Archive of Our Own

The first thing Ilya registered was warmth. 

Not metaphorical warmth, not some grand, poetic nonsense Shane would absolutely make fun of him for if he said it out loud– literal, tangible warmth. Heavy, drowsy, deeply inconvenient warmth in the form of his husband half-sprawled over him like an affectionate corpse. 

One long leg hooked over Ilya’s thighs. One arm thrown stubbornly across his ribs. Warm breath fanning against the back of his neck.

Ilya blinked blearily at the dim gray light filtering through their bedroom curtain and immediately knew three things.

One: Shane was drooling on his shoulder.

Two: It was probably past the time when they should’ve been getting ready for morning skate. 

And three: if they missed morning skate because his husband had apparently died in his sleep on top of him, the team would never let either of them hear the end of it.

“Shane,” Ilya rasped. 

Nothing.

He frowned.

“Shane.”

A grumble. A tightening arm. 

“No,” Shane mumbled into his skin, voice wrecked with sleep. “Let me sleep forever.” 

He loved witnessing Shane get all whiny like this. Loved that he only showed this side of himself to Ilya. Shane had only allowed himself to loosen up ever so slightly with a select few things over the years, and this was one of them. Ilya couldn’t wait to see what else his husband allowed himself in the future.

Ilya stared at the ceiling.

“I cannot.”

“Please.”

“I cannot.”

“Rude.” 

Despite himself, Ilya felt his mouth twitch.

For a moment, neither moved. 

It was…nice.

Dangerously nice.

The kind of nice seventeen-year-old Ilya would never have believed existed for people like him. The kind that still, sometimes, startled him in its gentleness. Quiet mornings. Shared rent– well, technically shared mortgage, which was still insane to think about. Wedding bands. His husband drooling on him in a sun-warmed bed in the condo they’d picked together. 

It was almost enough to make his brain go quiet. 

Almost.

His gaze flicked, as it always did, to the orange prescription bottle on his nightstand. 

A small thing. Unremarkable. Shane never made a big deal of it, which Ilya appreciated more than he could explain. No hovering, no careful looks, no “Did you take it?” in that unbearably soft voice.

Just quiet understanding.

Still.

The sight of it pressed something strange and sour beneath his ribs this morning, though he couldn’t say why. 

He swallowed hard, then carefully shifted enough to reach for it.

Shane, somehow sensing movement despite being legally unconscious, made a deeply offended noise. 

“Traitor,” Shane muttered.

“I am taking medicine, not fleeing country.”

“Debatable.”

Ilya snorted softly. 

He shook out the pill, swallowed it dry, and ignored Shane’s immediate, sleep-slurred complaint. 

“You’re supposed to drink water with that, weirdo.” 

“You’re the one that married me.”

“I can’t believe I did.”

There it was again– that impossible, soft thing in his chest. 

Not happiness exactly. Happiness implied something simple. 

This was built. Chosen. Maintained.

This was waking up every day and deciding, sometimes very consciously, to remain.

Shane finally peeled one eye open, hair sticking up in six different directions, and squinted at him.

“You okay?”

The question was casual. Automatic. But beneath it lived months of knowing.

Ilya’s gaze reached the ceiling.

He was tired. Practice would be exhausting. His left knee still ached. He had therapy tomorrow. He’d had the weird dream again last night– the one with his mother’s perfume and locked bedroom doors, blurred enough now to feel more like fog than memory. 

But Shane was here. 

Their team was good.

His meds were working.

He was okay.

“Yeah,” Ilya said finally, and this time, it was mostly true. 

Shane studied him for one second longer before nodding.

“Cool,” he said. “Then can you get up and make us some coffee?”

Ilya turned slowly, tenderness evident in his expression.

“You are unbelievable.”

Shane grinned, bright and devastating and so painfully alive it still stole the air from Ilya’s lungs. 

“Yeah,” Shane said, kissing his shoulder. “But you’re obsessed with me.”

And because this was his ridiculous life, his beautiful impossible life, Ilya rolled his eyes and hauled himself out of bed to make coffee for the man he loved before morning skate. 

Behind him, Shane called:

“Make mine not taste like suffering!”

Ilya paused in the doorway.

“No.” 

“Ilyaaaa–”

For the first time that morning, Ilya laughed.

And for just a second, the ghost stayed quiet. 

💙

By the time Ilya stepped in front of the building, he already wanted to leave. 

Not in the dramatic, life-ruining sense his depression used to weaponize. Not the old instinct– the one that whispered run, disappear, stop trying. This was quieter. More refined.

The deeply adult, profoundly inconvenient desire to cancel therapy, claim practice ran late, and instead go sit in his car in silence for an hour pretending avoidance was self-care. 

Unfortunately, after nearly a year with Galina, avoidance had become significantly more difficult. 

“Cowardice with better shoes is still cowardice,” she had told him once, in Russian, after he’d tried to spend an entire session discussing defensive zone coverage instead of his feelings. 

Which had been rude. And accurate. 

So now, despite his misgivings, he exhaled sharply, adjusted the sleeve of his hoodie, and pushed open the frosted glass office door. 

Galina’s office smelled faintly of bergamot tea and old books. It always did. 

It was intentionally calming, he suspected, though he’d never said so because acknowledging deliberate comfort still felt faintly like admitting weakness. 

The room itself was warm without being stuffy, lined with dark wooden shelves and painfully organized psychology texts. A small lamp glowed softly near the window despite the daylight outside, casting everything in a kind of maddening serenity. 

Galina herself sat in her usual armchair, silver threading through her dark hair, wire-rimmed glasses balanced low on her nose as she made a note in her leather journal. She glanced up.

“You are three minutes early,” she said in Russian.

Ilya shrugged as he dropped into the couch across from her.

“Traffic was lighter.”

“Mm.” She closed the notebook. “Or perhaps you are emotionally flourishing.”

“I knew I should have turned around.”

That, at least, earned the smallest twitch of her mouth.

“How are you sleeping?”

Ilya leaned back, crossing one ankle over his knee.

“Fine.”

Galina stared.

He sighed.

“This is why I hate you.”

“No,” she said calmly. “It is why you pay me.”

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. 

“Mostly fine,” he amended. “Some bad dreams.” 

“How many?”

He hesitated.

There it was–that tiny, almost imperceptible pause she always caught.

Not because she was magical.

Because she paid attention in a way that felt, on his worst days, profoundly unfair.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

“That’s a lie.”

He glared. 

Galina waited.

“Three this week.” 

“Content?”

Ilya’s jaw tightened instinctively.

Not panic. Not exactly. Just resistance. 

The old, rusted lock in his ribcage clicking into place.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just…memory.” 

Galina was silent long enough to be excruciating. 

“Ilya.”

God.

He hated when she used that tone– that gentle, infuriatingly patient one that made it impossible to claim she was attacking him. 

He stared instead at the bookshelf behind her. Tolstoy. Plath. Frankl. Clinical trauma studies.

“Smell,” he said finally, voice flatter than he intended.

