Archive of Our Own

The smell of barbecue is thick in Bood’s backyard, Ilya’s skin pleasantly warm from the grill, palms cool and wet with a sweating beer on his leg. It has steadily risen the ranks of one of his favorite places to be. 

Ottawa has treated him kindly so far. Ilya likes it, the way it is sometimes cold and sleepy like Russia, the way it bursts with life in unexpected places, blue water and green grass and dozens of little neighborhoods that Ilya likes to drive past and picture families inside of, happy and quaint. 

And, if he is lucky, maybe his one day. 

For now, he has this: all two hundred pounds of Dykstra rolling around in the dirt with Chiron while Haas watches on as a captive audience, looking vaguely panicked. Harris and Barrett sit side by side at the fire pit, sharing a plate and private smiles between them. Hayes and Chouinard are huddled around the outdoor sound system on the patio, trying desperately to hack into Dykstra’s playlist and change it before they’re caught out. 

On the opposite side of the fire pit, Bood sits beside him with his wife on the couch. Ilya had spent the better part of the evening with their baby on his hip, transfixed by his tiny fists and wide, curious eyes, the ununderstandable babbling that sort of makes Ilya’s chest ache. 

He loves children. Always has. And since Emi, he’s only been eager to be around them more. 

But she is five now, this year, and when Ilya holds a baby this small sometimes he cannot help but remember that he was never there to hold Emi the same. That each time they aren’t together he’s missing even more. 

“Oh—look here, Roz. This is a good one,” Bood elbows him, pushing a phone over into his lap again. 

Ilya’s hands are empty now, baby Milo peacefully sleeping inside the house, so he takes the phone with the one that isn’t nursing his drink and presses play on the video on the screen. 

It’s another recording of Milo’s first steps but clearly from Cassie’s phone this time instead of Bood’s, who’d been sitting opposite each other on their living room floor in case he stumbled. Ilya can’t even be annoyed, even if he’s feeling a little melancholic. A natural smile curves his lips as he watches—again—as Milo sets his mouth into a determined pout, grips the padded corner of the coffee table, and pushes with all his might. He makes it two steps before the video goes shaky, both phones abandoned in favor of descending for hugs and cheers. 

He will have to see if Yuna and David have a video like this of Emi. 

Cassie’s eyes linger on him a beat too long from where she’s cozied up against Bood’s side, curious and knowing at the same time in the way Ilya has found most of the women in his life to be, and it occurs to him then that perhaps he should be slightly less obvious about this. 

“You needed it from all thirty angles, hm?” he teases, handing the phone back. 

Bood only laughs and lets the video loop over from the start, reaching out to clap a hand down onto Ilya’s shoulder. “You’ll understand one of these days, kid.” 

Ilya’s beer tastes sour on his tongue. 

And it doesn’t matter, really. He couldn’t show them even if he wanted to, not when neither of them keep any photographs with her face in them on their phones. When they’re so painstakingly careful with every step of things. 

He really does love this team, what they’re building here. The plan he and Shane are working toward all the while. But sometimes, on nights like these, Ilya aches for them like a missing limb. 

I already understand, Ilya thinks desperately. I have a daughter and she is the best thing to happen to me except for the man that I made her with and I am full of so much love that I could burst. 

And he can say none of it out loud. 

As captain, he typically tries to be one of the last ones to leave. But everyone is having a good time, the sky dark and fire warm, and Ilya is able to slip away with a couple of grinning goodbyes and a promise to see them all at practice the next afternoon. 

Cassie catches him as he’s slipping into his jacket by the front door, talking quietly so they don’t wake Milo in the next room. 

“He seemed really comfortable with you,” she says, parsing his face. “You’re welcome to come over and hang out with him anytime.” 

“Are you saying I’ve lost my touch, Cassie? I can charm only babies now? This is not very good for team morale.” 

The words fall from his mouth with years of fine tuning, the right tone, the right level of wit versus authenticity. A lifeline he’s floated on intermittently for over a decade. 

Across from him, Cassie’s brow twitches a little before she offers a smile. Good. She knows that something is wrong but is still confused—Ilya has not been obvious enough to be figured out. 

 Why does it feel so disappointing, then? 

“Take care, Ilya,” she says as she walks him to the door. Ilya kisses her cheek and thanks her like he does every time for having them over, and then he slips his hands into his pockets and walks to his car. 

He winds through the roads, leaving the security of dimly lit family homes and venturing out toward the privacy of his own house outside the city. He pulls up in front of it and kills the engine, reaches for his phone in the passenger seat. Shane should be long since asleep by now in the time zone he’s in, and Ilya knows he hasn’t been sleeping well lately anyway. He can’t call. 

Instead, he clicks over to his voicemails and finds one that Shane left him a few days prior. He should delete it, but he can’t make himself. Not just yet. 

Dropping his forehead onto the steering wheel, Ilya presses play and lets Shane’s deeper tone and Emi’s lighter one drift loud through the car speaker around him. 

One day, he thinks. One day it won’t have to be a secret. 

He lets the audio loop like Bood’s video of Milo, over and over until it gets a little easier. Less than a week, and Emi will be in his arms again. Shane, hopefully, not so long after that. 

Ilya hurries inside and waits. He is good at that, these days. 

+ 

He throws open the door with maybe a little too much force as he steps out of the car, the engine still hot and hair still damp from his shower as he grins. 

“Papochka!” 

“Emilochka,” he cheers, dropping to his knees on the driveway. He hugs her tightly, pressing kisses all across her face until she wriggles away. “Oh, I have missed you.” 

“You won,” she tells him very seriously. 

“I did,” Ilya boasts, puffing his chest out. “Just for you.” 

He taps her on the nose with his knuckle and then stands again, crossing the few extra feet to get to Yuna’s parked car. She pulls Emi’s bag out of the backseat and hands it over, and Ilya slings it onto his shoulder as she leans against the minivan and gives him a congratulatory smile. 

“Good game, Ilya,” she says. “You’ll make it to the playoffs if you keep it up.” 

It’s kind of her to say, even if Ilya knows they still have another year or so before then. But he had played well tonight, and his daughter is here, so his good mood is untouchable. He grins in thanks. 

“That is the plan.” 

“That is also papa’s plan,” Emi points out. Ilya gawks at her. 

“Is that attitude you are giving me? You are full of energy tonight, dochen’ka.” He ruffles her hair. 

“She got a bit of a second wind after her nap in the car,” Yuna says wearily. 

Conspiratorially, Emi pushes up on her toes and makes Ilya lean down to tell him, “We got McDonalds.” 

“Papa’s favorite!” Ilya exaggerates sarcastically. Her and Yuna both laugh.  

“She may have also had a few sips of a Coke. Only a few.” 

“Papochka’s favorite,” Emi adds helpfully. She is not wrong. 

