Chapter Forty - I Don't Want To Close My Eyes
Title: I Don't Want To Close My Eyes (40/??)
Author: so_jayded
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest



Taylor

The back of my jeans were annihilated from the stupid goat pushing me over, so we had to go home and I had to change before we could even think about dinner. I took a shower while Zac set Tabitha up in front of the TV and then we switched and I read to her while Zac showered, with her curled up in my lap staring up at me.

After, I gave her a second bath - Zac insisted that she smelled like fish, but he was probably crazy - I got her dressed up in a cute little purple dress and she sat between my knees while I carefully curled her hair and then tied it back with a bow.

"Stand up," I said after I'd secured the ribbon. She jumped up and twirled and I smiled. "You look adorable," I told her, giving her a kiss on the top of her head as I stood up. "Go play with Uncle Zac. I need to go get dressed."

She nodded and ran out of the bedroom. There was a thunk vaguely in the direction of the living room, followed by the sound of Zac laughing, so I figured it wasn't a disaster. I grinned and shook my head, thinking about how life was going to change soon enough for us and how we'd have our own kids running around underfoot. I smiled as I changed into a pair of black dress pants that I'd bought at Macy's on Tuesday and a plain white dress shirt. We weren't going anywhere too special for dinner, but it was still a nice night out and I wasn't about to go in jeans.

After a few minutes, Zac pushed the door open and smiled at me. "Are you almost done primping?" he asked and I could hear Tabby giggling from behind the door. "We gotta get going or it's going to be like, packed. It's a Saturday, Tay."

I smiled and stuffed my wallet into my pocket, clipped my phone to my belt, and then attacked Zac with kisses. He laughed at me and pushed me away gently. I felt his eyes sweep over me and he gave me an appreciative grin. "Are those new pants?"

I nodded and he grabbed my hand. "Do they look good on me?" I asked him. He nodded and all but yanked me out into the hallway. Tabitha was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with her teddy bear - she'd made it at Build-A-Bear a few months ago, when we were in New York, and she'd named it Uncle Taybear, which made me groan every time she said it.

"It's time to go, Tabby, sweetie," I said and she nodded, securing the little scarf around the bear's neck and setting him on the table before she reached up for my hand. I lifted her up instead, though, and balanced her on my hip as Zac shut off the hallway light and closed the door behind us.

***

When we got back from the restaurant, Tabby stayed awake long enough to change into her pajamas and listen to me read her a few pages from a storybook before she was out. I kissed her hair and stood up, just watching her for a second, curled up with her bear (she'd changed him into his pajamas, which consisted of teddy bear sweat pants and a T-shirt that Isaac had scribbled The Music Lives on to) before I shut her light off and closed the door.

Zac was already in our room, but the light was on and he was sitting up in bed with a notebook in his lap, scribbling furiously. "What're you doing?" I asked as I stripped down to my underwear and crawled into bed next to him.

He shrugged. "Inspired," he muttered and kept right on scribbling. I rested against the pillow and watched him write for a while. Eventually I got bored - especially since he wasn't sharing, or even humming, so I knocked the notebook out of his hands with a murmured 'oops' and crawled on top of him.

He was giving me a sad frown when I looked up and met his gaze. "Hey," he said pathetically. "I was writing."

I shook my head and leaned down, giving him a kiss. "It is our anniversary. You're not allowed to write music tonight."

"But it was about you," he whined.

I shook my head again and sat up, rubbing his shoulders and giving him a little smile. "I don't care," I told him. "You're supposed to be mine tonight."

"I'm yours every night. I wanna finish." He struggled up and started to reach for the notebook, but I grabbed both his hands in mine and shook my head.

"Finish it in the morning," I whispered into his ear. He shivered against me and I smiled to myself before he wrapped his arms around me and whispered an almost meek-sounding 'okay' into my ear.

***

Afterward, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to Zac's even breathing next to me. I wanted desperately to fall asleep, but I was going to stay awake. Every single morning for five years Zac had been waking up and taking the time to make me some form of breakfast and a pot of coffee. Not once in all that time had I done anything like that for him. I owed it to him, and even though I felt like I was going to die if I didn't fall asleep, I was determined to stay awake.

Eventually I had to get up and pull on a pair of sweatpants, because if I'd stayed in bed I would've passed out. I gave Zac a little kiss before I creeped into the spare room and picked up my laptop. I had a spare charger in the living room, thank God, because I didn't feel like crawling under the desk to unplug mine and probably hurting myself and waking Tabitha up. I smiled at her, asleep with her teddy bear tucked under her arm, and then I managed to leave without making too much noise.