Galina’s expression didn’t visibly change, but something in her posture softened.

“Whose?”

He swallowed.

“Her perfume.”

Not Mama.

Not mother.

Just her. 

Because sometimes naming someone correctly made them too real. 

Galina nodded once, carefully.

“And what happens in the dream?”

Ilya’s fingers flexed once against his jeans. 

“I am twelve,” he said. His own voice sounded distant now. Detached. Like he was reciting someone else’s life. “I am outside the bedroom door. I know what I will find.” His throat tightened. “But in the dream…I always open it anyway.” 

Silence.

Not empty silence.

Therapeutic silence.

The kind designed to let truth breathe, which was honestly a terrible design flaw to Ilya.

“And when you wake up?” 

Ilya laughed once, humorless.

“Married.”

Galina blinked.

He scrubbed his hand over his face.

“That sounded insane.”

“No,” she said softly. “It sounded honest.” 

And because she was, as always, unbearable, tears pricked unexpectedly behind his eyes. He looked away immediately, jaw locking. 

“When I wake up,” he said more carefully, “for maybe five seconds…I do not know where I am.”

His voice had gone quieter now.

“Not in the apartment. Not in Montreal. Not in Ottawa. Not in Moscow.” 

He hated admitting this part.

“I just feel…” He exhaled sharply. “Fear. Immediate. Like something terrible has already happened, and I am late to it.” 

Galina was quiet for a moment.

Then:

“That makes sense.”

He frowned.

“I hate when you say that.”

“Because you confuse affirmation with permission. Agreeing with you does not mean I want you to feel these things, but rather I am allowing permission for you to acknowledge these feelings.”

He rolled his eyes, but weaker this time.

Galina folded one leg over the other.

“You have spent years building safety, Ilya. Marriage. Career. Medication. Routine. You have done extraordinary work.” 

The compliment made him visibly uncomfortable, which she ignored.

“But trauma,” she continued, “is not erased by building a better life. Often, safety simply creates enough quiet for old fear to become audible.”

That…

Unfortunately landed.

Ilya stared down at his wedding ring, twisting it once around his finger.

“I should be happier,” he said before he could stop himself.

The room went very still.

There it was.

The real thing.

Not sleeping. Not nightmares. Not symptoms. 

The deeper wound.

He laughed bitterly, shaking his head.

“This is what I wanted, isn’t it? Shane. Marriage. Same team. No hiding. No pretending. I have all of it now.” His voice cracked– not dramatically, just enough to irritate him. “So why does my brain still act like I am one bad day away from becoming them?” 

Galina did not rush to answer.

When she finally spoke, her voice was gentler than before.

“Because depression is an illness, not a moral failure. And trauma is not an inheritance you are doomed to repeat.”

Ilya looked unconvinced.

She leaned forward slightly. 

“You are not your mother.”

The words hit hard enough that his breath stalled.

“You are not your father.”

Harder.

“You are not the house you survived.” 

And there it was.

The unbearable thing.

Not healing. Not relief. Just the tiny, awful crack of being understood. 

His eyes burned.

“Then why,” he whispered, “does it still feel like they are in me?”

Galina’s answer came without hesitation.

“Because survival often sounds like haunting before it sounds like peace.” 

Ilya closed his eyes.

For one long, fragile moment, he let himself feel the full terrible weight of that.

Not brokenness. 

Not failure. 

Haunting. 

A ghost was different than destiny. A ghost could be grieved. A ghost could be named.

And maybe– eventually–

A ghost could even be quieted.

When he finally opened his eyes again, Galina was watching him with that same infuriating steadiness.

“So,” she said, reaching for her notebook, “would you like to discuss this breakthrough?”

Ilya sighed deeply.

“No.”

“Too bad.” 

And despite the ache still living in his chest–

Despite the old grief. Despite the ghosts.

He smiled. Just slightly.

Maintenance, he was learning, was not the absence of pain.

It was choosing, again and again, to remain. 

💙

If there was one thing Ilya Rozanov hated more than flying, it was media day. Flying, at minimum, had the decency to be temporarily dangerous. Media day was prolonged psychological warfare disguised as fluorescent lighting. 

“Rozanov!”

He didn’t even look up from where he was aggressively retying his laces for the third time.

“Not deaf,” he muttered.

“Then stop pretending you can’t hear me,” their PR manager, Denise, called back with the patience of a woman who had clearly dealt with professional athletes for far too long. “You’re up for post-game press in five.”

“Tragic.” 

From the stall beside him, Shane snorted softly. “Thoughts and prayers.”

Ilya turned slowly. “You are my husband,” he said flatly. “Your loyalty should be less conditional.” 

Shane, already half out of his gear and somehow still irritatingly radiant beneath sweat and helmet hair, grinned like the human embodiment of a fox. 

“Counterpoint,” he said. “This is funny.” 

It was, objectively, a little funny. Unfortunately.

Ilya glared at him anyway, because principle mattered. Even if there was no real malice behind his expression, and everyone in the room knew it as well as the both of them.

The season was three weeks old, and between the deeply annoying success of their line chemistry and the league’s apparently endless fascination with their marriage, every game had become less “professional hockey” and more “global social experiment.” 

The first married same-team power couple. How did it feel? What was it like? Did they ever get competitive? Who was messier at home? Did being public ever feel overwhelming?

It was exhausting.

Not because he was ashamed. He was never ashamed. That was the part that still mattered. That distinction had taken blood to earn.

But there was something deeply surreal about spending the first half of his life terrified of being seen and the second half aggressively asked to discuss it under LED panel lighting. 

By the time he made it to the media room, he already regretted all previous life choices. The room itself was standard torture: sponsor wall, folding chairs, cameras, microphones, reporters with expressions ranging from polite professionalism to predatory curiosity. 

Ilya sat. A dozen devices immediately angled toward him. He resisted the urge to leave bodily. 

“Alright, Ilya,” one reporter began brightly, “big win tonight– two assists, dominant forecheck, and you and Shane continue to be one of the league’s most talked-about duos. How does it feel, not just playing together, but doing this as husbands?” 

There it was.

Not offensive. Not malicious. Still exhausting. 

Ilya folded his hands, expression carefully neutral. 

“It feels like hockey,” he said.

A few people laughed. Good. Let them.

“But truly,” another reporter pressed, “you’ve become such a visible symbol for a lot of queer fans in sports. Is that pressure something you think about?” 

That–

That one landed differently.

Because visibility was complicated.

Because some days, visibility still felt too much like exposure in better clothes.

He thought, briefly and unwillingly, of being fifteen and deleting his browser history with shaking hands. 

Of bruises.

Of slammed doors.

Of learning silence before language.

Then he thought of Shane, somewhere down the hall probably eating one of those ridiculous protein bars Ilya could never bring himself to look at. His husband. His impossible, soft, beautiful husband.

Ilya leaned back slightly.

“Pressure?” He repeated.

He considered it. 

Then, more honestly: 

“Sometimes.”