“Ah, I see. And now this is my problem, yes?” Ilya lifts a brow, sweeping a hand over her hair. “My caffeine filled, hyper little problem, hm?” 

Yuna smiles, closing the back door of her car. “She’s been a chatter box lately. I think you’ll enjoy it.” 

“I know I will,” Ilya returns. “Thank you for bringing her.” 

“Of course. You two have fun.” 

“Always. Isn’t that right, lapochka?” he asks, patting her cheek where she’s clinging to his thigh. She is taller than his hip now, almost. She nods. To Yuna, he says, “Drive safely. Tell David hello from me, please.” 

“Will do.” Crouching in front of them, Yuna squeezes in one last hug with Emi. “Love you, kiddo. Be good.” 

They wait in the driveway while she goes, waving her off until they can’t see her car anymore. When it’s only them Ilya grins and, since Emi is in a good mood today, reaches down to sweep her up like he would a weight in the gym, curling her into his chest as she squeals. 

“You have gotten so big since the last time. Building muscle like me and papa already!” he cheers, walking up to the front door. 

“Grandpa says I grow like a weed,” she informs him, twisting over him so that she’s hanging on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes now. Ilya hooks one arm around her and reaches for his keys with the other. 

“Mm, no. Not a weed. Like a very pretty flower, I think. Grandpa is full of silly Canadian sayings, isn’t he?” He lowers his voice to a whisper as he adds, “Maybe papa, too.” 

The moment her feet hit the floor in the foyer, she’s off like a bullet, giggling as she goes. Ilya locks up and then follows, unable to wipe the smile off his face. Two years and some change of knowing about her, one of visits like these. He doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of them. 

She has climbed up onto one of the sturdy bar stools by the time Ilya reaches the kitchen, setting her bag aside on the table and rolling up his sleeves to make dinner. Shane likes to have her help with it, to teach her about all of the ingredients and watch how it comes together. But Ilya is keen to do the cooking himself while she sits across from him, kicking her feet and telling him all about the latest thing she has gotten immersed in. 

With the private schooling—another result of the need for discretion, more than anything else—Emi leans into things like media, art, and music more so than she does socializing, though she is getting better at that too since she stopped homeschooling with Yuna. Every time Ilya sees her she is interested in a brand new television show or movie, or has picked up a new skill she wants to show him. She still has quiet days but she talks more than she ever has before, and it is one of Ilya’s most favorite sounds. 

They eat alone at the dining room table, and because they are celebrating, they have Ilya’s choice tonight. Shane rolls his eyes when Ilya pulls out the dinosaur chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, but Emi has never once judged his finer taste. They have chocolate milk in twin wine glasses, and Ilya takes a picture of her drinking it with his phone and sends it off to Yuna for their photo album before he has to make himself delete it. Shane will like this one, he thinks. Or he won’t, which will be arguably funnier. 

Ilya’s post-game adrenaline and Emi’s caffeine high keep them up a little later than usual, but luckily the crash hits them around the same time. He stifles a yawn as he clicks off the movie they’d been watching, double checks the doors and lights, and carries her up starfished over his chest to get ready for bed. 

She has her own room here, right down the hall from Ilya’s and built specifically for her. But she seldom stays here more than a few days at a time and mostly sleeps in Ilya’s bed, sometimes too scared to sleep on her own and sometimes stubborn and unwilling to miss a moment of their time together. Shane says it’s important to set clear boundaries, but Ilya cannot turn her down. Her eyes might have more of his blue in them now, but they are still the size and shape of Shane’s, still glimmering with moisture when there is something she wants. He remains helpless to it. 

When they’re changed into pajamas, Ilya sits her up on the countertop, her feet in the sink while he brushes her hair. It’s much longer now, down to the middle of her back. At a glance, that is Shane’s too—dark and smooth, naturally straight. But underneath it, at the back of her neck, the hair tries to coil a little, frizzy if he brushes it just like his own. He leaves the small curls out and pulls the rest back, twisting it into the braids she likes to sleep in. 

Her favorite lullaby is still their voices all this time later, so Ilya settles against the pillows with Emi tucked into his chest, her fingers pressed over the outline of the small paw print he has inked over his heart, and talks. 

“We need to get lots of sleep tonight so that we can call papa at breakfast tomorrow,” he whispers when she gets drowsy, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders. 

“M’kay,” she murmurs through a yawn. Her hand moves up, the back of her knuckles against his throat. “Ya tebya lyublyu, papochka.” 

Ilya grabs her fingers and presses a kiss to them, then tucks them back into place. “Goodnight, dusha moya.” 

He sleeps better than he has in weeks. 

+

They don’t quite make it to breakfast without hearing from Shane. Typically this is a good thing, but when Ilya blinks blearily at his name and then the clock that reads at just after three o’clock, he worries. Shane is always careful about the time difference. 

Carefully extracting himself from Emi and the blankets, Ilya swipes his phone off the nightstand and steps into the hallway, leaving the door cracked behind him so he can still hear her. He blinks rapidly as he lifts the phone to his ear, willing the few hours of sleep he’s had to kick in. 

 “Shane?” he rasps. 

“Hi. Sorry. I woke you,” he says, and something in his voice sounds—wrong. Ilya frowns, checking on Emi once more before he walks a little further down the hallway. “Is Emi sleeping?” 

“Yes. Only for a few hours now. Are you okay?” 

“No,” Shane admits on a breath. “No. I’m not.” 

Ilya stops walking. “What’s wrong?” 

“Rose called me about an hour ago. She didn’t—she has connections, you know? Said she heard from a friend of a friend or something that—that one of the gossip rags was going to release something about me. And I thought it was just going to be some bullshit headline like it always is but it’s—God, it’s not this time, Ilya, I think—I think it’s serious.” 

The words start in a unsteady whisper before falling into a rocky cascade, blurring together, and Ilya thinks maybe he should sit down. 

“Breathe, Shane,” he says, leaning up against the arm of the sofa in the living room. “Tell me what Rose said.” 

“About a month ago, the clinic I’ve been using for years changed management,” he admits in a rush. “It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It’s all the same NDA’s, the fake name, it’s—it should have been fine.” 

“But it wasn’t,” Ilya ventures. 

“No. I don’t know if—if it was a flaw in the paperwork or if somebody was just stupid enough to break contract, but it doesn’t matter. My real name is printed on my prescription because I have it mailed directly to me through a private facility. It never needs to be in anyone else’s hands, and I’ve been using them for years. But I guess, with this whole merger or whatever, a bunch of the pharmacy items had to be switched to pick-up only temporarily, so it got shipped to a physical place.” 

Ilya’s gut sinks. He flexes his fingers and tries to keep listening without plotting something that would get him thrown into jail. 

