a sound she hadn't heard before

thirty-eight.

As soon as Taylor and Ayla get home, Taylor sends her daughter to go play in her playroom for a little bit. Taylor feels a wave of emotions come over her, emotions that she was blocking until she had her little girl safely home with her. She can't believe that Adam would pull something like that.

Without even thinking, Taylor feels her fingers navigating her phone screen to call Joe. He picks up almost immediately. "Hey T."

"Joe..." Taylor breathes, "thank god. Thank god you answered."

"Honey, is everything okay?" he asks, instantly concerned by the wavering in Taylor's voice. He knows that she is holding back tears at this point.

"He... he showed up at Ayla's school today," she says. "I had to go and get her and... he tried to pick her up and take her."

"Who?" Joe asks. "Was it... was it Adam?" The word feels cold as it runs off of his tongue. He doesn't like having to even ask that. It's not fair to Taylor, to have this man come running back into her life after so many years of being away. It breaks his heart to hear her voice, so close to breaking into tears. He feels rage begin to burn inside of him as he awaits Taylor's answer, as though he doesn't already know.

"Yeah... he... he just showed up and tried to take her. He tried to pick her up from school. I'd have shown up to get her this afternoon without any idea where she was..." Taylor feels herself break as she is speaking, tears starting to fall out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She is so thankful to the school, for dealing with the situation and making sure that he didn't take Ayla with him. She has no idea what his intentions would have been. For all that she knows, if Adam would've been allowed to take Ayla, she may have never seen her little girl again.

"T..." Joe says, "I'm going to come to you, okay? You need somebody right now."

"I'd like that," Taylor manages.

"I can get to you quicker if I take the PATH train. I know that stop is a longer drive for you than the NJ Transit. Can you manage?"

"Yeah, that's okay. We'll leave right now and be there when you get off of the train. Just get here as quickly as possible. Please," Taylor says.

Joe feels awful. He wishes that he could just teleport, and be there for his girlfriend. She needs him. She needs a shoulder to cry on, and somebody to tell her that it's all going to be okay. To keep her thoughts from drifting to the worst possible scenario.

Taylor takes a moment to compose herself. She drinks a glass of water and dries her eyes. She has to take Ayla to the train station with her, obviously. She can't just leave her daughter here. She also, however, can't let Ayla see that she's upset. She at least can't show the magnitude of her fear. She doesn't want her daughter to be afraid.

"Ayla," Taylor calls up, "come down please." She hears little footsteps running down the stairs, then Ayla appears, smiling and her pigtails bouncing with every step. "We're going to go to the train station and pick up Joe, okay?"

Ayla smiles. "Yay!" She instantly runs off to pull on a pair of boots and her coat. Taylor does the same, and soon, they're on the road.

Joe gets to Jersey pretty quickly on the PATH train. He takes a quick subway from Greenwich Village to the World Trade Center, then gets on a train to Hoboken that departs every few minutes, just like a subway. Taylor and Ayla meet up with him in Hoboken, which is about 40 minutes away from them. By the time that they pull into the parking lot of the PATH station, Joe is only a few minutes away. It isn't long before he walks up to their car in the parking lot and gets into the passenger side door.

"Hi girls," he smiles. He knows better than to bring up Taylor's state on the phone in front of Ayla. He acts like everything is just perfectly fine, and Taylor is so thankful for that.