A/N: Thanks for all the follows/favourites/reviews guys! You're all amazing. I do love your messages!

I'm also looking forward to Cora's return... gotta love Cora!

x


Liv was more than happy to leave the research about how to get over to The Netherworld and bring a soul back to the real world to Regina. Her brunette mother was incredibly willing to be in charge of things and actually complained when people tried to help her. In an attempt to create some order in the Mayor's study, Mary Margaret had tidied the masses of books and papers strewn around into piles. This only succeeded in causing Regina to go on a rampage around the house, bellowing that she couldn't find a damn thing and the woman was lucky she was Emma's mother or she'd have been in serious danger.

Neither David nor Mary Margaret had forgotten Liv's agreement that they could teach her how to ride a horse. The teenager, however, found an excuse every single time they suggested she accompanied them to the stables for a lesson. She knew that Henry was improving every day and refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her terrified atop one of the animals; especially since he was still making it his mission to wind her up and get her into trouble.

Almost a week after the decision to try and find a way to save Cora had been made, Liv was in the diner with Jack and the rest of the Lost Boys. They had accepted her into their gang and, although she and Jaye rarely saw eye to eye and often argued, Liv spent most of her free time with them or with Ruby when the older girl wasn't working. One particular afternoon the boys were being especially rowdy and, after one of the twins made a comment to Ruby which upset her, Liv immediately jumped to the waitress' defence and she and Jaye found themselves in yet another explosive argument. It escalated quickly and, after the bleach blonde made an all too familiar remark about the other girl's brunette mother, she found herself being tackled to the ground before she could defend herself.

Granny emerged from the back with her crossbow raised, just as the door opened and Emma appeared. The Sheriff strode towards the fighting teenagers, pushing through the cheering boys, and physically pulled them apart. She held each firmly by the back of the jacket, telling the rest of the gang to get lost, before dragging the girls towards the station.

"You're going to stay in there until you cool off." She informed them, locking the door of the cell she'd pushed her daughter into and striding into her office.

Liv glared through the bars into the other cell where Jaye was smirking at her. "You need to fucking stop saying shit about Regina because it won't end well for you."

"Yeah? It didn't end so well for you either, did it?" The blonde reasoned, leaning back against the wall and curling her legs up underneath her on the bed. "You got arrested by your Mummy."

"We haven't been arrested, you ass." Liv rolled her eyes. "As soon as we've calmed down Emma will let us out."

There was a long pause and then Jaye tilted her head to one side and regarded the other girl with a frown. "Why didn't you tell her why we were fighting?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you tell Sheriff Swan that we were fighting because I called the Mayor an evil, demented bitch?"

Liv glared at her. "You wanna stop saying that?"

"No, I mean… why didn't you tell her?"

"I dunno…" Shrugging, Liv leant against the bars of her cell. "I didn't want her to know, I guess."

Before Jaye had a chance to ask why, a familiar clicking of heels echoed through the hallway towards them and Liv groaned. There was nowhere for her to hide as Regina appeared in the doorway, glancing around for her girlfriend. The brunette did a double take as she spotted the teenage girls incarcerated in the cells, before striding towards her daughter. Coming to a halt beside the door, she put her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow.

"What on Earth is going on?" She demanded. "Why are you locked in there?"

"There was a fight at the diner… it was a misunderstanding, but I guess Granny called Emma and she put us in here to cool off." The teenager explained with a shrug.

"What was this fight about?" Regina asked, looking between her daughter and the blonde in the next cell. She assumed, correctly, that they had been the ones fighting in Granny's.

"Nothing important; like I said, it was a misunderstanding."

"And how long are you supposed to stay in there?"

"As long as it took for them to calm down and stop making threats." Emma informed her, appearing from her office and jangling the keys to the cells. "You appear to have stopped, so I'll let you out. But next time you won't get off so easy, understand?"

The girls nodded and Emma let them out. She unlocked Jaye's cell first, ordering her to go home. The Sheriff waited until the girl had left the station before opening Liv's door and letting her out. The teenager simply arched an eyebrow and folded her arms again, leaning lazily against the bars.

"Well?" Regina asked.

"Well what?"

"Are you going to explain now that your little friend has run along?"

"No." Liv replied simply. "But it won't happen again."

There was a pause and then Emma sighed. "She's not going to tell us, Gina. What did you want?"

Regina raised an eyebrow at the bluntness of the question, but then explained that she needed some reports to go in the file she was compiling on the town's crime rates and the successfulness of the preventions they'd put in place. As Emma went into her office to dig them out, she jokily said that one day her girlfriend would pop in just to see her.

"Hopefully not when I'm here." Their daughter muttered, rolling her eyes, a small smirk tugging at the corners of her lips.

Once the brunette had left and returned to the Town Hall, Emma perched on the desk closest to the teenager and eyed her carefully. "Ruby told me what the fight was about."