“It’s only my first initial on there, so maybe if—if it’d been just that, maybe I could’ve played it off, or something,” Shane tells him. “But because the pharmacy is in-house, they share a system with the clinic. So—so searching my name in it, with the right level of access, would have… all of it. Names, dates, medications and patient history. Years of it. It’s all there.” 

He takes a very deep breath. “Did Rose say who it was.” 

“It was one of the new pharmacy techs, I guess. They’d tweeted this thing a few weeks ago about a popular athlete possibly being closeted and… they didn’t say anything outright, but they implied a lot. Enough to get people talking.” 

Ilya can only imagine the responses underneath it. He hopes that Shane hadn’t wasted time reading them. “And they were not immediately fired?” he grits. 

“It wasn’t technically enough to get them in trouble, since they didn’t use my name or mention the league or the exact medication. And I wasn’t even aware of it until tonight.” 

Sliding a hand into his hair, Ilya closes his eyes and tries to think about what he can do. He does not get far. In Russia, maybe, he had some connections, and in Boston he had solidified a few relationships with people who would be happy to call in favors if possible. But here in Ottawa, Ilya is… alone, really. 

He’s relatively close with the team and he trusts them, but they know nothing about this side of his life. If Ilya needs something—and he tries very hard not to—he has to depend mostly on Shane and his family. Powerlessness has never been a feeling that he enjoys. 

“Ilya,” Shane whispers. “You need to know, if she’s right about this, they would—they wouldn’t just have access to my prescriptions. The hospital, Emi’s record. My prenatal appointments and home visits. Even—fuck, even afterward, my surgery from the following year,” he goes on with a distressed noise. “They have everything.” 

“Okay. It is—” Ilya starts, shakes his head. “You have called Yuna, yes?” 

Shane sniffs. “Yeah. I just hung up with her so I could call you. I booked a flight to Ottawa, but the soonest I can get out of here is in another hour and a half. I’m just waiting now. I just wanted you to know what was happening.” 

“Yes. Okay. Good.” He nods, breathing out slow through his nose. “Did Rose say—um, possible time?” 

“Time frame?” Shane clarifies. “Uh, not really. Just—it’s been two weeks since the original post, so I’m guessing—soon.”  

Soon. Soon tells him nothing. Soon is what they said two years ago when they came up with the Ottawa plan. Soon is what Ilya tells himself each time he comes home to an empty house aching not to be alone. Soon is always a placeholder for something they don’t want to hear, and Ilya, suddenly, is exhausted of being coddled. 

“Ilya,” Shane says again, strikingly steady this time, “if this is it, if it all gets out…” 

“We will do everything we can to make sure that it doesn’t,” Ilya interjects. 

“But if it does,” he stresses, “I’m the only one on the line here. And that’s—I can do that. If someone puts two and two together about Emi then I’ll—I’ll handle it. But they don’t know about you. I need you to know that you don’t have to—” 

“If we are doing this, we are doing it together.” 

There’s a pause, a hitched breath in Shane’s rhythm. Ilya can hear the click of his swallow through the phone. 

“Baby,” he tries. 

“No, Shane. We have known—this has always been a possibility, yes? We knew, with charity, with split time, there would be—risk.” 

Shane lets out a strangled laugh. “Yeah, but we didn’t exactly plan for this.” 

“No, but we did not plan for many things we have now that we would not take back.” 

The noise he makes has Ilya curving his nails into his own hip, wishing he could reach through the phone and hold him. 

“I love you.” 

“I love you too,” Ilya tells him. “I know it is scary.” 

“Understatement of the fucking century,” Shane scoffs. 

“I know,” he tries to keep his voice calm. “Just. Get here. The rest we can worry about when we are all together.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Shane blows out a breath. “I’ll let you know when I’m taking off. My parents—my mom said they’re packing a bag, they’re on the way to your place now. Or my mom is, anyway. My dad’s picking me up from the airport in a bit. I told them that would be okay—?” 

“Yes. Of course. I will make sure the guest room is ready.” 

“Okay. I think that’ll be good. They can help us with Emi, and my mom’s already making some calls, and—” 

He cuts himself off abruptly with a sob, and Ilya’s chest aches, picturing him sitting at an empty gate, locked away in an airport bathroom, muffling the sound into his hand. 

“Shanya,” Ilya nearly whimpers. 

“Sorry. Fuck. I’m not—I’m okay, I’m just—” 

“You are not okay,” he says, “and that is okay. Nothing to do now except get to us. You can do this.” 

He listens to Shane’s breath go in and back out again. “I—I can do that.” 

“Yes,” Ilya agrees. “We are waiting. And there is still leftover dinosaur nuggets, if you want.” 

Shane hiccups a laugh and sniffs, and Ilya can hear the tremble of his lower lip when he talks. “She was so happy to get to see you this weekend.”  

“I am very happy to see her,” Ilya says. “And you. Get here safe, lyubimyy.” 

“I will,” Shane promises. 

Pushing off of the sofa, Ilya takes himself down the opposite hallway toward the guest bedroom to make sure it’s prepared. 

“Do you want me to stay on the phone?” 

“No, it’s okay. I’ve got to—I should call my agent. We talked a bit ago already but she said she’d call me back if she had any updates. I just missed her a couple of minutes ago.” 

Flipping on the lamps in the guest room, Ilya eyes the made-up bed and stocked ensuite and leaves the door half open. “Okay. Call me back if you need me, yes? I am going back with Emi now but I will be awake to wait for your parents.” 

“I will. I’ll keep you updated.” A sigh, and then, tired but stunning, “Ya tebya lyublyu.” 

“You are almost as good at that as Emi now,” Ilya says, just to hear that quiet huff of laughter one last time. He manages a smile himself. “Lyublyu tebya, solynyshko. See you soon.” 

He stands in the hallway outside of his bedroom for another several minutes after the call drops, thinking about everything at once and unable to focus on anything at all. Ultimately, he gets back in the bed and leaves the phone on vibrate at his hip in case someone calls. He doesn’t need to look online. He doesn’t need to find connections or make plans yet. He doesn’t need to fix. Right now, all he needs is to be here. 

Emi stirs when Ilya pulls her close again but settles back easily into his chest, chasing the body heat and the rumble in his throat when he whispers soothingly to her. He holds her extra tightly, bittersweetly aware that this could be the last handful of hours she is only theirs. 

Her breathing deepens and evens again, calm and steady against his side. Ilya stays and keeps watch. 

+

The article goes live just before five o’clock, when Shane is still in the air somewhere over the states. 

Ilya and Yuna both read it silently across the table from each other, Yuna with white knuckles and her bifocals shoved high up on her nose, and Ilya with a quietly seething rage building underneath his ribs. 

Everything Shane said would be there is front and center. Screenshots of the original tweet followed by a leaked, grainy image of medical records that some recently hired med tech is about to lose their license for. Yuna has already spoken with her lawyers. 

