Chapter Text
At times he had thought a few times in his life he was losing his mind, he feared it. His father had dementia and his mother had struggled with depression, so genetically it was a possibility. Genetically he was screwed for his mental well being. It wasn’t like he forgot things, the opposite most of the time. He could remember the first time Shane Hollander had walked up to him, the first time he noticed his freckles just about every first he had with Hollander he could remember.
The moments where he worried the most was when he thought he saw her. There were times he would look out into a crowd. The first game he had played against Shane and won he had thought he looked out in the crowd, had almost convinced himself that their eyes had locked. She had seemed so real, but when one of his team mates skated into him hugging him and yelling about winning his eyes had left the woman and when he looked back she was gone. Yet for a moment he had almost believed she, his mother was there in the crowd smiling at him, proud. After the game he had watched Shane walk off with his parents and his mother by his side and wished that his mother had truly been there so that she would have met him outside the locker room.
It happened so many times in his life that if he told someone they would think he was losing it. Every important game he thought he saw her again and again. Yet his mind didn’t imagine her at the Olympics perhaps because even Russia could chase away Irina’s ghost. He saw her after he won the cup in the stands clapping her hands happily, seeming so real. He had frozen in the middle of the ice looking right at her and for a moment he had been sure her smile faltered and she glanced away then slowly she stepped back into the crowd disappearing among the people. He had been sure panic had gone across her face. Did imagined ghost panic? Yet winning the cup quickly replaced the thoughts in his mind forgetting the ghost of his mother he imagined in the crowd.
It continued for years, just moments where he thought he saw enough times that he did worry from time to time he was losing his mind. He brought it up to his therapist once who suggested it was just his mind's way of telling him that he missed her and perhaps wished she could be there at all the important moments. Yet his mind never saw her at his wedding, if his therapist was right wouldn’t he have seen her in the crowd?
“If I didn’t know any better.” Troy said, breaking through Ilya’s thoughts. It was summer and they were at the camp in New York coaching.
“Huh?” Ilya asked, turning to his team mate who had skated up next to him.
“That kid over there.” He gestured to one of the boys on the ice who Shane was currently showing how to hold his stick better. “I’d say when you were here years ago you might have created a love child.”
“Love child?” Ilya asked, confused for a moment of the English words.
“Yeah that kid looks like a mini you.” Troy told him, “Without the accent.” He could still see the confusion on Ilya’s face, “I mean you hooked up a lot years ago in New York, could it be possible you could have gotten someone-”
Ilya finally understood what he was saying, “No.” He said quickly, but the thought did worry him slightly. He had thought he was always careful, but drunken mistakes could happen? If it was a random hook up anything could happen. He watched as the boy skated away from Shane, Shane smiled and shook his head as he skated over to Ilya and Troy.
“Reckless that kid.” Shane told them, “Reminds me of a younger you.”
Troy snorted with laughter.
“What?” Shane asked
“Nothing, Ignore him.” Ilya shook his head, but he watched the boy skate across the ice running through drills with his team. Skating fast, perhaps too fast. Now that Troy pointed it out he couldn’t help but think that boy did resemble him in looks and as Shane said in the way he skated and played.
Two days later one of Shane’s worries came to pass, after all the years of having the camps they had gotten away with only simple injuries that a nurse at the rinks could easily tend to, but not now. Now he was at the hospital with Dmitry, the boy that reminded him of Ilya when skating on the ice. Too reckless and that had ended up with the boy having what looked like a broken arm. They hadn’t been able to reach the boy’s father who had enrolled him in the camp so Shane had joined him on the trip. He had just heard back from his own mother who said she had gotten a hold of the boy's mother who would be meeting them there, but she lived an hour away.
“She’s going to be so mad.” Dmitry mumbled as he sat on the hospital bed, his arm in a temporary cast until the doctor came to set it in a permanent one.
“Injuries happen.” Shane told him, “I’m sure she will be more worried than mad.”
“No.” Dmitry told him, “She doesn’t like hockey and said it’s too dangerous, Dad signed me up against her wishes.”
“Ahh.” Shane said, “She didn’t want you coming to the camp?”
