A/N: Howdy everyone, back with another story...for this one I decided to kill two birds with one stone. One was you wanted the sequal to Crossin' the Line...well this is the beginning of that and Two you wanted me to write more with the fabulous author that is Elenhin...well your wish is my command she is back with me to help me co-write this sequal...now is that good or what? lol

So I expect to see plently of reveiws from y'all now, this one is my chapter and the next will be Elenhin and so on and so forth.I will of course remind you everytime who is writing it so you know who to point your reveiws at. also, after many reveiws I am going to post the 56+ chapter story for you all although i do warn a major tissue warning for it. I made myself and my co writer cry doing it...whoops...

I apologise for no balladeer but it is so difficult to incorporate him into serious scenes, and I really dont have the time to come up with sarcy comments from him lol. So he's on a much needed vacation.

Anyway, read reveiw and enjoy the show :-)

(Present Day)

He shuddered as a friendly hand squeezed his shoulder, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wheel tight in his fists. The powerful engine was comforting as was the howl of wind that rushed through his ears, it meant they were going fast, there was still time….if he wasn't already too late.

Skidding to a halt below the tall cliff face, he made no sound as he slid half way out the General Lee and craned his neck to look upwards…seeing a silhouette being illuminated by the gentle glow of the moon behind the figure. His breath caught as he noticed how dangerously close to the edge it was….how the darkness seemed to engulf the edge of the cliff and swallow it to create the illusion the figure had nothing but air holding him up….

The two other occupants of the car were already out the back seat as planned and were stood in the bushes, waiting for the next move.

"Alright….I'm gonna go up there….see if I can't talk him down…."

"Now you be careful…."

"I will Uncle Jesse….just be ready in case…."

Daisy and Jesse both swallowed and looked nervously to each other as they nodded and tried to smile confidently back. The young man in the car nodded back and slid deftly into the driver's seat again, roaring the engine to life and spinning the car round to go back the way he had come, praying that the car would keep its unbroken record of getting to a place just in time….

He could hear the familiar car engine below him; hear the hushed whispers of the people down below even though the wind tore through his ears. He could see the bright orange paintwork even though the darkness below swallowed it from sight, even though his tears made his sight wavering and watery.

He shivered as the cold night air whipped around him, blowing his hair back away from his face. And yet he didn't truly register his body making the reflex action…he didn't really register anything, didn't even know how he had managed to get himself up here as tired and guilt stricken as he was.

All he knew was he needed to run….to get away from the farm as quick as he was able in his condition….to get away from life itself and he couldn't think of anywhere better than Widow's Peak. Unfortunately, the climb up was to steep and plus it was too far away for him to get to, so he'd had to settle for Kissing Cliff instead. It wasn't as nice a view up here, nor did it have the comforting surrounding of the woods, but still it was high up….it would serve the purpose that he intended.

He just wanted it to end, all the pain all the mental suffering he had been going through over the past 6 months….he just wanted everything to stop and return to normal like they were before his whole world had been turned upside down.

Sure, physically he looked fine except for the obvious ailment, but mentally….mentally he didn't think that he could ever be right ever again….not when he could no longer stand to do the thing he loved the most. His life was now just a blur of activities in which he could no longer participate. His family had made it all try and seem normal again, but the fact that they had to re-adjust everything to make it so haunted the young man so very much, day and night when he went about doing the things he could it ate away at the back of his mind until this day when he could take it no more.

"Cousin…."

He jerked and whipped his head to the side to faintly see someone standing a little way behind him, and he knew even before the next words were uttered who it was, it was the one person he wished hadn't followed him….

"Cousin please don't be doin' this….you's come so far….ya don't need ta be doin' this…."

"Yeah I do….I can't carry on like this no more….ya were right….ya were right in what ya said…."

"No I wasn't right at all! I was mad at ya! I didn't mean what I said, you gotta believe me I would never intend ta hurt ya like I have done…."

He could hear the other man's tremble in his voice and could imagine the tears starting to form in the blue eyes that stared into his back, pleading with him to reconsider, not to take this way out. But his mind remained unchanged as he edged closer, his breathing quickening as he felt the edge getting closer.