The room shifted– subtle, immediate. 

A real answer.

He exhaled.

“When I was younger,” he said carefully, “visibility would have meant danger. So yes, sometimes it is… strange. To be visible now. Publicly.” His fingers tapped once against the table. “But strange does not mean bad.” 

Quiet. 

Even the room seemed to understand something had changed. 

“It means,” Ilya continued, voice steadier now, “I remember what it felt like to believe a life like mine was not possible.” He shrugged one shoulder. “So if someone sees me now and thinks maybe their life is possible too…” Another small shrug. “Then good.”

Silence. Not awkward. Heavy.

Then someone in the back– older, voice sharper– spoke.

“Do you still have family in Russia?”

And just like that–

Everything inside him went still. 

Not visibly. Years of survival had made him excellent at invisibility in plain sight.

But internally–

Silence.

The wrong kind. 

The question itself was not cruel.

But it was careless in that specific way only strangers could afford. Like poking an old bone and calling it curiosity. 

He heard, absurdly, Galina’s voice from yesterday: You are not the house you survived.

His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. 

“Next question,” Denise cut in immediately, her tone smooth but firm. 

But the damage, tiny as it was, had already bloomed.

Not pain exactly. Something quieter. Older. A familiar, rust-edged absence. 

Home, in the most technical sense, was a place that still existed.

He simply no longer belonged to it.

He kept his face composed. Professional. Unbothered. Athletes were, above all else, performers. 

Another reporter, thankfully less invasive, pivoted.

“What’s your favorite thing about playing with Shane?”

That, at least, was easier. Even now. Especially now. 

Ilya’s mouth twitched despite himself. 

“He steals my water bottles.”

A burst of laughter.

“And?” 

Ilya sighed theatrically.

“And…” He glanced down for exactly one second, gathering himself– not because the answer was difficult, but because it wasn’t. 

“On ice,” he said, “he is relentless. Occasionally useful.”

Louder laughter.

“Off ice…” He paused.

And there it was again. Visibility. But chosen this time. Not forced. Not extracted. Chosen. 

“He makes things quieter.”

The room softened. 

Not fully understanding, maybe. 

But enough.

Enough. 

Because that was the truth, wasn’t it?

Not happier, necessarily.

Not cured.

Just…

Quieter.

Shane made his life quieter. The ghosts less loud. The sharp edges more survivable. 

Denise ended the session two questions later, and by the time Ilya escaped backstage, his pulse had only just started to settle.

“‘Occasionally useful?’” 

Shane’s voice. Of course.

Ilya looked up to find his husband leaning against the hallway wall, already changed, holding out a coffee like some deeply smug guardian angel.

“You were spying.”

“I was appreciating my husband publicly slandering me.”

Ilya took the coffee. It was his usual. Perfect. No notes.

“Your existence is slander enough.” 

“Wow.”

Shane fell into step beside him as they headed toward the parking garage.

For a minute, neither spoke.

Then:

“You okay?”

Casual. Soft. Not pushing. Never pushing when it mattered.

Ilya stared ahead. 

He could say yes. He almost did.

Instead:

“That one question was…” He exhaled. “Unpleasant.”

Shane was quiet for half a beat.

“Yeah,” he said finally, voice flatter now. “I figured.” 

No unnecessary probing. No immediate fixing. Just understanding.

It hit harder, sometimes, than questions did.

Shane bumped their shoulders together lightly.

“You never have to answer things you don’t want to.”

“I know.”

“You also have my permission to fake your own death mid-press conference.”

That startled an actual laugh out of him. Where did that even come from?

“Tempting.” Ilya simply replied in response, lips curling tighter.

Shane grinned. 

“For what it’s worth?”

“Mm?”

“You were kind of incredible.” 

Ilya rolled his eyes automatically, because otherwise he might have had to feel too much about that.

“Do not start.”

“I’m serious,” Shane said, opening the passenger door for him with exaggerated chivalry. “Very inspiring. Deeply handsome. Moderate emotional devastation. Ten out of ten.”

“Moderate?”

“Okay, severe.”

Ilya got in, muttering something deeply adorable in Russian.

Shane beamed. 

And because life was strange, and fragile, and occasionally unbearably good–

Ilya let it be enough.

For now.

As Shane rounded the hood of the car, still talking, still bright, still here–

Ilya glanced once at his reflection in the darkened window.

Public.

Visible.

Married.

Alive.

And beneath all of it, somewhere quiet but unmistakable–

Still haunted. 

But maybe, he thought, as Shane climbed into the driver’s seat and immediately started complaining about traffic–

Maybe haunting was not the same thing as being lost. 

💙

The first sign that something was wrong was not dramatic. No ominous phone call in the dead of night. No frantic voicemail. No catastrophe delivered with cinematic precision.

It was, instead, a text message. At 4:17PM. On a Wednesday. While Ilya was standing in his kitchen, still in partial practice gear, aggressively debating whether leftover pasta salad constituted an acceptable professional athlete dinner. 

His phone buzzed once against the marble countertop. He barely looked. Probably Ryan. Or maybe the team group chat. Or, God forbid, Denise trying to convince everyone to attend some deeply unnecessary sponsorship dinner. 

He reached over absently, still chewing. Then, he froze. Unknown Number. Not out of the ordinary. 

What was unusual was the country code. 

+7. 

For one strange, suspended second, his brain did not process it. It simply observed.

+7. 

Then–

Something old and instinctive dropped cold through his bloodstream. 

Not fear exactly. Not yet.

Recognition.

The kind the body makes before the mind catches up. 

He stared.

The kitchen around him– the expensive appliances, the soft hum of the refrigerator, the low autumn light through the windows– suddenly felt too modern. Too safe. Like scenery built around an older life that had just, impossibly, found his address. 

His mouth had gone dry. 

From the living room, Shane called:

“Babe, are you going to get groceries tomorrow? There’s a new protein pasta I want to try.” 

Ilya didn’t answer.

His thumb moved before he fully chose to let it. The message opened.

Здравствуйте, Илья.

Hello, Ilya. 

His stomach clenched so hard it almost hurt. 

The Russian was formal. Careful. Not his brother. Not spam.

I am sorry to contact you this way.

My name is Anna.

I was married to Alexei. 

For a moment, nothing. No emotion. Just blank, stunned static. Like his brain had hit some ancient emergency switch and shut off all nonessential function. 

Alexei.

He had not said or heard his brother’s name in years.

Not because he’d forgotten. Forgetting would have been easier.

He had simply…sealed it. Like drywall over fire damage. Still there. Still real. Just hidden. 

His thumb trembled. Not visibly. But enough. 

Shane appeared in the kitchen doorway mid-sentence, then stopped immediately. Because Shane, after all these years, had learned the difference between Ilya being quiet and Ilya being gone. 

“...Ilya?”

He looked up slowly. 

Shane’s expression changed at once. Not panic. Not yet. But alert. 

“What happened?” 

