A Place In This World - Adopted By Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

Chapter 17

Avery was still sleeping soundly when a nurse knocked on the door. As she stepped into the room, Travis noticed that she was being followed by two police officers as well as Avery's social worker, Susan, and Taylor's lawyer, Stephen.

"Mr. Kelce? Miss Swift? I have some people here who would like to speak to you," the nurse said, gesturing to the small crowd in the hallway.

"Of course. Is there someplace we can all sit down? Avery is sleeping and I don't want to disturb her if we can help it," Taylor asked.

"There's a conference room just down the hallway," the nurse explained, "Three doors down on the right. The door should be open."

They made their way down the hall, settling into the conference room. The officers, Sophia and Justin, introduced themselves before starting to explain what they had seen when they arrived on the scene to help Avery. She had been the only one in the house, and they found her in a bedroom that was locked from the outside.

"Some of our colleagues found Mr. Richardson at a nearby bar. He was brought back to the station for questioning and admitted to leaving Avery locked in the bedroom. All we need from you right now is if you want to press charges," Justin explained.

"Yes," Travis and Taylor both responded without hesitation.

"Excellent. We'll go notify the department and we'll be in touch when we have more information," Sophia replied, "We will need to talk with Avery and get her statement, but that can wait until tomorrow. She's been through a lot today so we don't want to disturb her rest."

"Thank you. We really appreciate it," Travis said.

After the officers had left, Taylor turned toward Susan and Stephen to ask the question that had been at the front of her mind.

"So where do we go from here? Obviously we need to address this negligence and get his visitation rights taken away," Taylor began. 

"Oh don't worry about that. We already have a team back at the office filing a motion to strip his parental rights and grant you and Travis full legal custody. Hopefully once we submit the police report, there won't even be a need for another full hearing," Stephen responded, "For now, you just focus on supporting Avery's recovery and getting the police any information they need."

--------------------------------------------------

A few days later, Avery was settling back into her routine at home after her stay in the hospital. Taylor was keeping an extra close eye on her, despite the doctor's insistence that it was extremely unlikely that Avery's seizures had been caused by anything besides her extremely low blood sugar. Her maternal instincts had kicked in full force, and the thought of anything happening to Avery was absolutely terrifying. Travis had been more on edge too, calling multiple times from practice just to make sure everything was okay and that Taylor didn't need him to come home early. 

By the third day home, Avery had enough. She loved Taylor and Travis, but she was feeling smothered. She just wanted life to get back to normal. Or at least as normal as it could be given the situation. 

"Taylor?" Avery asked, looking up from her phone.

"What's up, lovebug?" Taylor replied, "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, I promise," Avery answered, rolling her eyes slightly, "Maddie just texted to ask if I could go over to her house and hang out for a while. Would that be okay?"

"I don't know Aves..." Taylor began.

"Taylor, please? I haven't seen her in weeks and I'm getting so bored here without other kids to play with," Avery pleaded.

"I'm just worried..."

"I know you're worried something will happen again," Avery interrupted, "But I feel totally fine and Maddie's mom is a doctor so she can keep an eye on me for you. Plus you'll have my numbers on your phone too and if I go low you can come get me, okay?"

"I suppose that all sounds fair. Let me call her mom and we'll make a plan, okay?" Taylor said.

"Thank you, Taylor! You're the best ever!" Avery squealed, wrapping Taylor in a hug before running upstairs to get ready. 

--------------------------------------------------

An hour later, Taylor was reluctantly driving home from Maddie's house after dropping Avery off. She only lived about 15 minutes away, so Taylor figured it would be fine to head back home to get some laundry done before heading back to pick Avery up before dinner. She was just about to pull into the driveway when her phone began to ring. She quickly glanced at the caller ID and answered immediately when she saw it was her lawyer calling.

"Hello?" She answered nervously.

"Taylor? It's Stephen. Can you guys be at the courthouse tomorrow at 11am?"