A/N: WOW! What else can I say? I am truly flattered and humbled by all the nice comments, especially on the last two chapters since I considered them to be a bit of a lull from the others. If someone would have told me that I'd still have readers after eight chapters, I wouldn't have believed them!

Just a couple of notes about the storyline -

The rehab process is moving along a little faster than it would in real life. Hey! This is Hazzard, what do you expect? Use your imaginations. You have to have one, we all do or we wouldn't be Duke fans, right?

The part about the twister picking up Sandy and depositing her in a tree, that's based on true stories, believe it or not. Tornadoes do a lot of strange things that even fiction can't top, and it's been known to happen.

Special thanks again to H.G. Stewart for her advice and patience, and now Elenhin. This wasn't a chapter until last night. Parts of it existed, but thanks to the comments and suggestions, I decided to do a little revising, and this is what I ended up with, unintentionally. That's one of the reasons it's not as long; it just didn't belong with the rest of the chapter anymore, so everything got changed. Let me know what you think. I'm just the medium on most of this. If you like it, the credit goes to all of you reviewers, especially Elenhin. If not, well, there's always next chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Dukes, and no infringements intended.


CHAPTER 9

POT SHOTS

HARD DAYS VS. BAD DAYS

The next several weeks 'show and tell' wasn't quite as exciting as it had been in the beginning. Sandy did her best to explain that much of the foundation had been laid, now it was working on fine tuning and building. She knew that families were often disappointed, but the Dukes were supportive of both her and Bo. They trusted her completely, and if she had said that the sun rose in the west, they would have taken her word for it without question.

The most noticeable progress was the work they were doing on the bars. Bo was now able to support himself and to make it across the entire platform. He fell a couple times, letting his fear get the better of him the first time. It was bound to happen, it always did. It was natural for a patient not want to continue afterwards, but Sandy got a glimpse of just how stubborn Bo could be when he wanted. As a professional, she knew that the only way to handle the incident was to make him get right back up. It wasn't like she hadn't done this before with every client she'd ever worked with, she had. If ever there was a need for a firm approach, this was it. In theory, it wasn't complex, but theory and real life tended to conflict, especially when the therapist was known to have her own temper. Professionals weren't immune to hard days, either. She'd had to learn over the years to control her mouth, but Bo's eyes weren't the only ones that could shoot daggers when he wasn't happy. Teacher and student soon learned that they didn't need words to express themselves. Their eyes were quite capable of putting on a fireworks show that rivaled any Fourth of July display. Luckily, Luke had been there to intervene before a hard day really turned into a bad one.

Asking for a few minutes alone with his feisty cousin, Sandy was only too happy to comply. She needed to compose herself, and she trusted Luke enough to believe that he could get through to Bo. A short walk sounded like the perfect solution.

Strolling through the tree covered area behind the Duke farm house, Sandy's mind wasn't thinking about the scenery; it was playing a game of tug-of-war where she was only the referee. Her hands were clinched so tightly that her fingernails were starting to dig into the palms. If she had been further away, she would have screamed. Instead, she settled for muttering to herself. The problem was she really didn't know why. She tried to tell herself that she was just frustrated or tired, but the little voice in the back of her head was only laughing at her and her poor excuses, both of them knowing that was all they really were. She didn't understand her own reactions, and that wasn't normal for Sandy Maverick. She'd only been this upset once before, and that was with a loved one not a patient. That case was her only failure. The realization hit her like a ton of bricks, and as it fell on top of her, she plopped to the ground as if it had actually collapsed on her.

Sandy's anger was gone, now replaced with her own fear. Her reaction was unusual, but she didn't view Bo Duke as just another patient. There was something very special about him, he touched a part of her that no one ever had. As a therapist, it was her job to prod a patient along. Knowing that it was for their own good made it easier. It was the professional way to handle things, yet something about Bo and his entire family went well beyond professionalism. She cared about all her patients, but her personal approach had finally backfired. She cared about this patient a little too much, and seeing him give up had struck a nerve. He was too special to her for failure to be an option.

Meanwhile, Luke had his hands full with his cousin. He'd tried the gentle approach, but that hadn't gotten him anywhere. He tried the reasonable approach, and was rewarded with the same results. Understanding how important it was that Bo get back up, he was left with no other options.

"Do you want the agency to send back Bertha?"

Bo looked at the dark haired man hovering above him. Suddenly, the bars didn't sound so bad after all. Falling wasn't fun, but it was nothing compared to the thought of having his first therapist return. He'd seen the movie, he wasn't interested in the sequel. He couldn't afford to push Sandy away, and it wasn't just his physical well-being that he was thinking about. He needed her, in more ways than he had even admitted to himself yet. If she decided to quit, he didn't know what he'd do, and even if the agency didn't send Bertha, he knew there was only one Sandy Maverick.

"Up!" he told Luke.

Sandy stepped through the clearing, not sure of what to expect. Seeing Bo standing on the platform looking sheepish forced her to grin. Trying to act as normally as possible, she planned on forgetting what had just happened, though what she had discovered about her own feelings couldn't be dismissed that easily.

"Sorry," Bo said, offering the olive branch.

"Me too," she replied, accepting it. "Now, let's try this again."


With Bo's arms getting stronger, he was now able to push the wheels on his chariot by himself. That feat alone made him feel more independent than he had in weeks. He could wheel himself to the refrigerator, open the door, and help himself to whatever he wanted as long as it wasn't on the top two shelves. Daisy made sure that she kept all the foods he liked where he could get at them, glad that his appetite had returned to normal. Luke and Uncle Jesse had discussed building a ramp so that Bo could even go outside on his own, but the Texas Twister told them it wasn't necessary. She had already ordered a set of braces for Bo, and she had no doubt he would master those quickly.

