Thank you again to randaroo32 for your review. Though I would like it if you told me exactly what you thought was so great about the chapter, I appreciate the review just the same. Thanks to everyone else for reading and those of you who added this story to your favorite or alert lists.

As a small side note: The Chicago Mustangs are a team I made up because when originally writing this I forgot that Chicago has an NHL team called the Blackhawks.

Chapter 37: Review

After the game was over, Casey and Lizzy went back to the apartment and came across Fulton's grandfather in the lobby. As Casey collected her mail, Mr. Reed told Lizzy about the improvements he had made to one of the walls in the basement. It was now padded and shock absorbent. "You know, in case you or Fulton or that cousin of yours wants to practice."

"Thank you, Mr. Reed," Lizzy answered. The older man nodded and when Lizzy looked up at her aunt, she nodded as well. Lizzy grinned then raced up to the apartment and got changed.

After changing, Lizzy took a hockey stick from the front closet and went down to the basement where she spotted the wall he was talking about. The padded wall was red, white, green, purple, black, and blue. Lizzy smiled, seeing that it had been done in her, Charlie's, and Fulton's favorite team's colors–the Detroit Red Wings, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and the Chicago Mustangs. The Mustangs' colors were blue and black with an underlining of orange. Lizzy spent quite a few minutes just staring at the wall before she began practicing her swing. Eventually she moved on to hitting an empty, plastic soda bottle at the wall. Though at times a bit of fear would course through her, Lizzy tried to take the advice she had been given to heart and imagine herself practicing with the Sparks. When that didn't work she tried to imagine herself one on one against Matt. This time it worked. She could even hear his voice.

"Don't forget the follow-through," Matt's voice said in her head. A few shots later Lizzy imagined him placing his hands over hers as he led her through the proper technique. Then it sank in that the hands over hers were real and she wasn't imagining them. "If you used a real puck, you'd improve your power and not just muscle memory."

Lizzy looked back over her shoulder and saw Matt. She slid her hands from under his and turned around, wrapping her arms around her brother, hugging him tight as she buried her face in his chest. He dropped the stick as gently as he could then hugged her back. It was then that he realized she was crying. Matt continued to hold his sister until she mostly calmed down.

"I'm sorry; I know you don't like expressing that much emotion."

"Hey, I don't like tears; what guy does, but sometimes I understand."

"You always said—you—I ..." Lizzy trailed off and rubbed her eyes with one hand.

"I never meant to make you feel like showing emotion was a bad thing," Matt sat her down against the padded wall, then sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. His heart sunk in his chest. He didn't ever want her to feel like that. That wasn't the way he thought he had raised her. "I've always been wary of any emotion that wasn't happy. Yeah, Chris and I did try to toughen you guys up to protect you, but you should always feel safe enough to show any emotion around me. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. Experiencing emotion is part of being human."

Lizzy leaned against her brother and sniffled as she dried her tears. "Didn't you have a game today?" Lizzy asked, changing the subject.

"I did," Matt nodded, "at one. Then I caught a plane here. I landed not long after varsity's game ended. My next game isn't until the 24th. Listen, I know you're scared of being out there playing hockey again but Teddy Bear, you have to get back out there. You are so talented. I am so proud of you. You are so good at hockey and you love it. If there ever comes a day that, God forbid, you ever don't love it any more or despite our best efforts we can't get you over this, that won't change anything. I will always love you and I will always be proud of you."

"I'm not scared of being out there. I am terrified. On a scale of one to ten with ten being my fear of swimming, this is like ten times more scary than swimming."

"Charlie told me you've been ice skating," Matt said.

"Yeah, but that's just skating. That's not having a 150-plus pound guy breathing down my back."

"But it's okay to skate with one?"

"How does Charlie know I've been ice skating?"

"Because your coach had you do 20 laps on the ice last night."

"Right; yeah, Portman and I have been skating every day after practice," Lizzy answered. "How did you find out it was Portman?"

"Hold out your hand," Matt changed the subject.

Lizzy looked up at Matt but he just continued to look down at her. She sighed and held out her hand palm up. Matt pressed something into it. When he drew his hand back and Lizzy saw what it was, she dropped it like it was on fire.

