Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Shane first reads the TMZ article, he laughs. It is a wonder that rumors like this haven’t cropped up before.

It’s not everyday Shane is amused by tabloid dramas, but he’s been in a good mood lately. A good enough mood that the Metros have teased him endlessly about “finally getting laid”, and how he better hang on to his Boston Lily.

He fully plans to.

Those two weeks in July, just Shane and Ilya, had been paradise. Two uninterrupted weeks of intimacy, confessions, laughter, and fun. He knows where they stand now. They have a plan. Ilya is his now, and forever. Has always been, really.

They only have one more season as rivals. Only one more season in different countries. Next year, Ilya will be in Ottawa, only two hours away. Next year, they’ll announce the Irina Foundation, and their friendship. Next year, he can be seen with Ilya, and it won't be crazy.

In the meantime, they’ve been texting and calling everyday. It’s with a smile on his lips that Shane opens his text thread with Lily.

Ilya never responds.

Not to his text, and not to his call that evening.

Posting on Reddit was stupid, even if it’s under his burner account. Shane refreshes the Reddit app, to see if any more replies have come in.

It can’t really be true. Shane chews on his thumbnail and reads back through the current comments. This doesn’t just happen, not like this. That other Twitter user was right: if there is a mom, she would milk Ilya for child support, or use the story for attention. No, what really happened is that TMZ needed more views so they made something up. No one else has reported on the story, except to say “as reported by TMZ.” People lie on the internet all the time.

(But why Ilya? There are bigger names out there, names more likely to get those clicks. Why him, why now? Why, why, why?)

No. It’s not real. They have a plan. They’re finally together, they’re finally happy. They’re in love. It’s everything Shane could have ever wanted, and he deserves this, nothing can ruin it, it’s not allowed.

They’re going to get married one day. They’re going to have kids together, either via surrogacy or adoption. They’re going to have a home together. They’ll retire and tell the whole world the truth, then they’ll walk off into the sunset for their hard-won happily ever after.

No, it’s not a secret love child, it must be some other family emergency. Ilya was away for his father’s death earlier this year. Maybe it’s his brother, or his niece, or his stepmother, or—someone else. Ilya’s needed in Russia, probably, and he’ll go sort it out and he’ll come back and—

As Shane refreshes Reddit yet again, he gets an incoming Facetime call from Ilya.

Dread curls in his belly when Ilya’s face fills his screen. He’s pale, with dark circles under his eyes. His eyes—Shane looks away from his eyes. He’s going to be sick.

“Shane—” Ilya’s voice breaks. A lump forms in Shane’s throat.

No. No, no, no.

There’s a buzzing in his head. He barely hears himself speak. “It’s true, then?”

“I went for test yesterday. Will know soon, but—I think so, probably, yes.”

Shane ends the call.

Pregnancies last forty weeks, between nine and ten months. Backwards from October first, that would put conception at January of this year. That was before All-Star weekend. Shane and Rose had broken up, but he and Ilya hadn’t talked yet.

That was before July, when they holed up in Shane’s cottage and professed their love. Before Ilya told Shane he would propose on the dock, one day. Before they made all of their plans.

Before Ilya was his. Ilya hadn't betrayed him, even if it feels like it—No, it isn't Ilya, it's fate itself. Shane and Ilya are meant to be together, they are. How can there be anyone else for either of them?

Ilya could have married Svetlana. He said so. He could go out and marry a woman and have babies and—

He doesn't need Shane. He could have anyone. He could—

But he'd chosen Shane. He'd made his choice, and now—

No one knows. Fuck. No one even knows about any of this. No one knows that Ilya is the love of Shane’s life, and no one can know that his heart is breaking.

When Shane checks the time, it surprises him. He looks at his call log. He’s been lost in his head for a few hours now. He’s curled up in the corner of his shower, curtains drawn closed. He doesn’t remember coming in here. It must have been early on, because his muscles are cramped.

Bathrooms have always been his safe haven, the one place with almost guaranteed privacy. If he felt himself close to having a meltdown in public, he’d excuse himself to the restroom to gather himself. If he didn’t want his parents to know he was upset, he’d lock himself in the bathroom. He can sit on the toilet, or in the bathtub. He can run water to soothe his nerves. He can lay his weary head against cool porcelain. He can look in the mirror and fix his expression before facing the world again.

