Of Dreams and Miracles
By Misha

Disclaimer and Rating in Prologue.

A.N- Finally, the part where I explain most of what happened with Mac and Liz, though I think most of you had pretty much figured it out by this point. Also, there is a reason I go back and forth from having her refer to Robbie as either Rob or Robbie both in conversation and in general, it'll become obvious in later chapters, so no I'm not crazy.

Part Forty: Memories of First Love

Elizabeth returned to her room and sat down on the bed, lost in thought.

It was so strange.

A year ago, she was at the University of Minnesota, wading her way through her classes. Robbie had just broken with her and she was trying to heal her broken heart, while having to spend every day around the guy who had broken it. And the girl he had left her for.

A lot had changed in a year.

She had left school, albeit only temporarily. She was at the Olympics, helping her dad coach the USA hockey team.

She and Rob were friends again, really friends. There was still tension, a lot of tension, but they had regained some of the closeness they had lost when they stopped dating.

She was dating another hockey player. One from Boston, at that. Who would have imagined four years ago, back in '76 when things between her and Robbie were just beginning? Not her, but it had been an interesting year.

The next few weeks would be interesting too, she was sure. After all, she had accompanied a hockey team to the Olympics for a shot at the sort of thing that only happened once in a lifetime. There was no way that could be dull. It was so surreal.

Still, try as she might to concentrate on that, her mind kept going back to her conversation with Kathleen.

"I think you need to decide once and for all how you feel about Robbie before you can figure out how you feel about Jack. And that means dealing with it honestly, not just telling yourself you're over him because you want to be."

Kathleen was right of, of course.

Elizabeth knew that she had never properly resolved her feelings for Robbie. When they broke up, she had just closed up a wall around the part of her history that had included him.

She didn't want to deal with it, so she didn't. She just tried to pretend that everything was okay again, which she saw now wasn't the healthiest way to go about things.

No, she needed to deal with it once and for all. She needed to really understand how she really felt about Robbie McClannahan.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and just let the memories wash over her. She remember the day she had met him...


Elizabeth tagged along with her father to the first official practice of the year, now that tryouts were over and the new guys had been chosen.

She sat in the stands, watching the practice and taking a good look at the team. She had missed tryouts because of school commitments, so this was her first look at the new guys on the team.

One of them caught her eye almost immediately. He was cute, skated with confidence, and was, even at this his first practice with the team, easily one of the best out there.

Once the practice was over, Elizabeth joined her father on the ice.

The cute guy was the first to notice her. "Did the team go co-ed?" He quipped.

She smiled, while Herb scowled. "I'm Coach Brooks' daughter." She explained. "I come to a lot of practices, I'm kind of like the mini-coach."

The guy grinned and shot her an appreciative look. "Well, that might be, but you're certainly a whole lot cuter than Herb."

Herb's scowl deepened and he addressed the whole team, but the cute guy in particular.

"We'll get this out of the way right now. My daughter is completely off limits to all of you." He announced. "I hear or see anyone taking a move in that direction and there'll be Hell to pay. Got it?"

There was a chorus of 'yeahs' and a few grumbles.

Herb nodded. "Good. Practice is over."

The boys left the ice.

Elizabeth went back to her seat in the stands and recovered the book she had been reading. Her father had some stuff to do, so she still had a lot of time to kill.

After a few minutes, she decided to go wander around. She reached the doors of the buildings around the same time as a bunch of the players exited the locker room.

"Hey mini-Brooks!" One of the guys called out.

Elizabeth shot him a glare, recognizing him from the previous year. "Don't call me that again, Davis, not if you value your life. I have a name. Use it."

"What is your name?" The cute guy, the one she had noticed earlier, inquired.

She smiled at him. "Elizabeth. What's yours?"

"Rob." He said quickly. "I'm Robbie McClannahan."

Elizabeth and Robbie had become friends pretty quickly after that first meeting, much to her father's disapproval.

At that point he hadn't wanted her to have anything to do with the team outside of practice. Still, since she and Robbie were only friends, Herb didn't mind too much.

Elizabeth and Robbie grew really close that year, she found that she could tell him almost anything. The friendship kept growing deeper until the '76 playoffs.

After Minnesota won the championship, there was a party to celebrate, of course, and that was the night she and Robbie became more than friends. Elizabeth had begged Patti to be allowed to attend and permission had been granted despite Herb's disapproval.

It had been a fun night--one that she would never forget...


"Did I tell you how awesome you were out there?" Elizabeth asked Robbie, giggling a little, a result of the amount that she had drank that night.

She was pretty sure her father would kill her if he found out--thank God, she was crashing at Kathleen's that night and he hopefully would never know.

"You might have mentioned it once or twice." Robbie said with a grin. "but it never hurts to be complimented by a beautiful girl."

Elizabeth blushed and couldn't help but noticing, not for the first time, just how adorable Robbie was. "Do you really think I'm beautiful?" She asked him.

