Chapter Text
Ilya was stripping off his gear as quickly as he could, hoping no one would notice the tremor in his hands.
“Rozanov?” Hobbs followed him all the way to the locker room. Apparently, he hadn’t taken the hint.
"No." Ilya held up a hand in the direction of the team's PR manager without turning eyes from his stall.
"But—" Hobbs tried.
"Not today." Ilya snapped. They only wanted to ask him two things, and Ilya had no intention of answering either of them. If they brought up what had happened on the ice, he would fall apart like a house of cards. He didn´t even know the final score. Boston won, probably…
The less shaken team.
Ilya´s legs and hands had apparently known what to do out there. But his head, his soul, his heart left with an ambulance. But where the fuck? He didn't even know where they'd taken him. And he couldn't find out.
To his family, Ilya was nobody.
To him, Ilya was nobody.
“Hey Roz, you good?” came from beside him. Marlow caught him slumped against the stall, staring down at the floor.
“Yes, Marlow. I’m fucking great—like everyone else tonight,” He grabbed a towel and walked away toward the showers.
____
Had he imagined it, or had someone rung the doorbell? Ilya rubbed at his eyes and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. Something was pressing against his temple. He reached under his head. The phone must have slipped from his hand when exhaustion had dragged him under. He was tired enough to sleep for a week but too afraid to close his eyes.
Ding dong.
Instead of getting up, he unlocked his phone and refreshed Twitter. The loading icon spun in endless circles, taking his stomach along for the ride.
Nothing. Thanks god.
Ding dong. Ding dong.
He wasn't home. The only people he would have run to the door for were not standing outside his gate.
They were somewhere else, where answers existed.
Where the one he loved was lying in a hospital. Pale. Motionless. Beneath tubes and wires. Ilya wanted to be at his bedside, holding his hand through every procedure, every test, every uncertain hour, murmuring words of reassurance into his ear, whether Shane could hear them or not.
Surgery.
Serious.
Continuous medical supervision.
Ding dong.
Go. Away.
Ding dong.
Each chime of the doorbell seemed to echo straight through Ilya's head. He forced himself upright. The world blurred for a second and the pounding behind his eyes got even worse.
The camera by the gate, however, happened to be on the way to the bathroom. He squinted at the screen.
What the hell was she doing here?
…was a pointless question.
His thumb hovered over the button for unlocking the gate. For a second, he considered leaving her outside. Then he pressed it and dragged himself to the door.
He’d stopped trying to look any different from how he felt. Making it through the airport and the flight had taken enough effort. He’d spent the entire trip fighting the urge to punch a vending machine or collapse across the seats and cry into his hands.
Svetlana stood on the other side of the door with a pity in her eyes. Or maybe concern. At this point, Ilya couldn’t tell the difference.
She didn’t say anything. Just pulled him into a hug.
And Ilya let her.
“You know,” he said after a moment.
“I am so sorry, Ilya. I hope he’ll be okay,” she whispered.
Hearing these words—hearing someone else acknowledge his pain—was too much. The fear, the exhaustion, the helplessness he’d been swallowing finally found a way out. Tears spilled down his face, soaking into Svetlana’s hair and the shoulder of her coat. “It’s not fair…” he sobbed. “What if… I couldn’t…”
She pulled back and cupped his face in her hands. “Hey.” She waited until he found her eyes. “Right now, he is surrounded by the best specialists from all over fucking Canada analysing every damn line and every damn number on a monitor.”
“The next update will be god knows when.”
Her thumb brushed away the tear on his cheek. “You can call his team.”
“What would they tell me?” Ilya scoffed. “The same bullshit they fed the media.”
“That’s probably…” Svetlana exhaled. “True.” She crossed the hall, pulled a bottle of vodka from the fridge, and poured them both a generous measure.
Ilya emptied his glass in one swallow and kept his fingers wrapped around the empty shot glass. When he realized she was staring at them, he flinched and pulled the hand back under the table. Nails on his right hand were bitten almost to the quick.
“You know you can ask me if you need anything,” she said quietly. “Someone to listen to. A bartender.”
His eyes followed a droplet of condensation as it slid down the bottle and disappeared into the puddle beneath it. “They wouldn’t tell me anything,” he said finally. “But maybe they’d tell Lily.”
Svetlana held out her hand, palm up. “Anything for my good friend Lily.”
“Not mine,” Ilya frowned. “What if they recognize my number or anything?”
“But don’t put your hopes high.” Svetlana opened the Metros’ website, and scrolled down to the contact numbers. “Lily wasn’t in his emergency contacts. If no one confirms he was seeing her, they wouldn’t share anything.”