"Pick it up," Matt ordered.

"No!" Lizzy argued.

"Pick. It. Up."

"No." She scrambled up and away from her brother. Matt stood and slowly approached his sister.

It was then he knew he had pushed too hard, too fast. He had scared her and needed to backtrack. "Teddy Bear, take a deep breath," Matt said gently.

Lizzy tried but it came out shakily.

"Easy, Teddy Bear."

Lizzy took several breaths and eventually it did even out.

"That's my girl." Matt smiled then retrieved the hockey puck they had been arguing over. "Take it," he said gently, offering it to her.

Lizzy took a deep breath then took the puck from her brother's hand. It didn't take long for her vision to fill with players in black uniforms and her breath to quicken.

"Pass it, Lizzy," Matt snapped in her ear, sounding a lot like Charlie. "Come on, Banks is open. Pass it!"

Lizzy swallowed and the dark jerseys faded from black to green restoring her breathing to normal, but that didn't stop the realization from settling over her. "I'm never going to be able to play hockey ever again."

"I promise you if it's the last thing I do, I will see you play at least one more game of hockey."

"How?

"We get you back on the ice to start with. You said you've been skating with Portman; so have you put your hockey gear on?"

"No."

"Sticks?" Lizzy shook her head. "Okay, so we put you back in pads and gear and go from there."

"That's easier said than done. I still think about what could happen."

"Have you seen the tape from the game?" Matt asked curiously.

"A couple of times. Aunt Casey taped it off the TV and Bombay loaned me a copy of the team tape after the Eden Hall press conference."

"Do you watch it clear through the end?"

"Not always. I have maybe twice."

"After dinner we can take a look. It'll help to go over exactly what happened."

"When are your next games?" Lizzy asked, a plan already forming in her head.

"The 24th, 27th and 30th. That's Tuesday, Friday, and Monday."

"What about Wednesday?"

"Recovering from our game against Ottawa and mentally preparing for the game against Calgary. We play the Senators in Detroit and then the Flames on their home turf."

"Could you, maybe, stop by practice? Please?"

"On Wednesday? I'll have to double check to make sure it's all right with Coach and that we don't have practice but that shouldn't be a problem."

After having dinner with Charlie and Casey, Matt and Lizzy sat down and watched the game. They fast forwarded through the parts where Lizzy sat on the bench and the more boring back and forth play. It wasn't long before they came upon the end of the game. The first time they watched Lizzy go down on screen, Matt wrapped the real version in a hug and held her until regulation play ended. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms until she calmed down. When she had calmed down, Matt let her go then rewound the tape and they watched the hit again. After the hit, Lizzy's brow furrowed and she scrambled for the remote. She backed the tape up again and watched the 30 second clip again. Five replays later Matt snatched the remote from her and paused the tape right as Fulton and Guy stopped next to her on screen.

"I know the hit scared you but watching it over and over will not help. I promise," Matt warned. "That wasn't why I suggested we watch it."

"Which tape is this?" Lizzy asked.

"The one from TV. See the SNC in the bottom of the screen?"

"I don't think I've ever seen the hit on this version before."

"Why?"

"Watch number nine."

Matt replayed the tape but couldn't see what his sister obviously had so he watched it a few more times. "Okay I'm still not seeing it here. What am I missing?"

Lizzy took the remote and rewound the tape again and let it play. "Riiiiight there," Lizzy dragged out the word until the event she had noticed happened. Gunner was about a foot or so from her. That time Matt saw what his kid sister had seen.

"He stops," Matt said. "Or massively slows down. It's almost like he was indecisive about hitting you. Like he didn't want to hit you."

Lizzy knew she wasn't going to know the answer to that until she questioned Gunner and got his side of the story. It was about time she sent him a bi-monthly email anyway. They had started emailing in August when his schedule permitted which was about once every two weeks.

As the tape continued Fulton and Guy stopped next to her. They helped her up and took her to the bench. The referee skated over and spoke to Bombay. Russ took her spot on the ice. A few seconds later the line up on the ice changed and Adam was facing down Olaf Sanderson.

"Wait, what just happened?" Lizzy asked, pausing the tape.