Ilya opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

That, more than anything, made Shane move. He crossed the kitchen in seconds, all humor gone, stepping close enough for warmth but not touch– not until invited. 

“What is it?”

Ilya turned the screen toward him. He watched, with a strange and distant sense of detachment, as Shane read. Watched the exact moment Shane’s face changed. Not because Shane knew Alexei personally; he didn’t. 

But he knew enough. Enough fractured stories. Enough flinching. Enough scars without visible bruises. 

“Oh,” Shane said softly. 

Just that. Oh. 

And somehow it was worse than if he’d said something bigger. 

Ilya looked back down. There was more.

Alexei died two weeks ago. 

I did not know how to find you before now. 

Two weeks. 

Two weeks. 

His brother had been dead for fourteen days, and the world had apparently continued spinning without consulting him. 

His lungs suddenly felt too small.

“How?” Shane asked carefully.

Ilya kept scrolling.

Cardiac event.

There were…complications.

I am sorry.

Complications.

What a sterile word. 

Complications could mean anything. Drugs. Violence. Suicide. Neglect.

He hated, instantly, viscerally, how quickly his brain supplied all possible answers. 

Then:

He spoke of you before he died.

That–

That was the line that did it.

Not loudly. No dramatic collapse.

Just a sharp, internal fissure. 

Because no.

No, absolutely not. 

His brother did not get to haunt him from beyond the grave with ambiguity. 

Spoke of him how? Cruelly? Regretfully? Drunkenly? As confession? As accusation? 

The room suddenly felt wrong. Too bright. Too sharp. 

Shane said something– his name, maybe– but it sounded far away. 

A memory surfaced, vicious and immediate:

Alexei at seventeen, sneering. 

You ruin everything you touch. 

Ilya blinked hard. 

Kitchen.

Ottawa.

Shane.

Now.

Not then.

He read on,

There are documents and personal effects that belong to your family. 

Your mother’s things.

Some of your father’s papers.

He kept them. 

His entire body went cold. Mother. 

No.

No, that was not–

He read the line again.

Your mother’s things.

He had spent years surviving the idea that most of her had vanished. 

Overdose. Funeral. Silence. His brother. Decay. 

He had built peace around absence.

And now–

Things? What things? Photos? Letters? Evidence? Proof? 

His hand shook harder. Shane reached for the phone gently. Not taking. Offering steadiness. 

“Ilya.” 

His voice was careful now. Low.

“Breathe.”

“I am breathing.” 

He wasn’t. Not properly. 

His chest felt locked. 

A familiar precursor. Not full panic. 

Worse, in this moment: the narrow corridor before it. 

Anna’s final message came through before he could stop it.

I know your life is different now.

I know Russia may not be safe for you.

I am not asking you to come back.

Something inside him cracked open at that. Because there it was. Said plainly. Not safe for you. 

No nationalism. No family fantasy. No false homecoming.

Just the truth. 

He left. He cannot return. 

But still– the dead can find you. 

Tears stung unexpectedly, which was infuriating because he did not know what emotion they belonged to. Grief? For Alexei? No. Absolutely not. For his childhood? Maybe. For the impossible, stupid, rotting fantasy that one day there might be an explanation? More likely. 

The next line:

But there are things here your brother wanted you to have. And one letter addressed to you. 

Silence. Complete silence.

Shane went very still beside him.

Ilya’s voice, when it finally emerged, did not sound like his own. 

“I think I am going to throw up.” 

Shane moved instantly. Not overreacting. Not fixing. Just there. 

“Okay,” he said, already guiding him toward a chair. “Okay. Sit down.” 

Ilya sat because standing had abruptly become theoretical. He stared at the phone like it was a live grenade. 

A letter.

His brother–

Alexei–

The man who had made survival feel like trespassing–

Had written him a letter.

“No,” Ilya whispered.

Shane crouched in front of him. “You do not have to do anything right now.” 

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Because he did.

Not immediately. 

Not today.

But eventually? He did. 

He could ignore many things. A country. A grave. A bloodline.

But not this. 

Not his mother. Not the possibility that buried inside whatever box Anna was offering was some missing piece of himself he had spent nineteen years bleeding around. 

Shane took his freezing hands. “Ilya.” 

Dark eyes. Steady. Present. 

“You are here.”

And because his body was rapidly forgetting that, Shane repeated it. “You are here.” 

Kitchen. Counter. Husband. Now. 

Not locked bedroom doors. 

Not Moscow winters.

Not Alexei.

Here.

Ilya inhaled once. Shuddered. 

Then again.

And again.

Finally:

“What if I do not want to know?”

It was barely audible. A child’s question in a grown man’s body.

Shane’s expression broke in that tiny, terrible way reserved only for the deepest wounds. 

“Then,” Shane said quietly, “you do not have to know all at once.”

And there it was.

Not bravery. Not closure. Just the unbearable beginning. 

On the counter between them, Ilya’s phone buzzed once more. 

I am sorry, Ilya.

For all of it. 

He stared at that message for a very long time.

Then, with trembling fingers and nineteen years of ghosts pressing at his spine–

He typed back.

Tell me everything. 

💙

The package arrived six days later.

Not because international shipping was efficient, but because grief, apparently, enjoyed dramatic timing.

Ilya found it waiting in the lobby when he returned from practice. Brown paper. Foreign postage. Too small to contain a life. Too large to ignore. 

For one irrational second, he considered leaving it there. Going upstairs. Taking a shower. Letting Shane complain about the power play over takeout containers while the box sat downstairs untouched and unknowable. Because as long as it remained sealed, it could still be theoretical. Not memory. Not proof. Not him. Just cardboard. 

The concierge smiled sympathetically when handing it over. “Package for you, Mr. Hollander-Rozanov.”

The name nearly undid him. Not because he disliked it. The opposite, actually. Because it represented everything he had chosen: Love. Safety. Visibility. A future.

And now he was carrying all of that upstairs with a package from the country that had once taught him he deserved none of it. 

By the time he unlocked the condo door, his pulse was already wrong. Too fast. Too loud.

Shane looked up immediately from the kitchen island, where he was halfway through chopping vegetables with the kind of aggressive focus he usually reserved for playoff overtime. His eyes dropped to the box. Then back to Ilya.

“Oh,” he said quietly. 

Not fear. Recognition.

The condo suddenly felt smaller. The package sat between them on the counter like an unexploded device. Neither touched it. 

For a while, Shane resumed chopping vegetables with exaggerated concentration while Ilya stood motionless by the sink pretending his nervous system wasn’t actively trying to flee his body.

The knife hit the cutting board in steady, rhythmic taps. Normal sounds. Domestic sounds. Ilya clung to them. 

Finally:

“You do not have to open it tonight.” 

Shane said it casually. Gently. Like offering an exit instead of a command. Which, unfortunately, only made Ilya want to cry.

“I know.”

“You could wait.”

“I know.”

“You could even throw it into the river.”

That startled the faintest huff of laughter out of him. 

“Very environmentally conscious.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Silence again. The box remained there. Waiting. 