He heard the yell as the ground beneath him seemed to disappear down the rocky cliff face, his eyes closed as he realised that he no longer had the decision of whether he lived or died. It was in god's hands now, just as every other decision regarding his health had been, in the end, made by god. And given his current run of good fortune, he wasn't holding up any high hopes.

The next few moments seemed to move in slow motion. It is said that when you are close to dying your life flashes before your eyes and so it appeared to for the tortured soul who was slipping into a black oblivion that would swallow him whole without a second thought.

But something broke through….he couldn't remember when the cry of his name had come, but the next thing he knew was that someone had a hold of his wrist and his body was sent crashing, back first luckily, into the cliff face. With a cry of pain as his shoulders scraped the rock and the arm that had been gripped onto feeling like it had been wrenched from the socket, he looked up to find his cousin's hand that had the hold on his wrist that was stopping him from falling…

He screamed out loud as he saw the man above keeping as great a hold as was physically possible on his limb with the other somewhere up on the cliff top, half his chest itself hanging over the edge.

"Why are you doing this to me! Why won't you let me go!"

The man above looked down at him heart brokenly, not understanding how he could even ask such a question.

"Because I love ya! Why else would I be here! I don't wanna lose you, not so soon after I nearly lost ya 6 months ago….I don't wanna go through that again!"

He sobbed quietly as he dangled precariously in his cousin's grip, his other hand not even making a move to reach for the safety of the grooves in the rock he could hang onto. None of this made sense in his muddled head, his saviour was the one who had hurt him in the first place, was the one who had driven him to be in this position…and yet he still refused to let go…refused to let him fall….

He dared to look down as gasps and a cry came up from beneath him and he saw two figures standing below him. He couldn't make them out, but he knew one of them to be Uncle Jesse from the way the old man's white hair shone in the moonlight as if the rays themselves were attaching themselves to his head and face. The other remained shrouded in darkness.

The Duke above quickly yelled down to the pair.

"Uncle Jesse! Get up here quick and call an ambulance on the way…."

Within seconds the two men both heard the roar of engines from below, which confused the one dangling no end because last he had heard there was only one familiar engine when he had heard them all pull up. He felt the grip on his wrist tighten in a gentle squeeze and he looked up to find once more he was being gazed down at lovingly.

"Just hold on….alright….I'm gonna get ya back up here and then we's gonna talk about this….please just….just make this a little easier on me huh? At least clamp yer hand round my wrist….ya don't really want ta die do ya…..please say ya don't want ta…"

As he bounced slightly off the face again, his legs brushed the loose rocks and cause more to fall. He watched as they tumbled to the ground below and watched also how many of them smashed to pieces on impact….seeing all too clearly how that could be him…could be his body following after it….in his frame of mind it is hard to tell what scares us more…the death that was originally intended for yourself or staring death in the face in the way you hadn't counted on….

He could feel the security of the grip on his wrist, hear the pleading tone coming from up above as he started to slip out of it….and he could hear how so very sincere that was, how every quake in the tone was not put on for show, how each tremble that sent waves down his own body were real ones that were caused by genuine fear and also pain, not something you got when you were cold.

After a few tense moments, the man above sighed with slight relief as he felt a weak hand grip tightly onto his own wrist in return and then felt the other hand reach up to grip the cliff beside him, which eased the pressure that was pulling on his shoulder some. He smiled shakily, feeling tears start to well, ones that he tried to shake away, he couldn't afford this moment of weakness now, not when a life that meant so much to him was so close to being lost again….

"Boys! We's a comin' you's just hold on now…."

He watched as the one above disappeared from view to look back at Jesse who had called out to them. He could tell the older man wasn't far away and that it wouldn't be too long before his cousin's promise of dragging him up to safety would be made true as all promises he had made before had done.

It wasn't too long before the head reappeared and was smiling gently back down at him.

"It's gonna be alright now, I promise ya. I ain't gonna let ya go but ya gotta co-operate as much as ya can now or this is gonna be harder fer the both of us….alright?"

The man below nodded gently and used his free hand to grip the rock he was clinging to a little tighter, trying to take his weight off of his cousin as much as possible knowing that by holding the weight his cousin had to be going through some severe physical pain.

He heard the voices of people and the sirens of ambulances pull up but moments later and as all the activity above him started, the noise increasing ten fold, he started to think back on how this had all started….how everything had now turned so drastically wrong….