Author's Note: So here's where it ends. And maybe I never realized how dark the story was becuase I always knew it would get here in the end.

Thanks to everyone who stuck it out. I hope that, like me, you will find that the last chapter makes it worth while.

As always, I don't own or earn a single thing. But -- even if it might be hard to tell sometimes -- I do love these boys.

(It was a waltz; it gets a coda.)

Coda -- That's What I Keep You Around For

February 1985

It's been a heckuva long day, starting from the moment Daisy none-too-gently brought them to consciousness. Bo doesn't remember waking up exactly, more like suddenly being in the kitchen, getting instructions at high volume. Would have made him angry except for the how the pitch wavered, and exactly how upset Daisy was. That and Luke standing next to him; seems like all the worst events in life have always been made better by the presence of his oldest cousin.

Who has gone missing in the few minutes Bo spent in the bathroom getting out of his monkey suit and grabbing a quick shower. Now he's back in the kitchen, wet headed and comfortably dressed, and all that's left of Luke is his tailcoat neatly folded and laid out on the back of a kitchen chair. He's outside, got to be; the old farmhouse would creak with his presence it he were in here. Besides, seems like Luke's only spent time indoors to sleep or when confined here by Daisy, but she's gone now. Off to her honeymoon at Lake Chickamahoney, and only a true Hazzardite would consider that a reasonable honeymoon spot. It's just water surrounded by trees, same as the Hazzard Pond, except over the years since they were all skinned-kneed kids fishing with poles made out of forsythia branches and twine, it's gotten a name for being romantic.

So Luke's flown the coop again, and Bo can only hope he's not out there pulling trees up by their roots or rebuilding the remains of the barn. The only remnant of the man is that tailcoat, which means that Luke's still mostly dressed in fine clothes. Not only fine, but rented, and on Bo's credit card, too. There's another thing Jesse would be amazed at: Dukes making purchases with credit.

Jesse.

Bo makes his way out into the chilling air. A couple of hours back, when his shadow was shorter and there were fewer clouds blocking the sun, the temperature actually got pleasant enough that the bridesmaids didn't shiver in their sleeveless dresses when they stood on the steps to the church. Luke was probably dripping with sweat, but the girls –their shiny hair pulled up to show the smooth curves of their milky-white necks – they'd looked comfortable. And Daisy had been ravishing.

Bo spares a futile wish that Luke changed out of his perfectly shined shoes before he came out here, but odds are against it. The red clay, just under the brambles that cover what were once cornfields, thawed out its solid iciness in the warm afternoon; it's clinging to his boots and even the cuffs of his jeans. He might as well face it now, he's going to have to buy Luke's tux. Maybe, someday, the man will get married in it himself.

And there's his erstwhile cousin now, right about where Bo figured he'd be. What he's done shows a side to Luke that no one's seen since probably before the war. Daisy's wedding flowers are everywhere here, mostly blanketing her parents' graves, but there are plenty to go around, coloring the resting places of all their ancestors.

"You telling them about the wedding?" he asks by way of letting Luke know he's here.

That cocked eyebrow he gets for an answer mocks the very notion that Luke would talk to dead people. "I reckoned you could do that," Luke answers over his shoulder at him, lopsided smirk making his opinion clear. "Tell them about the taffeta," and that right there is no fair. Neither him nor Luke has the slightest idea what that word means, only that Daisy used it a lot in reference the bridesmaid's dresses. "And the crinoline. And whatever that was called, what Daisy did to her hair." It was a French twist, but Bo only knows that because the girl said it about a hundred times. Luke's got to know it every bit as well as he does.

"You could tell them how nervous you was about walking down the aisle with Daisy," Bo reminds him. "I thought you was gonna be sick."

Luke's chin dips enough that he's looking through his upper eyelashes at Bo, then he shakes his head. "I'd tell them that, but if'n I did, I'd have to get around to the part where you did your best man toast. You was so busy flirting with Donna Jo, you almost forgot Daisy's name."

"Got a date with her for tomorrow night, though," he agrees, grinning at the thought. It's been awhile since he's had the pleasure of a Hazzard girl. They're different from the standard fair, a little rougher around the edges maybe, yet softer in their curves. A breed all their own. Luke just shakes his head and stares off at nothing in particular. "I didn't know you'd brought the flowers back, cuz."

He gets a shrug for that. "I asked Daisy if she had any plans for them, and she said no. So I put them in the trunk while you was busy making plans with Donna Jo. And maybe some other plans with Lisa Kate?" But the moment of humor has passed.

"Looks real nice," he says. "Luke, he'd be proud of all of us." Because it seems like that's really what this is all about. "He'd be glad it was you that gave Daisy away."

