Chapter Text
The print out the nurse handed them was small, made up of black and white and grays. Shane had taken it carefully, breathless and hopeful, while Ilya had leaned into him and held the opposite corner with his own hand. Together, they stared at the first image they would ever see of their baby.
“Usually we would have this meeting with everyone, but with your busy schedules, and your surrogate living several hours away, we thought we’d just have you stop in so we could give you the good news and the sonogram picture,” the nurse said, smiling.
She was clearly several years younger than both of them, cute and friendly in her bright pink scrubs. That had made Shane nervous at first, but her warm and confident demeanor had made the whole ordeal a little less awkward and embarrassing. Ilya of course had probably never felt awkward or embarrassed in his life, even with all the steps of the surrogacy process, some of which still made Shane blush to think about.
At the moment, Ilya was uncharacteristically silent beside him, seemingly trying to memorize every detail of the picture in their hands. They had wanted this for so long and to think that now it was really happening... With rising feelings of excitement and hope Shane still registered an undercurrent of disbelief for it all, that he and Ilya could finally have this life they had always dreamed of, especially when for so long it seemed like it would be nothing more than a dream.
“No, thank you, this is uh, this is great,” Shane finally managed, running a hand through his hair. “This is just… wow. I don’t even know what to say.”
The nurse -Katie, he remembered now- grinned and hugged her clipboard to herself.
“Well let me be the first to say congratulations, dads! I know it can be kind of overwhelming to say the least. Everything looked amazing at the first prenatal checkup, so no need to worry about anything on that end right now. Based on the implantation date and the measurements from this ultrasound, we have a due date of June 20th.”
Shane felt Ilya grasp his hand tightly and turned to look at him. He could see his husband trying to contain the tears filling his hazel eyes, and would’ve laughed if he wasn’t doing the same thing himself. Shane silently thanked the patient privacy laws that kept Katie from telling anyone about the two big, tough, famous hockey players reduced to tears in her clinic room.
“So,” Katie said, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as she scanned the chart with the pen in her hand.
“It’s up to you, but I wanted to give you the option. I see that you wanted to wait for successful implantation before finding anything out. No pressure either way, lots of couples wait until the actual birth. But if you want to know now, I can tell you the sex and which fertilized embryo we ended up using.”
“Yes,” Ilya blurted out, the first thing he’d said since they had sat down for the appointment.
“I want to know.” He turned to Shane, apologetically. “If is ok with you, I mean.” Shane quirked a smile, squeezing Ilya’s hand where it still held his.
“Yeah, of course.”
Katie grinned even wider, if possible, eyes scrunching up behind her glasses as she pushed them up with one painted fingernail.
“Where both of you are very healthy, and the eggs harvested were as well, we did end up with several viable options for implantation. Obviously you had said no preference on sex or parentage, just to go with whichever would have the best chance of success.”
Ilya nodded, adjusting his crucifix nervously around his neck. Shane felt like he should hold his breath, or maybe consciously remind himself to breathe? Was he breathing? He shouldn’t have to remember how to do that, right? Before he could think more on that he realized Katie was still talking.
“Several days after fertilization we extract a few cells from the most promising embryo to do something called preimplantation testing, which tells us the sex and screens for any abnormalities. The embryo passed with flying colors in terms of overall health. As far as the sex and which sperm and egg combination ended up being used…” she paused.
Shane was fairly sure he would pass out, or that Ilya would crush his fingers.
“The sex was determined to be female. And the most viable option was yours, Mr. Hollander.”
The sound of air whooshing out of both their lungs told Shane that clearly neither of them had been remembering to breathe. Shane didn’t realize he had let go of the sonogram until he saw Ilya pull it completely away from him with shaking fingers to look at it even more closely, as if he hadn’t been staring at it for the past ten minutes. There was silence, and then…
“Ona ideal’na,” Ilya whispered to the picture, voice wobbly with emotion.
She’s perfect.
Shane’s heart felt like it would burst, swelling with love and joy and a feeling of terror at the enormity of it all. Before he could focus on how lightheaded he suddenly felt, Ilya lurched out of his chair, pulling Shane to him to press a kiss to his lips, making Shane blush and Katie burst out laughing.
The tears came full force then, for both of them. So much for big, tough, hockey players.
***
Ilya kissed him one last time before rolling to the side of the bed, standing quickly and heading to the bathroom to get Shane a towel. Shane slumped back against the pillows, feeling weightless and pleasantly spent.
They had barely made it through the front door before Ilya had been all over him, hands under his shirt and in his hair and cradling his face as he guided them toward the bedroom. He had paused only to check on Anya, who had greeted them at the door and then happily trotted back to the living room to chew her toy.
When Ilya returned to the bedroom, handing him a wash cloth so he could clean himself up, he pointed at the bedside table nearest Shane.
“Your phone has not stopped going off,” he said, collapsing back onto his side of the bed. His curly hair was a mess and his face was flushed. In the late afternoon light from the window Shane thought he looked like a Greek god reclined back against their pillows. Shane still wasn’t sure how he married someone so fucking hot.
Shane cleaned himself off and took care of the washcloth, then reached for his glasses and phone before settling back onto the bed next to Ilya.
“Wow, twenty three new texts,” he laughed.
“Oh, and two missed calls from Hayden. Guess we’re not the only ones excited about the news.”
Ilya was scrolling on his own phone.
“Is why you should have waited until now to text everyone, like me. I knew we would be busy when we got home,” Ilya smirked.
Shane rolled his eyes and pressed play on the voicemail from Hayden, putting it on speaker.
