A/N - Hi, again! You guys have been so great with the reviews, that it motivated me to slack off on my work and get this next chapter posted! (Don't tell my boss - just kidding.)

HORRENDOUS MIX-UP

CHAPTER 9

ANSWERS

The next day, Bo's temperature began to drop. With the promise that the tube was still going to be removed, it was a day for giving thanks. The doctor asked Luke to stand next to Bo, seeing how the lad had refused to let go of him the day before. Luke took his hand, giving him a reassuring squeeze and a wink.

"Bo, I need you to cough as I do this," the doctor instructed his patient.

Bo complied, and the physician yanked, a little harshly in everyone's opinion. Once it was gone, it was like Bo had forgotten how to take air into his lungs on his own, having had it done for him for the past several days. The longer he went without oxygen, the more frightened he became.

Luke was right beside him, still clutching his hand. "Breathe, Bo, breathe," he told him, only relaxing when Bo finally did. The ordeal exhausted Bo, and once he was sure that he was breathing unassisted, he let his eyes slip shut. Before he lost his battle with the conscious world, he checked to make sure that his voice still worked. "Luke," he whispered. It brought tears to his older cousin's eyes, and he responded by leaning over Bo and kissing him on the forehead. Bo's eyes shot open at the unexpected display of affection.

"Why?" he rasped out.

"Because I love you, ya dummy."

"Love you, too, Luke."

Bo's guardian angel went home that night and slept in a bed for the first time in several nights. He was tired, but he doubted that he would be able to sleep peacefully until Bo was back in the bed next to his. He was wrong, and felt a little guilty the next morning. He had slept for over twelve hours without moving a muscle, only to discover that he was still tired. That didn't matter, he had to get up. Bo was waiting for him, and that was all that was important. The ordeal had bridged some of the gap that had formed between them. Luke was the one that Bo wanted, and nothing could have made him happier. It felt good to be needed again, and he planned on plugging the rest of the gorge once Bo got home, which was supposed to be in just a couple of days. As long as Bo continued to improve, the doctors said that he could finish his recuperation in the comfort of his own house.
When Luke wasn't doing chores, he was spending every waking minute with his cousin. Bo was home, but confined to his bed or the couch for a few more days. The boys resumed working on the plans for a concept car, though it was limited to paper until Bo was able to move around again. Luke took it upon himself to entertain Bo almost non-stop, and Bo was so bored that he agreed to resuming their old competition in the game of checkers. The more his health improved, though, the more guilt he felt about once again being a ball and chain around his cousin's neck.

It was Bo's move, and Luke had made a rare error which would allow his cousin to win the game. Normally, eager to squash his opponent, Bo stared at the board as if he didn't see the opportunity. The fact was, he wasn't thinking about the game at all.

When he made no move after a while, Luke became concerned. "Bo, you okay?" When that failed to capture his attention, Luke touched his shoulder, causing him to jump. "Bo?"

"Huh?" he asked, then added, "sorry."

"You ok?" Luke asked, the worry rising in him.

"Yeah, Luke. I'm tired."

"Well ok, we can finish this later," the oldest Duke boy said, picking up the board and moving it without disrupting the pieces.

Bo had expected Luke to leave the room, but instead, he sat back down on the edge of the bed. Bo closed his eyes, thinking that if he pretended to be asleep, Luke wouldn't feel the need to sit with him anymore. When he felt a hand on his forehead, his eyes shot open. The last thing he expected was to see his tough, Marine cousin looking down at him with tears in his eyes.

"Luke?" he asked.

Luke let his head slump down. "Oh Bo! I thought we was gonna loose ya," he cried, as some of his tears started spilling over. "I thought I was scared over in Nam, but I ain't never been as scared as I was when I walked in here and saw you on the floor."

Bo didn't know how to respond. Luke rarely cried, even when they were kids; that was Bo's department. He'd always been the emotional one of the three, often being teased that he cried more than Daisy. When he did cry, Luke had always been there for him, whether he wanted to be or not. Bo couldn't turn his back on him now. "I'm sorry, Luke. I didn't mean to scare ya'll," he said, reaching out to touch Luke's arm and apologizing as if he could have prevented it. The feel of Bo's hand broke down Luke's remaining reserves, and his shoulders started shaking. "Come here," Bo said, tugging on his cousin. Luke accepted the invitation, lying down beside Bo, being careful not to put any weight on his left side.

