by: Sarah Stodola and LostSheep3

A light snow was falling as the General Lee pulled to a stop in front of the Duke homestead. The driver slid out the window, opened the trunk, and pulled out several shopping bags. Taking the bags into the house, he set them by the door, took off his boots and coat, then shook snow out of his blond hair. After starting a pot of coffee, he wandered with the packages into the living room, setting them near the tree.

After starting a fire in the grate and plugging in the Christmas tree lights, Bo Duke settled himself on the floor in front of the tree, opened the first bag, and pulled out several rolls of brightly colored Christmas wrapping paper. Then he went digging through the other bags and pulled out several items planned as gifts, determined to wrap these before Luke got home so that the surprise wouldn’t be ruined.

Humming as he looked through the paper, Bo chose a dark blue one with white snowflakes printed on it. He opened the roll and set the first gift in the center of the paper, pulling the paper up over the gift to get it to the right size. Taking the knife from the sheath on his belt and testing the sharpness briefly against his thumb, he cut the paper to the correct size, placed the package back in the center, and folded the paper up around the box, taping the package together. Once the box was wrapped to his satisfaction, the blond man placed the present under the tree.

Half an hour later, all the gifts for Luke were wrapped and spread under the tree. Bo stood up, smiling at the sight, one that had been well too long in coming. With Uncle Jesse passed now, and Daisy off and married to Enos Strate, the Duke boys had found themselves still confirmed old bachelors… and, unfortunately, getting older. After about a decade of life split apart, out of Hazzard chasing old dreams, the two men had finally been brought back to the old farm, and together again as well. Life was… good enough with Luke, even if the younger women didn’t quite fall over him the way they used to, and the older ones were married. At least the cousins weren’t alone.

Shaking himself out of his musings, Bo went to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee, and then settled into a corner of the couch, contemplating the Christmas tree with the brightly wrapped packages underneath. As he watched the lights twinkle gently, his mind drifted to Christmases past. Christmas on the Duke farm had always been a time of happiness and family. They had never had too much in the way of material goods, although they had enough, but somehow it never seemed to matter. They always had family and friends around… and that was enough.

Bo was so lost in his thoughts that he was startled when the door opened. Looking into the kitchen, he smiled when he saw Luke come into the house. His older cousin grinned back a bit, looking cold but amused, and shaking snow from his dark hair and jacket.

“I daresay the chickens have decided that the freeze-over calls for a strike. Not only have there been no eggs for five days, they’re now refusing to set one toe outta the barn.”

“I can’t say I blame them,” Bo said, blue eyes sparkling in laughter. “I probably wouldn’t go outside if it weren’t for chores and needing to finish Christmas shopping.”

“Christmas shopping?” Dark eyebrows rose, the eyes beneath twinkling mischievously. Luke peered past toward the tree and the new gifts. “Aha… looks like somethin’ more to go shake and poke after you go to bed.” With a teasing wink, the older cousin hung up his coat and turned to pour a cup of coffee from the coffee maker, one of the few more modern conveniences the farmhouse had. For the most part, it hadn’t changed a lot since the Dukes’ youth, despite the turning of the century.

“Don’t you dare!” Bo replied, twisting on the sofa to watch his older cousin. “You’ll break somethin’ or ruin the surprise.” The blond paused a moment, taking a sip of his coffee, then chuckled. “You never could resist tryin’ to guess what you were getting.”

“Why not…” Luke brought his coffee mug out into the living room, taking a sip as he paused to eye the gifts, and the tree above, thoughtfully. “Seems I can remember years when we had twice the people and half the presents…” he mused quietly. “Guess we ain’t doin’ so bad nowadays, are we? Still… I’d trade it…”

Bo’s smile faded slightly with the remembering. “So would I, cousin.” Clutching the coffee mug in both hands, he looked up. Luke’s head tilted at the blond man for a moment, then he made a quiet sound in his throat, not quite translatable into words but expressing agreement and a mix of quiet emotions, and turned to come sit beside his cousin on the couch, stretching his legs out. He glanced to the tree again, then into the fire, watching the flames.

Bo stared at the tree and the packages underneath for a few long moments, the silence comfortable after having lived together for so long. When he spoke again, it was with a mixture of fond remembrance and a slight sadness.

“Remember the year I was twelve, and got my guitar… Daisy helped Jesse hide clues all over the house and while I was following their trail you put it in our room. I’ll never forget finding that laying on my bed… it was the one thing I really wanted that year and I didn’t think I’d get it.”

Luke glanced at his cousin as he spoke, listening thoughtfully, and smiling a bit finally. “Yeah… I remember that. You’d only dropped hints about every half-week for four months… and broke the strings on mine a coupla times learnin’.” More of a smile graced rugged features, his eyes warming quietly as he recalled that winter, so long ago.

Bo chuckled softly. “Yeah, I did drop hints, but didn’t expect to actually get one.” He glanced at his cousin, dark blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “And I did replace your strings. Saved all my money and got you a new set for Christmas.”

The older man chuckled, tilting his head acknowledgingly. “That you did. Bet that was probably your favorite Christmas present of all time. You had that guitar for… a long time.”

“It’s right up there with my favorites of all time.” Bo looked back at the tree before speaking again. “I still have it. I don’t play it much anymore, the one I have now is more suited to what I do now, but I couldn’t bear to part with it.”

“What was your favorite, that you can remember?” Luke asked curiously, taking a sip of coffee and half-turning where he sat to more face his companion, one knee brought up on the cushions.

