A/N - Hi! It's me again! Sorry bout the delay. I've gotten busy with a few other things, like work. I shocked myself when I read this again at the number of errors I hadn't fixed. I hope I caught them all, but if you see any, please accept my apologies.

Thanks for all the reviews! Yes, they still help and I enjoy hearing all the different theories on what's going to happen. I'll try not to get so far behind in posting.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Dukes, and no infringements intended.


BLOOD BROTHERS

CHAPTER 7

LOOSE ENDS

Bo couldn't explain it, but ever since he'd had that short conversation with Daisy, he'd felt a peace he hadn't felt before. He discovered that saying the words and acknowledging the possibility hadn't felt like the death sentence he'd thought it would. In fact, it was like he'd been granted parole. His real goal was a pardon, but the chances of that were starting to look grim.

Not long after he'd spoken with Daisy, he talked with his uncle. He needed to make sure that he knew how much he loved him and appreciated everything he'd ever done for him. He also wanted him to promise that he'd look after Luke.

He even asked Cooter to look after his stubborn cousin, reminding him that he was Luke's best friend. Cooter promised that he'd be there, but quickly corrected Bo.

"You're wrong about that, buddyroe. I ain't Luke's best friend. You are."

No matter how hard he tried nor how many ways he approached the subject, Luke just wasn't willing to talk about it. It wasn't that Bo blamed him. Had the roles been reversed, he would have felt the exact same way so he could certainly understand it. He, however, didn't have the luxury of knowing whether he had enough time for Luke to come around. There were certain things he needed to let his cousin know, and he was quickly becoming less scared for himself and more scared for Luke. Without him willing to talk, there was only one way to go about communicating.

Taking out a piece of paper and a pen, Bo decided to write to Luke. While he'd had been away, Bo had written him many times. Though his uncle had forced him to write some of the correspondence during a period when Bo hadn't wanted to, most of the letters he penned to his cousin were his idea. Writing wasn't necessarily his strength, but he'd never worried about that before. He'd also never lacked in having something to tell his cousin about, nor had he worried about how well he stated it; he knew Luke would understand it. However, he'd never written anything this important before. In the past, if he forgot something, he could just include it next time. If his cousin read this, there wouldn't be a next time.

'Dear Luke,' he started, using the familiar salutation. He didn't get much further before being interrupted by the recipient himself. Shoving the paper into a notebook, he couldn't let Luke see it. He doubted that his cousin would react any better to the written form than he had to the verbal one.

"Whatch ya doin?" Luke asked, watching as his cousin nervously shoved a slip of paper into his school book.

"Nothing. Just a little homework," Bo responded, telling himself that this was really an assignment; it was a required writing assignment in his life. "How's the fields?"

"Ok," Luke responded. Noting how nervous Bo looked, he wondered just what he had interrupted.


It took another two weeks for Bo to really even be able to get out of bed. When he did, he only resembled a shell of the person he used to be. Once so energetic, he had very little stamina left. He wanted to go back to school, but his family refused. They would have given him anything that they could have right then, but that was something that they couldn't allow. He could barely get around the house without help; there was no way he'd he been able to navigate the hallways of Hazzard High School. Luckily, the teachers agreed that as long as Bo completed the assignments and could pass the tests, they'd allow him to finish up and to graduate. The buzz around Hazzard was a speculation as to whether Bo would even be with them by the time the seniors got their diplomas.

Bo didn't need to be told what people were thinking; he was thinking it himself. He could feel it, a little more everyday. It seemed that the only one who wasn't thinking it was Luke.

The younger Duke stopped trying to bring up the subject. He had resided himself to the fact that they wouldn't talk about it. He'd worked diligently on the letter, starting and stopping it several times, but finally getting it to the point that it was almost finished. Of course, he wasn't gone yet, so he made sure that it could be updated if necessary.

Making the most of the times he felt the best, there was something else that he desperately wanted to see completed: their engine. Yet, for some reason, it seemed that the more he pushed to complete it, the more Luke started dragging his feet. Bo knew Luke was stalling. He knew what was taking place, no matter how hard his cousin tried to deny it.

Luke saw Bo trying to put his house in order, though as a teenager he didn't have that much to organize. Unlike an adult with assets and responsibilities, Bo didn't have those. He had schoolwork, his relationships, and that engine. Bo talked about getting it done all the time, and he was terrified that once they did, his cousin wouldn't have any reason to hang on. Yes, he was dragging his feet.

When Bo could stand it no longer, he decided to stop waiting for his ever procrastinating partner. Slowly, sneaking out to the barn, he decided to finish it himself. It was a rare occurrence that the youngest Duke ever found himself at home alone, but that day everyone had something that needed to be done. Bo hadn't promised them that he would stay inside; they hadn't asked. They naturally assumed that he would, and that was their mistake. A determined Bo Duke could accomplish anything, or almost anything, and should never have been underestimated.

