Universe: The Following present, set sometime after Claire arrives at the mansion
Rating: G
Pairing: Joe Carroll/Claire Matthews
Summary: Part of her had always—always, through everything—wanted to know if he would've considered her a good mother to their son.

Author's Note: This just came to me. I think it's one of my favorite (and possibly my most favorite) Claire-centric pieces I've ever written. Please read, and please enjoy.

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. . .

She had been tucking a few stray strands of her son's hair behind his ear when she heard the door to his bedroom open behind her. Her head turned at once—snapping towards the intrusion—and saw the only person she expected to see.

"I'm sorry," Joe murmured when he stepped inside and realized she was there, too. She was surprised to hear a genuineness in his apology, as if he were truly sorry for treading across land that was hers. "I just came in to say goodnight to him." His eyes roamed over the sleeping child in the bed, and instinctively, she placed her head atop his head and shifted her body to bar his from view. "It won't take more than a second," he told her.

She watched him, curious as to why he stood beside the door like that, tall and stiff and unmoving. It took her a second to realize he was waiting for her reply. Waiting for her permission.

But didn't the great and terrible Joe Carroll do whatever he wanted?

Slowly, she got to her feet, and took a few steps away from Joey's bed to allow him to come closer. She watched, standing just a few feet away, as he walked over to the bed, bent over her son, and kissed his forehead gently.

In the silence of the room, she could hear him whisper his love to the boy softly. She couldn't help but wonder if he was lying. He'd told her he loved her so many times in the past couple of weeks, but she hadn't yet believed him. Was it different with Joey? Could it be?

He straightened up slowly, and took his time turning around. Claire couldn't exactly blame him for wanting to spend as much time as possible with the boy; Joey was the only person she ever wanted to be around here. Maybe even Joe got sick of his crazed disciples sometimes, too.

When he finally turned around, he looked into her eyes at once. Though she wanted to look away, she couldn't. Her breath was becoming shallower and shallower as she stared at him, and tried to predict what he was going to do.

They had had such little contact since she was brought here, so every instance that they were alone together—or even in the same room together with others—put her on edge. She was very aware of the fact that he could probably quickly overpower her in nearly any situation. And she was even more aware of the fact that, while he had asked her permission to visit with Joey, there were other things he might not be so courteous about.

When he finally opened his mouth to speak, he said none of what she'd expected. He didn't demand anything, or ask probing questions, or mock her life choices.

Instead, he complimented her.

"You've raised him well, Claire. He's a good boy."

She hadn't realized, not until he said those words, just how long she'd been waiting to hear them. Part of her heart—what little of it that was left that still felt something for him—shattered in a combination of grief and joy so acute it nearly brought tears to her eyes.

"Thank you," she whispered when she could, and meant it. Her voice shook a little as she spoke and she wondered if he assumed it was from fear. For once, it was not. Ten years was a long time to wait to be validated.

He glanced back at Joey, turning his head away from her for what felt like a long time before turning back. "Can I ask..." he began, but he broke off, shaking his head.

"What?" she asked, too curious now after what he's already said, and not eager to allow him to hold any more half-finished conversations over her. "What do you want to ask?"

"I was wondering... What did you tell him about me?" he asked. His voice was soft like a breeze, but it neither warmed nor chilled her. It just passed by.

"When he asked about you," Claire answered, "I told him the truth."

"And what was that?" Joe stepped closer to her, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that he was not trying to be threatening. Claire wondered if he knew just how eager he looked. Or maybe he planned it that way. "What did you tell him when he asked where his father was?"

"I told him that you were in prison. That you'd hurt a lot of people and that you were being punished for it." She took a breath, mustering her courage to finally ask the question she'd wanted to ask since she'd arrived here days ago: "What have you told him?" Joey had been here for weeks before her; what had Joe drilled into him in that time? "What lies does he believe about you?"

"Nothing more than the ones you've told him," Joe answered. She watched him as he spoke, searching for a sign of a lie. She knew it was there somewhere. She'd overlooked it so many times before; she was not going to miss it this time. Not where Joey was concerned. But when she studied his face, and she gazed into his eyes, she did not see one flinch, not one blink. Not one tell that led her to believe that he was playing her for a fool again.

"He... doesn't talk to me," Joe continued, his eyes breaking away from hers and dropping to the floor. He walked over to the nearby desk, and sat down in the chair that had been pulled out. The chair creaked quietly as his weight settled upon it. Claire returned to Joey's bed and sat on the edge of it, resting a hand on his side for strength and comfort. "He hasn't said one word since we met. I... I was actually hoping you'd said something about me to scare him off, to make him nervous of me, but perhaps..." His eyes inched back up to meet hers briefly across the short distance that now separated them. "Perhaps he just doesn't like me much. Perhaps—"

"He can sense what you are, Joe."

The words passed from between her lips without her thinking, and immediately, she wished she could've said something else. Anything else. Anything but the truth she believed in her heart, her mind; the truth she felt in her bones. She knew this would make him angry and usually she wouldn't worry if he was angry around her, but Joey was here with them, and he made all the difference in the world.

But far from the fury she'd expected to see cast a shadow over his face, he only looked sad at her words. The corners of his mouth drew down the rest of his face, making it look like his entire face was frowning when he looked at her. "Perhaps he can," was all he said. She waited for the anger, still, but there was nothing to be heard but defeat in his voice.

For a moment—a long and slow and almost hypnotic moment—she wanted to comfort him. She wanted so badly to tell him that she knew how it felt, not to be loved back. How it hurt and twisted and, yes, faded over time, but never wholly went away. How that longing for reciprocation always remained, and how the love always stayed the same: unreturned, and forever torturous because of that.

