I planned on updating last night, but I ran out of time and energy... Unfortunately, we all have to sleep...

Now continuing on the "Aw, poor Bo" note...

Glimpse of the Future

Why in on God's green earth was that little crazy woman the only thing that could do this to him? What gave her the right to be so irritating and under his skin? No, what possessed her to continuously make it her job to do that?

Bo just couldn't for the life of him understand Lou. He didn't get how she did what she did or why. The way she treated him just… didn't make sense.

And then she says she loves me, and I just about go crazy, he thought to himself, staring at the back of his eyelids. And that of all things worried Bo. Not to mention that the way he'd reacted worried him.

With every bit of breath in his body right now, he would deny that he loved Betty-Lou Johnson, and could probably truthfully say that he'd never really and truly loved her. But when he heard the words out of her mouth, not knowing how insincere they were at the moment, his heart had leapt into his throat and he could feel… butterflies.

And he'd been unable to say anything back.

Was that a glimpse of the future?

Did that stray little fact by itself tell him that even if he did actually—by some strange twist of fate—come to love Lou in future years, she'd never be able to know because he couldn't express it?

Oh, don't get ahead of yourself, Bo warned himself, rolling over with difficulty on his little cot. If that ever happens, then you can worry about it. But now—and maybe forever—you don't love Lou, don't think Lou loves you, don't worry about it.

But somehow, no matter how he tried, the little fear in the back of his head wouldn't go away. And that little nagging voice just irritated him and worried him.

The fact that it wasn't going away told him that it was more than he tried to diminish it as. Could he really—

No! he practically yelled at himself mentally. You don't love Lou, she don't love you. Go to sleep!

But the minute he started really trying to drift off to sleep, Bo heard Luke's voice broke in with questions.

"Hey, Bo, why's Lou's hair wet?"

Opening his eyes, Bo's mind already started racing to ways around telling the somewhat embarrassing truth on this one… And as he thought, he stared at Lou's not-quite-dripping, thick tresses, splayed across her crooked arm/pillow.

"Uh, she went for a swim," he admitted slowly. That much wouldn't hurt… just skirt the other specific details of the whole endeavor. "At Hazzard Pond."

"Ah," Luke replied. "So that's where you two were when she started with that whole scare?"

"What makes you think I went swimming too?"

Luke raised a dark eyebrow at his younger cousin. "The fact you two showed up at the hospital together says you were off somewhere together. And if you weren't swimming at the Pond, what were you doing there?"

"Uh…"

"Just what I thought."

"Luke, don't read anything into it," Bo insisted. "We swam a little. End of story. Nothing special."

Again, a dark eyebrow arched over Luke's bright blue eyes. "Well, 'much as you're gonna say otherwise, I'd say that skinny-dipping is a pretty special deal, Bo."

"Skinny-dipping!" Immediately bolting upright at his cousin's suggestion, Bo's eyes went so wide they felt like they'd pop. "Did you say skinny-dipping!"

Luke's cool look broke as he unfolded his arms and stood a little away from the wall. "Yes, I did. Don't think I don't know what you were doing, Bo. You—"

"We weren't skinny-dipping!" Bo immediately protested. "We were clothed, thank you very much! Not fully clothed, but clothed!" Realizing that he was endangering Lou's sleep with the volume of his voice—something that would probably incur a nasty couple of remarks—Bo quieted a little, but still spoke forcefully to Luke. "What in the world gave you the idea we were skinny-dipping?"

"Well, I just assumed—" Bo could tell by Luke's small gestures that he really had blindly and shamelessly supposed, not laying blame.

"Yeah, do me a favor and stop assuming about me and Lou, okay? I'm tired of people doing that. We are what we look like we are—which is not in love, quite the opposite—and we did not go skinny-dipping!"

"Ok, fine, Bo, fine!" Luke quickly said, gesturing for calm. "Just settle down." Turning away and sinking to the floor, his voice dropped. "Just go on denying everything. It'll catch you sooner or later…"

Luckily, Bo didn't hear him.

-+-+-+-

"Get up, Jailbirds!"

It took a minute of sleepy concentrating, but Luke recognized the voice as Lou's rousing him to consciousness from the neighboring cell. When he groggily blinked his eyes and looked, she was standing gripping the bars with one hand and getting ready to throw what looked like a shoe with the other.

"Finally you get up!" she said, dropping the shoe back to the floor and scooting her foot into it. "Get Bo up—our salvation is here."

Luke didn't really understand what she was saying, but he reached out to obey… It had to be sometime early in the morning but cooped up the way he was, Luke couldn't be sure. With a dully aching arms, he reached out and shook his cousin on the thin cot.

Waking up slowly and with difficulty, Bo blinked sleepily and yawned.

Mission accomplished, Luke yawned himself and stood…

He'd slept against the wall, releasing the cot to Bo. The position hadn't exactly been comfortable, sitting on a hard concrete floor with his back leaning against the brick wall. To boot, it definitely was not paying off now either. He was stiff and hurting when he got to his feet, trying in vain to stretch the aches away.

"What's this 'salvation,' Lou?" he asked.

"A little package I call sister, you call fiancée and we all call the wonderful Bobbie-Jo," Lou replied, pointing.

Looking where Lou indicated, Luke finally noticed Jo walking down the hallway in easy conversation with Enos, who held the keys in his hand. The site made Luke smile, knowing that while he had nothing to fear, he wished his conversation with Jo could always be that easy… without her shrinking away like she tended to do.

"I'll have to give you the recipe sometime, Sheriff," Jo said, laughing lightly.

It was then that Luke noticed that Rosco held a small slice of cake in one hand, and was pinching pieces off and popping them in his mouth. He smiled sweetly at little Jo, who returned the smile.

"Well, thank you."

Gently gripping the bars on the front of her cell, Lou smiled lightly at Rosco and Jo as they walked towards the cells. Bo frowned and Luke tried his hardest to keep from laughing.

Imagine that, little silent Jo was playing Rosco nice and easy, like a fine-tune fiddle, even!

And still smiling and laughing with Jo, Rosco unlocked the doors to both Lou and the Duke boys' cells. That got frowns from both of the Dukes, but smiling Lou obviously got whatever it was that her sister was doing and just silently walked out of the cell.

"Rosco, what're you doing?" Luke asked.

"Well, this little lady here has paid your bail," the sheriff replied. "You're all free to go."

Frowning, the Dukes slowly slipped out of their cell, joining Lou and Jo.

They all made their way back out the door of the jailhouse, Rosco calling a friendly goodbye to Jo as they left. The minute they were outside and away from prying ears, Bo and Luke—and even Lou—started bursting with questions.

"Did you really pay our bail, Jo?" Luke asked first.

"Yes," she replied curtly.

"Where did you get the money, sis?" Lou inquired next. "I know the bail Boss Hogg was asking couldn't have been cheap—and we have no money."

"You're right, it wasn't and we don't," Jo replied, smiling. "But they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and it seems that's just the way to Boss's! I paid your bail in cake and cookies. Even gave Rosco some to keep his nose outta our business."

"And it worked that easy?" Bo asked.

Still smiling at her success, Jo nodded.

Laughing, Luke clapped his fiancée on the back. "Jo, you're a genius. Let's hope the next time we get caught isn't any time soon, but at least now you know how to get us out of it!"

Next time… Luke thought a little tightly. That's right, from now on Jo would probably be the one to bail him out of jail… Considering that after tomorrow, she'd be his wife.

Can'tcha hear the wedding bells ringing all the way from here? Well, get ready, next chapter is a wedding! And everybody knows that in Hazzard, nothing ever goes like it's planned!