Luke arrived back at the farm first, feeling a fear that he couldn't describe when he called into the house and received no answer. After searching the entire house and not finding what he had expected, he found himself in a panic. Radioing to his uncle and other cousin, he was trying to think of where else to look. It never crossed his mind that Bo might actually try to leave the house, but as he waited for the Calvary to arrive, he didn't have anything better to do than to look around. Once he was outside, he thought he heard something coming from the barn.

Bo should have known better than to wander out by himself, but this was something that he had to see through. If Luke wouldn't help him, he'd do it himself, or at least that was the plan. He had been able to accomplish a little on his own, but where he normally sat and watched Luke do the work, now he had to stand. He hadn't been on his feet for that long in a long time. He knew that he was getting tired, and he also knew that he wouldn't make it back to the house. He was feeling strange. Bo turned to see Luke closing the gap from the door to himself, and he heard him calling out to him, but it was like watching it in slow motion. He wasn't aware of his cousin's arms grabbing him before he hit the ground.

"Dang fool kid," Luke grunted, sounding more afraid than angry.

Daisy and Jesse were just driving up as Luke carried Bo back to the house.

"Why's he out here?" Jesse asked, as they hovered around their youngest once he was safely back in his bed.

"He was out in the barn tinkering with that damned motor," Luke said, forgetting about his uncle's inherent dislike of curse words.

"Luke," Jesse said, ignoring the word as he laid a hand on his shoulder. "You gotta finish the thing. It's important to Bo."

"He's hasn't been well enough," Luke said, justifying his lack of enthusiasm and trying to hide the real reason behind it.

"Son, he's not strong enough to do it himself, as we can all see, but he's strong enough to sit out there and help you, and you know it."

"Uncle Jesse...," the dark haired man began to protest.

"Luke, he knows what you're doing and he knows why." The old man waited until his eldest could digest the words.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke said, trying to play dumb.

"Yes you do, Luke. Now look, I understand it and so does Bo, but finishing what you two started is important to him, and stalling ain't gonna stop something from happening that the Good Lord wants to."

"I don't understand," Luke replied, surprised by the revelation that he hadn't been as clever as he thought he had. There had been a time in their young lives when he could have convinced Bo that J. D. Hogg was Santa Clause himself. Luke wondered when his cousin had grown up so much and gotten so smart that he could see right through him. Then he reminded himself that no one knew him better than Bo. "How'd you..." he tried to ask, not knowing exactly how to say it.

"He told me," Jesse informed him, which really caught Luke off guard. "Son, Bo's talked to all of us about it, already."

"He has?" Luke asked incredulously.

"Yeah, sugar," Daisy agreed. "Even Cooter a little."

"The only one that he hasn't talked to is you, Luke. He don't want to upset you, but you gotta talk to him or you're gonna regret it," Jesse advised him, hoping that his stubborn nephew heeded his words before it really was too late.

Those words did affect Luke, more than he wanted to admit. He still couldn't talk to Bo, though. 'There was plenty of time for that,' he told himself, but if his cousin was willing to risk life and limb to complete a project they'd started together, he couldn't deny him that. He knew that Jesse was right; prolonging it wasn't going to change anything, and if it was bothering Bo, he didn't want that, either. The following day, Luke helped Bo back outside. His cousin was more than content to watch and supervise Luke's work as the final pieces fell into place. By the end of the week, there was only one more to go.

Luke helped Bo up, handing him the last part. Standing behind Bo, they secured it tightly. It was the way they'd always worked: together. It was something of a bittersweet moment; an ending to one saga, a beginning to another. They knew the complete story of the first, but they only had the plot of the second. It was a work in progress that had a probable ending if not yet a definite one. However, Bo seemed extremely excited by it, and that was all that counted to Luke at that moment.

"Yeehaw! We did it!" the boy exclaimed, turning to wrap his arms around his cousin.

"We sure did, Bo," Luke told him, hugging him too tightly, but not being able to contain himself. He was grasping at whatever he could, and Bo was still something he could physically touch.

Treading lightly, Bo tried to bring up the subject again. "You'll be driving it before I will, so you make us both proud, till I can show you how it's really done."

Despite the tears stinging his eyes, Luke couldn't help but chuckle at his cousin's instructions. Bo had never been known for his diplomacy, and he wondered when he'd become a politician. He couldn't answer him, though. He couldn't make that promise. As far as he was concerned that engine would never go into a car that he would drive unless Bo were by his side. All he could do was embrace him, and tell him that he was sure it would make them both proud.

Bo understood what he was saying: it would make them proud regardless of who was driving it. He wanted to make Luke see that even if he wasn't sitting next to him in person, it would still be theirs. As long as the engine was with Luke, he'd always have a part of him. He thought about making his cousin promise that he'd follow through, but he couldn't. He knew all too well the pressure that went along with making a promise that couldn't be kept. So far in their lives, neither of them had done it, but with each day, Bo feared he'd be the first. He could only hope that Luke would know that it wasn't intentional.

Admiring their creation a few more minutes, they called for Daisy and Jesse to come welcome the thing into the family.