Eventually, Shane set the knife down. 

“Ilya.”

He looked up. Shane leaned one hip against the counter, expression careful. 

“You keep staring at it like its going to bite you.”

“It might.”

“Fair.”

God.

He hated how easy Shane made breathing feel sometimes. 

Ilya rubbed both hands over his face slowly. “I do not…” he exhaled sharply. “I do not know what I want to be inside.”

That, he realized immediately after saying it, was the real horror of it. Not knowing. Because possibility was crueler than certainty. 

A letter. An apology. Evidence. Nothing. Everything. 

His mother’s belongings. His brother’s final words.

Nineteen years of absence compressed into one taped cardboard box. 

Shane crossed the kitchen quietly. Not touching yet. Just close. 

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

And there it was again.

That awful, tender thing. 

Not rescue. Presence.

Ilya swallowed hard. Then nodded once. 

Shane grabbed scissors from the drawer. The sound of tape splitting open felt bizarrely loud. Like something surgical. Deliberate. Final.

Ilya’s chest tightened with every careful movement. When the flaps finally opened, neither spoke. 

Inside: Folders. Documents. A smaller wooden box. Several photographs bundled with elastic. And one envelope. 

ИЛЬЯ

Ilya. 

Written in uneven block handwriting. Alexei’s. 

The sight of it hit like blunt force. 

Suddenly–

He was nine again. Watching Alexei slam cabinets hard enough to crack hinges. 

Twelve, standing silently in hospital fluorescent lighting while his brother chain-smoked outside.

Fourteen, hearing: You are weak like her. 

His stomach lurched violently. 

“I need–”

He barely got the words out before Shane moved. 

Bathroom. Cold tile. Knees hitting the floor. 

Nothing came up except air and panic. 

His entire body shook.

Not dramatic sobbing. Not cinematic grief. 

Just raw physiological overload. 

Behind him, Shane knelt immediately, one hand steady between his shoulder blades.

“I’ve got you,” Shane said softly. 

Ilya braced both hands against the toilet seat, breathing hard through his nose. Humiliation burned hot beneath his skin. 

“This is stupid.”

“No,” Shane said instantly. 

“It is cardboard.”

“It’s your family.”

The word landed badly. Family. As if that word still belonged to him. 

Ilya laughed once, sharp and ugly. 

“No,” he whispered. “It was survival.”

The bathroom went quiet. Shane’s hand remained warm against his back. Not forcing. Not soothing him like a child. Just there.

Eventually, Ilya sat back against the bathtub, exhausted already in that specific emotional way that made his limbs feel full of wet sand. Shane sat beside him on the tile floor without complaint. 

For a while, neither spoke.

Then:

“Do you want me to read it first?”

Ilya looked over.

“The latter?”

Shane nodded carefully.

“So you don’t have to if it’s…” He trailed off. “Bad.”

And wasn’t that the terrifying thing?

It could be cruel. Or apologetic. Or manipulative. Or loving.

Somehow, loving felt worst of all.

Because, if Alexei had loved him even a little–

Then what had all that suffering been for?

Ilya shut his eyes briefly.

“I don’t know.”

It slipped out unintentionally. A small thing. But Shane noticed. He always noticed.

“Okay,” Shane said quietly. “Then we don’t decide yet.” 

But the problem with ghosts was that once they entered the room, they rarely stayed patient. 

An hour later, the box was still open on the kitchen counter. The envelope remained untouched. Ilya had managed exactly one photograph. Only one. He held it now with trembling fingers.

The image was old and slightly warped from age.

Three boys in oversized winter coats standing on dirty snow outside a Soviet skating rink.

Alexei. Another neighborhood kid. And Ilya himself, tiny and unsmiling, clutching secondhand skates against his chest. He looked…so serious. Too serious. Children were not supposed to look like that.

Shane stood behind him silently reading over his shoulder. 

“That’s your first pair?” he asked softly. 

Ilya nodded once. “They were too big.” 

The memory surfaced immediately despite himself. Newspaper stuffed into the toes. Wet socks. Frozen fingers. His mother laughing weakly from the stands because he kept falling down. 

The memory hurt. 

Not because it was bad.

Because it wasn’t. 

That was the unbearable part. 

Not all of it had been terrible. 

His mother had loved him. 

She had been sick and broken and inconsistent and sometimes frightening, but she had loved him. 

And Alexei–

God.

Alexei had once taught him how to tape a hockey stick.

Before the drinking. Before the rage. Before grief hollowed him into something sharp. 

People become monsters so gradually sometimes. 

That was the terrifying thing.

Ilya set the photograph down carefully.

His chest hurt. 

Shane watched him for a long moment. 

Then:

“You don’t have to hate him correctly.”

Ilya blinked. “What?” 

Shane leaned against the counter beside him. 

“You don’t have to have the perfect response.” His voice stayed quiet. “You can hate what he did and still be upset he’s dead. You can miss parts of him. You can love him. You can wish he never existed.” A pause. “Those things can all happen at the same time.”

Tears burned instantly behind Ilya’s eyes. 

Because depression loved certainty. Loved absolutes. Monster. Victim. Good. Bad. 

But grief–

Grief was uglier. 

Grief let terrible people remain human. 

And human things were harder to survive. 

Ilya stared at the envelope again.

His name looked wrong in Alexei’s handwriting. Too intimate. Too familiar. 

Finally, voice barely audible:

“I think if I open it…” He swallowed hard. “Everything will become real.”

Shane looked at him with that devastating steadiness Ilya still did not fully know how to survive.

“It already is,” he said gently.

And that–

That was the cruelest thing anyone had said all week.

Because he was right.

Alexei was dead. 

Russia still existed.

His childhood still happened.

And somewhere inside a cardboard box on an Ottawa kitchen counter–

The past was waiting to be read. 

💙

Three days after the box arrived, the envelope still sat unopened on the kitchen counter. Not untouched. Ilya had moved it six separate times. From counter to table. Table to bookshelf. Bookshelf back to counter again. As if changing its location might somehow alter its contents. It didn’t. 

Alexei’s handwriting still stared back at him every morning over coffee. 

ИЛЬЯ.

Sharp block letters. Uncomfortably familiar.

The rest of the box had proven worse. Not catastrophic. Not explosive. Just…invasive.

Grief, Ilya was discovering, rarely entered dramatically.  

It unpacked itself quietly into every room of your life. 

The photographs were bad enough. 

The documents were worse. 

Most of them were official: medical records, death certificates, old state paperwork, housing documents, bank notices. Fragments of a family translated into bureaucracy. 

Shane sat across from him at the dining table now, laptop open beside a stack of papers, reading carefully through another scanned document Anna had emailed overnight. Outside, rain pressed softly against the condo windows. Inside, everything felt too still.

“...okay,” Shane said cautiously, eyes narrowing at the page. “I think this one’s about your dad’s medical care?” 

Ilya nodded absently. He hadn’t actually read most of them himself yet. That was the problem. The Russian felt too immediate. English created distance. Translation created space.

