A/N - Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting. I hope that you're all still with me, and that no one has suffered any undue stress over Bo's condition. I love the reviews, but I really do worry about some of you. So, without further delay, let's see what we can do!

Disclaimer: (which I keep forgetting) - I don't own the Dukes, and no infringements intended.

HORRENDOUS MIX-UP

CHAPTER 10

GOOD OLD DAYS

"Bo!" Luke screamed, grabbing him before he hit his head against the wall. He lowered him down onto the pillow, performing the customary check for a pulse. He expected to find one, thinking that Bo had just passed out from the shock. He didn't know whether it would be fast, slow, or normal, but he expected to find a pulse. He didn't. Hoping that his hands were shaking too badly to really feel it, he looked down at his cousin's chest and saw that he wasn't breathing. "Bo, no!" he screamed. "Don't you dare do this," he told him in a very firm voice, the one that he used when he wanted his cousin to know that he meant business. Lowering him to the floor, Luke tilted his head back, pinched off his nose, and gave him a few quick breaths, watching his chest rise as he did so. Then taking his position, he began administering CPR, praying that he wasn't doing more damage to his cousin's previous injuries and small incision.

Having heard the commotion, Jesse and Daisy opened the door to see what was going on.

"Bo!" Daisy screamed.

"What happened?" Uncle Jesse asked.

"Call an ambulance!" Luke ordered. He ain't breathing and he don't have a pulse." The words would have caused Luke to collapse himself, but he knew that if he didn't stay focussed, they'd never get Bo back.

Daisy rushed to the phone, while Uncle Jesse knelt down next to his youngest. He started talking to Bo, begging him not to leave them, but he stayed out of the way. He knew that Luke was much more qualified to perform the life-saving technique than he was, and he knew if anyone could get Bo back, it would be his eldest.

Luke worked like a man possessed, watching the minutes tick away on the clock, knowing that with each passing one their chances were getting slimmer. Yet, they'd have to pull him off of his cousin before he'd quit trying. As they heard the siren in the distance, Bo took a small breath then started coughing.

"That's it Bo, come on kiddo. Keep breathing. You can do it. Help's almost here," Luke told him, scooping up Bo into his arms and wrapping them around him in a protective gesture. He knew that he'd have to let him go when the paramedics got there, but for now, he wanted to make sure that Bo felt safe and loved, and it made him feel better, too.

The attendants checked Bo over, saying that his vitals were weak and unstable. They loaded him up and Luke jumped in with him. Jesse and Daisy said they'd follow. In a short time, the Dukes found themselves back in the waiting room at Tri-County General. Fortunately, this time, they didn't have to wait quite as long as the last time Bo had been brought there.

"You just don't seem to want to leave us, do you?" the same doctor said that had treated Bo before.

"How's Bo?" Uncle Jesse asked with a hint of irritation, thinking that making a joke was in poor taste.

"He's stable right now," the doctor said, regretting his comment.

"Well, what happened to him?" Uncle Jesse wanted to know.

"Sir, you're nephew developed a blood clot that in turn caused a cardiac arrest. Unusual under the circumstances," he added in a low voice before completing his original train of thought. "It was a good thing that someone knew CPR because it must have dislodged it. Otherwise, it most likely would have killed him."

It took a few minutes for the news to really sink in, hitting them all hard, but Uncle Jesse more so than the others. He had to sit down, while his niece and nephew turned their attention to him. For a minute, they feared that they might be visiting two of their family members in the hospital that night.

"Uncle Jesse, are you ok?" the kids asked him, as did the doctor.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, wondering how many more times his youngest was going to scare the daylights out of him. Despite the fact that he'd been so ill as a child, he'd never given up hope. After he'd been cured, the thought of losing Bo, or any of his kids, wasn't something he really thought too much about. It defied the laws of nature. He was the oldest, and it was the kids' job to bury him when the time came, not the other way around. Yet, between Luke dodging bullets for the last two years, and now Bo's less than perfect health, he was afraid that eventually he might have to do the unthinkable, lay one of his kids to rest.

"Uncle Jesse?" Luke asked again.

"I'm ok!" he informed them, turning his attention back to the doctor. "Why's all this happening to Bo?"

"We're not sure. It might just be a chain reaction," the doctor replied. "The original impact to his chest probably set the wheels in motion."

"I didn't hurt him more, did I?" Luke asked, voicing his earlier concerns about performing CPR.