Bo's medical regiment had been totally thrown out of whack by his reaction to the main ingredient in the chemo. The normal six week interval had already stretched past eight, and everyone was a little concerned as to how that would affect the effectiveness of it. That became secondary as the belief was that not waiting may kill him sooner. Giving him time to build up his strength, he was also given units of blood and platelets as the chemo had destroyed so many of his own. Bo and his family had been warned warned on numerous occasions about the dangers of excessive bleeding. A scrape, cut, or even nose bleed could result in tremendous blood loss, enough to kill him, as his platelet count was too low to allow normal clotting.

Bo was being treated as if he were a piece of fragile crystal. After being given the supplements, he started feeling better, until he thought about what lay ahead: another treatment. The first two were bad enough, but as Bo thought about the last one, it began to dampen his spirits. It might have been different if they'd been told that it was working, but so far, none of the doctors had ventured to sound that optimistic. He wasn't trying to give up or to stop fighting, he just didn't know why he had to if it wasn't helping.

Bo wasn't the only ones dreading the next go-around, and they could see it draining the boy. As he felt better, Luke tried to distract him, if only for short intervals. On an unusually warm day, he decided to take his cousin out for a little trip.

"Hey Bo? How bout we go fishing?"

"Sure, Luke," Bo responded, wanting every opportunity he could get to spend time with his cousin, though Luke had been by his side almost every minute of every day since he'd returned from the war.

Daisy and Jesse didn't know if they were crazy about the idea of Luke taking Bo out, but seeing that he wanted to go, they finally agreed. They knew that Luke would never do anything to hurt Bo, so they trusted his judgement.

"Geez, she bundled me up like an Eskimo," Bo said, removing a couple of layers of clothing as soon as the truck hit the highway and they were out of sight of the farm.

"Yeah," Luke grinned, "but be nice. She did fix us a big lunch."

"Yeah," Bo smiled, shaking his head at how much Daisy had turned into a mother hen.

Luke thought they were having a good time. He'd brought enough pillows and blankets to ensure Bo's comfort. They'd ate the lunch that Daisy had packed, and Bo even had seconds on the pie; that fact had made Luke Duke very happy. Seeing his cousin with only a miniscule appetite wasn't like watching Bo at all. He'd always been the eater of the family, and despite his size, he could eat a lot, but that was before he'd gotten sick. Then they'd started talking about various things, laughing as if they hadn't had a care in the world. For a few minutes, they didn't, and Luke had thought they were both having a good time. It wasn't until something tugged on Bo's line that reality came back with a vengeance.

Bo was somewhere other than at the pond with his cousin anymore. Luke didn't know where, but from the look on Bo's face, it wasn't a good place to be.

"Bo? Hey Bo?" he whispered softly. Reaching over, he touched his arm gently, not wanting to spook him. Luke was spooked enough for the both of them. Slowly, Bo turned pained eyes to his cousin. "What's the matter? Bo, talk to me."

Bo blinked a couple of times, and Luke saw his Adam's apple working overtime. He knew that Bo was struggling with whatever it was he was wrestling with in his own mind. After more encouragement from Luke, Bo spoke in a barely audible voice, but turned his eyes downward.

"Luke, I don't want to do this anymore." After confessing his sinful thoughts to his cousin, he raised his eyes looking into Luke's.

"Well, that's ok, Bo. We can go home if you're ready," Luke replied nervously.

"That's not what I'm talking bout, Luke."

Luke knew that wasn't what Bo had meant. He knew exactly what he was trying to tell him, and exactly what he'd been asking when he looked into his eyes. He was seeking permission for something that Luke just couldn't grant. Luke raised his face, forcing Bo to look at him again. "Bo, I know it's hard, but you can't give up. You gotta keep fighting."

"It ain't doing any good, Luke," Bo told him. He hated causing his family pain, and he wondered if this prolongment wasn't just hurting them more. At some point, he'd come to terms with his fate. He thought that Jesse and Daisy were also starting to. Luke, on the other hand, hadn't even begun to deal with it, and he needed to.

"Bo, it may seem like that, but you just can't think like that. It's gonna work, I know it. I know what it is to want to give in to those feelings. Really, I do. If I hadn't promised you that I'd come back from Viet Nam, I wouldn't have. There were days I didn't think that I'd be able to keep that promise, but I told ya I would and I did. You gotta do the same thing."

"It ain't the same thing, Luke."

"Yeah it is! I kept fighting cause I told you I would, and now, you gotta do the same thing. You promised me, Bo! Say it!"

Bo gave Luke a woeful smile. Luke wasn't going to let him out of that promise gracefully. He wasn't going to let him out of it at all. Bo just hated thinking that he was going to have to go back on his word. He didn't know what to do. He was so worried about Luke that it was really scaring him. He needed to know that his cousin would be ok, but for the first time in his life, he couldn't talk to him about something.

"I promised," he repeated, uttering the words that his cousin needed to hear.

Luke gave him a long hug, then released him. "I think your fish got away."

Regardless of anything else, they could still make the other laugh, and laugh they did, though laughing wasn't what either Duke boy was doing on the inside.