Even now that he lives alone, the habit stays. He feels safest here, away from prying eyes. He can ignore the door, the phone, the whole world. “Sorry, I was in the bathroom.”

What is he supposed to do?

His swarming thoughts coalesce all at once and drop like an anvil into his lap. A sob breaks free, tears break free, before he even realizes—he clamps a hand over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut.

No, no, no—it’s too much.

This can’t happen.

They have a plan.

Ilya is supposed to be his. They’re supposed to be together. Now, Ilya belongs to a baby, and they can’t—

How are they supposed to—?

Shane finally has everything he’s ever wanted, and it’s being ripped away from him. A fist through the chest, that pulls away with his heart in its grasp.

How can a wound like that ever heal?

How do I keep you?

Shane wakes the next morning with the Metros' schedule in mind. Practice this morning, but no game until Sunday afternoon. It’s not much time, but it should be enough.

Shane texts Coaches Theriault and Desjardins that he’ll miss the next few practices. He texts from the airport, just before he boards the plane, and he turns off his phone.

He doesn’t know what to say. He should spend the flight working on a script, but instead he leans his head against the window and watches the clouds.

He’s a blank slate. No thoughts, no feelings, no nerves, no nothing, not yet. All of his carefully crafted plans are gone now, and he has to start fresh, he has to—

Has to—

In Boston, Shane turns his phone back on. He ignores the missed calls and voicemails and texts and instead opens the Lyft app.

The script is still blank, still a blinking cursor in his head, by the time he arrives at Ilya’s house. He should have called or texted. He doesn’t even know if Ilya’s home, or if he has company, or—anything.

He doesn’t know anything at all.

He’s a puppet. It isn’t Shane who knocks on the door, it’s whoever is pulling his strings. It’s a force outside of him, that’s guided him all this way, that’s possessed his feet and his hands. If Ilya isn't here, the strings will drop, and Shane will drop with them. He'll sit on the ground and wait. He'll do nothing, be nothing, until—

Or maybe it’s been him all along, manning the controls behind the walls he’s built in his mind, and around his heart. It’s him, because when the door opens, the walls the fall. He catches one sight of Ilya’s mussed curls and his red-rimmed eyes, and tears blur his vision.

Shane drops back into his body, hard—back into a world of sensation, and awareness. It’s Shane who darts forward, who tugs Ilya down into his arms. It’s Shane who holds on tightly as Ilya clings to him, and sobs into his neck.

It’s his heart that breaks. It’s his voice that says, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and, “I love you so much.”

He remembers Tampa. Remembers Ilya in the pool, playing with kids. “There’s a shark! There’s a shark!”

He remembers the cottage, lying in Ilya’s arms. Remembers the way Ilya tenderly kissed his face over and over. Remembers promises of “always” and “forever.”

He remembers meeting Amber Pike for the first time just a few weeks ago. Remembers her tiny body in his arms. He remembers carrying Arthur Pike in the aquarium, remembers joking with Hayden, “Are you trying to get me pregnant, too?” Remembers playing Candyland with Ruby and Jade. "You'll be such a good dad one day," Jackie had told him.

“Then I will bring you to that dock out there. I will have hundreds of candles all over it…” “…will be beautiful, you will love it. The candles. The lake. The full moon...” “…and I will get on one knee, and I will say, ‘Shane Hollander, will you please marry me so I can become Canadian citizen faster…?'” “…and you will say yes, because you are a nice, helpful guy.”

This can’t be the end. Shane’s only just gotten to have him, really have him. And the truth is, Shane has been in love with Ilya for a long time. Longer than he’s known it. Probably from the start.

It doesn’t end like this. It can’t.

“I thought I lost you,” Ilya croaks.

Goddamn it.

“No. You’ll never lose me,” Shane promises.

After everything they’ve been through, how can anything keep them apart? Even this?

Ilya lifts himself out of Shane’s arms to pinch his nose, then scrub his eyes. Shane holds onto Ilya’s waist, and watches him. He should never have hung up on him. He should have panicked on the phone with Ilya there. He should never have left Ilya alone, never let him think Shane could walk away. Ilya hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't deserve to doubt, or hurt. Shane should have stayed, no matter what.