Even still, the damage has been done. The article itself is taken down within minutes but on the internet things live forever, and gossip sites have already regurgitated most of it with convenient plausible legal deniability. People are speculating and, for all Ilya likes to think most people on these sites are stupid, several posts have managed to lay bare most of what they’ve been trying so hard to keep hidden the last few years. 

There are photos of Emi first, which make Ilya’s hands shake in so much anger that he has to put the phone down for a minute. Mostly with Shane’s parents, and typically covered with a jacket or a blanket, her face tucked into Yuna or David’s shoulder. But over the last year or so they have gotten more comfortable taking her out, getting her socialized, places that felt low risk. 

There is a shot of her with them on a park bench beneath a tree, eating ice cream. There is another in a grocery store, Yuna bending forward to pluck something off the shelf when Emi had turned to look directly into the lens of an unknown camera. There are only a couple of them with her face unobscured but they spread like wildfire. And the problem is that, while Shane looks a lot like his parents, Emi looks nearly exactly like Shane. 

One of the posts points out that she’s clearly too young to be Shane’s sibling despite being photographed with his parents multiple times, and the rest of the internet seems to run with it. 

And then people want to know who the other father is. Maybe it wouldn’t be so obvious without the photos, but, undeniably, Emi looks like Ilya too. It isn’t as obvious as it is with Shane, not if you don’t know what to look for. But the internet has too much time and thousands of shitty reasons they feel entitled to do exactly that, and it takes only minutes for someone to post a side by side and type out am i crazy or is this rozanov’s kid??? 

His move to Ottawa—for which he had very publicly chosen not to give a comment about despite the heavy speculation—is no less incriminating. People pick apart his track record, his party lifestyle and when exactly he’d traded it for something quieter and more private. The timeline adds up. 

Shane’s time off. The trade. The charity. The strategized public outings together over the last year. Deep dives from all throughout their careers, people clipping together moments that could be viewed as passion with the rivalry of it all stripped away. It makes Ilya feel raw, makes him ache, a little, looking at their faces. They’d been so young. They are so young. 

He hopes Shane hasn’t seen any of it. The way it’s laid out makes it all seem so obvious, like they’d been careless about it. It’s an insult to how much they’ve tried to protect each other. It couldn’t be further from the truth. 

But Ilya can’t tell him that yet, so he finishes reading and calmly puts his phone down, only left on for the sole purpose of picking up if Shane calls. He stands from the dining room table, unclenches his fists, and faces Yuna’s blank, overwhelmed stare. 

“I am going to make tea,” he decides for them, and then he starts walking because if he sits still for another moment he’s going to implode. 

He takes a short detour first to his room to check on Emi, still fast asleep in his bed. Gently, Ilya strokes a hand down the back of her head and leans over to kiss it, and then quietly slips out to make the tea in the kitchen. 

When he returns to the table a few minutes later, Yuna’s glasses are off and folded to the side, her fingers cradling the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are closed but she opens them when Ilya sets the mug down in front of her, offering him a tight smile in thanks. 

The moonlight shines across the table in shifts from the window behind him as he takes a seat across from her again. He inhales the lingering steam from the cup. He’d made Shane’s favorite kind and it has the intended effect, the familiar comfort of the heavy scent drawing a little of the tension from the space between them. 

Ilya has bonded with David over many things since that first visit at the cottage, but Yuna can still be a mystery sometimes. Steps forward and backward, times when Ilya feels he has finally won her over just before he’ll catch her watching him like there’s something she wants to say but won’t with Shane or Emi in the room. He doesn’t think she dislikes him. She doesn’t seem like the type to keep that to herself, certainly not for this long. But he isn’t certain that she loves him yet either. 

He would like for her to, eventually, but all that he can realistically do is love Shane. Love Emi. The rest, if it’s going to, will fall into place. 

“We should have been more careful,” Yuna sighs. “David and I.” 

It startles him slightly. Ilya frowns. He is suspecting the self-blame is not something isolated only to Shane. 

“Yuna,” he says. “This is not because of you and David. Shane and I could not have managed any of this without you. Please do not blame yourself.” 

It’s the truth. Even if where he stands with Yuna is blurry sometimes, she has never once seemed to hold anything against him. She has always supported their decision to add Ilya into their routines, to have Emi stay with him even when it means her and David traveling farther, putting up with hectic scheduling conflicts, uprooting their own lives to help them with their budding one. Ilya will forever be grateful for them and what they’ve allowed him to have here. 

“His whole life, I—” Yuna starts, shaking her head. “There was always such a fine line between feeling like I was helping him be himself, versus helping him hide himself. Some of that is hockey. I get it. Shane gets it. He wouldn’t have gone through everything he did to keep playing if it wasn’t worth it to him on some level. I just… I wanted him to have everything he wanted without being terrified of it toppling down the whole time when he wasn’t looking.” 

“He has had that,” Ilya assures her. 

“You don’t understand.” She brings a hand up to rub at her temples again. 

“Explain it to me?” 

Her eyes flick up to him for a moment in a way that reminds him vaguely of Shane before she lowers them to her mug again, tracing up and down the handle. 

“Shane is very intuitive. His instincts are impeccable. Always have been,” she tells him. “He’s always known who he was. And the things he loves, he gives himself over to one hundred and ten percent.” 

Ilya lifts his own cup to his mouth as he takes a sip. He knows this well. Knew Shane as competitor, captain, athlete before he had ever been father, lover, friend. Watching him catalog the trajectory of a winning puck before the shot’s taken isn’t entirely different from the way he extends a hand to catch the body of Emi’s stuffed rabbit before it’s even begun to wobble. The way he sees things in Ilya, even, that Ilya hasn’t been able to see in himself now for a long time. 

“I can’t relate to that. I’ve always been a planner. An overthinker, maybe. That’s what I’m good at. So, when Shane wanted to play hockey, I planned for that too,” Yuna goes on, tapping her thumb against the ceramics. “I thought if I could do it well enough, he would never have to acknowledge the more difficult parts of the career. If I could get it all just right, it would keep anything bad from happening to him.” 

His chest burns. “Yuna,” he offers up in pale consolation. 

She shakes her head, juts out her lower lip. “But that was bullshit. Wishful thinking, I guess. I’m not—I’m not under the illusion that the league is kind behind closed doors. If I’d had any doubts left about that, the way they reacted when Shane came out to them as gay would have gotten rid of them.” 

Her mouth levels into something that is also less than kind, and Ilya fights not to mirror it. He shares the same sentiment. This, at least, is common ground for them. 

“I know it’s not realistic to think I could have protected him from everything,” she admits, not quite as strongly as before. “But this is—this is such an embarrassing oversight for me. A fucking clerical issue.” She lets out a harsh laugh, broken in the middle. “I’ve been helping him manage this the way he wanted to since he was a teenager and we were always so careful. There was no room for errors.” 

