A/N: You're probably familiar with a "shine moon" in my universe. If not, it's what Enos' dad called a full moon when the ridgerunners haul moonshine.

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Chapter 74: A Time for Truth

"There's a light that hits the gloom around
Shows the footprints round his grave
Dried up roses scattered on the mound
Honoring the one engraved."
Still Day Beneath the Sun - Opeth

He lay in the guest bedroom, trying not to fall asleep. There was a shine moon bathing the fields, woods, and house in its silvery light, broken every now and then by the clouds rolling down from the mountains. It shone through the window, outlining the dresser and bedposts in stark contrast against the darkness. The past seemed very close tonight; so many younger versions of himself through the years had stared up at this same ceiling; filled with hopes and dreams, love and heartache, and fear. Fear of saying the wrong things, of making the wrong decisions, of throwing his future away on a girl who might, or might not, love him.

He was afraid tonight - not of what he had done, but what could happen if he did nothing. And so, he waited for the quiet squeak of the medicine cabinet -and what might follow. As the hands of the clock pushed into the early hours of morning, Enos lay sill and listened.

By the light of the moon, she wandered through the graveyard. The stones were old and crumbling; moonshiners' graves of weathered, cheap stone, cracked and aged - people and memories lost to time. Her fingers trailed across the tops of roughened marble, damp with the cool of moss and lichen, and she could taste the smell of death, cloying and sickly, on the back of her tongue. A voice, broken and brittle like the stones, drifted in the air, calling her, begging her with a pain as sharp as broken glass. Shallow furrows dug into the soft earth where something had been dragged, and she followed them until she stood before a tall, white monument, ringed with headstones. She didn't need to read the name because he was here. Toothless and blind; one arm a mess of putrid decay and worms, and yet still he lived.

"Kill me," he pleaded, "please kill me. I hurt so much..."

She looked down to find a gun was in her hand, cold and heavy. She raised it and aimed, but couldn't see through the tears which streamed down her face.

"I can't," she sobbed. "I...I can't...I can't, Enos. I can't..."

She woke crying, her pillow soaked with tears, to find herself in her own bedroom, alone, and in terror she thought - as she had thought after every nightmare, that she had only dreamed of saving him, and that he was still in Jackson, waiting to die. She stumbled out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. In the stark light above the sink, she stared at her ring, the only proof at 2:30 am that she had not gone crazy. She turned on the water, splashing it over her face, and then opened the medicine cabinet.

She stared numbly at the empty shelf for a long minute before she realized the pills were gone. She scoured the floor and looked through the trash, panic singing through her bones.

"They ain't there."

She jumped up, heart pounding. "Enos Strate! You scared the living daylights out of me!" she snapped. "People usually knock if a door's closed."

"Sorry," he said, but made no move to leave. Daisy thought he didn't sound very sorry at all as he stood, arms crossed, in the doorway. Something about the way he was looking at her made her feel like a little kid caught sneaking cookies between meals. Anger warred with embarrassment as she glared at him, an uneasy silence between them, until he stepped forward and pulled the bathroom door shut behind him.

"What's going on?"

"It ain't your business," she blurted, fairly sure that was the wrong thing to say.

He frowned down at her. "Can we just skip all that?" he asked, and she could hear the weariness in his tone. "I don't want to fight with you, Daisy. It is my business, and you know good and well you shouldn't be taking them things to sleep."

She rolled her eyes up and focused on the ceiling, knowing he wouldn't let it go; not after he'd ambushed her like a fox in the hen house. She thought she'd been pretty circumspect about her insomnia, but apparently not enough. There had been a time when she could have gotten away with keeping secrets from him. She couldn't quite pinpoint when his naivety had disappeared; perhaps under the skies of Kansas or Utah...maybe longer ago than that.

"Daisy..." Now his tone was different; soft and gentle, full of love. It made her eyes smart, and she knew if she looked at him, she would cry, and she hated to cry more than anything. She blinked at the tears which slipped rebelliously from the corners of her eyes and turned her back on him. He stepped closer - not quite touching her, but close enough that she could feel his warmth. The warmth that meant life. The dream was still raw in her mind, the ghostly weight of the gun not yet scrubbed away by reality. She choked back a sob and let him take her by the shoulders and turn her around to face him.

