Author's note: So this'll do it for this story. Thanks to everyone who stuck with it all the way through.

I don't own the Dukes and earn nothing for what I post here. I promise to leave the boys alone for awhile, if only because I've got nothing immediately cooking.

Chapter 17 – Trust Me

"You feel better?" Luke was asking, extricating himself from Bo's arms and wiping at the eye where he'd just been hit.

"A little," Bo admitted, grabbing Luke's wrist and moving his hand away so he could get a better look at that eye. He got shaken off before he could see much, but his cousin's whole face looked like it hurt, all scrunched up as if the sun was too bright.

"We okay now?" Luke asked as he finished wiping his eye, then set to checking Bo over, his face, his wrists, pulling up the blue t-shirt to look at his ribs. Bo could resist him on this, but there was no point. Luke wouldn't rest until he'd gotten a thorough look.

"No," Bo answered and the word hurt his throat on the way out. "Luke, I don't know how to make us okay."

Luke smoothed Bo's shirt back over his ribs, stepped back and studied him for a second, no readable emotion on his face. Anger, even sarcasm, would have been better than this. Flat responses, Bo had never had any idea how to deal with those.

"Sit down, Bo," Luke said, pointing to the hood of the General.

"Luke—" He didn't know what he was trying to do, take back what he'd said or add more words into the mix.

"Sit," Luke repeated, all patience. So he sat. "Tip your head down." Bo's chin was dang near to his chest, letting Luke's fingers walk themselves through his hair towards that old cut up there. "I ain't got no plans, neither, for how to fix things between us."

Well, that was about as scary a thought as he'd ever encountered. Luke didn't have any more of an answer than he did.

"Come on," that gravelly voice came, close to is ear, before Luke stepped back, suddenly no longer touching him anywhere. That was even worse than Luke not having any ideas about how to fix things between them, the not touching. "Let's get you home and cleaned up."

Bo nodded, pushing himself up off the sun warmed hood of the General.

"We'll come back for the pickup later. You drive. I ain't seeing so well," Luke informed him.

"Luke," he started, trying to get closer to his cousin. Maybe he'd really hurt him.

"I'm fine, Bo," Luke answered, ducking away from Bo's outstretched hand. "Just maybe I shouldn't drive is all."

And that was as close as Luke had come to asking him for help in a long, long time. So Bo slid in through the driver's side window of the car and waited until his cousin was fully seated next to him before starting the car and driving away.

Bo claimed not to have headaches anymore. Normally Luke would reckon that if Bo said it, it was true. These past few days, though, Bo had been acting like he had something to prove. Got up at the crack of dawn, insisting that if Luke was healthy enough for chores, so was he. Wouldn't listen to reason about how a black eye (or two, even) wasn't the same thing as a concussion and bruised ribs.

Jesse suggested, in that tone that informed Luke that going against him would be an idiot's game, that he leave Bo be. Advice followed by more advice, about how his cousin was old enough and smart enough to know his own limits. The words of a man that was hardly ever around when Bo jumped right into trouble with both feet.

Then again, Jesse seemed to be right. Bo hadn't collapsed or even shown signs of stumbling. The bruise on the side of his chest was fading, maybe even faster than the ones on Luke's face. Bo seemed as strong as he ever had been; still couldn't chop wood or sling a bale of hay worth a damn, but that didn't matter. The Duke boys had long ago figured out how to do chores side-by-side, each playing to their strengths and making up for the other's weaknesses. The rhythm of work, that they could still do together as if they'd never gone off to Sequatchie County in the first place. It was just the fun that was missing.

Fishing had been Bo's suggestion. Luke wasn't opposed; then again, Turner Lake wasn't the place he would have chosen to spend the day. Bo didn't seem to harbor anything but good memories of childhood days spent here, but to Luke it was just another reminder of how he'd hurt his cousin, maybe more times than he even knew.

They'd barely settled into a spot and Luke just couldn't be still. It wasn't right that he was the one fidgeting like this.

"Bo." He hadn't exactly planned on saying anything at all. Now he had to come up with some words, because his cousin was just looking at him, waiting for bit of wisdom. "I ain't got nothing brilliant to say." And that wasn't helping either.

"That's okay," Bo answered. "I don't think the fish care." Funny guy, his cousin. Smirking right back at him, too.

"What I mean is, I ain't so smart." Oh, his cousin was probably enjoying this. Luke wouldn't know, somewhere about mid-sentence he'd stopped looking at Bo, and focused on the ripples in the water. Funny how they caught the sun with their movement: the reflection was almost blinding, then it disappeared as the water moved. "I'm a fool." It was like Uncle Jesse was controlling his tongue or something. Maybe his brain, too, he didn't remember thinking the words before they came out of his mouth.

"No you ain't, Luke." Bo didn't know what he was talking about either, sitting there being all skeptical at the idea.

"Yeah, I am. I see all the wrong sides of things." He shook his head; that probably didn't make a lick of sense to Bo. "I never noticed it, or it never mattered before. It was being smart, maybe, watching out for trouble. Sometimes I just… watch too hard, or something. See bad things where you see good."