Ilya watches as she brings a hand up again to scrub over her face, ending up over her mouth as she blinks away tears. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. I just can’t help but think that if I’d insisted that he let me double check the pharmacy information first, maybe I would have caught something,” she whispers, voice thick as she stares out the window behind him. “Or maybe if I’d seen the original post earlier… I don’t know. Maybe it would be different.” 

Slowly, Ilya lifts the mug back to his mouth and gathers his thoughts. He clears his throat. 

“I…” he begins, “I lost my mother when I was young.” 

Yuna sniffs, her chin raising to look at him across the table. Ilya can feel it even as he stares at the table between them, her palpable surprise. They have talked around things but they are never alone together long enough to properly delve into them, and even if Ilya doesn’t particularly like sharing this, he thinks it would be helpful to hear. 

“I loved her more than anything. She was very beautiful, and so smart. Kind to everyone, always,” he smiles, and then sobers slightly. “She was also very sad. And even though I know that she loved me very much, the sadness, sometimes, would… take away certain things.” 

“Like what?” Yuna asks softly. 

“I had to learn to take care of myself very young because of it,” he admits. “I was of no use to my father yet, but he would get upset if he came home to a messy house, chores not done, dinner not on the table. I taught myself these things so that I could do them while my mother was resting. So that she would not get in trouble for not doing them.” 

She reaches across the table to squeeze his arm. Her quiet, “Oh, Ilya,” makes his throat burn. 

“I don’t blame her for any of it. I’m still understanding it, I think, but I am not angry with her.” 

“Of course not.” 

“But. Sometimes,” Ilya continues confessing, “I wish that things could have been different. I could love her very much and still wish that she would come to watch me play hockey like she said that she would. That she could have the energy to make dinner with me sometimes, to come and eat with me at the table. That even if everything else was bad, I could be enough—that I was worth getting better for.” 

“Honey…” Yuna says, swiping a thumb over his wrist. 

“I know that isn’t what happened now. I am working on it. But I’m trying to say that Shane is—Shane has never had this worry, with you.” 

Ilya looks at her properly when he says it, gives the words a moment to sink in before he continues. Some of the water in Yuna’s eyes falls when she blinks. 

“You and David have been there for him from the very beginning. Shane knows that this—all you have done for him over the years, is no small thing. He knows how hard you have worked to allow him to live his life as easily as possible. He knows. And he will not blame you for this.” 

“No,” Yuna laughs wetly, giving his arm a final squeeze before she pulls her hand back to her mug. “He’ll blame himself, probably, which is even worse.” 

“He is good at that, yes,” Ilya agrees with a lopsided smile. “But it does not have to be him or you. This is a bad thing that has happened, yes, but we have survived bad things before. And this time is better in a way because—we are all here. Together,” he tells her. “For me, at least, this is the first time to have that when the bad thing comes.” 

There was a time when Ilya had figured he would be alone for the rest of his life. Not physically, maybe, but in the ways that mattered. The ways that made his soul full. Nothing felt as important then, when the endgame of it all had only been himself. 

Ilya has always loved people. Been driven by people. His passion had been dormant for years, waiting for a spark. It’d taken his mother’s kindness—an act of defiance on its own—to resolve to hold onto his empathy, even when the world had tried to beat it out of him. It’d taken the spite of grief and defensiveness to push him headfirst into his love of hockey. 

It’d taken his feelings for Shane to buoy him during the two years where he’d drifted aimlessly, close to a dangerous edge but never crossing it because there was always a chance, albeit slim, that Ilya would have him back. Would taste that passion again, unlike anything else he’d ever had. 

It’d taken bringing Emi into his life for Ilya to realize that he had a legacy not only his own now, that there was, finally, a bigger picture. An end goal that wasn’t another Cup and eventual retirement, but a real future, where the things he loves weren’t hanging on walls or propped in display cases, but living, breathing things that loved him back, that could tell him that if he ever started to forget it. 

“Shane is very brave,” he tells Yuna, his heart full and aching all at once. “It is our turn now, I think. To be that for him.” 

With a watery smile, Yuna shakes her head. “The three of you have already been that for a long time. The rest of us just need to catch up.” 

The moonlight stretches across the table between them as Ilya smiles back, connecting one side to the other, and for once, neither of them are biting their tongues. 

+

The sun is just beginning to rise when Shane texts to tell him he’s landed and he and David are on their way home. 

Yuna has been on and off the phone intermittently, sending emails and leaving voicemails, but most businesses in this time zone aren’t open yet. They spend the waiting sitting on the couch with a sitcom playing low in the background, the lights still off and house quiet. 

She has just finished sending off another message typed with furious thumbs and a familiar whoosh sound when the patter of small feet echoes down the hallway, and a little head of dark, sleep-mussed hair peeks over into the living room. 

“Papochka?” 

Ilya smiles at her, holding out a hand. 

“Good morning, dusha moya,” he says. “You want cartoons?” 

Emi nods, rounding the corner of the armchair with her stuffed rabbit and Ilya’s soft, faded Bears t-shirt dragging just below her knees. She seems a little surprised to see Yuna there but waves her hello’s, then lifts her arms for Ilya to put her on his lap. He kisses the back of her head as he works the remote, navigating over to the show that she likes in the mornings. 

He can feel Yuna’s eyes on them again, but he does not feel the need to explain himself anymore. And, eventually, it pays off. 

“What does that mean?” Yuna asks. “It’s not what you usually call her.” 

Ilya smiles softly. “No. Usually it is lapochka, sort of like when you say honey to Shane. But also because of these little paws, hm?” he teases, pretending to gobble up Emi’s hands until she laughs and squirms. “Was a little joke about Bears, before. But it stuck.” He shrugs, fixing some of her braid that had come undone in sleep. “Dusha moya means my soul. Pieces of my heart outside of my body.” 

Yuna’s face warms. “You say it to Shane, too.” 

“Yes.” His smile widens. “He is learning them too. But most often for him is lyubimyy. Beloved. Or solnyshko. Because he is bright like sunshine.” 

As if in unanimous agreement, the light from the windows shines a little brighter, spilling onto the carpet in front of them. 

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone else describe him like that before,” Yuna admits. 

“Ah. They do not know him like we do, yes?” Ilya says to them both. 

He fights not to keep checking his phone for another text from Shane, busying himself with Emi’s hair, playing the game that makes her laugh with their hands, bouncing his leg until she grumbles at him to stop. When she’s woken up a bit more he takes her to the bathroom to brush her teeth and undo her braids, then back to the bedroom to find her something to wear for the day. Ilya has been known to have full days he spends in his pajamas and Emi likes that too, sometimes. But Shane is not so convinced, and seeing Emi already dressed and ready for the day will hopefully ease at least a fraction of his worry. 

