Chapter Text
The night had settled into something colder by the time Ilya caught up to her.
Boston in late evening carried a particular kind of quiet, the kind that wasn’t truly silent but layered with distant traffic, the hum of streetlights, the faint echo of voices spilling out of bars and apartments, all of it softened by the weight of the dark. The air bit at his skin the second he stepped outside, sharp enough to clear his head but not nearly enough to dull the anger still coiled tight in his chest.
Svetlana hadn’t gone far.
She stood near the curb, her coat pulled loosely around her, her breath visible in small clouds as she stared down the street as though she hadn’t expected him to follow—and yet, somehow, had known he would.
“I wondered how long it would take,” she said without turning around.
Ilya stopped a few feet behind her, the distance deliberate, controlled. “Not long.”
She let out a quiet, almost amused breath, finally glancing over her shoulder. “You didn’t have to come after me,” she added. “I got the message.”
“Did you?” Ilya’s voice was steady, but there was steel beneath it now, something unyielding that hadn’t been there earlier. “Because I don’t think you did.”
That made her turn fully, her expression sharpening slightly as she studied him. “You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation.
No attempt to soften it.
Svetlana tilted her head, considering him, her gaze searching in a way that felt almost familiar, like she was trying to find the version of him she used to know—the one who would have laughed this off, who would have brushed it aside, who would not have followed her out into the cold just to say this.
“You’ve changed,” she said quietly.
Ilya didn’t react to that, not in the way she might have expected.
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I just stopped pretending things don’t matter when they do.”
A flicker of something passed across her face, too quick to fully catch.
“I wasn’t trying to upset him,” she said after a moment, her tone shifting, softer now but no less deliberate. “I was just—”
“Testing him?” Ilya cut in, his gaze unwavering. “Undermining him? Reminding him of something that doesn’t matter anymore?”
Svetlana’s lips pressed together. “It mattered once.”
“Yes,” Ilya said. “Once.”
The word landed heavily between them.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she exhaled slowly, her shoulders rising and falling beneath her coat. “You’re really serious about him,” she said, and this time it wasn’t a question, but it also wasn’t quite acceptance.
“I am.”
“And you think that just erases everything else?” she pressed, a faint edge returning to her voice. “All those years, all that history—”
“No,” Ilya said firmly. “It doesn’t erase it. But it doesn’t give you the right to act like it still means something it doesn’t.”
Svetlana’s gaze hardened slightly. “It meant something to me.”
Ilya’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted, grounding, resolute. “I know,” he said. “And I never pretended it didn’t. But you don’t get to use that to hurt him.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt him,” she repeated, though there was less conviction in it now.
“You were,” Ilya said, not unkindly, but with absolute certainty. “Maybe not in the way you want to admit, but you were. You kept pushing, kept bringing it back to what we had, like you were trying to prove something.”
“And maybe I was,” she snapped, the composure slipping just enough to reveal something sharper underneath. “Maybe I wanted to see if it actually meant as much as you say it does.”
Ilya didn’t flinch.
“It does.”
The simplicity of it seemed to catch her off guard more than anything else he could have said.
She searched his face again, more intensely this time, as though looking for hesitation, for doubt, for anything she could hold onto.
She didn’t find it.
“And what about us?” she asked, quieter now. “Did that mean anything to you?”
“It did,” Ilya said, just as quietly. “But not in the way you want it to have.”
Her jaw tightened. “That’s a convenient answer.”
“It’s the honest one.”
A bitter laugh slipped past her lips. “You always were good at convincing people of that.”
Ilya’s gaze didn’t waver. “I’m not trying to convince you of anything,” he said. “I’m telling you the truth.”
She looked away for a moment, her breath coming a little sharper now, the cold air catching in it.
“And the truth is what?” she asked, her voice thinner, strained in a way that hadn’t been there before.
Ilya stepped closer then, not enough to close the distance completely, but enough that his words wouldn’t get lost in the space between them.
“The truth,” he said, “is that Shane is my priority. He is the person I choose, every time, without question.”
Svetlana’s fingers tightened slightly where they curled into the fabric of her coat.
“And I won’t let anyone—” Ilya continued, his voice firm, unyielding, “—talk to him the way you did. Not even you.”
Her gaze snapped back to his, something raw flickering there now. “So that’s it?” she said. “I just don’t matter anymore?”
Ilya’s expression softened, just slightly, but it didn’t change the weight of what he was about to say.
“You matter,” he said. “But not like that.”
It wasn’t cruel.
It wasn’t meant to be.
But it was final.