"He'll be sore, son, but no you didn't hurt him. You saved his life."

"So, is he going to be ok?" Jesse asked, trying to divert the glances that his niece and nephew were still throwing his way.

"Well have to watch him. He'll be most vulnerable for the next 48 hours. After that, we'll run some tests to make sure that it was just the blood clot that caused this, but right now, that's what everything points to. We've put him on a blood thinner to help prevent any future clots. The thing I am most concerned about now is that he won't wake up."

"Is he in a coma again?" Daisy asked.

"No, and that's why it doesn't make any sense. He should have woken by now. It's as if he doesn't want to, and that there isn't much we can do about."

Luke looked at him, having a feeling that he knew why his cousin didn't want to join them.

"I know you want to see him. I'll have the nurse come get you. I won't knock the healing power of love, cause I never thought he'd recover the last time he was with us, and I think you guys had more to do with it than we did," the doctor told them.

For the second time in a small time frame, the Dukes found themselves at Bo's bedside inside a hospital. The last time they'd been there, the monitor they were most concerned about was the one gauging Bo's temperature. Except for the night it flatlined, the screen that displayed Bo's heart beat had been steady and even. Now, there was no device tracking Bo's internal temperature, but the heart monitor beeped sporadically. Sometimes, when it skipped a beat, theirs did, too. If this was considered stable, they wondered what the staff would define as unstable. Thankfully, as the night wore on, it began to even out.

Luke, once again, self appointed himself as nighttime monitor. He felt tremendously guilty, feeling that he was directly responsible for Bo being in the bed fighting for his life. He was to blame because he hadn't referenced the fact that there were two pages to that letter, and he was also at fault for showing Bo something that he wasn't strong enough to deal with. It didn't matter that the doctor had blamed it on a blood clot, Luke blamed himself. He had expected a happy ending, like in the fairy tales. He thought that once he showed Bo what had happened, they'd have a good laugh, and all would be forgiven and forgetten. Instead of happily ever after, Luke found himself in the middle of a horror novel.

At least Bo wasn't going to make them wait as long as he had the last time. Luke had fallen asleep with his head on the bed holding Bo's hand. He bolted up when he felt Bo's fingers moving in his.

"Bo? Come on kiddo, wake up," he told him.

"Luke?" Bo called, opening his eyes and looking around the room. "Luke! Where am I?" Bo asked, his fear sending the beeping monitor into overtime.

"Hey! Hey!" Luke soothed, easing Bo back down, "calm down, Bo. It's ok. You're in the hospital."

To his surprise, Bo didn't ask why or say anything else. Instead, he looked at Luke as if he'd never seen him before. Luke smiled down at him, and Bo smiled back, a genuine, million dollar Bo Duke smile, which caused Luke to grin from ear to ear. He was hoping that all had been rectified.

"What happened to your hair?" Bo asked.

Luke looked down at him, not understanding the question. "Huh?"

"Your hair? What happened to it? When did you cut it off, and why?"

Luke didn't know exactly how to respond to Bo's question since he didn't know exactly what he was asking. He hadn't had a hair cut since he'd been back in Hazzard, trying to grow back the full head of hair he'd once had that the military had so easily disposed of.

"I didn't miss the dance, did I?" Bo asked, forcing Luke to leave one weird question to concentrate on another one.

"What dance?"

Bo rolled his eyes. "Boy, Lucas, where you been? The Annual Spring Hoe Down dance, that's what dance. You know I'm taking Jenny Lee Brubacker. I've been asking her out for months. I'd hate to think I slept through the dance after she finally said yes."

"Jenny Lee Brubacker?" Luke repeated slowly, wondering how her name had come up. She and Bo had indeed went to the Annual Spring Hoe Down dance, their one and only date, but that had been..."Bo? Do you know what the date is?" Luke asked, getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"Well, I'm not sure," Bo said, "cause I don't know how long I've been in here."

To simplify matters, Luke told Bo that he'd only been in the hospital for a few hours.

"Oh, well in that case, yeah, it's April 23rd," Bo said.

Luke's eyes widened, as he probed deeper. "What year is it, Bo?" Luke asked.

"What kind of a question is that?" Bo wanted to know. "Luke, are you ok? From the way you're talking, I think you need to be in this bed, not me."

"Just humor me, Bo."

Bo sighed and rolled his eyes. "Ok cuz, sure, the year is 1971."

"Oh boy!" Luke said to himself. "Bo, you wait right here. I'm going to go tell your doctor that you're awake, ok?"