Dmitry shrugged, “Didn’t really ask her, Dad and her are divorced and just told her I was going to camp, we didn’t really say hockey.”
Shane slowly nodded, “And now she knows it's hockey.”
“Yeah.” The boy sighed, “She isn’t going to be happy.”
Shane nodded his head, he wasn’t really sure what it was like to have a parent who didn’t support hockey, both his parents loved it. He could understand why a parent, especially a mother, would worry it was too dangerous.
“Oh no.” Dmitry muttered, “Here she is.”
A blonde woman with hazel eyes so much like Ilya’s walked into the room, “Dmitry.” She rushed to his bedside and spoke in a fairly heavy Russian accent which caught Shane by surprise. “Sweatheart.”
“I’m sorry mom.” Dmitry told him.
“Hockey?” She frowned and then looked at Shane. Shocked filled her face, “You-”
“Shane.” He said standing up from the chair and holding his hand out to hers to shake, “Hollander.”
“I know.” She frowned at him. “Who you are.”
“You do?” Dmitry asked, surprised knowing his mother wasn’t a hockey fan.
“You’re father.” she spoke, her accent made her speak slowly, “Sent you to his camp?” She did not shake his hand.
The way she said his made Shane frown. It sounded like she didn’t approve of him, could it be because he was gay? Some people still had a problem with him for who he loved.
“You go now.” She told him, “I have him, you-”
“Yes, Yes Yuna I go in now.” Came Ilya’s voice from the hallway, “I will let you know.” The door opened and Ilya walked in his eyes going right to Shane, “Mom wants you to call, insurance questions-” Whatever he was going to say next died on his lips as his eyes fell on the woman standing next to the boy in the bed.
Ilya’s heart rate began to pick up because there could only be one reason the woman before him was here. He had truly lost his mind, he was seeing her staring back at him, fear in her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t find words, his eyes darted to Shane and back to the woman wondering if he saw her too.
Shane watched his husband and could see panic in his eyes, his husband whose eyes were darting between him and Dmitry’s mother. “Ilya.” Shane said, “This is Dmitry’s mother.”
Ilya snapped his attention to Shane’s face, “You see her?” he asked.
Shane frowned looking at his husband with concern then over at the woman who looked like she wanted to grab her son and rush from the room. “Yes.” He said his voice unsure
Ilya looked back at her, he saw her eyes scanning him, she knew him, she was real. “You are here?”
She slowly nodded her head, tears forming in her eyes.
“How?”
“Ilya.” She said softly, in a way Ilya hadn’t heard his name spoken since he was a child. Her voice used to be every comfort to him. “I-”
“You are dead.” He interrupted her.
“No.” She said softly, “I am not. I just-”
It hit him then, she wasn’t dead after all these years he had thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. An image came to his mind of her on the bed, an empty bottle of pills. He had seen her, she had been dead. His father had told him it was an accident. He had mourned her, he had missed her. She wasn’t dead. She was alive which only meant one thing. She had left. She had gotten away from his father, which was a good thing, but it almost meant she had left him. “I can not be here.” he said, his words heavy with his accent. He left the room.
“Ilya!” Shane called after him, he looked at the woman and boy, the boy looked just as confused as Shane felt. Realizing he wasn’t truly needed in the room anymore for Dmitry he nodded his good bye and took off after his husband. Finally he found him outside in the parking lot near one of Ilya’s expensive cars that Shane hated. Ilya was pacing his hands running through his hair. He seemed panicked. “Ilya.” he stepped to him, stopping the man from pacing. “What is the matter with you?”
“She!” he yelled and pulled away from Shane tears in his eyes, “She is here.”
“Who is she?” Shane asked, never truly seeing Ilya lose control like this. “What is going on?”
“She-” his voice broke, “My mother.”
“What?” Shane asked, wondering if Ilya was struggling to find the right English words.
“That woman, she is my mother.” he said making eye contact with his husband, he knew how his words sounded. He had told Shane his mother was dead. They had named their foundation after her, but she wasn’t dead. She was here in New York with a new son. Shane stepped forward without any words, Ilya crumbled into his husband's arms, head on his shoulder not caring he was in public and cried.