Svetlana swallowed, her throat working around words that didn’t come immediately. “I thought…” she started, then stopped, shaking her head slightly. “I thought I had more time.”
Ilya frowned faintly. “Time for what?”
“For you to figure it out,” she said, a small, humorless smile tugging at her lips. “For you to realize that what we had wasn’t just… convenient.”
Ilya’s chest tightened, not with doubt, but with something closer to regret.
“I did figure it out,” he said gently. “Just not in the way you wanted.”
She let out a breath, long and slow, the fight draining out of her in a way that left something quieter behind.
“And there’s nothing I can say?” she asked.
“No.”
The word came easily.
Without hesitation.
Without apology.
Svetlana closed her eyes for a brief moment, as though absorbing that, letting it settle.
When she opened them again, the sharpness was gone, replaced by something more resigned.
“He’s really that important to you,” she said.
“Yes.”
There was no room for misinterpretation in that answer.
She studied him for a long moment, and then, finally, she nodded.
“I shouldn’t have said those things,” she admitted, her voice quieter now, stripped of its earlier edge. “To him.”
“No,” Ilya agreed. “You shouldn’t have.”
A small, wry smile touched her lips. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
“No.”
That earned a soft huff of something that might have been a laugh.
“Good,” she said after a moment. “He doesn’t seem like someone who deserves that.”
“He doesn’t.”
Another pause settled between them, but this one felt different—less tense, less charged, like something had finally shifted into place.
“I’m sorry,” she said then, more sincerely this time.
Ilya nodded once. “I’ll tell him.”
Svetlana hesitated, then added, “And you?”
Ilya raised an eyebrow slightly. “What about me?”
“Are you sorry?” she asked.
He considered that for a moment.
“For not being what you wanted?” he said finally.
She nodded.
Ilya exhaled slowly, the breath steady, measured.
“I’m sorry if I ever made you think I could be,” he said. “But I’m not sorry for choosing him.”
Svetlana held his gaze for a long moment, searching, weighing, and then she nodded again, more firmly this time.
“I believe you,” she said.
The words seemed to settle something between them, something that had been unresolved for longer than either of them had realized.
“Good,” Ilya said quietly.
She pulled her coat tighter around herself, glancing down the street once more before looking back at him.
“You should go back inside,” she said. “He’s probably blaming himself.”
A faint, almost fond exasperation flickered across Ilya’s expression. “Yeah,” he said. “He is.”
Svetlana’s lips curved slightly. “Then don’t keep him waiting.”
Ilya hesitated for just a second, then nodded.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You too,” she replied.
And then, without another word, he turned and headed back toward the apartment, the warmth of it already calling him back, the image of Shane still standing there, guilt written across his face, sharper in his mind than anything else.
By the time he stepped inside, the air felt different again—quieter, heavier, but familiar.
Shane hadn’t moved far.
He stood near the kitchen, one hand braced against the counter, his shoulders slightly hunched, like he was still carrying the weight of everything that had happened.
He looked up the second Ilya entered, something uncertain flickering in his eyes.
“Hey,” Shane said, his voice cautious.
Ilya closed the door behind him, the soft click echoing faintly in the space.
“Hey.”
For a moment, they just looked at each other.
And then Ilya crossed the room.
“You didn’t have to go after her,” Shane said, the words coming quickly, like he’d been holding onto them. “I mean, I know she was—what she said—but I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I made it worse.”
Ilya shook his head, stopping just in front of him. “You didn’t make anything worse.”
“I snapped,” Shane insisted.
“She pushed you,” Ilya countered. “And I should have stopped it sooner.”
Shane’s gaze dropped briefly. “Still.”
Ilya reached out, tilting his chin up gently, forcing him to meet his eyes.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.”
Shane did.
There was still that lingering guilt there, that tension that hadn’t fully eased.
“I meant what I said,” Ilya continued. “About you. About us.”
Shane swallowed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ilya’s thumb brushed lightly along his jaw. “I told her to leave because she crossed a line. Not because of what you said.”
Something in Shane’s expression shifted, the tension loosening just slightly.
“What happened out there?” he asked quietly.
Ilya held his gaze, steady and sure.
“I told her the truth,” he said. “That she doesn’t get to treat you like that. That you’re my priority.”
Shane’s breath hitched almost imperceptibly.
“And?” he asked.
“And that I love you,” Ilya said simply.
The words settled between them, warm and solid and undeniable.
Shane let out a slow breath, some of the tightness finally leaving his shoulders.
“Okay,” he said softly.
Ilya smiled faintly. “Okay.”