darker_london | Lavinia (Joe, Lavinia)

When Lavinia arrived at Joe's room, he feigned sleep in order to get out of holding a conversation with her. It worked for a while, but Lavinia decided to sit in his room and read, and eventually Joe got bored. It was fine when he just had to lie there and stare into space. But the effort of pretending to be asleep was exhausting. "I'm awake," he finally mumbled, pushing the hospital covers back from his face so he could see his mother.

Lavinia looked up at Joe, and she smiled at him. He looked so small in the bed. So vulnerable. Her strong boy, so utterly broken. "I know, Joseph. I've been watching you pretend to sleep for forty-three years, you think I would know what it looks like by now." She slid a bookmark into her book to hold her place and then she held it up. "Time Traveller's Wife. Beautiful but sad. You read any good books lately?" Lavinia asked pointedly, and as she did so, she pulled her chair closer to his bed.

"No. But this morning I refused to take a shower so they gave me a sponge bath."

"You devil." Lavinia grinned at him and even though the sponge bath had been the least sexy thing ever, he couldn't help but almost-half-smile in return. Lavinia had that effect on him.

"Yeah, hooray, my co-worker saw me naked."

"Eh, you look good naked," Lavinia said with a wave of her hand and without any air that she found it odd to say that about her son. "Though I can't say I am a fan of how thin you're getting."

Joe sighed and decided it was too much effort to talk. He simply stared back at his mother until he felt he could turn away. He ended up staring out the window, watching the clouds. "Joseph. Are you going to talk to me?" Joe shook his head, though he should have realised his diabolical mother had ways of making him talk and beaten her to the punch by being agreeable.

"Alright. I'll talk. Your step-father is still sick and this morning he sneezed and blew the biggest snot rocket halfway across the room!" When Joe turned his head to look at her, incredulous, Lavinia gave him a winning smile. "I would have chastised him but I was too exhausted from all the sex-"

"Okay! Okay, you evil woman. I'll talk. Jesus Christ..."

"That's my boy." Lavinia patted him on the arm and she gave him an encouraging smile. She didn't even gloat about her victory.

"What do you want me to say, Mums?"

"Anything, Joey."

"There's nothing to say." Joe have Lavinia a desperate look. "You want me to say I miss her? That I'm dying here? That I can't do it?"

Lavinia nodded. "For a start. Joseph, I know. I know how it feels." One day, fifty years ago, she had walked in to her home to find her husband and her toddler son brutally murdered, their blood completely decorating the sitting room. Then she had lost Thomas, and now she had lost Jordan. Lavinia had thought of Jordan as one of her own since she and Joe started seeing each other over two decades ago. Losing her was like losing another child, but she wasn't going to lose Joe as well. "And I know what you're doing. You're waiting."

"What?" Joe sat up straighter in his bed, listening attentively. "Waiting...?"

"As grateful as I am that your brother is never lost to us when he goes...his circumstances do confuse life and death for everyone else. You know how I was when he disappeared, Joseph. I was like this. I was waiting. Joe...Thomas' situation is...it's not Jordan's situation."

Joe opened his mouth to contradict his mother's words but no sound came out. Lavinia was right. He was waiting. "It doesn't have to be," Joe whispered, almost ashamed to say it.

"Yes, it does, Joe."

"N...no. No, because...she could...because I...Mums. I need her." Joe closed his eyes, fighting the lump in his throat. "Don't...don't make me stop waiting. Not yet."

"I'm not going to, Joseph. But someday you'll have to. You have a son and a granddaughter who love and need you. Not to mention your old-arse mother. It was totally me who sneezed the snot rocket..."

Joe snorted, even through his almost-tears. "Yeah. Sounded like you."

Lavinia climbed onto the bed then, to pull her incredibly huge son into her arms. And again she said, "there's my boy."