Ilya grabbed the bottle and poured them another shot.
She copied the number and pasted it to the dialer. “What should I tell them? That we are dating from… January?"
“We are not dating. We have never dated.”
His friend sighed. “You sleep together. You text each other. Have you been with anyone else since All-Star Weekend?”
Ilya shook his head.
“Do you think Shane has?”
Another shake.
“So.” She spread her hands. “You were dating.” Ilya gave her a look that made her correct herself immediately. ”…are dating.”
He didn’t give a shit about labels. He stood up so abruptly that the chair nearly tipped. Svetlana blinked in surprise. One fucking word would decide whether he was among the first people Shane’s parents would reach out to if anything changed or just a “girl in every port” — lumped in with reporters from some local rag and fans screaming on Twitter. Or, worst of all, dismissed as a liar inventing a relationship with their son for a few minutes of attention. The description he would have liked to use the most would leave Shane with a lot to explain once he woke up.
Something pulled him into the bedroom. He hadn’t stepped here since arriving from Montreal.
He grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it hard at the wall. It bought him a second of relief. Maybe less. Then he dropped onto the bed and curled around the same pillow, holding it tight against his chest. The last time they’d been lying here, they were past worrying about how many times they whispered each other’s names or kissed each other’s cheeks too gently. And Shane ruined the moment with questions, like always. He had never cared about surface things — movies, music, that type of questions his teammates asked. He wanted to understand him.
The right word formed in his mind.
——
Yuna had walked through that corridor so many times to know exactly where the screw was missing from one of the chairs. Which corner of the noticeboard sagged lower than the other. Where the scratch beside the doors began and where it ended.
More than three hours yesterday. Another round of waiting today.
She hated that corridor.
Her arms were folded across her chest so tightly her shoulders ached. She ached to drag her nails down the wall. To leave a few fresh scratches beside the old one. To tear every leaflet from that crooked noticeboard. Instead, she turned around and headed back down the corridor.
Her pacing must have been driving David crazy. But he didn’t say a word. He just stared blankly somewhere ahead with corners of his mouth drooped more than usual. How he could just sit there was beyond her. But there were more things beyond her…
Why?
In hockey, injuries were expected. Broken teeth, torn knees, fractured ribs. Sometimes concussions. But why this? Why her son?
He was supposed to win a few more Stanley Cups, inspire kids who wore his number, fall in love and do stupid things because of it — move in too fast or buy outrageously expensive gifts. He was supposed to drive his children to school, bring them to visit, complain about how loud they were and love every minute with them.
He was supposed to find something beyond hockey.
More cups were no longer a question. Any moment now, Dr. Abbot would come out of those doors and tell them whether there would still be anything left to hope for.
David reached out to her. “Yuna, please.”
She sank down next to him on the bench. “He’s always been a fighter. A hard worker. I don’t know if that means anything now.”
Her husband pulled her gently against his side.
The doors opened with a quiet creak. They were both on their feet.
——
“And one more thing…”
What now? Yuna was already halfway up from the chair when Marcel, Metro’s PR manager spoke again. They’d been rewriting that damn two-sentence statement a hundred times already.
She stood up, no attempt to hide the impatience.
“We got calls,” he said. “From Rose Landry and Lily Parker. Both women asked to be put through to you. They wanted to know how Shane was doing.”
“I’ve never heard the second name before.” She was about to explain Marcel what his job was about when—
“She is Shane’s friend from Boston. Hayden Pike said they’ve known each other for years.”
Years? “Hayden knows her too?”
“No. I can give you their numbers.” Marcel offered.
“Rose’s, yes. As for Lily… I need to think about that.”
——
Coach LaClaire had made the decision for him.
Not that Ilya had much fight left. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew the coach was right.
He didn’t want to play.
He wanted to fast-forward.
Move the clock closer to the next statement.
Closer to the message from Metros or Shane’s family.
Time moved differently at the rink. Warm-ups, drills, meetings, workouts. Three hours disappeared before he knew it.
At the apartment, time barely moved at all.
There were only Shane’s fingerprints, a bottle of vodka and Twitter endlessly refreshing into the same absence of news.
The gym turned out to be a dead end. For a while he wandered around the apartment, trying to find something that would keep his mind occupied for more than a minute at a time.
Eventually, his attention settled on the kitchen. He never had much reason to learn cooking. But he didn’t dislike it. Most of the time, he just threw a steak or a piece of salmon into a pan. If there was a meal with enough steps to keep him busy for a while it was bolognese. He’d never made it before, but whenever he found himself in an Italian restaurant, it was usually what he ordered.
Twenty minutes later, he was wandering the aisles of a grocery store with his phone in hand. One moment he was checking the list. The next, he was checking the news.
