2. mirrorball (a taylor swift au)

-chapter four-

Ellie woke up beside Taylor with a smile.  It was midnight, she figured, and Taylor had fallen asleep with her phone on her chest. Her Mom was the prettiest woman in the whole world, Ellie was sure of it. She was sure that there was absolutely no one like her. Somehow, she didn't think she'd ever get used to the fact that Taylor was just as much her Mom legally, as she was in Ellie's heart. Even though she still had nightmares... she didn't have the thought of going back to her birth parents hanging over her anymore. She couldn't actually comprehend what that was like; waking up every single day knowing that she was here to stay. She was like a different kid, here. She could feel herself... changing. Growing and becoming a new version of herself. She was metamorphosing into a butterfly, she was growing beautiful wings.

And even more than that, she'd found a best friend in Margot. Of course, she loved James and her sisters... but they didn't really understand what it was like. Margot knew completely, and Ellie felt like there wouldn't actually be anything that she couldn't tell her. Margot might have been younger when she was adopted, but she'd made it pretty clear that she still remembered everything that had happened to her. Ellie hadn't ever really had the opportunity to talk to kids that had been through something similar to her - and it was weird that they had all been adopted out of abusive and neglectful households but they'd not experienced the exact same things. They all had similar lives, but the way in which their birth parents had stole their childhood had each been different.

Ellie couldn't sleep, so she sat up and went to go to the bathroom. She'd found it hard to sleep through the night since coming back here even though she was here to stay. Her nightmares were back, but she didn't always have them. Sometimes she just woke up and her mind was very much awake and she couldn't stop thinking. So she splashed some cold water on her face, and glanced at herself in the mirror. She loved Nashville and she loved being here, but she still felt haunted by everything that had happened only a few weeks ago. Sure, her hair was short and her last name was different, but Ellie still felt the same. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, all she could see was her birth mother - dead. She relived that moment over and over and over again and it hurt more every time. She was so angry that her birth parents had put her through something like that... but then again, her whole life had been filled with things like that. She sighed, turning off the light and heading back to bed.

Taylor had this recurring nightmare every god damn night.

It was the same thing,
over and
over and
over again.

Ellie, little Ellie, dressed in a pink fairy costume with battered wings. Ellie's sister, dressed in a matching purple costume, with no wings.

Every fucking night, Taylor dreamt that she had to choose who to save. Which child. Which little girl. Ellie's birth parents holding a gun to her and telling her that she can only pick one. That she can't save them both.

If Taylor were honest, that was part of the reason she's been waking up at four in the morning. That was part of the reason why she hated going to bed. She prolonged her nighttime routine as long as humanly possible. Locking all the doors several times, closing the windows and checking to make sure they're all shut correctly. Tidying up, washing dishes... she'd even started a jigsaw puzzle and wouldn't let herself sleep until she'd done at least thirteen pieces of it. She fucking hated bed time. That fucking dream, it was awful. It haunted her when she was awake, just as much as it did during the night.

It was two o'clock in the morning, when she woke up. Ellie was asleep beside her, Wendy clutched in her arms. Taylor slipped out of bed and went downstairs. She fucking hated bedtime. Getting herself a glass of cold water and getting some ice from the fridge, she gulped it down. She'd not told Ellie about the discovery yet, about what they'd found out.