Sandy had said something to Bo when she first arrived, that to date, she hadn't carried out, yet. Taking a leisurely stroll outside, she told him to hold on as the front of the wheels on his chair left the ground. If he was alarmed at first, it didn't last long, as he let out a laugh the size of Texas. "I owed you that wheelie," she informed him, glad that except for the time that Bo first fell, they hadn't had any repeat scuffles. They'd both come away from the experience with more tolerance and understanding.

Bo's vocabulary was getting stronger, too. His brain had finally learned how to communicate with his mouth in getting from thought to verbal utterance. However, his talking was still very choppy, and putting words together was hard. Sandy decided to change her approach. She was still trying to capitalize on the discovery that Bo often said things when he wasn't thinking about saying them. What she didn't know was that Bo had always spoken first and thought later. Sitting directly in front of him, she held his face in her hands. "Look at me Bo. Don't think about what or how you're going to say it, just say it without thinking, doesn't matter what."

It wasn't working. The patient wasn't cooperating, and he wasn't thinking about talking. He was thinking about her. Seeing that she had lost him to his own thoughts, but never dreaming that she was the center of them, she felt herself becoming frustrated again. Believing that her student just wasn't paying attention, and wanting to avoid another scene from getting out of hand, she decided to use an alternative method. So far, she hadn't done it, but she had warned him that she would if he gave her no other choice. Making good on that promise, she called him Beauregard. The other Dukes stopped what they were doing, wondering what Bo's reaction would be. Someone calling him that had always made him mad in the past, and one thing that hadn't been affected by the shooting had been Bo's quick temper. They feared that he'd react first, and regret later. Whatever fallout would follow, it worked. It brought him back to the present immediately. At first, he looked at her, quite surprised. Then, the most unusual thing happened. Instead of getting mad, he started grinning. She grinned, too. "Okay, Bo, tell me not to call you that. Look at me, and tell me not to call you Beauregard."

Clear as a bell, Bo said to her, "please don't call me that."

"Well, since you asked so nicely, ok," she told him, then pointed out that he had strung five words together without a pause. Her compliment would have been sufficient, but Sandy watched as her hand ruffled Bo's hair. Bo had some kind of magnetism that forced her body parts to obey him instead of her brain. She scolded herself, again, to no avail. No matter how many times she resolved that she wouldn't do things like that anymore, that little voice just kept laughing. It was hard to obey a command when deep down you didn't want to. She liked touching Bo, and he wasn't the only one affected by the physical therapy.

Bo was proud of himself when he realized what he'd done. If she could make him talk right again, he thought he might be able to endure being called Beauregard for the rest of his life, but only by her, and only on occasion.


What started out as Bo's greatest strength had quickly turned into one of the most difficult, his hands. Teaching someone how to use ten fingers separately and in conjunction with each other was proving to be a tall mountain to climb. None of Sandy's other clients had ever had that much trouble before, always finding the ability to talk the most challenging. She was starting to run out of ideas until one day, she noticed a guitar sitting in the corner, and Bo was looking at it.

"Do you play?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, and an idea was born.

Grabbing the instrument, she moved herself onto the floor with her back against the couch. Fixing her position, she asked Luke to set Bo down without giving it a second thought. Luke Duke gave her a strange look before she remembered that he hadn't seen them sit that way when Bo was learning how to eat. She'd always had Luke just sit him up against the tree, and he was gone before she got into place. Before she could explain, Bo did it for her.

"She's...not...getting...fresh,...Lukas."

"Too bad," he consoled his cousin, shrugging before picking him up and putting him where she requested.

When she made sure Bo was comfortable, she put the guitar in his hands. He moved put his appendages where they belonged, but he couldn't quite position them right. That's where she came in. Just as she had helped him in first picking up food and utensils, she was manipulating his hands to go where they belonged. It wasn't long before they were strumming out a tune.

Luke had stepped into the other room, but continued to watch, amazed by the results. He really thought she was a genius in her methods, being able to pick up on what a person liked, and then to use it as a form of therapy and motivation. He watched them sitting together. Compared to Bo, she was small, yet she looked like she was fully capable of protecting him from any harm. The expression on Bo's face went from surprise, to happy, to just content. Anyone who didn't know what was going on would have simply thought that they were a couple enjoying a little leisure time. They looked like they belonged together.

Daisy and Jesse heard the guitar, and wondered what was going on. Music was something they enjoyed on a regular basis, but not prior to noon. Coming in through the door, Luke told them to be quiet, but to come over to where he was standing. They all stood there watching, thankful that a little more of the old Bo was returning everyday.

As for Bo, he couldn't have been happier. He was feeling pretty good about even partially being able to make music again. It had always been a favorite hobby of his and Luke's, next to driving the General, and he missed it. Since he'd been incapacitated, Luke would play alone in the evenings. Bo enjoyed that, too, but playing together was just one more thing he wanted to do with his cousin again, and now he believed that he would.

From the topic of music, Bo's mind shifted gears to his body. One thing he knew for sure he wasn't, was paralyzed. Every time Sandy touched him, he felt little sensations like electric shocks pulsate throughout him. Her hand on his arm or face was stimulating, but feeling her pressing against the entire length of his back was almost more than he could endure, and his body was beginning to respond, something else that hadn't happened in a long time. Now, he was praying that it didn't. He would have been totally embarrassed, and he thought that if she saw, she'd never sit that way again, and Bo wanted to feel it again, and again. Luckily, his body wasn't completely healed so he managed to avoid finding himself in a compromising position.

When they finished the first song, he turned his head toward her. "You...play...too?"

"A little," she said. "Now, what shall play next?"