"I suppose," Luke answers. It's not agreement, exactly, but then Luke's not known for admitting that anyone else has a point. They're quiet for awhile, watching the flower petals move in the breeze, maybe. "I got bored on the circuit," is how Luke sees fit to break the silence.

It was only obvious. "I know," Bo answers. "I kept thinking you'd enjoy it if you'd just relax and let yourself. But you—" No, he's not going to finish that sentence; there's no good place to take it.

"I might have wanted to drive." And that's a heartbreaking little confession right there. It was only natural, really, that he'd want to race sometimes himself – they'd switched out from time to time on the dirt track in Hazzard. But after that talk from Jesse…

"That's when you stopped trusting yourself?" His cousin doesn't answer, but they both know it's true.

For all the childish things that Bo was back then, and all the foolish things he forced Luke to do, he was smarter than his cousin. Or maybe just knew more on this one particular subject. Because he doesn't need hindsight to know that even if Luke had decided to take Sully's car, even if it had come to a trophy race and just the two Duke boys on the track, there's no way Luke would have let him get hurt. His cousin would've crashed his own car into a wall first.

Luke's ditched his tie somewhere along the way, but otherwise he's still dressed like a proper gentleman. Must've walked out here pretty carefully, because his shoes still shine. He stands straight and strong, and has likely saved more lives than even he knows. Bo reckons he pales in the eyes of his ancestors, standing next to Luke. But he steps up closer all the same.

"He used to say," and Bo's remembering it even as the words are coming out of his mouth. "A man could die of loneliness." Seems like there was more to that sentence though, something about a mule or a donkey.

"He had a good life, Bo," Luke admonishes. "Don't go thinking has wasn't happy or nothing." Or that he was lonely after he sent all of his kids away, maybe. Luke's been walking guilt for ten years now, and doesn't need another ounce of that particular poison laid on his shoulders.

"No, I know that," he agrees, because it's true. He ran his family with equal doses of discipline and fun, Jesse Duke did. "I was just thinking out loud."

About himself, maybe, for the first time since he walked around that apartment in Rockingham alone, angry at Luke for not staying even if he'd been told in no uncertain terms to leave. Then later he was angry at himself for being such a jackass, and only then did he start to feel sad. Heartbroken actually, and from there everything muted down from the brilliant colors of his youth into a sort of dull brown. Girls – there were hundreds of girls – on the edge of the track stopped being pretty, and cars stopped being fast. Everything became about working until he could play again, then playing until he had to work. It was all right, but none of it had any real meaning.

"About coming home, maybe. About going back to farming."

Luke snorts. "Shoot, Bo, you didn't hardly farm the last time. I don't reckon you've got the first idea how."

"I know," he answers back with a smile. "That's what I'd keep you around for."

February 1986

They have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Dukes only ever grew corn, and it wasn't exactly the eating kind. Genuinely edible crops, those they've got no experience with. It's one stumble after another, dried out stalks followed by rotted roots and that's before the beetles.

It's Bo's job to make Luke laugh about their ineptitude. At least that's what his cousin claims as he takes frequent breaks in the work for the express purpose of clowning around. Or when he drags Luke off to the Boar's Nest for lunches that turn into afternoons of sitting in the dark and nursing beers while Cooter describes, in pornographic detail, the innards of that Mustang that Dobro brought in with the colic. They go out on mercy missions from time to time, too – skimming over dirt roads with twilight's pinks gleaming off the General's orange coat as they calculate the exact second to hit the horn and rouse Rosco from his nap. The sheriff's rusty; once they get him to join the chase they have to slow down just so he can halfway keep up and feel like he's doing respectably well in his duty to protect the town from racing Duke boys. If the planets are aligned just right, they might mange to find Enos, too, and maybe pick up a wandering cruiser from Hatchapee, just passing through. If they can get the chain of a chase up to four or five cars, it's a banner day. Bo can play racecar driver to the local law's rodeo clowns, and while no one ever catches anyone else, the Duke boys have done a good deed by keeping Rosco from dying of loneliness.

In truth, the spring and summer were too full of the mistakes they made to allow for many excursions out into whatever Bo's idea of fun might have been. And then there was October's grueling harvest, which they couldn't have pulled off without a weak kneed and sunburned but determined Enos Strate, who'd only fainted the one time. Daisy hadn't been amused in the least, had taken out after Luke when she heard, as if he could have prevented the man from keeling over. Two solid swats of the spatula before Enos called her off and told her it wasn't Luke's fault, it was his own. In the end it was sheer luck that she got more concerned about pouring water down her husband's throat in an attempt at rehydration (that could have as easily turned into a drowning) than in wringing Luke's neck.

"See, I told you," Bo had muttered from the door to the Strate's kitchen, where he'd been huddling out of the way of the fray. "You got mountain lion medicine."

"Thanks for all your help, badger," he'd hissed back.