“Hey man, I’m just calling to say congratulations and PICK UP YOUR PHONE! I’m so excited for you guys but what the fuck dude, you text me news like that and then you’re too busy to answer? What are you even doing?”
There was a pause, then Hayden’s voice came through the speaker again.
“You know what, never mind, I actually don’t even want to know. And PLEASE tell Rozanov he better not fucking text me to fill me in on the details either… Ok so, anyways, call me when you’re, uh, free… but really, Jackie and I are SO happy for you! Love you man, talk to you soon! Ok, bye!”
Shane smiled. He had texted Hayden on the drive home and should’ve known his best friend would be ecstatic. Hayden had been pressuring him to have a kid for years, before he even knew Shane and Ilya were a thing, before anyone knew that Shane and women were… not a thing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ilya typing away furiously on his phone.
“If that text message is to Hayden, delete it,” he said sternly.
Ilya’s fingers paused over the screen.
“It was not…” he said slowly, as Shane watched him tap and hold down on the backspace button.
“You should have answered his call.”
Shane raised an eyebrow.
“Uh, when? I didn’t really have a chance to answer the phone once we got here, remember? And I doubt you would’ve wanted to wait for me to finish talking to Hayden.”
Ilya’s grin turned wolfish.
“You could have picked up. Who said anything about waiting? Would have been fun… again,” he winked.
Shane blushed and ducked his head, remembering that phone call at the cottage. Thank god Hayden could be pretty oblivious.
“Well, I’m going to call him back now,” he said, holding up a hand at Ilya reaching toward him.
“Ok, we are NOT going to do that every time I’m on the phone with Hayden!”
Ilya rolled his eyes with a laugh and muttered something that sounded like “so boring” in Russian, then went back to his phone.
***
By the time Shane had wrapped up his phone calls with Hayden, a FaceTime with Rose, and responded to several of his teammates texts, Ilya had wandered out to the living room and was splayed out on the couch.
Shane knew Ilya had been making his own phone calls, probably to Svetlana, and Wyatt Hayes, the goalie for the Ottawa Centaurs. If the group text Shane had from their teammate Troy Barrett and his boyfriend Harris Drover, the team social media manager, were any indication, Ilya had messaged them too.
Well, if Harris knew, that took care of making a big announcement to the rest of the team at practice tomorrow, he thought to himself.
They had already FaceTimed Shane’s parents together, before even leaving the clinic parking lot. Ilya had wanted to do some kind of big reveal like he had seen videos of on Facebook, but had been so excited after the appointment that they both decided to call Yuna and David right away. That had led to even more crying, between all four of them on the call. By Shane’s count, that meant the most important people in their lives should all know the good news by now.
Shane sat back on the other end of the couch with a sigh, legs outstretched toward his husband’s. Ilya’s foot nudged his.
“Everyone is very happy for us,” Ilya said quietly. “Feels good, yes?”
Shane nodded, smiling slightly. It did feel good. It felt fucking amazing actually. Really, life had been kind of incredible lately. Not having to hide anything anymore, having friends and family that supported and celebrated them, a team that actually cared about them. He and his husband were playing together as teammates. They had taken over one of the worst teams in the league, that was now looking really promising for making the Stanley Cup Finals. Knowing they were going to be parents… that part still didn’t seem quite real, and when it did it was just as terrifying as it was exciting, but overall Shane had to admit it felt fucking fantastic.
Still, he felt a small nagging worry, working its way around the back of his mind. Ilya gave him a knowing look.
“You are worried about something Hollander,” he said, straight to the point as always.
Shane let out a sigh. No point denying it to Ilya, who was always annoyingly attuned to every look on his face.
“Yeah, I just was thinking… I mean. I just worry that…” he took a breath and plowed ahead.
“Are you upset at all about the baby being you know… mine?” He finished weakly.
Ilya was quiet for what felt like a long time to Shane, and he could feel that tiny worry getting bigger, clawing its way through his head and growing rapidly until Ilya gave him the most heart breaking soft smile.
“No, moya lyubov.” He leaned forward towards Shane, reaching out and resting his hands on Shane’s lower legs, tracing circles with his thumbs.
“I am not upset that you are the father of our daughter.”
His eyes met Shane’s, then lowered to focus on the couch between them. The silence stretched on, and his voice was barely a whisper when he spoke again.
“I have been thinking… is better she is yours. Everything with my parents, you know,” he said, raising one hand to wave it vaguely.
“Is better she has your… genetics,” he said, lip quirking up on the last word.
Shane felt like he was back in that bathroom in Las Vegas, hearing the same word from Ilya’s mouth all those years ago.
Ilya leaned forward even further, raising a hand to cradle his husband’s face and brushing a thumb over Shane’s cheek.
“And I hope she has these freckles,” he smiled. Shane couldn’t help but smile back.
“I think everything would’ve been fine, you know. If she was yours,” Shane said, searching Ilya’s hazel eyes with his own.
Ilya leaned back, lounging against the opposite arm rest. Shane reached behind him to adjust a throw pillow as he rested against his end of the couch.
“Maybe,” Ilya shrugged, folding his arms behind his head.
“But now we don’t have to worry about it.”
Shane smiled, trying to lighten the mood.
“Well, hopefully she won’t get my boring genetics,” he said with a laugh.
Ilya closed his eyes.
“She will be perfect, Shane. Just like you.”
Shane fought back a lump in his throat. It seemed like the first few hours of finding out you were going to be a father was filled with way more crying than he had expected.
Ilya opened one eye, glancing at him mischievously.
“Ah but… is too bad she will be so short and have such a weak backhand.”
The throw pillow Shane had been holding reached a record breaking velocity as it flew across the living room and smacked Ilya in the face.
“You’re such a fucking asshole.”