But Russian–

Russian slid directly beneath his skin.

Every sentence felt remembered instead of read. 

He stared instead at a faded photograph spread flat against the table. His mother sat on a narrow apartment balcony, cigarette between her fingers, smiling at someone outside the frame.

At him, probably. Maybe.

She looked young. Younger than Ilya was now. 

That realization had unsettled him so profoundly he’d had to leave the room afterward.

“You okay?”

Shane’s voice again. Always gentle lately. Too gentle. 

Ilya hated that part most. The carefulness. 

Not because Shane was doing anything wrong, but because it meant the shift was becoming visible. 

Depression, he thought bitterly, announced itself through softness. People lowered their voices. Watched him too closely. Asked if he was okay like the answer might break. 

“I am fine.” 

Shane glanced up. 

The silence that followed was deeply marital.

“You literally haven’t slept.”

“I slept.”

“You stared at the ceiling for four hours.”

Ilya looked away.

Rainwater streaked down the windows in crooked lines. 

His reflection looked tired. Not alarming. Not dramatic. Just…diminished somehow. Like someone had quietly turned the brightness down on him.

“I forgot to take my meds yesterday,” he admitted finally. 

Shane’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Not judgment. Concern. Which was worse. 

“Okay,” Shane said carefully. 

“I took them today.”

“Good.”

Silence again.

Shane returned to the paperwork, deliberately casual. No lecture. No panic. No “you need to–” 

Just space. 

That should have comforted him. 

Instead, shame curled hotter beneath his ribs. Because the worst part of the episodes wasn’t misery. It was recognition. The awful moment where your own mind begins feeling familiar in the wrong ways again. The heaviness. The numbness. The strange distance from yourself. Like watching your life through thick glass.

Ilya rubbed tiredly at his eyes. 

The table was cluttered now: translated documents, old photographs, paper clips, hospital forms, Russian handwriting looping across yellowed pages.

An entire dead life spread across their dining room.

Shane suddenly went still. Not dramatically. Just enough.

Ilya looked up immediately. “What?”

Shane hesitated.

That hesitation alone made dread bloom instantly in Ilya’s chest.

“What?”

“It’s…” Shane frowned at the page. “I think this is about your mom.”

Everything inside Ilya tightened. The room seemed to narrow.

“What about her?”

Shane read silently for another second. Then slower: “She entered therapy.”

Silence. 

Rain against glass.

Fridge humming softly.

Heartbeat suddenly too loud. 

Ilya blinked once.

“No.”

Shane looked up carefully.

“It says she checked into treatment six months before she died.”

“No,” Ilya repeated, sharper now.

Because that– that could not be right.

His mother had overdosed. His mother had spiraled. His mother had disappeared into exhaustion and grief and chemicals and sickness. 

But therapy implied something unbearable. Trying. Trying implied hope. And hope made the ending crueler. 

“Ilya–”

“She never told me.”

His own voice sounded strange to him. Young. Not young in sound. Young in feeling. Twelve years old again, sitting outside locked bedroom doors trying to understand adult suffering with a child’s brain.

Shane shut the laptop immediately. “I can stop.” 

“No.” 

Too fast. Too desperate. 

Because suddenly he needed to know everything immediately before courage evaporated. 

“Keep going.”

Shane watched him carefully. Then nodded once. 

“There are intake notes,” he said quietly. “Mostly medical.”

Ilya stared hard at the tabletop. His pulse pounded unevenly now.

“What else?”

Another pause. Then:

“She listed you.”

His breath caught. 

Shane’s voice softened further.

“As motivation for recovery.” 

Something inside him gave way silently. Not collapse. Not crying. Worse. A kind of internal folding. As though grief had reached into his ribcage and gently turned twelve-year-old Ilta toward the light at last.

He felt suddenly nauseous.

Because for nineteen years he had remembered her death as inevitability. Depression. Damage. Tragedy. End. 

But trying–

Trying changed everything. 

“She wanted to stay,” he whispered.

The realization devastated him instantly. Not because it fixed anything. Because it didn’t. Because she still died. Still overdosed. Still left him.

But now there existed evidence that somewhere inside all that sickness, she had wanted to survive. 

Tears blurred the photograph in front of him.

His mother smiling on the balcony. Young. Tired. Alive. 

“Oh,” Shane said softly. 

Ilya wiped at his face angrily. Humiliating. Stupid. 

He wasn’t even sure what he was grieving anymore. His mother? His childhood? The possibility that she had loved him harder than he’d allowed himself to believe?

Shane moved quietly around the table. No sudden touch. Just warmth settling beside him. 

“Ilya.”

And there it was again.

That terrible gentleness. 

It almost hurt more than the documents did. 

“I don’t…” Ilya swallowed hard. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

“You don’t have to know yet.”

“But it changes things.”

“Yes.”

The honesty of that nearly undid him.

Shane looked down at the paperwork spread across the table.

“Maybe,” he said carefully, “not everything. But some things.”

Ilya laughed once, broken around the edges.

“I was the reason she was so strong. That she held on so long.”

Shane’s face tightened, small, beautiful smile painting his expression.

“I know.”

But knowing intellectually and believing emotionally were entirely different species of understanding. 

The rain outside intensified.

The room darkened slowly into evening.

And somewhere between the paperwork, the photographs, and the language he thought he’d left behind–

Ilya could feel it happening.

The shift. Not sudden. Not dramatic.

Just the old sadness quietly finding familiar entrances again.

Like water slipping beneath a locked door. 

💙

The panic attack began in the detergent aisle. Not dramatically. No sudden collapse. No cinematic flashback. No visible unraveling. Just– a smell. 

Ilya reached automatically for fabric softener while half-listening to Shane debate pasta brands beside him, and suddenly the world tilted sideways. 

Lavender. 

Cheap lavender. Artificial. Powdery-sweet.

His hand froze midair. Every muscle in his body locked instantly. 

Because no. 

No, no no–

Not here.

The grocery store remained painfully ordinary around him. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. A toddler crying somewhere near produce. Shopping carts rattling against tile.

But underneath all of it–

Lavender.

His mother’s perfume.

Not expensive. Not elegant. Something bought years ago from a discount pharmacy because it was cheap and strong enough to hide cigarette smoke. 

For one fractured second, Ilya was no longer thirty-one years old in Ottawa beside his husband. He was twelve. Small. Cold. Standing outside a locked bedroom door while synthetic lavender seeped beneath the frame. 

His pulse slammed violently against his ribs. 

Not now. 

He swallowed hard.

The aisle suddenly looked wrong. Too bright. Too narrow. 

“Ilya?”

Shane’s voice was too far away.

He blinked rapidly. The bottle in his hand slipped slightly against suddenly numb fingers. 

Lavender.

God.

He could smell the house now. Not the grocery store. The house.

Stale smoke. Chemical sweetness. Vodka. Winter radiator heat.

His chest constricted painfully. 

Breathe. 