I turned the TV onto VH1 and curled up with my laptop on my knees. It whirled to life and I launched The Sims 2. It was weird to be the only one awake in the house. I hardly ever was. The Sims music started playing from my speakers, so I clicked on Tulsa - my own, invented Sim town - and waited for it to load up. Once it did, I found my little family and started their game up. Zac was cooking in the kitchen (I didn't let my Sim cook, because he tended to light the house on fire) and I was sitting on the floor in the living room with our teenager, helping him with his homework. Our daughter - still child-age, but aging up in like a day - was running around in the back yard with her friend that she'd brought home from school.

I simmed with them for a while - most notably, Zac and I went downtown and bought a kitten, which I immediately named Princess. She didn't look much like Princess, but she was still a little girl cat. When I got back to the house, I went through and bought every cat toy that was in buy mode. And three beds.

By three, I was tired of staring at my computer screen so I shut it off and yawned. I got up and made myself a cup of green tea, but it didn't do much. I watched some VH1 for a while, smiled when a Ben Jelen video came on, followed by a Maroon Five video. I dozed through the next one, but the heavy beat of a rap video startled me awake. I shut the TV off and wandered back into the kitchen. It was almost four, and I felt sort of like I was going to die, so I searched through the kitchen cabinets for my caffeine pills. Then I searched through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

Nothing.

I went back into the bedroom, then, and sat on the bed watching Zac sleep. I threw my pillow onto the floor and leaned against the headboard, struggling to stay awake but amusing myself by messing up Zac's hair. He stirred a little and cuddled up to my legs, which was cute and made me smile sleepily.

Six rolled around and I was still sitting there, watching him with his arms wrapped around my legs, a sleepy smile on his face as he sort of drooled on my pants. I untangled him from me, stood up and tried to shake myself awake. I changed, put on jeans and a t-shirt, wrapped a scarf around my neck and grabbed my wallet off the night stand. I leaned down and kissed him once, whispered an 'I love you' into his ear, and left.

I was blinking sleep out of my eyes as I pulled out of the garage and into the early-morning light. The sun was sort of hurting my eyes, so I grabbed my glasses out of the console and put them on. I'd stop on the way back, I decided, and get some caffeine pills from the convenience store across the street. Hopefully Zac would still be asleep by the time I got back, so I would be able to wake him up with kisses, coffee, and a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks. He really liked the ham ones, so hopefully they'd have some. He always got this disappointed look on his face when they didn't, but he liked the bacon ones, too.

I pulled into Utica and parked by the Starbucks. It took me a second to get out of the car because I was so tired, I felt like if I moved I'd pass out. Eventually I managed to scrounge up the energy to open the door and jump out. Everything had a sort of surreal, scratchy quality to it and I was reminded of all the early-morning shows we did tapings for on tour. I always felt like I was going to die when we did those, and I usually ended up passing out against Zac in the van on the way back to the hotel or as soon as we got back on the bus.

Vanessa was taking orders inside and she offered me a huge smile - too happy for six thirty in the morning, but she was a morning person. "Morning, Taylor," she said. "We haven't seen you in a while."

"I've been mostly asleep until noon," I told her. Even my voice sounded tired.

"You look exhausted. The usual?"

I shook my head. "Caramel Macchiato," I told her. "Venti. Lots and lots of espresso."

She chuckled and scribbled something on the cup, then handed it over to Julia, who was making drinks and smiled at me, too. "That all today?"

"No," I replied. "I need a grande mocha, too." I blinked and it took more work than I was willing to commit to open my eyes again. "Extra whip cream. And a ham sandwich."

She nodded and went over to heat up the sandwich while I dug my Starbucks card out of my wallet and put it on the counter. She came back and I paid (and she gave me a free cinnamon scone, because she was the sweetest girl in the world). I took my drinks from Julia, Zac's sandwich from Vanessa, and gave them both a tired smile as I pushed the door open with my back and stepped outside.

Nancy and Jodi were sitting at one of the tables, chattering with two coffees on the table in front of them. It was almost comforting to know that they hadn't followed me this time - I was the only person in the cafe, and there was no way they'd gone faster than me on the way there, because I hadn't noticed their car. "Hi, girls," I mumbled as I walked by them. Fans liked that, when I said hi to them. I was dizzy, though, so I didn't stop to chat and almost fell over as I stepped off the curb.

"Hi, Taylor," Nancy replied. "Are you okay? You look sick."

"Just..." I pressed the unlock button on my keys. My eyes were not cooperating and I was feeling even dizzier. "Just ti-"

My head smashed against the side of the car as I stumbled, and then everything went black.