Did Shane like bolognese?
The answer didn’t matter.
Shane hadn’t eaten anything he actually wanted in like ten years… And now—
He rubbed a hand across his eyes until the labels of cans came back into focus.
When his palm started vibrating, he immediately pulled away from the shelf and looked down.
Světlana
How are you doing? I think this is for the best.
He typed back: Late lunch?
———-
Yuna had left it here that morning. For sure. She even remembered that tree. She’d walked past it on the way into the hospital.
So stupid. Maybe she should have ordered the flat white after all.
Big black SUVs stood at every damn fourth spot, but not the one she looked for.
No! She did was stupid. They had come in David’s Volvo.
Shane’s father stayed at the hospital. Now she would grab a few hours of sleep in Shane’s apartment, and come back to relieve him for the night shift.
She turned down the next aisle and found the car exactly where it was supposed to be.
She shifted into reverse, and pulled out of the parking lot while Freddie Mercury’s voice poured from the speakers.
I work hard every day of my life…
I work ’till I ache my bones…
At the end I take home…
The lyrics got her back to the morning meeting. Shane’s circle was small enough to count on one hand and there was no chance any girl would have gone unnoticed.
During their hurried lunch in the hospital cantina, David had suggested she simply message the girl and ask.
Thank for help.
As if Lily couldn’t say absolutely anything she wanted. She had to deal with it on her own.
Potential costs were definitely higher than benefits. Maybe Shane had turned her down. Maybe she’d welcome the chance to attach herself to a famous name. Or maybe… she was sitting at home, working her way through a tub of ice cream and a box of tissues, terrified for someone she genuinely cared about..
She knew exactly how to settle the question. And dismissed it immediately.
She switched lanes and settled into the slow crawl of afternoon traffic. The music faded, replaced by the station’s cheerful news jingle. Flooding somewhere, Trump’s tariff bullshit and Macron, Le Pen. Yuna tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Because after the international news, it is time for…
“Montreal Metro’s captain Shane Hollander remains…”
For Yuna, it was a nightmare. For everyone else, it was ten seconds in the afternoon news and worry whether the Meteors could hold on to first place in the conference without their captain. Before she could jab at the button and change the station, hosts said that they had a good chance because Boston’s captain was about to miss in games too.
————
Yuna finished the last line on the page and looked up. The monitors kept tracing the same lines, flickering the same numbers, revealing not even a tiny indication that, somewhere beneath the layers of sedation, her son had heard a familiar voice.
If it could improve his chances by even a fraction of a percent, she would keep doing it.
She turned the page.
At home, she’d picked up a detective novel she’d bought for the summer. Even though Shane would probably prefer something more educational.
She didn’t even make it through the chapter, when she realised she had no idea who the detective was questioning anymore. This was far from reading. She was just saying random words out loud.
A bookmark slid between the pages, the novel ended up in her lap and she reached for her phone. Perhaps David checked her or her mother asked for updates.
Instead, a message from Marcel waited at the top of the screen.
Marcel, PR Metros
Sorry to interrupt. Lily Parker called again. Just let me know if you want me to turn her away.
Instinct, if she believed in such a thing, was nudging her toward compliance. But this wasn’t about guessing or hoping for the best. Not after years of managing Shane’s image, controlling what reached the public and what didn’t.
The cabinet key took a minute to find. Yuna eventually discovered it tucked into one of the card slots in her wallet, exactly where she’d put it to avoid losing it.
David would’ve shut it down immediately. Fortunately - or unfortunately - he wasn’t here.
“Sorry, baby.” Her fingers slid through his hair, stopping at the edge of the large white dressing above his left ear. “I won’t snoop, I promise. I just… want to have a look at the names.”
The nurses had packed away everything that had arrived with Shane and had been dropped off later by the team’s equipment manager into a plastic storage bin. A wallet. Car keys. A lanyard with arena access cards and security fobs. A separate ring of keys she didn’t recognize. Probably from some storage rooms, equipment areas or a gym. And, resting at the very bottom, a black iPhone. She picked it up. The right upper corner showed only eight percent battery, which was only another reason to make it quick.
Shane’s thumb unlocked the phone on the first try. The screen lit up with an abstract blue wallpaper and her pulse picked up. The trust, once broken, rarely came back the same as before.
Yes, Lily existed in the contacts, but that still didn’t prove anything.
The messages opened. Her eyes scanned halfway down the list.
Nothing.
She scrolled back up. “Mom” was at the top of the screen.
But she wasn’t the first conversation listed.
Beneath that first name, she read the last message.
Oh.
She copied down Lily’s number and started typing.