He knew this. Knew what this was. Galina had explained grounding techniques a hundred times. 

Five things you can see. Four things you can touch.

But trauma was humiliating because knowledge and survival were not always the same thing.

“Ilya.” 

Closer now. Concern sharpening Shane’s voice. 

He looked up too fast. The fluorescent lights blurred. Wrong. Everything was wrong.

“I need–”

Air. Bathroom. Exit. Anything. 

His lungs refused to cooperate. 

Shane moved immediately, no hesitation. One hand steady at Ilya’s elbow while guiding him gently backward out of the aisle. 

“It’s okay,” Shane said quietly. 

The phrase nearly made him angry. Not because Shane meant it badly. Because it wasn’t okay. That was the terrifying thing. Nothing had happened. No disaster. No emergency. Just laundry detergent and memory and suddenly his body had decided they were all the same thing. People passed them without noticing. That somehow made it worse.

Ilya concentrated desperately on movement. Walking. Breathing. Shane’s hand warm against his sleeve. Present. Present. Present. 

The automatic doors slid open. Cold October air hit his face sharply enough to sting. He bent forward immediately, bracing both hands against his knees. His breathing had turned ragged now. Too fast. Too shallow. 

Shit.

Not full panic. Not yet. But close enough that fear itself began feeding it. 

“Ilya, look at me.” 

Shane’s voice remained steady. Grounded. 

Ilya shook his head once instinctively. He couldn’t. Because if he looked at Shane right now– really looked– he might start crying in the middle of a grocery store parking lot like a fucking child. 

The humiliation of that nearly outweighed the panic itself. 

“I’m fine,” he managed. A blatant lie.

Shane ignored it expertly.

“Okay,” he said calmly. “Can you tell me where you are?” 

Ilya laughed once, breathless and miserable. 

“You know where we are.” 

“I know,” Shane said softly. “Tell me anyway.”

God.

Galina had taught him that.

The realization nearly undid him. Parking lot. Cold air. Traffic humming nearby. 

Not Moscow. Not childhood. Not then. 

His throat tightened painfully.

“Ottawa,” he whispered.

“Good.”

Shane stayed close but not crowding. 

“Who am I?”

That actually irritated him enough to cut briefly through the panic. “You are unbelievably boring.”

A tiny smile flickered across Shane’s face.

“Okay, uncalled for, but continue.” 

Ilya shut his eyes hard. 

“My husband.”

The word grounded and wounded simultaneously. Because suddenly all he could think about was this: I am ruining this. The grocery trips. The ordinary life. The marriage.

Every good thing eventually became contaminated by his brain. 

The thought hit with brutal familiarity. Depression didn’t always scream. Sometimes it simply translated every difficult moment into proof of personal failure. 

His breathing finally began slowing in uneven increments. Not fixed. Just survivable again.

Shane waited quietly beside him through all of it. No embarrassment. No rushing. No pretending this wasn’t happening. 

When Ilya finally straightened, exhausted already, shame settled heavily beneath his skin.

“I am sorry.”

Shane’s expression shifted immediately. 

“For what?”

“This.” He gestured vaguely. The parking lot. His body. His existence. “All of it.” 

Understanding flickered across Shane’s face then. And somehow that made the shame worse. 

Shane stepped closer carefully.

“Ilya.” 

Dangerous tone. Soft. 

“I need you to listen to me for a second.” 

Ilya looked away immediately. Which unfortunately did not stop Shane Hollander from continuing to exist. 

“You had a trauma response,” Shane said evenly. “You did not fail at grocery shopping.”

The hysterical edge of a laugh almost escaped him.

“That is not how it feels.”

“I know.”

And there it was again. Not fixing. Not minimizing. Just knowing. 

The wind lifted Shane’s hair slightly. Cars moved around them. People carried grocery bags across the lot. The entire world continued normally while Ilya stood there feeling flayed open by fabric softener.

“I hate this,” he admitted quietly. 

Shane’s face tightened. 

“The panic attacks?”

“No.” Ilya swallowed hard. “Remembering.”

Silence.

Then, softer:

“I worked so hard not to.”

And wasn’t that the truth underneath everything?

Leaving Russia had not simply been escape. 

It had been burial. Language buried. Memories buried. Family buried. 

He had built an entire life on the assumption that distance could function as healing if maintained aggressively enough. Now all it took was lavender perfume for twelve-year-old Ilya to claw his way back to the surface. 

Shane stepped in front of him fully now. Not blocking. Anchoring.

“You know what I think?” he said quietly.

Ilya exhaled shakily. 

“What?”

“I think you survived by forgetting.”

The words landed hard. 

“Which makes sense,” Shane continued carefully. “But maybe now your brain thinks you’re finally safe enough to remember.” 

Ilya stared at him. Because that– that was almost worse. The idea that safety itself had unlocked this. That loving Shane, building a home, getting married, becoming stable, had not erased the ghosts. Only made room for them to speak. 

His eyes burned suddenly. 

“I do not want them here.”

Shane looked wrecked for exactly half a second before smoothing it away. 

“I know.”

Then, after a pause:

“But you’re not there anymore.”

And God. That was the problem, wasn’t it?

Because logically, rationally, physically, he knew that. Adult Ilya knew that.

But trauma was cruel because the body did not care about chronology. The body only cared about survival.

Shane reached up slowly. Gave Ilya enough time to pull away. When he didn’t, Shane cupped the side of his face gently, thumb brushing cold skin beneath his eye. 

“You’re here,” Shane said softly. The same words from the kitchen days ago. A tether now. “You’re here with me.”

Ilya closed his eyes. Cold air. Traffic. Shane’s hand. Wedding ring pressing faintly against his skin. 

Here. Not there. Here. 

Eventually, shakily:

“I think we should leave the groceries.”

Shane blinked once. Then nodded gravely. 

“Honestly,” he said, “this feels like a great excuse to order takeout.” 

That startled a broken laugh out of him.

“There is ice cream in cart.”

“Devastating.”

“Chocolate also.”

“Well now we have to go back in. Recovery is important.”

Ilya rolled his eyes automatically. The motion itself felt like survival. Not cured. Not healed. Just– momentarily returned to himself.

Beside him, Shane squeezed his hand once before leading him slowly toward the car.

And somewhere deep beneath the panic, beneath the grief, beneath the old poisoned memories– Ilya realized something terrifying. 

The ghosts were getting louder. 

💙

Morning came anyway. 

That was the irritating thing about depressive episodes. They rarely arrived with cinematic courtesy. No collapse. No obvious breaking point. Just the slow realization that ordinary tasks had quietly become heavier. 

Ilya woke up before his alarm, not rested. Just finished pretending to sleep. 

Beside him, Shane was still sprawled diagonally across the bed in violation of several unspoken marital agreements, one arm stretched across Ilya’s waist. Warm. Heavy. Safe.

Ilya stared at the ceiling. 

Three hours. Maybe four. He’d lost count somewhere around two-thirty when his brain had started replaying Russian words against his will. 