"Don't push me away," he whispered, his thumbs smoothing the tears from her cheeks. "Please tell me what's wrong. Is this about the surgery?"

She shook her head. She hadn't had any pain in a week or more, and he knew it, too.

"You're not feeling bad about Darcy, are you?" he asked, his distaste for the man leaking through his words.

"No." She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his chest. "Bad dreams," she murmured, feeling his heartbeat. "Worse than bad."

He folded his arms around her, and she hid her face against him; her protector from all things, except herself. Dreams of him dying were nothing new; she'd had several through the months they had been at Jack's cabin or traveling, but he had always been there beside her to prove they weren't real, even if he hadn't woken. She had never told him details, and he had never pushed her to talk about them.

"Can I ask?"

Her deep sigh was neither a yes or no.

He tried again. "Maybe it would help," he said, "if you told me about them."

She buried herself further into his embrace, wishing they were all alone on some vast and unknown praire with stars marking time above them, and steeled herself against confessions it was past time to make. "You're always dying...or you're dead or you're..."

...begging...

With that thought, the sobs came in earnest, from a year of grief stored deep inside her, like a great wave pulling her into its depths, and she hated that she was not strong enough to overcome it. She had no idea how long he held her tight as she cried into his shirt, rocking her gently as one would a child, until she was able to go on, her breaths hitching and uneven. "Sometimes, you're so...damaged...that you beg me to kill you. Then I wake up, and I'm back in my old room...and I can't remember...and I...I think you're still in Jackson..."

"Because I'm not there when you wake up." It wasn't a question, but she nodded her head. She felt him sigh, his warm breath stirring her hair. "Tomorrow morning, we go see Rosco and Emory and sign a paper," he said, "and we'll hash it out with whoever has a problem with it."

She nodded her agreement, crying again- just a little, in relief to have him understand that what she really needed was him.

"I can't sleep, either," he admitted, "between worrying about you and not remembering where in the blue blazes I am in the morning."

Threading her arms around him, she hugged him tight. "Thank you."

He kissed the top of her head, then stepped back to give her shoulders a gentle shake. "I love you, Daisy. And you did save me. In fact...you're my hero."

Despite feeling like a fish which had been gutted, deboned, and left out in the sun, she couldn't help but to smile at him and shake her head. "You say the craziest things, Enos."

"I mean it," he said, taking her hand in his. "How 'bout you go lay down on the couch? You look like you're gonna fall asleep standing up."

"Me?" He had to have been listening in the guest room, waiting for her to get up. "Did you even go to bed at all?"

He shrugged. "I sleep all day long while I'm digging fence holes and listening to Bo reveal the bedroom habits of all the girls in town. He shoulda been at the station last week," he said. "I got six marriage proposals. He probably could of helped out one of them poor girls."

Enos had been leading her out of the bathroom, but she jerked him back. "You what?" she said, glaring darkly at him. "I don't think I heard you right."

"I'm not sure I even understand half of what Bo was talking about..."

"You know what part I'm talkin about, Enos Strate," she told him. "Write down their names, and I'll pay them a visit."

"Shucks, Daisy," he chided, "there ain't no cause for that. I turned them down right proper and all."

She held up their joined hands, and nodded at his ring. "Don't those idiots know what that is on your finger?"

Here, he had the grace to look embarrassed. "Well Maybelle -"

"Oh, good Lord," she said, rolling her eyes, "what does she have to do with this?" Maybelle was not only the biggest gossip in town, but ran the switchboard. That meant any gossip she knew...everyone knew.

"Well, she asked me point blank if we had an actual certificate."

"And, Enos Strate, who cannot tell a lie, said "no"."

He rubbed his neck, and said, sheepishly, "I told her Utah allows common law marriage, but I don't think she cared."

"So...what you're saying is, if we don't have proof, the Harpies of Hazzard are gonna come and carry you off?"

"They keep bringing me pie," he said, with mock sadness, "I don't know how long I can hold out." He dropped to one knee, looking imploringly up at her with hazel eyes that shone with mischief. "Make an honest man out of me, Daisy. They scare me!"

She laughed and shook her head at his antics. "Is this where I'm supposed to say 'yes'?" she asked. "You're something else, Enos."

He let her pull him to his feet, and kissed her forehead. "Come on, Daisy Mae," he said, "I'm beat."