"Stupid wolf…" Liv growled, not really meaning it.

"She was worried about you. I won't tell Regina, but I don't get why you don't want her to know you're defending her, though?"

"It's not that, exactly." She said slowly. "It's more… I don't want her to know that I needed to defend her. She's trying so hard but people won't give her a chance."

Emma sighed and beckoned the teenager over to sit beside her on the desk. "It makes me mad too, but we can't go around smacking everyone who says something about her."

"I don't! Just Jaye."

"Well you gotta stop, kid." The blonde ordered. "It looks really bad that the Mayor and the Sheriff's kid keeps getting into fights and locked in the cells."

"I'll try."

Emma smiled. "I guess that'll do for now." She nudged Liv's shoulder gently with her own. "Aren't you supposed to be having a riding lesson with David?"

"Yes."

"So why were you at the diner?"

"Because there is no way in hell I'm getting on a horse."

"You promised, though."

Liv rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't. I said I'd do it, I never promised. Now I've changed my mind."

"Good luck escaping my parents. They've even been in here looking for you."

"Shit." The teenager slid off the desk. "I'm off to find a decent hiding place."

"You can run but you can't hide!" Emma shouted after her, laughing at the lengths her daughter was going to to escape learning to ride a horse.

Turning out of the station, Liv spotted Mary Margaret on the other side of the road and dived behind the bug to avoid being spotted. The raven-haired woman passed close by, making the teenager hold her breath, before going into the building she'd just left. Taking her chance, Liv ran in the direction of the playground where she guessed her friends would have relocated after leaving the diner.

"Who's after you?" Jack asked as she skidded to a halt in front of the climbing frame, breathing heavily.

She shook her head and swung herself up onto the platform where they were all huddled together against the cold. "Mary Margaret and David want to teach me to ride horses. There's no way in hell I'm getting on one of those things."

"So you're fine with the danger of riding on the back of my bike, but you won't ride a horse?" Jack asked, laughing at her.

"Hey! I've never even seen a horse in real life. I'm a city girl… give me a motorcycle any day." She defended herself with a huff.

The boys shrugged, still laughing at her petulant expression. An almost uneasy silence fell and they looked between the two girls among them warily.

"D'you get any crap when I left?" Jaye asked, almost concerned that the other girl had received a rougher ride from her mothers.

"Nah, not really." Liv said with a shrug. "I promised it wouldn't happen again and that was it."

Jaye grinned at her. "Truce?"

Liv nodded. "Truce."

The uneasy expressions on the boys' faces lightened, as though they were reassured that there wasn't going to be bloodshed anytime soon. The conversation turned jokey once more, with the girls using their new-found alliance to tease the boys and get the upper hand in the banter.

"Watch out." Tootles muttered, nodding his head towards the gateway that led into the park from the direction of town.

"What d'you want, brat?" Jack called out as Henry approached them.

"Oi, leave it out." Liv snapped, glaring at the older boy. "What do you want, Henry?"

"Grandma sent me to look for you. She said you were supposed to meet them at the stables this morning."

"I told them I wasn't going." She said with a sigh. "They just won't leave it."

Henry shrugged, pushing his hands into his pockets. "So are you coming or not?"

"Not." Liv replied at once. The boy jerked his shoulders in response and turned to leave the playground. "And if you tell them where I am, I'll kick your ass, understand?"

He didn't respond, merely carried on walking through the gate and disappearing along the path. Liv scuffed her feet distractedly as the conversation carried on around her. Jaye touched her shoulder and gave her a questioning look, but she just shrugged and smiled weakly.

"Oh god! Incoming!" One of the twins, Josh, warned poking his head out of the doorway in the pod they were seated in on top of the climbing frame.

"It's your Grandma!" Ed, the other twin, added. "She looks like she means business."

"I'm gonna kill Henry!" Liv ground out, looking around for a way to escape.

Pushing her to the ground, the boys and Jaye threw off their coats and flung them over the teenager. Once she was hidden from view, they settled themselves around her so that her form wouldn't attract Mary Margaret's attention.

"Have you seen Liv?" The woman asked, peering into the space the teenagers were occupying and trying to see whether her granddaughter was among them.

"Not since earlier." Jack replied with a shrug. "The Sheriff dragged her and Jaye off to the station. Jaye came back, but Liv didn't, so we guessed she was still there."

"Oh…" Mary Margaret sighed. "Well if you see her can you tell her we're looking for her?"

"Will do, Miss B." Jaye nodded with a salute, making them all remember her as the quiet school teacher.

As soon as she had wandered away, the pile of coats shifted and Liv's head popped out. She looked questioningly at her friends, who nodded, before removing herself from the confines of her hiding place. Saying her goodbyes, the girl slid down from the climbing frame and pulled her coat tighter around her, making her way home, via Granny's to hang out with Ruby for a while.