He shot her a look. "God, Liz, of course I do. I have from the first moment I set eyes on you. It was definitely disappointing to learn that you were Herb's daughter."

"What if I wasn't Herb's daughter, what would have happened?" She asked him, the alcohol making her feel bold.

Robbie smiled, having had more than a few drinks himself. "I would have done this a lot sooner." He said, leaning in and kissing her deeply.

Elizabeth quickly responded, wrapping her arms around his neck.

That had been there beginning. Though, they didn't become a couple right away. They'd shied away from it for a little while, since she'd still been in high school at the time.

But they'd hung out often and they'd seen each other frequently over the summer.

Then, when September came and Elizabeth entered the U, the next step had seemed only natural...


"Whatcha doing tomorrow night, Liz?" Robbie asked her after the first practice of the new school year as the two of them were walking along the campus.

Elizabeth shrugged. "I don't know. Why?"

"I was thinking, maybe we could go out, catch a movie or something." He suggested.

She stopped. "Me and you? Or the two of us and a bunch of the other guys from the team?"

"Just you and me." Robbie told her.

"Just to be clear, are you asking me out on a date, Robert McClannahan?"

"Yes, I am." He told her. "So, how about it?"

Elizabeth smiled. "Sounds good."

Robbie grinned. "Doesn't it? I've been wanting to ask you that for the longest time."

"I've been wanting you to ask me that for the long time." She countered, unable to believe how happy she was. Robbie had finally asked her out!

She and Robbie had been a solid couple from that moment on.

Oh, sure they'd had their problems, all couples did, but they'd also just seemed to fit. He was more than her boyfriend, he was her best friend. Elizabeth had found herself telling him things that previously she had only ever been about to talk to Kathleen about.

Every day, Elizabeth had found herself falling deeper and deeper in love with him. She had never been in love before Robbie.

Sure, she'd had other boyfriends, but no one serious. No one she could imagine spending the rest of her life with. She had found that in Robbie. Elizabeth had honestly pictured herself becoming Mrs. Robert McClannahan one day.

Except, it wasn't meant to be. She and Robbie had been together almost two and a half years by January of 1979. They had been together so long that everyone around them assumed it was a permanent deal.

Elizabeth herself had assumed that, but by that point, things had started to crumble. They were fighting a lot and Rob seemed distant.

Finally, one day it all come to a head and Elizabeth's heart was broken into a thousand pieces...


"Rob, what's going on?" Elizabeth demanded one day when they were alone in his dorm room. She'd felt for a while that things weren't right between them and she finally decided to confront him about it.

Robbie looked away. "Lizzie..."

"Don't, 'Lizzie' me!" She exclaimed. "Robbie, something's not right and I want to know what."

Robbie took a deep breath and then turned to look at her. "I love you, Liz, you know that, right?"

She didn't say anything, not liking his tone of voice.

After a moment, he continued. "But, it's not working." He said finally. "You must feel it too. We're too young to be this serious."

"Who is she?" Elizabeth demanded in an eerily calm voice. She could only think of one reason why he'd want to break up with her like this, only one reason for his recent behaviour.

Robbie stared at her. "What?"

"What's her name?" Elizabeth asked him quietly.

Robbie looked away again. "Jennifer." He admitted, then he turned back to her. "Nothing's going on between us, Liz, I swear, I'm not like that."

"I know." Elizabeth told him quietly. "But you want there to be, so that's why you're breaking up with me."

"I love you." He told her again.

"But not as much as you want to be with her." Elizabeth said flatly. "I understand."

Fighting to keep from crying, Elizabeth turned to go. She wasn't going to cry in front of Rob, she just wasn't. She had more pride than that.

"Liz, wait!"

"Why?" She demanded, turning around. "You want to be with someone else. I get that and I don't think there's anything else for us to say."

With that she walked out of his room and didn't look back.

The weeks that followed had been horrible.

Breaking up with Rob had broken her heart. And having to watch him and Jennifer together just made it worse.

Elizabeth had hated the redheaded girl on sight and had gone out of her way to avoid them both. Luckily, the relationship hadn't lasted very long.

But in some ways, that made things worst.

First, Rob had broken up with her, had ended what they'd had for something fleeting and that like a slap in the face.

Secondly, after he and Jennifer broke up, Rob seemed intent on making things go back to normal. Not so much them dating again, that didn't come up until late, but he certainly tried to pretend that nothing had interfered with their friendship. Elizabeth hadn't been able to do the same and that had lead to a lot of tension between them.

That was when she had decided to lock all of her feelings towards Robbie away, because it had been the only way she could deal with him on a daily basis. But such things didn't stay hidden forever.

Elizabeth shook her head. She had no idea how she really felt about Robbie. She knew that he had hurt her badly, but she had also loved him deeply. First love never goes away, not completely anyway.

Elizabeth wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes once again. She needed to answer one very important question, was she still in love with Robbie McClannahan. She knew that she still loved him, she assumed that she'd always love him. But was she still in love with him?

Because if she was, then she had no right to be with Jack.
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