Chapter Twenty Three

A/N: No reviewers.

"Liv!" Sue shrieked, the water splashing up into her face nearly freezing. George was a little way behind her, his face red with panic. It briefly occurred to the woman that he was probably more worried about his job than the teenager's safety, but she did not have time to dwell on it.

Awkwardly, the woman knelt down at the edge of the water, holding out her hand as she called the girl's name over and over again. Had the circumstances been different, she would have jumped into the water after her, but she could not put her baby at risk that way. All she could do was hope.

A few seconds went by, the water rippling violently, before the teenager surfaced, spluttering and hacking as she tried to force the ice cold liquid from her lungs. She reached blindly towards her former teacher, taking the offered hand. Sue shivered at her touch; the girl's skin felt almost frozen.

Once she was on dry land- and wrapped in George's suit jacket, which he had quickly offered, though not without a slight scowl of disdain- Liv calmed quickly. Her eyes were fixed on the ground as she picked blade after blade of grass out of the ground, laying them side by side on her knees.

"Liv, what on Earth did you think you were doing?" Sue asked, forcing herself to calm as well. "You run away from school, you travel halfway across the city and nearly drown yourself in a park. What's happened?"

"I wasn't trying to do anything like that, Miss, I promise!" the girl exclaimed. "I wasn't trying to hurt myself, I just wanted to be on my own for a bit."

"So you find a quiet classroom in the school, or out in the yard." the redhead instructed, shaking her head affectionately. "You can't help problems by running from them, Liv, you know that."

The girl nodded solemnly, pulling the jacket tighter around her shoulders, and then burst into tears. Sue knew those kind of tears, she had seen them so many times over the years. It was the cry of a child who had tried so long to keep themselves together that the cracks had shattered them into a million pieces.

Sue leant a little closer, resting her hand on Liv's shoulder. She lowered her voice to a whisper, although George was twenty feet away, calling an ambulance- the one useful thing he had done. "Liv, what are you doing in Greenock? Where's your mum?"

The tears flowed even faster, so much that Liv was struggling to catch her breath. Sue did not push her any further, just rubbed her hand across the girl's back until she was calm enough to speak again. It seemed that her maternal instincts were already beginning to make an appearance.

"She got sick." Liv finally whispered. The teacher had to strain to hear her. "At first, we thought it was a cold or flu, or something, but she kept getting worse. Then one day, I got home from school and she was just lying there on the sofa- she wouldn't move. I don't know what was wrong with her, she wouldn't tell me. All she said was that the social think she's too sick to look after a kid. They tried to send me to my dad."

"Oh no." Sue sighed. She had only met Mr. Rollins once, and that was enough of an impression. He was not violent or horrible man, not a patch on many she had met, but he was not a father. Mr. Rollins was the type to take his children to the park, forget all about them and leave alone.

"I ran away before they could find me." the girl confessed. "I thought if I could get to Becky, they'd let me stay with her. I mean, she's 20 now, that's old enough, and it'd only be until Mum gets better."

"Liv, I'm sorry, but things don't work like that." It hurt to have to tell the girl this, but she knew that false hope would be worse for her in the long run. "You're only fifteen, you can't just run off because you don't like who you're going to live with."

"Miss, I can't live with him!" Liv exclaimed, taking a deep breath as she prepared to launch into a rant. Sue held a hand up to stop her before she had a chance.

"I'm not asking you to," the redhead smiled. Liv looked up at her in confusion. "All I'm asking is that you do it properly. We're going to call the police- they'll be looking for you- and then we're going to make a case with social services for you to live with Becky. It might not work, but it's better than hiding. And while we're arranging that, you can stay at the schoolhouse. What do you think? Agreed?"

It took a few seconds of consideration, but eventually, Liv nodded. "Okay. I promise."

Satisfied, the two got to their feet, making their way towards the paramedics George was directing toward them. Sue explained the situation as best she could, beginning to shiver a little where her own clothes had gotten wet. She ought to call Simon to come and pick her up, really… but there was so much to be arranged.

It took a great deal of persuading, but George Windsor begrudgingly dropped her off at the schoolhouse. Maggie was teaching until last lesson, she would not arrive back for a few hours yet, and so Sue took it upon herself to start making up Liv's room. The homelier it was by the time the girl got back from the hospital, the less likely she would be to run away again.

The room was almost prepared when a searing pain tore through the woman's side. Crying out in pain, she fell down on the bed, both palms flat against her stomach. 'Oh no.' she thought, gulping for breath. 'No, please not now.'

She fumbled in her pocket, trying to find her mobile, relieved to see that for once in her life the device was exactly where she wanted it to be. A three-digit number was the first that came into her mind, but she ignored it as the pain began to ebb away. There was only one person she wanted to speak to.

The line rang twenty times or more, until a speak finally appeared at the other end. "Hello, you've reached Simon Lowsley. Please leave a message and I'll call you back when I've got the time."

Sue threw the phone down on the bedspread, tears pricking at her eyes. "Come on, Simon. You said you'd be there, you promised. Please don't let me down, not now."

Biting at her trembling lip, the redhead listened to the silence around her, as if she hoped to hear the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, running footsteps, a voice calling out that it would all be alright. But she did not hear any of those things.

Just silence.

A/N: Uh oh! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, please review!