Ilya’s, on the other hand, buzzes like bees underneath his skin. He has been telling himself to keep calm since the moment Shane called in the middle of the night, for Emi, for Shane, for Yuna. But the longer he swallows it down the more difficult it is to do, his shaking hands and carefully curated tone likely giving him away. 

He moves to the kitchen when his energy spikes again, sipping on a fresh coffee as he pulls out the ingredients for bacon, eggs, and Shane’s omelette and smoothie. It is far too much food, Ilya thinks as he pulls out a second carton of eggs, but he knows that Shane will not have eaten, and he and Yuna haven’t been able to stomach much either. 

“Pancakes?” Emi says at his hip as he plates one helping of eggs. Ilya pulls out another pan. 

They sit at the kitchen island to eat, Yuna enjoying her own plate while Emi sits on his lap with theirs. Emi loves pancakes but she detests the stickiness of syrup with a passion only achievable by a daughter of Shane’s—which would not be an issue, if she did not also simultaneously love the taste of it. It is the Canadian in her, he swears. 

So Ilya slices the fluffy pancake into bite sized pieces, the syrup relegated to a small cup at the side, and dips them gingerly in one at a time, waiting until it stops dripping to lift them to her mouth and serving himself a bite in the in betweens. 

He’s just finished setting Shane’s omelette on low heat in the oven to keep it warm, Yuna helping Emi wash hands at the sink behind him when the front door beeps open. 

There’s the thud of Shane’s bag and not even the familiar kick-off of shoes before Shane’s voice echoes through the front hallway. 

“Ilya?” 

Ilya sets down the rag in his hands. “In here, lyubimyy,” he calls back. 

He is waiting in the doorway when Shane comes around the corner wearing a dark blue sweatshirt and bags underneath his eyes, hands already outstretched. Ilya catches him when he tips forward. 

“Fuck,” he muffles against Ilya’s shoulder, making fists of his shirt. Ilya pets a hand down the back of his head as he trembles, fighting to keep composure himself. 

He is allowed a few of his own tears, he decides, hiding them in Shane’s disheveled hair. He thinks he could hold Shane tight enough to crack a rib and still it might not be close enough. 

There is a tug at their waists, and Shane peels himself out of his neck long enough to look at Emi. He gives her a shaky smile and then drops to his knees, taking her in his arms.  

“Hi, Papa,” she says. 

Ilya stands, keeping watch, one hand on Shane’s back and the other on top of Emi’s head until he’s pulled into the pile. He hardly feels his knees hit the tile, hardly feels anything at all except the fold of Shane’s arm around his shoulders and the steady counterweight of Emi in their laps. 

The kitchen is quiet for several minutes. Ilya figures Yuna and David must have gone to the living room to give them some privacy. 

Eventually, when Shane’s trembling lessens, his hand curls around the back of Ilya’s neck, through his hair. He turns his face up for a salt-sticky kiss, and sighs against the open seam of Ilya’s mouth. 

“I’m sorry,” Shane whispers, hoarse and heavy between them. “This is all wrong. We had a plan, we were supposed to—” 

“No. You will not apologize for this,” Ilya interrupts, grabbing his jaw. “We will figure it out, yes? We always do.” 

He keeps hold of Shane’s chin so that he can catch his eyes, levels his breathing until Shane, albeit still a little shaky, flattens his mouth determinedly and matches the rhythm. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he repeats on the exhale. 

“It is going to be okay.” 

Shane swallows. “It’s—it’ll be okay.” 

“It’ll be okay,” Emi repeats for a third time, with Shane’s sharper infliction and the soft curve of Ilya’s accent all rolled into one. 

The perfectly rounded bubble of Shane’s expression pops, going tender with a laugh. Ilya lets go of his chin and it drops straight down to press a kiss to the top of Emi’s head, and Ilya does the same to Shane’s temple, squeezing both of them in his arms. 

They make it off of the floor when Shane seems to realize that’s where they’d collapsed, wrinkling his nose at the oversight. Ilya crouches again and dusts off his pants, then removes the shoes Shane had been in too much of a rush to take off himself. 

He lets Yuna and David have a moment with him as he goes to set them by the front door, picking up Shane’s bag to put in the bedroom and setting out a new pair of pants, if he decides he wants them. 

When he returns to the kitchen there are tears in Yuna’s eyes to match the wetness in Shane’s, but they’re both visibly relieved, as Ilya had been, to be in the same room again. He greets David with a hug of their own and then directs them all to the dining room table, tentatively disrupting the conversation with a hand on the back of Shane’s neck. 

“Come and sit, solnyshko,” he urges. “You have not eaten.” 

“I never said that,” Shane mutters, though the color in his face gives him away. 

“You did not have to,” Ilya levels. “Our daughter tackled syrup today. You can manage smoothie and omelette, I think.” He leans in to press a kiss to Shane’s cheek. “Come, eat. Then we will handle the rest.” 

Sometimes Shane feels like he must get everything done all at once, like he’s in a race against himself. Ilya understands; sometimes his body still remembers what that’s like too, remembers what it is to be alone more than what it is to be surrounded by those willing to help. 

Finally, a few strings of tension cut loose in his neck underneath Ilya’s palm. He flashes Ilya a small smile. 

“Yeah, okay. Thank you.” 

When they gather at the table this time, food warmed from the oven and glasses full, there is no emptiness left. Shane eats with one hand, the other tangled in Ilya’s, Emi nestled between Yuna and David while he finishes his own plate and goes for seconds. 

Ilya looks at the seat at the far end of the table, the only one not filled, stained with sunlight from the window, and exhales. 

+

The bad thing is still very much there, but in the midst of it all, it becomes crystal clear how much support they have, too. 

David is extremely dutiful in his efforts to keep Emi occupied in the living room while Shane, Yuna, and Ilya set up at the dining room table after breakfast to begin tackling things properly. She helps them send off messages to their coaches while she waits for the legal team to get back to her, her laptop open off to the side so she’ll see it the moment they contact her back. 

Shane’s agent comes next, helping him decide how exactly he wants to go about this, making sure that he has as much control over the narrative as possible. He and Ilya take the video conference call with her together, tweaking things from her recommendation until it’s as perfect as it’s going to get, then tell her to queue it up when there’s nothing left to wait for. 

Rose texts Shane since they’re staying off the internet for now, telling him that they’re trending and that, outside of the well known chunk of higher ups and league-related assholes they’d been trying to hide from in the first place, most people are actually being really supportive. Sveta calls with her own updates of what she’s heard from Russia if Ilya cares to hear it, but mostly just to ask him if he’s doing okay and to make a promise to visit soon when things aren’t as hectic anymore. 