"Oh God, Bo, I missed ya bad when I was gone. The only thing that kept me going was thinking about the day that I'd see you again." Pulling out the picture that he still carried with him in his pocket, he showed it to his cousin. "I carried this around like I was a girl with a doll. I used to look at it every night before I went to sleep, sometimes I looked at it during the day, too, when things were really bad. There were times I just wanted to give in, to let myself get killed so that I wouldn't have to do it anymore, but then I'd see your face and remember that I promised I'd come back. Then I got home, and everything was so different. You were so different, and it's like you hated me, but thinking that you might die and I'd never see ya again, well I couldn't stand it. I guess I'd rather have you hate me and have you alive than never see ya again."

Bo sighed, certain what Luke was feeling was nothing more than guilt. "It's ok, Luke. I'm ok, now. I know that I wouldn't be if it hadn't been for you, and I appreciate everything you've done, but you can let go now. You don't need to feel bad, and you don't need to sit here with me every minute. You can go do the things that you want, be with your friends, and go on with your life. I understand, Luke, and I don't hate you."

The older Duke boy knew that the time had come to clear up the mess once and for all. "You keep saying crap like that, but I don't understand why. You're my best friend, Bo! I don't want to be with anyone else or anywhere else."

"Luke, I know that Uncle Jesse made you be my friend, and I know that it made your life miserable. I'm sorry about that. If I had known, I would have run away or done something else so you wouldn't have had to put up with me all those years. I know that's why you left, and I'm sorry that it was so bad that you had to leave your home just to get away from me. I'm glad your back, and I promise not to be anymore trouble. If that ain't good enough, I'll leave. I'll do anything just to make you happy and to make up for all those years. Just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it," Bo added.

Luke looked up in horror. "I want you to stop believing this jibberish. I want you to go back to being the Bo Duke I left behind, the one I thought about every minute I was gone, the one I missed every second of everyday, the one I love, the one that's my best friend and my brother. I want you to stop talking about leaving the farm, cause if you do, I'll find ya and drag ya back. I didn't fight for two years to keep my promise to you so you could just up and leave. Most of all, though, I want you to believe me when I tell ya that Jesse never forced me to be your friend. He told me to keep an eye on ya, and Daisy too, since you guys were younger, but that's it. I didn't have to be told to be your friend. I loved you from the minute you came to live here, and we were friends from the start, and that's the God's honest truth, Bo. There's no truth to the rest of this garbage, and if I ever find out who spread these lies and got you to believe them, I swear, I'll kill em Bo."

It was a nice speech, one that Bo would have liked to have been able to believe, but he knew that it was lies. At least, at one point, it was lies. Perhaps since Luke had been gone for a while he had a change of heart, saw things differently, or maybe he was just feeling guilty because he had been so sick. It didn't matter, it didn't change the truth as Luke had written it all those years ago. "I saw the letter you wrote to Uncle Jesse, Luke. I know that you did feel that way, at least back then."

"No, I didn't! I don't know what you thought you saw, but I never wrote any such thing!"

"Yeah, ya did, Luke," Bo accused, not believing that Luke wouldn't at least confess to the truth since he knew it anyway.

Luke was exasperated. Whatever Bo saw, he was convinced that it was true, yet Luke knew he had never written such a thing, and even Uncle Jesse said he'd never read it. They seemed to be at an impasse. No matter what he said now, Bo was going to be guided by whatever it was that he had seen then. They could argue back and forth all they wanted. Until he could determine what really happened, his word wasn't going to be good enough this time. "Bo, what did this letter say?"

"Just what I already told ya," Bo answered, looking away from his cousin, embarassed to acknowledge that Luke thought of him so poorly. He couldn't bring himself to actually repeat the words.

Suddenly a thought occured to Luke. "You still have it, don't you?" Luke asked.

Bo, being the sentimental one, had a habit of saving little items. It wasn't that everyone else didn't do it too, but Bo had a tendency to save things that other people would never think to.

Bo didn't want to admit that he had kept it all that time. He couldn't answer why. He should have burned it or threw it away, but it came from Luke and he couldn't destroy it. He still referred to it from time to time just to remind himself that it really did exist. He finally nodded.

"Where? Bo, I need to see it. We're both miserable over it cause you think I wrote something that I say I didn't. Don't you think I have a right to see the evidence that I've been tried, convicted, and already executed on?"

Bo turned to look at Luke, not seeing the harm in showing it to him. He started to get out of bed, but Luke stopped him. Despite their argument, Luke was still playing nurse and protector. "Just tell me where it is. I'll get it."

"Bottom drawer, in my box, under the t-shirts."

