped her arm across the table. "In a couple months yur dehiccupdead. I'm by myself an yur dead…" Jessica's eyes squinted suddenly as she pointed a slightly bent finger at her dad. "What gives you that right, huh? Givin up like that. Yur givin up on me-" "Jessica stop." Luke placed his hand over Jessica's finger and pulled it towards him. He couldn't let Bo sit through anymore of Jessica accusation. He could see it in his slightly glazed eyes. This was killing him faster than any cancer could.
Jessica quickly yanked her finger away. "No! Lemme talk!" She settled her attention back on her dad. "Yur givin up on me." She pointed at herself. "Yur givin up on uncle LuhiccupLuke an the rest of this gawdawful family, but most importantly yur givin up on yourself." Her lip curled into a snarl as she growled. "How dare you! How dare you do that! What gives you any-any right- whoa…" Suddenly all things around her froze like they had, all at once, been put in some kind of huge cryogenic chamber. She didn't even realize she had fallen until she felt her uncle lift her up by her under arms and literally drag her towards the living room, out of her father's view.
She hadn't realized she had passed out until she felt a severely bright light penetrate one eye and then the other. She growled slightly and reached out to grab the offending light, but her hand quickly dropped to her side again like it had suddenly become the heaviest thing in the world.
"Yup," she heard Cooter's voice. "She's up." And opened her eyes just enough to see and then turned towards his voice. As she took in her surroundings she slowly began to realize she was in her room and so were Cooter, and her uncle, and…Roscoe? She had tried to sit up, but was quickly pushed back down by 6 sets of hands. "Don't try to sit up, sweetheart." It was her uncle's voice that penetrated her hangover haze this time. She was actually quite amazed he wasn't ripping her a new one right about right about now. He probably would once everyone left the room. "We're no where near a bathroom and no one brought a bucket."
She opened her mouth approximately a millimeter and a half, gurgled slightly and collapsed back on to the pillow. "Doesn't matter," Jessica slammed her open palm against her aching head and moaned. "Nothin matters..." Then started to shake her it back and fourth like she was trying to dispel a wicked thought from her pained mind. "I don't matter..."
She heard her uncle's bones creak as he knelt beside her bed and then touch her free arm. "What do you mean by that, Jesse?" He wrapped his calloused hand tightly around her arm, trying to will her to answer the question as fast as he had asked the question.
Silence reined for an prolonged amount of time before. Jessica suddenly spoke up, "I've already killed him." Her answer was quickly preceded by the most pitiful pain filled sob any man had ever heard. She slowly turned her head and settled her bleary eyes on her uncle. "I blamed him for dyin'." Even with a killer hangover blazing through her skull like wild fire she was still able to make out the look of shock that graced her uncle's face as soon as she spoke those few words.
He was silent for a bit, raised his head and looked at Cooter than Roscoe for help, then looked back down when he got nothing from either and shook his head. "Ya didn't mean it, sweetheart. Yur daddy knows you didn't, honey. It was the alcohol, Jesse; alcohol can make demons of us all."
Jessica shook her head and shot up. "I'm gonna be sick." A couple rushed footsteps and a bucket appeared in front of her. She grabbed it with the hand she wasn't using to hold herself up like it was her last life line and quickly emptied the contents of her stomach into it. "I'm sorry..." she gagged, "I'm so sorry."
"Shhh sweetheart." Luke ran the heel of his right hand gently down Jessica's back as he bit back the tears that were threatening to spill as he watched the pathetic sight in front of him just get worse and worse. "It's alright, sweetheart."
"Tell dadgagsorry..." Vile sobs suddenly burst fourth from her raw, burning throat as hot tears started to slide down her red cheeks and mix with the horribly repulsive taste in her mouth. No matter how hard she tried to stop, crying or vomiting, she wasn't quite sure which, she couldn't. It just kept coming.
Jessica was so wrapped up within her own painful situation that she didn't even notice Cooter and Roscoe slip from the room with bowed heads. Neither man could take seeing her so broken, especially now when they also had to bear as silent witnesses to her father's slow deterioration. No man could deny that such a situation was just a little bit more than someone in their right mind could handle.
Jessica's stomach finally settled down soon afterward. With one last swipe of her mouth she collapsed back down on to the bed with a forced moan and closed her bloodshot eyes against the harsh sunlight that shone in through the slits in the blind. "I'm sorry, Uncle Luke...I'm so sorry. Tell dad I'm sorry...tell him I don't blame him for dyin...tell him...fer me...I love em..." her voice slowly started fading as she began to drift off into a restless sleep.
Luke slowly got off his knees, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. "Get some sleep, honey."
Her eyes shot open suddenly. "Tell him."
He pulled back and nodded. "I will." Then slid his two fingers slowly over her eyes. "Now get ta sleep."
Jessica shivered slightly and rolled onto her side. "Night."
Luke waited by her bed until Jessica's breathing evened out. Then, and only then did he move towards the door. Thankfully Bo had fallen asleep soon after Jessica passed out; he didn't have to answer any unanswerable questions...for the time being.
He sighed and collapsed against the closed door once he was outside her room and squeezed the bridge of his nose. How coincidental was it that the pained look that had crossed his cousin's face earlier was the exact same one that had stared back at him mere minutes ago?
Maybe he would follow suit soon. Take some heavy duty tranquillizers and hopefully fall into a deep, deep sleep. Then he would be able to dream and remember a time when life wasn't so bleak, he had his wife, kids, cousins and friends…and they were all safe and healthy or maybe he would dream...maybe he would dream he was talking with his uncle for a while. That way he could ask for advice, because he wasn't stupid enough not to realize he sure as hell needed some. It physically hurt him when he thought about how crazy his life was and how much crazier it was going to get as time wore on. If he didn't get help soon he was scared to think about what may happen.