"Sure Luke, anything you say."

Luke went to the nurses' station, and asked them to page Dr. Brady. A few minutes later, he saw him coming down the hall.

"Mr. Duke, what's wrong?" the man in the white coat asked, wondering what was so important that it couldn't wait until morning.

"Bo's awake," Luke informed him.

"Well, that's a good sign. Wait here while I take a look at him."

"Ah doc, wait a minute. There's a little problem," Luke said, stuttering a little.

"What kind of problem?"

"When he woke up, he was talking funny," Luke tried to tell him.

"Talking funny, how? You mean like slurred speech?"

"No, his speech is fine. It's what he's talking about."

"Mr. Duke, I'm afraid you've lost me," the doctor told him.

"He was talking about things that happened a long time ago, so I asked him what the date and year was. Doctor, he thinks it's April, 1971."

"Oh my! That's unusual," he responded, pausing to consider what he'd been told. "I suppose between the lack of oxygen, and the two ordeals he's been through so close together, he might have suffered some type of impairment."

"Doc, I think his mind is doing this on purpose. People can do that after suffering a trauma or finding out something that they just can't deal with, can't they?"

"Yes," he answered, "it's been known to happen. Maybe you better tell me a little more about what actually did happen," he suggested.

Luke explained what had been going on and the events of the previous evening when everything had finally been pieced together. After hearing the story, the doctor concurred that it was likely that Bo had returned to a time when none of the stress existed.

"So, what do we do now?" Luke asked, hoping for a miracle cure.

"I really don't know. They say it's best not to tell them, but to let them get their memory back on their own. On the other hand, it's gonna be hard to do that if he's waiting for things that aren't going to happen. He's gonna want to know why he's not going back to school, and he'll probably wonder why everything and possibly everyone looks a little different. He might even wonder about the weather, since it isn't April. I guess I wouldn't volunteer the information, unless there comes a time when you just can't hide it anymore."

Luke nodded, digesting the advice as the doctor left to check on his patient.

Uncle Jesse and Daisy couldn't believe what Luke told them the next morning.

"He thinks we're all still in school?" Daisy asked, which Luke confirmed. "Well, how we gonna pretend that we are?" she wanted to know.

"I don't know, but I don't think we should tell him the truth just yet," Luke said.

"We'll just have to do our best. We can tell him that he can't go back to school for a couple of weeks cause he's been too sick. That might buy us some time, but eventually, we're not going to be able to keep this up," Uncle Jesse said.

His niece and nephew knew that he was right, especially since Luke's time with them was drawing to a close.

It was more than a little strange being with a 15 year old Bo Duke again. People rarely got an opportunity to relive their past, but that's what the members of the Duke family were doing as Bo's mind remained trapped in his. In a way, it was really special. When Bo had actually been 15, Luke and Daisy had been younger, too. They had interacted with each other like the teenagers they were. Now they were getting reacquainted with a 15 year old Bo, but they weren't kids anymore. They had changed, but Bo hadn't, and getting a chance to see him like that was endearing. Of course, as the more time passed, the harder it was getting to keep up the pretense that they were living in either April or 1971. Bo was expecting to go back to school in a few days, and they found that the truth was everywhere. They had to hide the paper, hide most of the mail, and they had to stop watching the TV and listening to the radio, and that was just around the farm. They'd kept Bo out of Hazzard because they couldn't hide everything with a date or possibly clue everyone in as to what was going on. Unfortunately, Bo was showing no signs of remembering anything, and they feared what would happen in a few days when Bo attempted to go back to Hazzard High as a 9th grader. As a family, they started dropping little hints, but it wasn't helping. In fact, the youngest member of their family thought they'd all gone a little wacko.

After enough days had passed, they resided themselves to telling the blonde the truth. The dance that Bo was so eagerly awaiting was the following day. He was becoming upset that neither his date nor any of his other friends had called or stopped by to see how he was doing. Then there was the little matter that Luke only had one more week left at home, and they needed enough time to see how Bo was going to take that news. As a real 15 year old, he hadn't taken it well the first time. Having made the decision, they looked forward to enjoying one more day in the good old days. They knew it would probably be their last day with 15 year old Bo, but they prayed that it just wouldn't be their last day, period. No one knew how Bo was going to react when they told him the truth. Last time his mind had discovered something that it couldn't handle, his heart had stopped. He could have very easily died right there and then, and they were all apprehensive that a repeat might happen.

