1. shimmer (a taylor swift au)

-chapter sixteen-

"Hey, little bee." Taylor knocked on the door to Ellie's bedroom. Although the little girl didn't sleep in there on her own, she still had her own room. It was filled with toys and books and a desk, where she was currently working on her times tables.

She'd told Ellie about the visit from Kate. She'd sat down and they'd talked about it for what felt like hours. Ellie had been a bit teary, which had made Taylor feel like the worst person in the entire universe, but she'd understood why it had to happen.
"Is it time?" Ellie was biting her fingernail, and Taylor nodded. "Do I look okay?"
Ellie was wearing shorts and a tshirt, her long hair had been braided out of her face. Taylor had tied each of the braids with green ribbon, and Ellie loved it.
"Cute as a button." Taylor smiled, pretending as if there wasn't dread filling her stomach.
"So they're not going to make me go back today... if the phone call goes well?" Ellie squealed, putting down her pencil and standing up.
"No," Taylor told her. "Kate is just going to ask you some questions about what it's like living here and you answer honestly. And then she's going to connect you all up with your parents. I can't be there for that, but Kate is going to take good care of you. I'll be just outside the office."
"I want you to stay."
Taylor came and crouched down beside her. "Remember I'll always be here for you, even if you can't see me... because I love you." Taylor spoke the words of Ellie's favourite Bluey episode, and the little girl recognised it instantly.

Ellie sat across from Kate, her heart beating so fast that she was worried she might burst. She was chewing on a little piece of nail that had been bothering her. Taylor had just closed the door, and now it was just the two of them.
"Are you going to make me go back?" Ellie asked abruptly.
Kate smiled, shaking her head. "Not right now, Eloise. This is just a little meeting to talk about how you've been getting on since I last saw you."
"You promise that you won't make me leave Taylor today even if you think that the phone call went really well?" Ellie was skeptic of this whole situation. "Why can't Taylor be here?"
Ellie only felt safe when she was with Taylor.
"Because I want to have a little talk, just me and you. Taylor's just outside - but she can't be in the room when we have our conversation because it's in the rule book. How is Wendy liking living here?"
"She loves it," Ellie blurted out before realising that Kate had distracted her from her initial worries. She sighed, giving into the conversation. "Taylor washed her in the washing machine the other week and now she smells like lavender."
"Woah! She looks pretty shiny!" Kate laughed. "What sorts of other things has Wendy been up to? I hear that you guys are pretty busy at the moment!"
"Well, I do homeschool with Taylor during the week and on a Friday we go and get ready for her concert and I get to do my homework on the plane." Ellie smiled when she thought about how she'd always sit beside Taylor on the plane, and how the grownup would help her with the taking off, or the landing. Or how most of the time, Taylor would be writing things in her phone or talking to her Mom and Dad.
"Do you like being homeschooled?"
"Yeah, it's the best."
"Do you have any friends? It must get a little bit sad being at home all the time." Ellie could sense the fact that Kate was pushing the boundaries of the conversation, and trying to turn it in a direction that she didn't want it to go down.
"I have lots of friends, and I get to play with them all the time. There's James, she's my age and we both love playing dress up and Bluey and then there's Inez, and she's a little bit younger than me but I love playing with her dolls. Betty's a little too young to play with us big kids but we let her join in when we can. There's lots of other kids that I've met too, but they're my best friends. I never had any friends until I came to live with Taylor."
"Do you know why that was?" Kate asked, and Ellie sighed.
"Probably because my parents left me at home all alone and made my skin turn purple so no one would play with me."
"But you've got lots of people to play with now, don't you? Does Taylor play with you?"
Ellie nodded. "She plays the bestest games in the whole world. But mostly, we make music together. She's teaching me how to play the guitar and the piano."
"Woah, Ellie!" Kate was busy making notes about what Ellie was saying. The little girl wondered what sorts of things she was writing about. "Do you get excited to think about coming home to Taylor?"
Ellie couldn't help but grin. "Yes."
Kate smiled. "Now... Ellie. Has Taylor informed you of why we're meeting today?"
"So that I can talk to my parents."
"What are your feelings about that?"
"I don't want to talk to them." She said bluntly. "But Taylor said that it was important that I give it a chance, even though I don't want to."
"Why don't you want to?" Ellie felt herself get a little bit angry, because she thought it should have been clear.
"Because Mommy and Daddy..." she scrambled through her mind, trying to find the right words. "Probably because I spent every night sleeping in a closet and wanting to disappear. Because they didn't love me."
"Did Taylor tell you that they didn't love you?"
"What? No." Ellie was beginning to panic, because it felt like Kate was testing her about Taylor... trying to find bad things about Taylor. "I never knew what love was until I came here," she spoke gently. "Taylor taught me what love was and what it felt like. I was the one that realised that I didn't get any of that from my parents."
Kate nodded. "I'm just going to set up this phone call," she told her.
"Can I please just go and get a glass of water?"
"Of course."