"He's smart," she heard herself say instead. "He's smart, so he realizes what's going on here, at least part of it, and he knows it's not right. He's so smart, really. Sometimes..." But she broke off before she could continue. No, she thought. She couldn't say it. Not here. Not to him.

But Joe didn't let the thought slip away. He didn't let her words trail off into silence. "What?" he wondered quietly. "What is it?" She could hear the yearning in his voice—to know the boy sleeping beside them, to really know him, and not just know of him.

She shut her eyes. She could finish the sentence in her mind easily enough, but she didn't think she could say it aloud. Not to him, at least. Not when they were alone like this.

When she did finally speak, it was someone else—someone braver and more truthful—who said the words she could only think in the privacy of her own mind: "Sometimes I wish he wasn't so smart. Sometimes I wish he wasn't so polite, or sweet, or—or so beautiful. Sometimes I wish he was stupid and mean and ugly, because then, at least—" her words tumbled together here "—then he wouldn't remind me of you every single time I look at him." She sniffed, and turned her head towards her son so she didn't have to look at his father when she said, "I wish he wasn't all of those things, but then without them, he wouldn't be his exceptional self, would he? And if he wasn't so exceptional, he wouldn't be anything like you, would he? He wouldn't be your son otherwise."

It felt like a lifetime of silence passed between her confession and his reply.

His voice was so quiet and so soothing, and when she closed her eyes to listen, she could almost imagine that it was her husband speaking, and not the monster she now sat beside. "If he wasn't so exceptional, he wouldn't be anything like you, either, Claire. You know that." She listened to him take a breath, that image flickering in her head. "You raised him, Claire. He takes after you, not me. The good parts of him—and the bad ones, if there even are any—all come from you. He's you, completely. That's why I love him so much. Why I've longed to meet him. It's like meeting you for the first time all over again."

"But he's your son," she insisted—accepting and even pressing the fact for the first time ever since he'd been arrested. She turned to look him in the eye, daring him to refute what she herself had always refused to acknowledge: "He's your son; he must take after you somehow."

"Give it time," Joe suggested llightly. He cracked a small smile a second later. "Who knows, maybe all his hair will fall out and then grow back in black."

Claire couldn't help but smile back, if only at the memory. "That already happened," she reminded him, though she knew he already knew. "He had your hair for all of two weeks after he was born before he went completely bald."

"And then it grew back in another color," Joe finished. He shifted in his chair, and clasping his hands over his knees as if getting ready to address a very sensitive topic. "Now I know I've asked you a hundred times, but be honest: did you dye it when I was out of the house, or not?"

Claire shook her head. Somehow, her smile remained. She even almost laughed, for Joey's sake. He had always liked that story. "It's a mystery."

Joe nodded, leaning back in his chair with a soft sigh. "He is a mystery, isn't he? A perfect little boy, coming from the two of us. You and me." He mulled over that for a moment, and Claire waited for him to continue, but he didn't.

Their light words and brief smiles evaporated into the silence as it draped over them like a dark, wet cloth.

They sat beneath it for a long time before he asked, hesitantly, "Do... Do you look at him, ever, just so you can see me?"

Part of her almost whispered, Oh, you have no idea. The grieving wife whose husband had disappeared without warning so long ago wanted to cry out, Yes! Constantly. But the other part of her shook her head, and lifted her chin. The woman who'd been left behind to patch the world back together again after he had torn it apart looked him in the eyes and replied coldly, "No. I do not ever do that."

Once again, she expected that violent anger to resurface, but he surprised her by only nodding calmly. "Well..." He placed his hands on the tops of his thighs. "I suppose there's no mystery there, hm?"

She didn't answer, only stared.

He got to his feet, moving a bit more awkwardly now than before. "I'll leave you to say goodnight," he told her quietly as he headed towards the door.

Claire nodded, grateful. She knew he didn't have to be so courteous. But that was Joe, through and through—her Joe, at least. He had always been so very polite. "Thank you," she murmured. It had even rubbed off on her. Still.

He dipped his head, throwing a small, sad smile her way before ducking out of the family portrait and shutting the door silently behind him. It was almost as if he'd never been there.

Claire watched the door after it closed, waiting to see if he would walk back in. She might've watched that door for minutes, or for hours—it didn't matter. He never came back through. Once he was gone—miraculously—he was gone.

Finally, she bent over her son, kissed his forehead, and whispered softly to him. She prayed he would never feel the confusing things she felt here; hoped he would never know his father the way she did.

It was only after she'd gotten to her feet and left, pulled the door shut—slowly and gently so as to not make a sound to wake him—that she realized she'd kissed her son in the same exact place his father had. After a second of shocked hesitation, of not knowing what to do, she rolled her lips together, both sickened and curious all at once.

She walked back to her room in a daze, and sat down on her bed, and thought long and hard about what was happening to her. Madness, some would say. The inevitable, others would counter. Maybe, in the end, it was both. She had always seen something like this coming—in her worst nightmares and in her darkest fantasies. It's madly inevitable.

The last thought she was conscious of having before she fell asleep was that of her son—of how she hoped and prayed and wished that he would stay forever as innocent as he was now.

She realized later when she woke up, however, that he might not be so innocent anymore. He'd been in this place—this house full of murderous criminals and the certifiably insane—for nearly a week and a half. She hoped the hope again, prayed the prayer, wished the wish, hoping it was stronger this time, hoping it would work.

If she was lucky, maybe it wasn't too late.

She did not ever pause in the day that followed, or in any other that came after it, to reflect upon her particular brand of luck thus far in life.

That would only be courting madness.

. . .

Author's Note: Please do me a favor, make my day, and leave your thoughts below!