By midday, more messages roll in. Pike checks to see if they need anything. They take a call with Shane’s lawyer and Yuna gets Ilya set up with his own, and they discuss what the legal options are for how to handle the leak of Shane’s private information and how it’ll intersect with the league rules. Ilya steps into the kitchen to help David and Emi make lunch while Shane and his mom finish up the call, and then they all break for a very much needed reprieve to refuel and try to relax for a little while again. 

Over the course of the afternoon, Ilya gets texts from his teammates. A few of the old ones from Boston but mostly from here in Ottawa; an understanding and encouraging message from Wiebe, something supportive from Harris, Barrett, and Chiron, several chimes in the group chat from Haas, Dykstra, and Hayes. Ilya puts a thumbs up on them as others continue to roll in, but pauses when Bood texts him privately. 

Turns out you’ve got a few more years experience than me after all, kid. Hope you know that we’ve got your back no matter what. When you’re ready, we’d love to meet your man and your little one. Until then, we’ll hold down the fort. 

Let us know if you need anything, Cap. Any of you. We’re rooting for you. 

He stares at it for a long while, until it goes blurry in his vision. 

“I want you to meet them,” Ilya explains when Shane catches him sniffling, tilting his phone screen so he can see the text. 

Shane drags a hand through his hair, kisses his temple. “Then we will.” 

There is no wall between the dining room and the living room so the voices carry over, Yuna putting a hand over the phone to ask David for certain papers, a shuffle and David’s low murmur as he hands them over. 

He can feel Shane itching to help more warring with his obvious exhaustion, feeling guilty for resting while Emi is napping and they have a moment to themselves. But Ilya feels splayed open and sore with the prospect, the privilege of being able to breathe while someone else handles things. He has not had that in a long, long time. He’d forgotten what it felt like. 

“Hey,” Shane says, tilting his head to see the tears Ilya’s failing to hide. He wipes at Ilya’s cheek, keeps his thumb there, moving softly back and forth. “What is it?” 

“I don’t know. I—sorry,” Ilya sniffs.  

“If I don’t get to apologize, you don’t get to either.” He turns Ilya’s jaw up toward him, a small frown tugging at his lips. “It’s okay to be upset. You know that, right?” 

“I know. But you are the one who—the leak, and—” 

“Ilya,” he says. “This is not just about me. This affected all of us. You got outed, too. You have every right to be—whatever you need to be about this. Okay?” 

It doesn’t feel the same, but he is too tired to argue, and Shane is most usually right anyway. Ilya nods, pressing into the heat of his palm. “Okay.” 

“Have you spoken to Galina yet?” Shane asks, stroking a thumb over his brow. 

“No. I—she sent me an email. I haven’t looked yet.” 

“Maybe you should. It doesn’t have to be right away, but it might be nice to get something scheduled. To be able to talk about it with someone that isn’t, well—us.” 

“I will email her,” he agrees. Later. When he is not warm and boneless against Shane’s side. Shane’s lips find his forehead again. 

“Good.” 

No matter how far he tries to bury himself into Shane’s body heat, all of him feels tender like a bruise. Despite how effortless he likes to appear, vulnerability has always been neatly packaged and tucked away—compartmentalized, Shane likes to say. And there has been more of it these last two years, more vulnerability and love, but the lines drawn around where those things are allowed have also grown deeper, spread wider, sprouted thorns. 

He’d called it protection, because that meant he was still in control of it. But a lot of it had been fear too, and in the midst of all of this, it’s much easier and much more terrifying to acknowledge it for what it is. All of the truths he cannot keep to himself anymore, the carefully drawn lines dug up and torn away. 

“Sorry,” Ilya chokes when he starts crying again, trying to keep himself quiet so that Yuna and David don’t hear. 

“You don’t have to keep apologizing, baby,” Shane says. He takes Ilya’s face in his hands, kisses across his brow, his cheeks, his mouth. “You’ve taken care of all of us for the last twelve hours. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Not here.” 

He lets Shane press their foreheads together, swipe his thumbs underneath Ilya’s tired eyes until they finally start to dry. 

He is halfway to falling asleep there when the security system beeps to tell them someone’s at the front entrance. He and Shane pop their heads up over the couch, tension clawing its way back in, but Yuna stands to check for them. 

“Who was that?” Shane asks when she comes back, a large bag in hand. 

“Cassie Boodram.” She lifts the bag up onto the table, sorting through the inside with a glance toward Ilya. “Her and the rest of your team have organized a meal train.” 

He shares a look with Shane. “What does that mean?” 

She smiles softly. “It means that for the next couple of weeks, you three don’t need to worry about food.” 

“Oh,” Shane says. 

And then Ilya is not the only one of them crying anymore. 

+

Yuna and David spent the night in the guest room, taking turns with Emi and helping Ilya and Shane with different things. Sleep doesn’t come easily to any of them despite how relieved Ilya is to have Shane back underneath the same roof, the house swinging between too quiet and too chaotic on a pendulum that won’t stop. 

At a little over the twenty-four hour mark, the phones seem to stop ringing so often and the emails aren’t rolling in one after the other. Their statements have been fully released and their coaches have returned their messages, and even if there’s still a restless energy rolling through them, there isn’t much more that can be done until Monday morning. Until the real world demands them back again. 

Shane’s parents leave reluctantly at the end of the second day. They offer to take Emi with them to give Shane and Ilya some alone time but it doesn’t feel right, and it’s not what they need right now. They send them off with a promise to call if they need anything and several loose ends still undone, with tired hugs and smiles that take a bit of effort to pull across, but there’s relief to it all the same. They’ve survived. 

But Ilya knows what comes after survival; the licking of wounds, the assessment of damages, the figuring of how to get back or rebuild what was lost in the in between. The exhale, even if the ribs are still bruised underneath. 

Just like the first night, they gather into Ilya’s bathroom to get ready for bed. It’s spacious but fondly crowded with all three of them in there, Emi’s hair curled damp from bathtime, Shane’s skin sticky with drying moisturizer, Ilya’s tongue simmering with the aftertaste mint. Ilya runs a brush through her hair while Shane helps her into pajamas, a tired smile on his face as he hands Ilya a fresh change and steals something from the dresser for himself too. 

They climb into bed afterward, Shane sitting up against the headboard while Ilya lays on his side, head curved toward him like a compass. 

“Emi,” Shane says. His hand slips into Ilya’s hair while the other beckons Emi into the gap of space left between their legs. “Come here.” 

She looks up at them, wide eyed. Ilya offers a smile. 

“You are not in trouble, lapochka. Do not worry.” 

Crawling over the sheets, Emi settles on folded knees between their torsos, bunny tucked between her fingers and eyeing them expectantly. Shane reaches out and pets over one of the braids Ilya put in for her. 

“It’s been a busy few days,” he says gently. “How are you feeling?” 

