2 (jaylor) ethereal daylight and golden epiphanies

chapter seven.

It's always the moments like this that seem to move in slow motion. Joe, watching her come down the stairs and knowing that something wasn't right. He could tell. Other times she'd walked off the stage looking alive, and excited. This time, she looked frozen, overwhelmed and shaky. He watched her as she fell. Feeling like he was wading through knee deep mud to get to her. The rest of the world didn't exist in this moment. It was just him, and Taylor. Joe got to her first. Her body, on the ground. He couldn't believe it - he'd known that something hadn't been right. He'd known all day that she wasn't okay. Why didn't he stop her? He cursed to himself, and Andrea was getting the attention of the medic, while also phoning an ambulance.
"Taylor," Joe tried and tried to get her to wake up, tried to get her to open her eyes again, but she wasn't waking up. He pulled her into his arms. She was so cold, so wet. She was still breathing, he could feel it against his chest.
"Joe," he heard someone calling his name, and managed to pull his eyes from Taylor for long enough to see that it was Andrea. "We have to get her warm. Patrick - would you run back to the dressing room and grab towels or blankets or anything." Patrick nodded, running through the place.
Joe couldn't believe this. He should've stopped her from doing this. He shouldn't have let her go out when she was feeling so tired. Taylor is never good at putting herself first, and he knew that well. He should've been reminding her how important it was. She hadn't been eating, drinking or sleeping properly... he should've been better. He should've been better.

Patrick came back with blankets and Taylor's robe. The ambulance had to get here soon - the medic or anyone. They had to get here soon, had to help her.
"How far away are they?" Joe asked desperately, getting more and more worried. She hadn't woken up yet. Why hadn't she woken up? How could he let her get to this point? He was supposed to stop her before it ever got to this point - fuck, there was never supposed to be a 'this point'.
This was never supposed to happen. He'd known Taylor hadn't been telling him the truth about how she was feeling. He knew she'd been worse than she was letting on. Why hadn't he done something sooner?
"They're pulling up outside," Andrea explained. "You go in with her, Joe. We'll meet you at the hospital, alright?"
"Are you sure?" Joe asked, he felt so bad. This whole thing was his fault - he hadn't stepped in, he should've been better. Fuck, he hated himself right now. "I can g-"
"No, she'll want you to be with her first," her mom answered as Joe saw the ambulance officers coming in with a stretcher.
"What happened?" One of them asked. Joe was relieved that neither of them seemed to even notice or care that right now they were looking down at Taylor Swift.
Joe explained the situation- leaving out the fact that she was pregnant. He'd tell them when they were in the ambulance. Right now there were too many ears to hear.

He held her hand in the ambulance.
"She's pregnant," Joe told the woman who was sitting beside him. "She was told not to continue the tour, but she insisted on it. She's not been eating, or sleeping or drinking much - and she's recovering from an eating disorder..." Joe wanted to fall apart. He couldn't believe that she was here, in an ambulance. "Do you think she's going to be okay?"
"When we get to the hospital," the woman said softly, "they're going to do everything they can to look after her."
Joe just wanted to take Taylor home, to wrap her up in a blanket and hold her forever.
He couldn't stop feeling like all of this was his fault - and he didn't want to feel like that, he really didn't.

He hated hospitals. He hated the fact that Taylor was here, that she was lying in a hospital bed, her hair still damp. He hated everything about it. He didn't let go of her hand. He sat beside her, waiting for her to wake up.
They'd been in the hospital for an hour. Her security were standing outside. He was beyond worried about her in a way that she had never, ever been about anything before. It was the type of worry that you felt deep in your chest, the type of worry that threatened to suffocate you. Taylor was being given water through a drip.
Andrea, Scott and sat on the other side of her, Patrick had left to go and get Taylor her clothes for when she woke up.