Out of all of the Dukes, Luke Duke had enjoyed the experience the most. When he'd prayed that the Lord would send him his baby cousin back, this wasn't exactly what he had in mind, but it was better than the strained relationship they'd been experiencing. Luke really felt like he had been given a chance to relive very happy moments with his cousin, and this time, he cherished each and everyone of them. The time that Bo's mind was trapped in was prior to Luke's graduation and before he had joined the Marines. It was a time when Bo worshipped Luke and thought of him as some type of God-like hero, capable of doing anything. Luke doubted that he ever truly appreciated what it felt like to have someone look at him like that, but he swore he'd never take it for granted again.

Wanting to make the most of every minute, Luke suggested that they do a little fishing down at their favorite spot, Hazzard Pond. Bo, as always, was more than agreeable. Daisy's car didn't exist in Bo's world, yet, so they'd hidden it at Cooter's. Uncle Jesse thought he might be needing the truck, so the boys were left to an ancient form of transportation, walking. They didn't mind, they were used to it, at least the young Bo was, and it gave them more time together.

Having spent an enjoyable time in the water, and having caught enough fish for dinner the next night, Luke announced that it was time to go back. Bo tried to get a few more minutes, but Luke remained firm. Packing up their stuff, they headed back to the highway and started walking home. They hadn't gotten far when a car pulled up alongside them.

"You boys need a ride?" the man asked.

"No thanks," Luke told him. He didn't recognize him, but he doubted that he'd be a threat. He was dressed in military fatigues, just like the ones Luke had. The man's hair was short like Luke's had been. It was clear that he was military, probably home on leave, too. It wasn't that Luke felt they had anything to fear from a fellow serviceman, but he was enjoying being alone with Bo and stretching out the minutes. He was so busy looking at the driver of the car, that he hadn't noticed Bo had turned completely pale, his eyes transfixed on the GI.

"He ok?" the guy asked.

Luke looked at Bo, and immediately became fearful. The wild look he saw in Bo's eyes right before his heart stopped was there again. His eyes were glued to the stranger in the car. "Bo!" he said, turning his cousin to face him. Bo's body went in the direction that Luke was guiding it, but his head remained steadfast. Using his hand, he guided Bo's head so that it was also facing him. "Bo," he said softly, not wanting to spook him.

"Luke," he whispered, as once again his eyes darted to the back of his head and he lost the battle to stand upright. Luke caught him in his arms, and guided him to the ground. He checked for a pulse, expecting not to find one. This time he did, and it was strong and steady. He gave a little cry, as he pulled Bo closer, holding him and talking softly to him. He hadn't noticed that the driver had gotten out of the car, and was kneeling next to them.

"Is he ok?" he asked again.

"He's been sick," Luke told the man.

"Should we take him to the hospital or something?" the stranger asked.

Luke was about ready to tell him yes, when he felt Bo move and heard him whimper. "Bo, c'mon cuz, wake up."

"Luke?" he asked.

"Yeah Bo, it's me. I'm right here."

"Luke, I'm sorry," Bo told him.

"You have nothing to be sorry for Bo," Luke assured him.

"I shouldn't have believed it. I should have known better," Bo confessed.

Luke wasn't positive what Bo was referring to. He'd been through so much, that he couldn't be sure. He thought he knew, but before he ended up saying something that would only hurt Bo more, he had to know which Bo he was even dealing with. "Bo? Do you know what year it is?" Luke asked.

"1973."

Luke hugged him tighter. "Yeah, it is," he said, bending down and kissing him on the top of the head. Bo had come back to the present all on his own, and that was good news. "It's ok, now, Bo. Everything's gonna be ok."

"Can you forgive me, Luke?" Bo cried.

"Forgive you for what?"

"For believing that stuff. For doubting you," Bo told him.

"Bo, it was a mistake, a horrendus mix-up. I'd give anything to be able to go back and stop it from happening, but I can't. There's nothing to forgive, I understand how it happened. All we can do is go forward, together. Think we can do that?"

"I want to Luke," Bo told him.

"I want that too, more than you'll ever know. Oh God, Bo, I love you so much."

"I love you, too, Luke, and I swear, I'll never doubt you again."

"Good, cause if you do, I will kick your behind from here to Chickasaw County," Luke told him, and Bo laughed. "Come on, let's go home," Luke said, helping Bo to his feet, and accepting the ride the stranger was still offering.