Luke retrieved it, and handed it to his cousin. He assumed that this was his personal safety deposit box, and Bo needed to be the one to get the letter out. The blonde opened it and started removing items one by one. Luke quickly saw that this was the container that held all of the things Bo Duke treasured and felt were worth keeping. He had a similar one, but it didn't have as much stuff in it, but that was Bo. He knew that it shouldn't have surprised him to see that most of the things in the box were some type of reminder or momento of things they had shared. If they would have looked in his own chest, most of his momentos had to do with Bo. That's how close they'd always been, and why it was so inconceivable that his cousin could have believed it was all an act. As Bo got to the bottom, he pulled out a stack of letters. They were all the ones Luke had sent him while he'd been gone. He had a similar pile of all the ones Bo had sent to him. He hadn't saved all of Jesse's or Daisy's, but he had saved every one of his younger cousin's. He watched as Bo removed the rubber band holding them together. At the bottom of the pile, he retrieved a single piece of paper. Unfolding it, he looked at it, then handed it to Luke and looked away, thinking back to the dreadful day that changed his life.

Daisy was still at school working on some project. Uncle Jesse was out in the fields working on something, too. Bo walked in the house, intending on changing clothes and then finding his uncle so that he could help. The piles of mail were sitting on the table. On top of each pile were similar envelopes, all addressed in Luke's penmanship. There was a letter for each of them. Bo reached for the one addressed to him, seeing that Uncle Jesse's had already been opened. When he picked his up, a single piece of paper fluttered to the floor. Bo could see that it was also in his cousin's handwriting, and assumed that Jesse had either put it in the wrong pile or that Luke had accidentally stuffed it in the wrong envelope. He glanced at it to see if he could determine who it belonged to, and noticed that his name was written toward the top. He read the first couple of sentences, shocked by the words. Just as curiosity had killed the cat, his curiosity had killed him. He doubted that his eyes were ever supposed to have seen this, but it was too late. Whoever said that the pen was mightier than the sword had been right. A thousand swords would have hurt less and been more merciful.

'I left Hazzard to get away from Bo because you forced me to be his friend all those years. You know he's just dim-witted, dumb, and always causing trouble.'

Bo couldn't read anymore. Everything he'd heard the last few months had been true, confirmed by Luke, himself. The person he loved more than anyone in the world, whom he thought returned that love, didn't. It had all been an act, forced by his uncle. He didn't know what to believe anymore, and he wondered if his cousin, Daisy, felt the same way. It was bad enough that Luke thought so poorly of him, but in his heart, Uncle Jesse must too, believing that if he didn't make Luke be his friend, Bo wouldn't have any at all. He told himself that he must truly be that worthless if his own family thought that little of him.

Luke looked down at what Bo had given him. He immediately recognized the worn paper and the chicken scratches as his own. It took him a moment before he could focus enough to really read the words.

I left Hazzard to get away from Bo because you forced me to be his friend all those years. You know, he's just dim-witted and always causing trouble. Someday, someone's going to put him in his place, and I only hope it's me that gets the pleasure of doing it.

There was more, but Luke couldn't concentrate on anything except those first few lines, having no doubt that those were the words that Bo had been replaying in his head all these years. For a long time, Luke had wanted to inflict physical pain on the person responsible for hurting his cousin. It was quite a shock to discover that he had been the culprit. When he looked up, Bo was watching him through lowered lashes.

"It's ok, Luke. It don't matter anymore," Bo said without a hint of anger or accusation.

Bo might have been the one who would fly off the handle first, but he was also the one to offer the fastest olive branch. It was just like his cousin to forgive something that had hurt him so deeply to make him feel better. Luke looked down at the letter again, reading words that he could see he had written, trying to find some reasonable explanation. "No Bo, this is not ok. It sure does matter. I never meant this, not like it sounds here," he said, trying to justify himself. "You can't honestly believe that I meant this!"

Bo looked at him in disbelief. Luke was always considered the smart one. Could he honestly be denying something that was right under his nose in black and white?

"Bo, I'm telling you. I didn't," he said, suddenly stopping as an understanding hit him He knew what had happened, at least he thought he did. "Wait a minute, Bo! Stay right here," he instructed as he hurried out of the room.

"Uncle Jesse? Uncle Jesse?" Luke called.

"What? What's the matter? Is it Bo?" the old man asked, throwing down his paper and getting up from his chair.

"No, Bo's ok. Sorry," he said, never meaning to scare the old man. Taking a deep breath, he calmed his voice. "Uncle Jesse, remember when you told me that you saved all the letters I sent to you from overseas?"

"Yeah," he replied softly.

"Do you still have em?" Luke asked.

"Yeah, why?" he wanted to know.

"Can I see em? It's real important," Luke told him.