"That's when you got me to get Coach to call a time out. You told us your plan to tie up the score. You said to use Russ like a distraction to give Luis and Adam time to shoot," Charlie said, leaning over the back of the couch. The program must have gone to commercial which was why the change seemed so sudden.

"What did I say exactly?" Lizzy asked.

"You told me that Russ wouldn't get his shot off because Stansson was determined to win and he knew Russ could stop that. We needed a timeout because you had a plan. During the timeout you suggested that we use Russ like we did Fulton in peewees. Actually you said that backwards."

"If I said why don't we use Russ like we did peewees in Fulton, wouldn't it be obvious I had a concussion? Unless I mixed up Russ and Fulton."

"No. You had it right the first time and I think Bombay thought you were just stunned."

"Either way, why did he put me back on the ice? It should have been obvious I wasn't okay."

"That was my fault. I told him that you could make the shot on instinct alone."

"I had a concussion, Charlie, and I hit the wall. They should have brought a medic onto the ice."

"None of the refs saw what happened until after you hit the wall. They saw Fulton and Guy moving towards you and the whistle blew. I don't know why they didn't call anything but once you were back on the bench, you convinced Coach you were fine and he told the ref. Both Gunner and Sandersson apologized after the game."

"I can't believe even with a concussion I came up with that good of an idea."

"You only came up with part of it. You only suggested using Russ as a distraction and Fulton said he and Portman would give Adam and Luis plenty of time to shoot."

"I was thinking it; he just said it."

"Okay." With the circumstances surrounding the hit taking up most of her cognitive thinking Lizzy sat in silence until bedtime. Before she did go to bed, Lizzy wrote an email to Gunner asking about his hesitancy to hit her and telling him about everything that had happened in the last two weeks. As she curled up in her sleeping bag on Charlie's floor, she realized she hadn't talked to her dad but she wasn't too bothered by it. She figured if he was that intent about it, he'd call her.

Sunday afternoon she got an answer back from Gunner. He told her that he had seen Olaf and the other player coming at her hard and momentarily wondered if he was doing the right thing, which was why he paused then he realized his coach would not like him going easy on the other team so he had to make it look good. Then he had assured Lizzy that he had apologized for it just like Sandersson had.

That evening Lizzy paced the apartment hallway until she decided that there really was only one way to get over her fear. It definitely couldn't hurt any more than being afraid could. She slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her then sank down to the floor, pressing her back to the door.

"Bombay," the man answered when he picked up his phone.

"Hi, Coach," Lizzy answered.

"Liz, what's wrong?"

"Why does something have to be wrong?"

"Because you only call me 'Coach' when you want something or something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong. I just ... I need a favor."

So he had been right; she needed something. "Ask away."

"Are you busy this week?"

"A couple days."

"What about Wednesday?"

"No, I have nothing planned."

"I know this seems like short notice and you can say no but is it possible for you to visit after practice on Wednesday? Maybe coach a three on three game?"

"On Wednesday?"

"Yeah."

Bombay thought about it. Lizzy had never asked for anything before and she was really good at getting his team to do what he needed done when they weren't listening to him. The least he could do was fly up and coach one game for her. "Sure, I'll see you Wednesday, say about 4:30?"

"Thanks, Coach." They hung up and Bombay did his best to put the request out of his mind.

Monday Casey dropped Lizzy off and the younger girl hurried to the dorm. Before she could reach her room Luis's blonde girlfriend, Mindy, stopped her. "You're trying to get blackmail on Riley, right?

"Kyle said the best way to get blackmail on his brother is get close to him. It's kinda working."

"You want to make it work? To almost guarantee it?" Mindy asked.

"I thought you couldn't help. That Riley would destroy you?" Lizzy questioned.

"He could but ... anyway we're going to have to change ... this." Mindy motioned to Lizzy.

"You just pointed to all of me."

"Yes, at least that outfit and do something with your hair. You want to impress him, don't you?"

"I'm not sure impress is the right word."

"At the very least, change his opinion of you."

"I guess but you do know I don't wear skirts."

"We can deal with that."

Lizzy lead Mindy to her room and knocked on the door. "Julie?"

"It's open," Julie answered.