Bo glanced to Luke, smiling slightly. “You first…what was one of your favorite presents?”

“Mine, huh… hm.” Luke sat back a bit more, taking another sip of coffee to stall and glancing toward the fire, thinking. “Well… the year I got tickets to the Atlanta raceway was somethin’ special. One of my clearest memories, though, was bein’ very young and getting’ my own ornament to put on the tree. Remember, the ornaments with our names on ’em?” He glanced to his cousin. “I think we still have ’em, somewhere… Anyway, that one has kinda a special place cause it was my first year at the farm, with Uncle Jesse. Little was I to know how tough bein’ here with annoying little guys like you would be.” He quirked a teasing smile, eyes glinting a bit.

Bo chuckled at that. “You seemed to adjust all right… since you’re still putting up with me.” His eyes softened as he thought back to younger days. “I remember those ornaments… I was so young when I got mine that I don’t really remember getting it… but I do remember when I was 4 or 5 years old, Jesse told me to get mine to hang up. I remember how he smiled when I actually came back with the right one on the first try.” He laughed softly. “I’m still not sure if I recognized my name or just the color…”

Luke’s smile quietened as he watched his cousin reminisce. “Yeah…” A few seconds’ silence fell, mind in the past, then he spoke again. “I can remember Christmases when we were that little… Jesse helpin’ Daisy not burn the cookies… you and I lugging firewood and egg and milk pails around like they weighed fifty pounds.” The smile grew a bit, with a slight chuckle, then he took a breath and let it out in a sigh. “We need to go find those things; I think I remember where in the attic Jesse stashed ’em. Be nice to put ’em up again…” He glanced out the window, at the darkened evening sky, pondering the cold of the attic room. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“I’d like to have those up again…” Bo swallowed slightly, the memories Luke spoke of so close to the surface, then spoke again after a moment, eyes focused on the Christmas tree in the corner. “I remember how when we got older, Jesse would let us go into the woods to drag the tree home. Remember the first year he trusted us to pick out the tree? I think we got about the scraggliest one we could find…” He chuckled slightly. “He made us put it up anyway… and it didn’t look bad after we got the ornaments and tinsel on it. It was one of my favorites…”

The smile showed again, quietly, in remembrance both sweet and bittersweet. “Yeah…” Luke’s voice was just as quiet, gaze going from the tree to the blond man beside him. He took a slight breath, resting one elbow on the back of the couch and his cheek in his hand, coffee mug safely held against his knee. “Sometimes I really miss bein’ that little. No worries, none of the big responsibilities… though life was good for a long time.” He smiled again, eyes lighting gently. “Uncle Jesse made sure of that.”

Bo shifted in his seat, turning to meet Luke’s eyes, leaning a shoulder back against the couch cushions. “Jesse did give us a good life. I remember when I realized how lucky I was that he had taken us in. I was probably seven or eight…” He looked down at his coffee cup, turning the mug in his hands as he spoke. “A friend at school had just lost both his parents in an accident. In my innocence, I asked him who he was going to be living with and he told me he was living at the orphanage. Later that day I asked the teacher why, and she told me that he didn’t have anyone to take him in.” Bo looked up, meeting Luke’s eyes. “I came home, ran up to Uncle Jesse, hugged him, and thanked him for not making me an orphan.” The blond man smiled slightly. “I was, but never really thought about it because Jesse was always there…”

“We weren’t orphans, with Jesse and each other,” Luke replied almost softly, gaze a bit distant for a moment, then focusing on his companion again. “We made a family, together. Still are a family… even with Daisy off and married on us.” There was a beat, then the older man spoke again, quietly. “Bo, do you know what my favorite Christmas gift of all time was?” He glanced down for a few moments as he spoke, eyes lifting again at the end.

Bo’s eyes searched Luke’s face for a moment, trying to see the answer. After a moment he shook his head, his voice near a whisper as he spoke. ?No.”

The older man tilted his head a little as he spoke, holding his cousin’s gaze. “I didn’t think of it that way at the time… hardly… but now, I know it was the year you and Daisy came to live with Jesse and me, somewheres between Thanksgiving and Christmas is all I can remember about the date. You were so dang little… drove me crazy.” He smiled a little. “Always into my stuff, always followin’ underfoot, always vying for Uncle Jesse’s attention. But I grew to love both of you, and then there came a day I didn’t know what it’d be like to be without either of you… and I didn’t want to.” The dark-haired Duke went quiet for a long moment, then finally spoke again, softly. “You’re my best gift.”

Bo closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them, he was looking into the bright blue eyes of his cousin, his best friend. His throat tight with emotion, voice a near-whisper he spoke, “You’re my best gift…” The younger man lowered his head a moment, trying to find the words to say what he was feeling. “You’ve always been a brother to me. I can’t tell you what it means this Christmas, being able to be here, home… together again after too long apart.”

Luke was silent a long moment, swallowing a little, gaze dropping… and finally lifting again. “Well then,” he whispered a bit roughly, his voice betraying his own emotion, and a smile lifting the corners of his mouth a moment later. He lifted his coffee mug a bit. “A toast, then… to family? To home.”

Bo lifted his mug, touching it briefly to Luke’s. “To family and home. Merry Christmas, cousin.”

“Merry Christmas.” And with that pronouncement, Luke took a sip, smiling to himself. It had been a long time, and things were different now… but they were together again. And there were many Christmases to look forward to.

The end