Come November, they'd put in winter wheat, as much to keep the fields fertile as anything else. After all the effort they had to put into plowing the weeds under back in March, they sure as heck didn't want to do anything like that again. But the wheat has turned out to be an effortless and plentiful crop, which they've already sold even before it's harvested. And it leaves them with plenty of time to get up to no good, which is what Dukes were made to do.

"A toast," he says, and it feels familiar. They're outside today, enjoying the first genuinely mild day they've had since October. Even Bo's thin blood seems warmed up this afternoon. "To Enos and Daisy on their first anniversary"

"Here, here," comes from some of their guests, the ones whose mouths aren't already filled with moonshine.

"And their life to come," he adds with a wink at Daisy over the double entendre. Reckons maybe he'd better duck in case she gets to be of a mind to throw her mason jar – filled with water, but that wasn't his biggest clue – at him.

"Luke," she snaps. "We ain't announced it yet! We was gonna… how did you know?" Fun is fun, but this little bit of fun's about to get him seriously hurt. Daisy's on her feet now, up from where she was seated at the picnic table and marching across the dead grass toward where he's standing under the old oak tree.

Bo's stepping out of her way (brave guy) and rambling, "Why is she—is she—Daisy, are you pregnant?" Observant fella too, now that it's just about been spelled out for him. Bo's fumbling ways have their merits, making Daisy choose between two targets and slowing her down just enough that Enos gets to her.

Luke's never thought of Hazzard's awkward deputy as a particularly brave man, mostly because he grew up watching the scab-covered kid version of Enos stumble his way through life. It comes to Luke now, as he watches the man throw himself directly in the path of Hurricane Daisy, how very heroic he really is. "Daisy, now," she's not even seeing her husband, not yet. "Sweetheart, please. Luke here didn't mean no harm. And we was gonna tell them today anyway." Daisy gives one last furious look at Luke (I'll deal with you later smoldering in those dark blue eyes), before she remembers her grace and smiles. Miss Lulu is the final icing on that nearly-dropped (but rescued at the last second) cake that's getting baked now, the one that celebrates new life in Hazzard.

"Did you hear, everybody? Daisy's gonna have a baby, a sweet little child," the matron weeps. Couldn't be more touched if she was a Duke herself.

Now that the danger's past, Bo's willing to stand next to him again. "Is she really?" he asks, like Luke's Doc Appleby and has just performed a medical examination of their cousin. But it's clear enough that she is, so Bo moves on to, "How did you know?"

Luke shrugs, watching as Daisy basks in the attention of their friends and extended family. Even Rosco gets into the spirit, jabbering about wijits and giji-goos into the general direction of Daisy's belly button. Hazzard needs this baby, if only because they'll soon have someone to translate Rosco-babble for them. "She looks like a pregnant girl does, I guess."

"She ain't got no belly, yet. And she ain't sick." And to Bo, those would be the only signs. He's never noticed the subtle shift of color in a pregnant woman's face, the way she carries herself with one hand always at the ready to protect her belly if need be, how she smiles when she doesn't think anyone's looking. Not to mention pouring water into a mason jar instead of partaking of some of Jesse's special brew like the rest of the guests.

"You can't see how her belly's all swollen there?" He can't resist, even if this line of discussion will get them both killed if Daisy ever gets done being hugged and cooed over. Luke puffs out his cheeks.

And gets swatted on the shoulder, Bo's a smart man for not taking that bait. "How soon," Bo is asking, "you reckon that little feller," and that could be trouble, too, the way Bo's already decided it's going to be a boy, "can help us in the fields?"

"So's you can sit back and 'supervise' him, you mean?" Luke suggests.

"Well, yeah, just like Jesse done with us." Bo's memory's slipped a disk. Their uncle might have worked them hard, but Jesse was there with them most of the time, and when he wasn't it was because he was at the still. It's amazing how much effort that man put into making a living out of dirt, supporting children that weren't even his. Keeping them alive and safe despite the way the three of them just about thwarted those efforts at every turn.

"Shoot," Luke says, thinking hard over the dilemma that Bo has posed. "Shouldn't be more than about three years before he's able to work as hard as you do right now."

Could be that's not entirely fair. Bo's put a lot of labor and love into rebuilding a life for the Dukes here in Hazzard. That hurt little look on his face there, that reminds Luke how hard Bo's worked just to bring some happiness back into both of their lives.

So Luke slings an arm across his shoulders, little squeeze of affection for the man, who is not so different from the boy. Gets a beaming smile for his efforts, and the warmth of his cousin leaning into his side.

For all the lessons his uncle taught him, and the ones he learned on his own, maybe the hardest won has been this: in truth, it's never been hard to make Bo Duke happy and be sure that he's safe. All Luke's ever had to do is keep him close.