It would serve him right if Ilya kicked him out on his ass, but he won’t, because it doesn’t end like this, it doesn’t—

“You’re here. Why are you here?”

I don’t know isn’t a good answer, even if it’s the truth. Instead, Shane says, “We need a new plan.”

Ilya blinks at him. Then, hesitantly: “We don’t even know if she’s mine yet.”

Huh.

All of that panicking over what? A possibility? He couldn’t have waited in Montreal until they knew? He’d trashed all of his plans before he even knew he needed to? He’d resigned himself to a new world before—

—and yet, Ilya had sounded certain yesterday, hadn’t he? Ilya thinks she’s his (she, a girl, his daughter), and that was enough. Even if she’s not his, even if all of this worry was for nothing, Shane is changed. A new plan has been floating around, fuzzy and hazy and unknown to him, even know, even as he tries to grasp the tendrils, they drift just out of reach.

It will come to him. Hopefully soon.

“When do you find out?”

“Ah, today, maybe.”

It needs to be today. Shane has to leave early on Sunday to make it back to Montreal for his game. They need time to—

Well, prepare.

Because she has to be Ilya’s. She has to be, because he’s already lost his mind, has already—

—has already set his heart on another piece of Ilya to love.

“You did not pack?” Ilya asks.

Shane looks down at the floor, then behind him at the door. Then: “Fuck.”

Ilya grins, and quietly laughs.

He’s still so rattled, hours later.

Did he really wake up this morning and go to the airport without packing, without planning, without anything? Jesus fucking Christ.

The coaches aren’t happy, but the team group chat wishes him well, and Hayden reaches out personally to check in on him. The only person Shane bothers to text from Boston is his mom, and it's only because he needs her.

All is quiet in the house. No TV playing, no music, no chatting, no laughing. Instead, Ilya is tucked into the arm of his couch, and Shane is tucked into his side. Ilya looks down at the screen, reads the conversation with his mother.

When Shane ignores her recent texts, Ilya asks, “What will you tell her?”

I don’t know isn’t quite the truth; he’s afraid he might know the answer, and he doesn’t want to think about it, not now. He drops his phone onto the cushion beside him and nuzzles into Ilya’s chest.

The old plan was a good plan. A safe plan. It’s still there, if sanity ever returns to him.

Except, Shane sort of hates the plan now.

The new plan is going to ruin his life, but he’s ready for it, ready to rip off the bandage. He woke up this morning ready for—for what? His mind still shies away from the details.

But what the mind avoids, the heart already knows.

And the heart pauses when Ilya’s phone dings—He looks at the screen, then down at Shane with wide eyes. Shane sits up and stares back.

This is it.

Genetic Analysis Report

Case ID: #DNA-882-901	Collected: 10/03/2017
Subject A (Child): [Baby Doe]	Subject B (Alleged Father): [Ilya Rozanov]

DNA Locus	Subject A (Child)	Subject B (Alleged Father)
CSF1PO	7, 11	11, 14
FGA	21, 26	17, 26
TH01	9, 9	7, 9
TPOX	8, 13	8, 10
vWA	19, 20	17, 20
D1S1656	10, 13	13, 20
D2S441	9, 10	10, 16
D2S1338	20, 21	16, 21
D3S1358	16, 18	17, 18
D5S818	8, 13	7, 13
D7S820	6, 11	6, 7
D8S1179	10, 16	15, 16
D10S1248	12, 14	14, 17
D12S391	22, 24	21, 24
D13S317	7, 10	7, 14
D16S539	5, 15	8, 15
D18S51	10, 22	10, 22
D19S433	17, 18	11, 18
D21S11	35, 37	28, 37
D22S1045	9, 11	9, 14
Amelogenin	X, X	X, Y

STATISTICAL INTERPRETATION:

Combined Paternity Index (CPI): 5,420,850
Probability of Paternity: 99.9999%

OPINION: Genetic testing is consistent with Subject B being the biological father of Subject A. The probability of paternity is 99.9999% compared to an untested, unrelated man of the North American Caucasian population.

Dr. Morgan Grey, Laboratory Director

Date of Release: 10/05/2017