When Liv reached the huge white house a while later, she was surprised to see Henry huddled on the step outside the front door with tears running down his cheeks. Spinning her keys around her finger on the ring, she paused and looked at him with her head tilted to one side.

"What you doing out here? They put you on the naughty step or something?"

Henry just shook his head, not meeting her eyes. With a shrug Liv pushed past him and opened the front door. Immediately a loud crash met her ears from somewhere in the house. The crash was immediately followed by an enraged scream and then furious shouting. Closing the door abruptly, the teenager realised why her brother was sitting out there.

Sighing, she settled herself beside him. "How long they been arguing?"

"Ages." He replied sadly. "They were already fighting when Gramps dropped me off."

"Why didn't you go to Granny's or something? It's freezing out here."

"I wanted to wait for you…" He mumbled.

"Come here…" Liv wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer. Henry rested his head on her chest and she moved the hand on his shoulder into his hair, gently scratching his scalp with her nails in an attempt to relax him. "They'll calm down. You know how stubborn they both are."

Henry wrapped his arms around her waist and snuggled closer. Moving her free hand to rub his arm comfortingly, Liv leant her head on top of his and sighed again.

They stayed like that for what felt like hours. The girl was just starting to wonder whether they were going to freeze to death, when the front door burst open and Emma nearly tripped over them as she stormed out.

"I thought you were–" Regina's bitchiest voice reached them, before stopping abruptly as she realised what had made the blonde pause on the threshold.

"Are you done?" Liv asked coldly, climbing stiffly to her feet and pulling Henry up with her. She was glad to see both women look incredibly guilty at the tearstains on their son's face. "Come on, kid. I'll make you a hot chocolate, OK?"

Keeping a protective arm around her brother, she propelled him through the foyer and into the kitchen, slamming the door behind them.

Just before the door closed they heard Regina hiss, "At least some people in this family are getting on for once."

The front door slamming indicated that Emma had left and the sound of Regina's heels across the marble floor, followed by yet another slam, told them that she'd shut herself in her study. Taking a look at Henry's stricken face as she set a mug of cocoa in front of him, the teenager smiled weakly and headed to find out what had happened between their mothers.

Not bothering to knock, no matter how many times Regina asked the teenager never remembered, Liv barged into the study and glared down at the brunette who was curled up on the couch. It took several seconds for her to realise that her mother was crying. It took several more moments for her to realise that she should probably do something about that.

Perching awkwardly beside Regina on the couch, Liv patted her leg tentatively and waited for the brunette to look at her. When she did, the teenager couldn't miss the tears coursing down her cheeks. Not knowing what else to do, Liv reached out and wrapped her arms around the woman tightly. Regina clung to her, sobbing.

"What happened?" She asked once the tears had stopped and Regina was wiping her eyes.

"Nothing you need to worry about."

Liv raised an eyebrow, removing herself from her mother's arms. "But that's the point. I am worried and so is Henry. He was crying his eyes out when I got home. He thinks something's really wrong between you and Emma. Is it?"

"No." Regina answered, but it was too fast to be sincere. She sighed. "I don't know."

"So… what happened?"

"Emma doesn't think I should tell you–"

The teenager smiled weakly. "You're gonna have to tell me now, aren't you?"

"She didn't think I should tell you I've worked out how Rumpelstiltskin opened up that portal to The Netherworld." The woman admitted. "And then… every single tiny thing that's been annoying us recently got brought up."

The girl only focused on the first part of her mother's explanation. "You mean… you've worked out how to send me back? So I can go and get Cora? When?"

"This is why Emma didn't want me to tell you."

Liv frowned, not understanding what she meant. "She doesn't want me to go?"

"No. But specifically she doesn't want you to go alone." Regina clarified. "The potion creates a portal that one person can go through. We can't come with you. Emma thought that we should keep it secret until I can find a way to increase the number of people who can travel through the portal, but… I don't think it's possible. No one is supposed to be able to go there."

"I'm not waiting around on an off chance." The girl informed her firmly. "If I'm gonna do this I wanna do it as soon as I can. Who knows what Gold's cooking up and if your mother is the best chance we've got of working it out before something bad happens then I need to get it done."

There was a long pause as Regina scrutinised the determined expression on her daughter's face carefully. "You are so like Emma."

"Huh?"

"She'd be exactly the same if it was her."

"Well then, she'll understand." Liv reasoned, shrugging. "I think you should go talk to her. I'll watch Henry."

Regina paused again and then nodded. As she reached the study door, Liv caught her arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. Neither of them said anything, but neither did they need to. Then the darker woman continued out of the room and grabbed a jacket and her car keys. There was no question as to where Emma had gone; she would be hiding at her parents' apartment.