Of Dreams and Miracles
By Misha

Disclaimer and Notes in Prologue.

Part Forty-One: Advice

The XII Winter Olympics, Day Three

"Rizzo, can I talk to you?" Elizabeth asked him softly the next morning.

The team, plus Elizabeth and Kathleen, had gotten together for breakfast before going off to do their own thing.

They had practice that afternoon, a short one, but until then they could do whatever they wanted and after practice they'd be off until the next day, when they played Czechoslovakia.

She had been left alone with Rizzo when Jack had taken off a few minutes before with Silk, saying that he had a couple of things to do. For once, Elizabeth was glad that he wasn't around. Because she had things that she needed to get off her chest and she couldn't do it with Jack around.

"Of course." Rizzo told her. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Not here." Elizabeth said. "Can we go back to your room?"

Rizzo nodded and they headed back in silence.

Once they were alone, Rizzo looked at her. "What's wrong, Liz? I mean, I assume that you didn't lure me here to confess you're undying love for me."

"No." Elizabeth said with a giggle. "Not that I don't think that you're fantastic, but I have enough guy problems without adding another one to the mix."

Rizzo turned serious. "Guy problems? I thought that you and O.C were pretty happy?"

"We are." Elizabeth told him. "Don't get me wrong, I love Jack, I do. He makes me feel more alive than I ever have before. It's just... There's a part of me that's still drawn to Robbie."

Rizzo took in her words silently.

Elizabeth suddenly wondered if she had chosen the right person to talk about this with. After all, Rizzo was Jack's best friend, even if he had grown to become one of her closest friends as well.

"What bright this sudden discovery on?" Rizzo asked her softly. "I mean, a couple of months ago you assured me that what you and Mac had was in the past."

"It was, because my sanity demanded that it had to be." Elizabeth told him. "Rizzo, when Mac and I broke up, I just bottled everything away, as if by doing so, I could stop it from hurting so much. But seeing Mac everyday, being around him, has gradually brought it all back. The good and the bad."

"What exactly happened between you guys?" Rizzo asked her quietly. "I mean, I know that you two have a history, we all know that, but you've never told me any of the details."

"The details are painful, but I'll tell you. After all, without the details, you can't get an accurate picture." Elizabeth said softly. "I was seventeen when it began, we met when he started playing for my dad at the U, of course. It wasn't love at first sight or anything, though there was an attraction. We became friends first and moved on from there."

Elizabeth paused, trying to find the right words. Last night the memories had been painfully fresh, and they were still with her this morning. Still so vivid, so clear, as if it had only happened yesterday that she had fallen in love for the first time.

"We started dating the next fall." She told him, skipping over the part about the '76 playoffs. Rizzo was from Boston, after all, besides that wasn't something that she ever wanted getting back to Jack, not that she thought Rizzo would tell him. Still, it was one of those things that was better off left unsaid. "We just fit together, right from the beginning. Everyone thought we were great together, including me. We rarely fought, bickered a lot, but no real fights."

Elizabeth paused again, trying to collect her thoughts. Even thought, she had gone over it in her own mind the night before, it was still hard to put the whole story into words. To share it with another person.

"Before I two it, over two years had passed. I was in my third year at the U and Robbie was in his last." Elizabeth said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Suddenly everyone started asking us about the future, wondering where be a wedding announcement. Even my own mother was making comments, things like what a pretty bride I was going to be or that she thought summer weddings were nicest. It was as if she just assumed the announcement would be coming any day and had already started making plans. I have to admit that I thought about it a lot. At that point in my life, I just assumed that I was going to marry Robbie some day, though I didn't think I was white ready. The thought made me a little queasy, we were so young after all."

"I assume something happened?" Rizzo asked, speaking for the first time since she had begun her story. "I mean, something had to have happened for the two of you to have gotten from there to where you were when I met you."

"Yeah." Elizabeth said, then she laughed slightly. "Something definitely happened. Suddenly, Rob and I started fighting for the first time in our relationship. I mean, really fighting and he started getting distant. I knew was something wrong and I even had a good idea what it was. He was physically distant as well as emotionally. He'd started cancelling dates or making excuses not to spend the night."

Elizabeth blushed at having just admitted that she and Robbie had slept together. She doubted it came as much of a surprise to Rizzo and it wasn't something that she was ashamed of, but it wasn't something that she talked about either. She thought that some things should stay private.

Thankfully, Rizzo didn't comment, he just nodded for her to go on.

"I realized that there had to be someone else." Elizabeth confessed. "I didn't think that he was actually cheating on me, Rob's not like that. But, I knew that he had to be interested in someone else, so I confronted him about and I was right. He told me we were too young to be so serious and that was that. We broke up."

"I thought it had to be something like that." Rizzo said quietly. "I mean, I knew that Mac had to have been the one that screwed up, that was pretty obvious."

"Yeah." Elizabeth said with a sigh, not surprised that he had picked up on that fact. "It didn't last, him and that girl. And when they broke up, he started trying to pretend that it hadn't happened, which wasn't fair to me, of course. But he wanted to just erase the past and go back to what we were and we couldn't do that. I couldn't do that."

"Which is understandable." Rizzo assured her. "But do you want to go back?"

"I don't know." Elizabeth told him honestly. "Sometimes, when I look at Rob, it all comes flooding back, the good things, and it feels like it would be so easy, just to go back. But then, other times, I remember how much he hurt me and I think about how much we've both changed. And when I'm with Jack, I never even think of Rob, but when I'm not with him... I do think about Robbie, perhaps too much."

"The question you really need to ask is yourself is whether or not what you feel for Mac is real and current, or is it just leftover from what you guys used to have." Rizzo told her quietly. "You also have to decide who you want to be with, since it's not far to O.C to be with him if you really want to be with Mac. It's not fair to Mac, either."

"I know." Elizabeth said, sighing again. "It's not easy."

"Is it ever?" Rizzo asked her quietly. "Love, I mean?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "Once I thought it was. A few years ago, with Robbie." She shook her head. "There's more to it than just my uncertainty over my feelings." She confessed. "I can't help but feel that even if I still have feelings for Robbie, that it's not a food idea. What if we got back back together and he broke my heart all over again? How could I trust him to know what he wants?"

"Because he might have been stupid enough to have lost you, but he realized what he lost." Rizzo told her. "I don't think Mac's stupid enough to let you go twice."

"Maybe." Elizabeth said thoughtfully, then she shook her head. "But maybe I should try to figure out what my heart wants first and then decided if I really want it. I mean, if I do feel more for Robbie than I do for Jack, then I shouldn't be with Jack, no matter whether or not I decided to back to Rob, huh?"

"No, you shouldn't." Rizzo agreed quietly. "You really do need to figure out how you feel."

Elizabeth nodded. "Yeah." She smiled at him. "Thank you for the advice."

"I didn't say anything that you didn't already know." Rizzo protested.

"No, but you said things that I needed to hear." Elizabeth replied, reaching over to give him a quick hug.

He shrugged. "I'm just glad I could help, then."

She turned to go.

"Liz."

Elizabeth turned back at the sound of her name and looked at Rizzo expectantly.

"I hope that everything works out for you." He told her.

She smiled slightly. "Yeah, me too."
---