Their uncle went into his own bedroom and came back carrying a little bundle that resembled the one Bo had pulled out of his box. He handed them to Luke, who removed the string and started going through them, hoping that he'd find what he was looking for. It was the only thing that could vindicate him and get his cousin to believe him. Toward the bottom of the pile he hit pay dirt.

He should have jumped for joy as he ran back to Bo, happy that the mystery had been solved. In fact, he was filled with a sadness that he couldn't even describe as he realized what had taken place. He now knew what had happened to make Bo believe that he had secretly hated him. How it happened wasn't really important. What was sad was all the pain it had caused, all of them. If he his cousin had thought about it a little more, he probably would have figured it out himself, but Bo was just a kid; a kid ruled by emotions not logic. He read the words, knew they were in Luke's handwriting, and confirmed what he was already being told by a lot of people. That was good enough for him. Sitting back down on the bed with the other piece of paper in his hand, he wiped away the tears that were running down Bo's face.

"Bo, look at this," he said, pointing to the source of all the trouble.

"Luke, I've been looking at it for a long time. I know what it says," he sniffed.

"Look at it again, Bo, cause it ain't what it says that's important. It's what this doesn't say that matters," Luke told him, shaking the part of the letter that Bo had been saving all that time.

Bo looked at his cousin with an expression of wariness. First he denied it, now he was trivalizing it.

"Look Bo, there's no date," Luke said, pointing to the top of the page. "I always put a date on my letters." Waiting a minute, he went on. "There's no greeting," he said, pointing a little further down the page. "You ever see a letter from me that didn't start Dear Bo, or Dear Uncle Jesse, or Dear Daisy?"

Bo thought about it for a minute. If he had needed to, he could have pulled out one of Luke's other letters to verify that fact, but he knew that he would find the standard salutation. "No, but what's that got to do with anything?"

"There's something else that it doesn't say, and that IS my fault. If I'd have put it on there, it might have prevented all of this." Pointing back to the top opposite corner, Luke finished, "page 2," he said letting his words soak in. When Bo looked at him, Luke explained. "This is page 2 of a letter, Bo, not page 1. Those words are part of something else not a stand alone statement. Here," Luke said, handing him what he'd fished out of his uncle's pile, gesturing to the bottom of the back page. "Read this," he said, then pointed to the words Bo knew so well, "than this."

Bo doubted that there was anything he could read that would change the meaning of the words he knew by heart, but he did as his cousin asked. When he did, it was his turn to have to read the same thing twice.

'Uncle Jesse, I don't know how it got started. I give you my word as a Duke that I've never said anything of the sort to anyone. I know that it sounds like a lot of people are repeating the same thing, but you know how rumours spread. I love Bo, he's my best friend and always has been. I know Bo would never believe any of this. I'm surprised you would. It ain't true, none of it. I don't care if Mr. Hobbs is saying it or not. It's ridiculous to think that'

'I left Hazzard to get away from Bo because you forced me to be his friend all those years. You know, he's just dim-witted and always causing trouble. Someday, someone's going to put him in his place, and I only hope it's me that gets the pleasure of doing it.'

Putting the two pages together gave everything a new meaning. Luke wasn't saying that's the way he felt him. On page one, he had said just the opposite. Mr. Hobbs was the one that Luke was referring to as a dim-witted trouble maker.

For too long, Bo believed that his cousin hated him, even though his heart hadn't wanted to. He'd never known such emptiness or pain in his life, even when he thought about losing his parents, and the anguish had taken a toll on him. Now he found out that he hadn't had to feel that way; he shouldn't have felt that way. A part of him wanted to shout, happy that it wasn't true. Another wanted to scream in anger. Then there was the part that really did feel dim-witted. If he hadn't been so dumb, he would have figured it out on his own, but he hadn't, and he'd been wrong. Luke must think him a total idiot. He also assumed that his cousin was disappointed in his lack of faith. Luke's letter had conveyed the utmost confidence in him. His actions didn't warrant that trust. He was sure that their relationship had been ruined forever, and this time, it wasn't Luke's fault, it was his.

"Bo?" Luke asked softly, seeing that his cousin now knew what had happened, too.

Bo raised wild eyes to Luke, afraid to see what was looking back at him. He saw Luke's wide grin quickly dissipate. The look in Luke's eyes scared him, confirming that his stupidity had cost him his best friend.

As Luke looked into Bo's eyes, he became scared. Something didn't look right at all. He'd seen Bo with eyes that burned with fever for the past few weeks, but nothing compared to what he was seeing now. Bo's hands began to shake. The physical trauma he'd endured now coupled with the emotional distress was more than he or his healing body could handle. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he slumped backwards as the papers floated out of his hands.