It was only after she had curled up beneath a quilt, her head on a pillow in his lap and his arm draped protectively over her shoulder, that she realized how skillfully he had made her forget her grief.

The next morning, Jesse found them both alseep on the couch; Daisy pillowed against Enos, and him tucked into the far corner of the cushions, They looked very young and vulnerable in the light of early morning, and he turned away as his eyes filled with tears. There had been a time, not so long ago, when he had never expected to see either of them again.

No matter how they claimed they felt or slept, he had noticed the dark circles under their eyes every morning. They were far too old for him to be telling them what to do, but he reckoned if they didn't figure out how badly they needed each other soon, he was going to have to bring it up himself. He hadn't asked about the rings, figuring they would say something when they were ready, probably waiting until after everything else had worked itself out. Problem was, he had always found that the 'working things out' parts of life were when he had needed Lavinia the most.

In the morning, Enos and Daisy gathered their courage and went to find Uncle Jesse. The barn was dim and warm, musty with the sweet scent of hay and cow, changeless through the years. His back was to them, milking. He appeared oblivious to their presence, except Enos had heard his whistling falter as they approached and knew he was playing possum - making them sweat until he got ready to hear what they had to say. They stood, clammy hands clasped together, and Enos was reminded of all those times when, as children, he and Daisy had gotten into some scrape or another. There had been a time, when he was about 11 or 12 when there seemed to be a never ending stream of them.

The milking seemed to be taking forever, and Uncle Jesse moving incredibly slow, but neither Enos nor Daisy dared disturb him. At last, with a sigh, he turned around and studied them before speaking.

"Well now," he said, finally, "you two look awful worried for this early of the morning. Let's hear it."

"Uh...Uncle Jesse...," stammered Enos, "Um..."

"Oh quit beatin' around the bush, Enos," snapped Daisy, "this is ridiculous." She turned to her uncle. "Uncle Jesse, we gotta go get married...again."

"Legally," said Enos.

"Legally," she agreed. "Although, I think it might have been legal before?" She directed the last part toward Enos who waffled.

"I know this seems awful hasty, Uncle Jesse," said Enos, "but we promise we did a lot of thinking on this over the last...," he counted down the time on his fingers, "four months or so."

"It's been longer than that."

"I was counting from March."

"Well, I started my thinking a long time before that-"

"Would the two of you hush?" said Uncle Jesse, shaking his head in consternation. "You're like listening to a pair of squawking, old crows. Are you tryin to convince me or yourselves?" He reached over and put the lid on the milk pail and stood up. "I've been wondering how long it was gonna take for the two of you to quit procrastinating."

Daisy shot Enos a grin, but he was too confused to respond.

"Fact is, I was going to say something to the both of you pretty soon, anyways," he said, adjusting his hat. "I'm not too far gone to realize that you two need each other, even if the path you took to figure it out was a little unorthodox. If you want a ride into town, I'll go wake up your witnesses."

Daisy threw her arms around his neck. "Thank you, Uncle Jesse."

Her hugged her back and then tugged Enos into it, too, wrapping an arm around each of them. "I love you two," he told them. "And I'm awfully glad to have you back, safe and sound. Everything else will work itself out."

Two hours later, with a much larger crowd of witnesses than either of them expected, Enos and Daisy signed their marriage license. And the unmarried women of Hazzard scratched another batchelor off their lists.

The ink on their license had barely dried when Rosco tugged at Enos' sleeve. "Enos, I gotta talk to you," he said, then looked at Daisy, "Sorry, Daisy."

"What's wrong, Sheriff?"

Rosco shook his head. "Not here," he murmured, out of earshot of the others, "and it'll take some time. I'll drop you at the farm afterwards."

Enos took a good look at the man; the haggard face, the shadow of whiskers that said he wasn't taking the best care of himself, and nodded. "Alright, just give me a minute."

"I'll be in my office," he said. "Come find me after everyone's gone." He turned and walked off, leaving Enos with more questions and no answers

"What was that all about?" whispered Daisy.

"I don't know, hun, but I guess I better find out." He frowned down at her. "Sorry, Mrs. Strate, I'll be home later, I guess."

She gave him a quick kiss. "That's okay," she said, concerned herself. "Find out what's going on with Rosco. All of this has been a lot harder on him that he's let on."