Lizzy opened the door and ushered Mindy in the room. "Closet on the left is mine, same with the dresser that has the rabbit, dog, and bear on top." Mindy looked through all of Lizzy's clothes and finally came up with some of Lizzy's nicer clothes for her to wear. After Lizzy changed, Mindy pulled up part of Lizzy's hair then smiled. "That will definitely get his attention."

"Thanks, Mindy. You know, sometimes you're not so bad."

"Thanks."

The girls went to breakfast. As they got their food and Lizzy and Julie headed for their table, Riley caught Lizzy's attention. "You sure clean up well," Riley said.

"Thank you," Lizzy said.

"Morning Gaffney," Riley added.

"Riley," Julie answered, stiffly.

"Would you like to sit with us, Lizzy?"

"No, thank you. I haven't seen the Ducks since Friday afternoon so I need to sit with them. Maybe at lunch but most likely at dinner. If the offer is still open, I mean."

"Of course. I'll keep a seat open for you."

Lizzy nodded and she and Julie continued their path.

"Okay, something is really up. There is nice and then there is what Riley's doing. That goes beyond being nice," Julie said.

"He's trying to win a bet against Scooter," Lizzy said, setting her tray down on the table.

"What kind of bet?"

"Don't know, but I know that they have some kinda bet. It's all in the looks they exchange."

"Who's looking at who?" Portman asked, sitting down.

"I'm looking at you," Lizzy answered.

Portman rolled his eyes but allowed the subject to change.

At lunch Lizzy passed on sitting with Varsity again. While she was turning them, and more specifically Riley, down, Charlie looked at Adam. He asked the younger boy if they had anything to worry about but Adam assured his captain if there was anything to be concerned about Adam would let them know.

"Come on Fulton, why won't you just tell me what's going on?" Portman asked softly.

"Nothing's going on," Fulton snapped.

"Something is because you've been like this all weekend. Grumpy and crabby. Just talk to me."

"I said nothing's going on," Fulton growled, gaining attention from the entire table.

"How does it feel now that the shoe's on the other foot? Does it bother you that he just won't accept that nothing's going on?" Lizzy asked as she sat her tray down.

"The difference here is nothing is going on with me, but something is going on between you and that Hawk," Fulton spat.

"He's no longer a Hawk. He doesn't even play hockey anymore. Joey is just a friend. That's it. Get over it!" Lizzy nearly shouted, slamming her hands down on the table. "If this is how it's going to be I'll go sit with Varsity. At least they've never questioned one of my friendships."

"Fulton." Adam glared.

Fulton sighed but backed off.

"So how'd your bet with Chris turn out?" Dwayne asked, changing the subject.

Lizzy held her glare at Fulton for a few seconds to see if he actually meant it about Larson but couldn't read a single emotion so she dropped into her seat and turned to Dwayne. "I lost, bad." Lizzy picked at her peas.

"How bad?" Charlie asked.

"56-88, they ended dead last in their division and in their league. Toronto was closer to the Sox's record than Minnesota was to the Indians' otherwise they would have tied with the same record."

"Wait, what?" Dwayne asked.

"Both Minnesota and Toronto ended up with the same record 56-88. However because Toronto was only 30 games back from the Boston Red Sox who won their division and the Twins were 44 games back from the Indians who won the Central division that makes the Twins dead last in the American League. I'm not looking forward to Thanksgiving because Chris is going to do nothing but brag because of how well the Royals finished."

"Don't you have a bet against Seth too?" Charlie asked.

"I do, because hockey season started. Every time the Red Wings play the Stars. Seth is a huge Stars fan. Thinks they're better than Detroit."

"Granted, you disagree."

"Of course I do."

"Big Red Wings fan?" Portman asked.

"Since I was a kid," Lizzy answered.

"Matt got you into it?" Adam asked.

"Matt got me into a lot of things. Except baseball. Ben got me into baseball."

"There's the bell. We need to get to history," Charlie said as the school bell rang.

Just so you know, not that anyone cares but that is how the 1995 baseball season turned out. So what's going to happen next? Do you think Lizzy and Fulton will ever make up? Where will the fighting lead? Anything you want to see?