“Okay,” Emi decides. Then, upon further thought, “Confused.” 

“What are you confused about, baby?” 

She glances between them. “Heavy,” she offers eventually, watching for their reactions. 

“Ah,” Ilya nods. “Many big feelings in the house lately, yes?” 

Emi makes a noise of agreement. 

“We’re not upset with you. Not at all, okay?” Shane tells her. 

Her small forehead wrinkles. “But you are upset about… something?” 

“Ty takaya umnichka,” Ilya praises warmly. Beside him, Shane takes a breath in. 

“Do you remember when we talked about being careful around people you don’t know? About making sure you always check with one of us or grandma and grandpa first?”

“You said it would be safer that way,” Emi agrees slowly. “Because lots of people know you and papochka.”  

“That’s right. I thought that if only a few people knew about us, about what we are—” Shane takes his fingers out of Ilya’s hair to grab his hand, squeezing, “—about our family, then it would be safer.” 

“But people know now.” 

Shane sighs. “Yes. People know now.” 

“And you are—sad?” 

He pauses for a moment, then shakes his head at her. “No, not sad.” 

“Scared?” 

“Yeah, I am. Very much,” Shane admits with a laugh. He fits his thumb into the gap between two of Ilya’s knuckles. “But a part of me is also… relieved, in a way.” 

“Not so stressed,” Ilya clarifies in simpler terms when Emi scrunches a brow. 

“Yes,” Shane agrees. “I was so worried about doing it the right way that I just kept avoiding it. It does feel scary and I do wish that it was done differently, but, Emi—” 

He touches his free hand to her cheek, presses the weight of his and Ilya’s combined ones to the center of her chest. 

“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to us, okay? That part is never scary or confusing. And we want people to know that, because—we’re so proud of you. You don’t deserve to be a secret. And being scared is no excuse to justify that.” 

Shane’s voice cracks, and Emi frowns, patting the outside of his knuckles on her face. “It’s okay, papa.” 

When Shane’s laugh comes out a little wet, Ilya clears his throat. 

“Sometimes, when you love something very much, you want to keep it apart from everything else. So that nothing can hurt it or take it away from you,” he says. “But that is a selfish way to love something. And love is not selfish, Emilochka. It is careful, yes. But not selfish.” 

“We’ve been careful,” Shane adds encouragingly. “Now it’s time to be...” 

“Brave,” Ilya finishes. 

A little of the tension bleeds out of his shoulders. Shane smiles. “Yes. Brave.” 

They’re quiet for a minute, letting Emi process just as much as the two of them are still trying to. Shane lifts his and Ilya’s hands and presses his lips to the back of them, and then rests his cheek on top of Ilya’s head. 

“I know the last few days have been confusing,” he tells Emi. “If you want to ask us any questions, you can. We’ll do our best to answer them.” 

She nods, thinking. “Things are going to be different now?” 

“Probably,” Shane answers, earnest. “At least a little bit.” 

“How?” she asks. 

“You’ll probably meet some new people. Papochka wants you to meet his team. Once we make sure it’s safe, you can come to more of our games with grandma and grandpa, if you want to,” he says. “When you’re ready for it, we’ll go out in public more. All three of us.” 

“Public?” Emi’s eyes widen. “Like… birthday parties?” 

Ilya grins. “You want to have a big birthday party, radost’ moya?” 

Her big eyes shrink and turn to the bunny in her lap. “Not me. My friend from my class said I could come to her birthday party, but I said no.” 

Shane tucks some of her hair behind her ear. “Why did you say no, baby?” 

“Because I won’t know everyone going. If they were safe. So I didn’t think I was allowed.” 

With Shane’s head still on top of his, Ilya can feel the way his jaw locks up, the noise that gets stuck somewhere in his throat. Carefully shrugging him off, Ilya sits up a little more instead, pulling him underneath his arm and kissing the side of his forehead. Shane turns into his shoulder, face wet and lip trembling. 

“Of course you can go to your party, lapochka,” Ilya takes over. 

“Really?” Emi blinks, perking up as she glances between them. “Will you come with me? Parents can come, she said.” 

“If you want us there, we will be there,” Ilya assures. He scratches over Shane’s scalp. “Right, solnyshko?” 

Bringing a hand up to wipe at his face, Shane turns to her and nods. “Yes. Of course. We’ll be there.” 

His smile is wobbly at best. Ilya presses a kiss to the corner edge of it, then beckons Emi forward. 

“Dochen’ka,” he says, “I think papa needs a hug, yes?” 

She scoots up on her knees, waiting for Shane to extend an arm out so that she can curl up against his chest, her cheek against the shoulder nearest to Ilya as it shudders lightly. 

To Ilya, she whispers, “Are you sure this is good? Papa is crying a lot.” 

“Sometimes crying is a good thing,” Ilya tells her, thumbing at her cheek. “It is not only for being sad. When you carry something so big for so long, it feels good to let it out.” 

It had taken her a long time to learn to regulate her emotions to a point that she didn’t just mirror theirs. She’s better at it now but sometimes it still happens, especially when it comes to Shane who Ilya knows tries very hard to keep on a brave face. 

He wipes at the tears under her eyes before they can fall, her scrunched brow unsure of why she’s crying but in tune enough with them to understand the heaviness regardless. Ilya’s hand drops to her back to rub it and meets Shane’s there, fingers tangling once again. 

Everything bad can wait. For now, there is only good. 

.

.

.

“Okay, Roz. Your turn.” 

Ilya looks up from where he’d been watching Emi doze against his shoulder, the cup of fizzy ginger ale she’s been stealing sips from still cool in his hand and dampening his jeans. 

“My turn for what?” he asks Bood. 

“Cass and I have made you watch about a season’s worth of videos and pictures,” he drawls, nudging Ilya’s arm. From his other side, Cassie leans in encouragingly. “Catch us up. We wanna see everything.” 

Turning back to look at Shane over the top of Emi’s head—which comes with its own sort of thrill—Ilya smiles, and gets one back as Shane nods toward his phone. Ilya unlocks it and navigates to the photo albums, scrolls through the most recent ones from the aquarium, the park, the birthday party, all the way back to the videos Yuna sent of when Emi was no bigger than his hand. 

“Do that one,” Shane whispers, lifting his hand briefly off of Ilya’s back to point at the phone. “That’s a good one.” 

Ilya clicks on it and turns the phone sideways, handing it over to Cassie and Bood. He leans into the fingers combing through the overgrown hair at the back of his neck, lets Shane’s palm catch the weight when he tilts back for a kiss. Emi shifts a bit between them, her legs folded up onto Ilya’s lap, but doesn’t complain. They should get home soon, he thinks, but there’s no reason to leave just yet. No more waiting. 

Just, finally, everything that comes afterward.