covered in you | taylor swift oneshots

;༊ | silhouette of stars

;༊ betty: age two
;༊ set: late summer of twenty-eighteen

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Taylor sighs, deflating on the couch in the dressing room. The room is warm, too warm, but there's nothing she can do about the rising heat outside or the air conditioning unit that's trying its best to combat the summer warmth. She's ready for stage, she has been for half an hour, but there's still time before she needs to be out there and sparkling for thousands of eyes to scrutinize. She sighs again when a chubby hand slaps down on her stomach, toddler fingers slimy and warm as they caress the rhinestones adorning her torso. Elizabeth Alwyn wears a pout of disinterest, her blonde hair pulled into two little buns at the top of her head, black elastic bands hidden behind gold hair clips shaped like snakes. She'd refused to be dressed in the romper Andrea had ordered, one that near identically matched what Taylor herself was dressed in, and so she only looked half the part as she toddled around the dressing room, destroying everything that was within eyesight.

"Be nice to Mommy's tummy." Taylor tries to mediate, but she's tired, and it's hot, and Betty's not even supposed to be here right now. She doesn't want to think about how Joe's extended his trip another three days, uncaring for their daughters well being and best interest. She doesn't want to think about how this is the third night in a row that Betty's been forced to endure the chaos and drawn out boredom of waiting around backstage for hours with nothing to do. Her daughter's temperament is deserved. Taylor thinks if she was a toddler with endless energy, and yet she was being forced to stay still and quiet, that she'd result to hitting and whining as well. It's not fair to Betty, but it's not fair to her either. He hasn't been home in three weeks. He hasn't been a parent in three weeks. The daily calls stopped coming on this fourth night away, the random texts and pictures stopped coming on the sixth. He only reaches out to let her know that he's not coming home, and everytime her phone pings, something inside of her hopes that it'll be the initiation of a breakup. She can't keep doing this. She can't keep playing this game and sacrificing what's best for Betty. She'd planned this tour counting on his presence. She'd planned this tour assuming her daughter would get to spend time with her father, but instead Betty's been with Andrea, or Scott, or her assistant. She's tired of it, and she knows Betty is too. "Where'd your binky go?" Taylor knows it's a cheap distraction. She knows that she shouldn't be putting attention on the binky her two-year-old shouldn't even have still, but she needs six seconds to herself. She'd had somebody else's hands on her all day; whether they were Betty's, or her teams. She's touched out, she's overstimulated, and she's rightfully exhausted.

Andrea smiles sympathetically from across the room, blue eyes sparkling with sympathy. Even in the worst days of her and Scott's marriage, they'd still been able to count on each other. Even when they'd been at each other's throats, desperate for an out that wasn't coming soon enough, they'd managed and delegated the unavoidable tasks of parenthood. Andrea doesn't know when the last time Taylor slept is, but her daughter looks close to passing out on the couch as she tries to hype herself up for the show ahead of her. "Bink!" Betty's little voice fills the dressing room, her little hands holding onto three pacifiers that Taylor can't even recall unpacking from the bag of her child's necessities. One of the pacifiers gets shoved into the little girl's mouth, but the other two remain in her little fists, and all Taylor can think is that at the very least, little fists that just want something to do won't be drumming against her stomach anymore.

"Why don't you and I go find a snack?" Andrea asks, looking directly at Betty, who is squeezing the nipples of her precious pacifiers between her thumbs and pointer fingers. The toddler is dressed in only a black onesie, the little skirt Taylor had on her thrown into a corner. The buttons are unsnapped, the fabric hanging between her little legs; the last diaper change a battle that Taylor hardly made her way out of unscathed. Betty huffs, little eyes narrowing as she pouts deeper and makes a sharp b-line for Taylor, clambering up onto the couch with uncoordinated movements. Taylor sighs, pulls a hand down her face, and accepts that Betty's going to be glued to her side until she's called for places. Even then, it'll be a war to tangle little limbs away from hers; a war that could've been easier had Joe decided to show up for her; for them.

"I know you're tired, baby girl. I know you want to go home, but we're almost done." Taylor corrals Betty into her lap, even though every nerve in her body is screaming for just a minute, a single minute, of lonely quiet. She adores being a mother, she adores Betty, but she hasn't been allowed to be Taylor in three weeks. If she's not pacing floorboards at three in the morning, desperately trying to get her inconsolable child back to sleep, she's putting on her best front before the eyes of thousands of strangers. She's tired, she's worn down, she's exhausted, but so is Betty; so is her daughter who should be asleep up in a lavish hotel room with her father.

Elizabeth huffs, sinking into her mothers embrace, little hands holding tightly to any inch of Taylor that they can manage with the two pacifiers still in her tight fists. Her nails scratch Taylor, it's innocent and unintended, but it's like the final straw that has the blonde unraveling, tears pricking her eyes as she tries to get her baby to settle. "No G'ama."

"No, no Grandma. Just Mommy and Betty, but Betty needs to lay down." Taylor guides her daughters head to the pocket of her neck that's the darkest place they'll be able to find on such short notice. She hadn't planned for Betty to be with her. She hadn't planned on Joe not being home for another three nights and four days. She'd left the pack-n-play at the hotel, she'd left everything her daughter needed at the hotel aside from the small bag that fit what it could. Joe hadn't texted her until almost noon, and the day hadn't allowed for her to send anyone back to retrieve Betty's things. He'd left them stranded against a sea of negative odds, but Taylor would make it work. She was always having to make it work now.

The exhaustion she faces is crippling, but she finds herself laughing softly when tiny hands come to frame her face, a pacifier adorned with glittering silhouettes of brightly burning stars pressing against her lips. She knows this routine well, she knows this small semblance of extended kindness and comfort. Her daughter is sassy and opinionated, she's bossy and wild, but she has the sweetest heart Taylor's ever encounter, and she knows that when she's tired, when she's fought bedtime for as long as she's capable, if there's a spare pacifier around, it's ending up in her hands, against her lips, pressed against her cheek; anywhere Betty can blindly reach, because to Betty, bedtime means Mommy sleeps too, and at two-years-old, she can't grasp the reality that not everyone needs a comfort item to find peace.

"Thank you, baby." Taylor reaches for the pacifier, takes it into her cold hand, and holds it tightly. She holds onto it even after Betty goes limp against her chest, even after Andrea takes the toddler and paces the room until Betty's deeply beneath the blanket of sleep she desperately needs. She holds it in her hand until it's replaced with a microphone, and even then it's left within eyesight, visible anytime she sneaks backstage to change. It's small, just another thing that motherhood demands to flow smoothly, but in place of her daughter's physical company, it's the only thing that keeps her going until all that she has is left on the stage.

When she creeps back into the dressing room, that black pacifier with glimmering white stars is in her palm, warm from the heat of her touch. She needs a shower, needs a break; a minute to rest and re-evaluate the hours of her day that have passed like minutes, but instead she takes Betty back into her arms, and they head off to the hotel where nobody can disrupt their peace. Joe's not here, but she doesn't need him. Betty is all that she'll ever need to be more than happy with her life.