Bo was quiet over there, probably wondering why it had taken so long for him to figure all this out.

"I don't know, I guess it serves a purpose sometimes, like keeping an eye on Boss." Though in truth they hardly ever had to do that anymore. The man was getting too stupid to bear watching.

Luke shook his head again; that was exactly the kind of thing he was talking about, thinking that way about the Hazzard Commissioner.

"Most of the time it just makes me a jerk."

It practically hurt his ears, the way Luke sounded saying that. Like he'd lost confidence in himself, forgotten who he was. Like he meant it. Like it was harder than just apologizing for what he'd done, then shaking hands. Bo had no idea how to respond.

Luke had something in his hand, something dripping. Must have put down his pole and reached into the water somewhere when Bo had been staring at the horizon trying to figure out what to say.

"Hold out your hand, Bo." It was so out of place in the middle of this conversation, the memories he had of Luke dropping a squirming salamander onto his palm or sticking an ice cube down his back. He'd squeal with the surprise, Luke would laugh, Bo would get mad and eventually he'd take a swing at his cousin only to get yelled at by Jesse for fighting. Dukes just didn't hit Dukes. "Trust me," Luke was saying in that same hollow sounding voice.

So he put down his pole and turned to face his cousin, wasn't sure he wanted to see him looking as bad off as his tone sounded. Found himself staring into those same brilliant eyes he'd looked at all his life. Hadn't seen them that far open in a while, no smirking lips pulling them into a squint. Luke was asking Bo to trust him, not demanding it.

Bo opened his palm, reached out towards his cousin.

Whatever it was that Luke dumped in was wet, kind of cold and squishy. Not alive, though. Maybe just sand. Bo closed his hand around it, brought it closer to his face, and took a look.

Fool's gold. Luke had asked for his trust to call him a fool? Shoot, he could have done that without making a big presentation out of it. Almost their whole lives Luke had been treating him like an idiot and now he was going to—

"Don't ever let no one, not even me," Bo didn't want to hear this, he was too mad to—"Especially not me, tell you it ain't worth nothing, Bo."

Huh?

"Seems like it's better to hope," that sound was still in Luke's voice, rough, like getting licked by one of those kittens they used to keep in the barn. "When you look in the water, that you've found gold. Smarter. Makes you less likely to… do stupid things that…" Luke wiped his wet hand on his jeans and turned away, facing out over the water again.

Bo wanted to touch him; probably wasn't a smart thought. Jesse could've gotten away with it, but Luke'd liekly just shake Bo off, and none too kindly.

"More fun, maybe," Bo corrected. "Not smarter." He definitely wasn't the smart one or he'd know what to say or do right now. But he didn't, so he slid up a little closer to the edge of the lake and scooped more fool's gold from the bottom of the red water. Dumped it, plus the handful Luke had given him, on the ground between them. It was awfully pretty there, catching the light.

"Easier," Bo amended. Dug out another handful of the stuff and piled it on top of the rest. "To hope it's gold when there's someone else around to make sure you don't walk into the bank and try to pass it off as the real thing."

There was a puff of air. With anyone else it would have turned into a laugh; for Luke it was closer to a snort. "Greedy as Boss is, it might just work." Luke stuck his hand below the surface of the pond, scooped out some gold of his own to add to Bo's pile.

Interesting idea about Boss, he'd have to remember to come back to that later. Maybe when Luke wasn't swallowing so many times in a row or working so hard at not looking at him.

"It's definitely more fun," Bo started again. "When someone else does most of the boring stuff, like figuring out a plan." Their pile of gold was getting pretty impressive now.

"It ain't boring, Bo," Luke informed him. "Not to me." Yeah, well, Luke always did like to think. It was just another thing everyone counted on him for. And after hundreds of times that Luke had gotten them out of messes that no one outside of Hazzard would even understand, they'd all come to look to his cousin before even trying to think of something themselves. As much as Luke liked figuring stuff out, it couldn't be a ton of fun to have to do it all the time.

"I know it ain't, Luke. But you gotta get tired of it, sometimes."

"Maybe," Luke admitted, digging around in the water for more fool's gold.

And that was as far as he dared to push Luke, for now. Any more and his cousin was as like as not to snap at him, or walk away. Bo reached across that gap between them, over the pile of gold, to sling an arm around Luke's shoulders. Good thing he had such long arms, as far away as Luke was right now.

"You want to test that little theory of yours?"

"Which one?" Luke was asking, but he could have been saying anything in the world right now, didn't matter. He was looking at Bo, not the water. Around the look of all those things Luke hadn't quite said, couldn't get out because his voice had been too tight, somewhere in that mess of misery on Luke's face, there was curiosity. Bo would take that, it was something he could work with.

"About whether Boss and Rosco know the difference between this stuff and the real thing." Bo poked a finger into their pile of shiny rocks. Didn't appear all that much like gold when you looked close, but maybe that was the point.

His cousin was smirking. Wasn't a pretty look on him, but it was normal. "We ain't gonna…"

Luke stopped, shook his head. Like changing gears, the smirk turned into a smile. "What you got in mind, Bo?"

It was a start.