Therapy.

Motivation for recovery.

She tried.

Alexei is dead. 

He turned his head slowly toward the nightstand, prescription bottle still there. He took the pill dry before his brain could negotiate otherwise. 

Progress. Maybe.

His chest still felt hollow.

From beside him:

“You’re awake.”

Shane’s voice was rough with sleep. 

“Unfortunately.”

One eye opened.

“You sleep?”

“Enough.” 

Lie.

The tiny crease between Shane’s eyebrows deepened, then disappeared. He was learning too. When to push. When not to.

“Practice day,” Shane mumbled.

“I know.”

Neither moved.

Eventually Shane pressed a sleepy kiss against his shoulder. 

“You smell like laundry detergent trauma.”

Ilya groaned.

“Never say those words again.”

“Sorry. Fabric softener sadness.”

“Worse.”

A tiny smile. Brief. Gone quickly. 

By the time they reached the rink, Ilya had already decided something important:

Today would be normal. 

Not because he felt normal.

Because he needed proof he still could. 

The locker room buzzed with the usual chaos. Music too loud. Tape ripping. Someone arguing about fantasy football. 

Ordinary.

Thank God.

“Rozanov!” Zane tossed him a water bottle. “You alive? You look like shit.”

Perfect. Normal.

“I never look like shit. You look like shit.”

“There’s our captain.”

Laughter. Good. Keep moving. Keep talking. Keep functioning. 

The dangerous thing about depressive episodes wasn’t always sadness. Sometimes it was distance.

Ilya dressed mechanically. Pads. Tape. Skates. His body knew the sequence better than his brain did. 

Across the room, Shane watched him intermittently, subtle enough nobody else noticed, yet obvious enough that Ilya did.

Coach Wiebe started drills. Ilya moved. 

And that was the weird part. 

His body still worked. Crossovers smooth, passing sharp, shot placement accurate. 

Externally, nothing was wrong. 

Internally, everything muffled. 

The rink lights reflected off the ice too brightly. Voices sounded slightly delayed. 

He felt trapped behind himself.

Halfway through drills, Coach Wiebe blew the whistle. 

“Rozanov!” Ilya looked up immediately. “You with us?”

Shit. Too slow.

“Yeah.”

Coach Wiebe frowned.

“You missed the rotation.”

Did he? He genuinely couldn’t remember. Embarrassing.

“Sorry.”

A strange look crossed Coach Wiebe’s face. Concern, maybe. Then it disappeared.

“Lock in.”

Ilya nodded.

Lock in. Right. Simple. 

Except concentration had become slippery lately. Thoughts kept catching. Russian words surfacing uninvited. His mother’s face. The unopened envelope. Lavender. 

Halfway through scrimmage, Shane skated beside him during a line change. “You good?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

A beat. 

“You’ve said six words all morning.”

Ilya adjusted his gloves.

“I am conserving energy.”

Shane looked unconvinced, unfortunately.

Practice ended. Everyone filtered toward the locker room. Ordinary chatter. Ordinary exhaustion.

Ilya sat slowly at his stall. His gear suddenly felt unbearably heavy. Sweat cooled against his skin. His chest ached with a strange emptiness he couldn’t explain. Not sadness. Not exactly. 

Absence. 

Like someone had quietly removed his ability to connect to things. 

He stared down at his hands. Tape residue stuck to his fingers. 

Across from him, teammates laughed at something. The sound felt far away. 

“You forgot your phone.”

Shane stood beside him now, holding it out. Ilya blinked. Right. He had. Weird. 

Shane crouched slightly; too close now for pretending. “You clocked out twice during practice.”

“I was practicing.” 

“You were somewhere else.”

Ilya looked away. There it was. The problem. 

Because Shane wasn’t wrong. He had been somewhere else. Not Russia. Not memory exactly. Just… nowhere. Which somehow scared him more.

“I’m okay,” he said quietly. 

Shane was silent. Then:

“Okay.”

Not agreement. Storage. Shane was storing the information away. That frightened Ilya too. Because Shane noticing meant this was becoming visible. And visible things became real.

On the drive home, rain streaked softly against the windshield. Neither of them talked much. Not uncomfortable. Just tired. 

At a stoplight, Shane finally spoke. “You know what worries me?”

Ilya looked over. Shane kept his eyes on traffic.

“You’re working really hard to act normal.”

His stomach dropped slightly. Because yes. Exactly. That was the point.

Shane exhaled slowly.

“And usually when you work this hard at normal, it means things are getting bad.”

The light turned green. Cars moved. Life continued.

Ilya stared out the window. Buildings blurred past. His reflection looked unfamiliar again. Diminished. Muted. Not broken. Not yet. Just quieter in the wrong ways. 

His fingers found his wedding ring automatically. Twisting once. Twice.

Finally:

“I do not know how to do this without functioning.”

Shane’s grip tightened slightly on the steering wheel. Then loosened. 

“You don’t have to stop disfunctioning,” he said quietly. 

A pause.

“I just want you here while you do it.” 

Ilya looked down. Rain. Traffic. Home somewhere ahead. 

And beneath the exhaustion, beneath the grief, beneath the steadily growing fog, a thought surfaced that frightened him more than panic attacks had.

He could still do everything correctly and still be getting worse. 

💙

The first phone call came Tuesday. Ilya watched it ring, but didn’t answer.

The second came Thursday. He silenced it.

By Sunday, Anna had called four times. He had stopped opening the notifications. Avoidance, as it turned out, was easiest when performed in increasingly smaller increments. 

Do not answer. Do not listen. Do not translate. Do not feel. Simple. Mostly.

The problem was that ignored things rarely stayed quiet. 

By the second week after the grocery store incident, Alexei’s box had permanently migrated to the far end of the dining table. Not hidden. Just relocated. Like a difficult relative at a wedding. 

The envelope remained unopened. The translated paperwork remained stacked. His mother’s photograph still sat face-down where he’d left it three days ago. Shane hadn’t moved any of it.

That somehow made it worse.

Ilya sat at the kitchen island now, scrolling mindlessly through hockey clips he wasn’t absorbing while cold coffee sat untouched beside him. 

His phone buzzed again. 

+7

His stomach tightened instantly. Anna. Again. 

He flipped the phone over. Problem solved.

Except it wasn’t. 

Because now he could still hear it vibrating faintly against the countertop. 

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

Then silence.

Across the room, Shane looked up from the couch.

“You gonna answer?”

“No.”

Too fast.

Shane noticed. Of course.

“You don’t have to,” Shane said carefully.

Ilya stared at the dark screen. “I know.”

Silence stretched.

Rain tapped softly against the condo windows. It had rained constantly lately. Or maybe he’d only started noticing. 

Finally Shane muted the television. Which was dangerous, because muted televisions meant conversation. 

“You want to tell me why not?”

Ilya looked down at his now cold coffee. He’d forgotten to drink it. 

“I do not know what she wants.”

“You kind of do.”

Yes. That was the problem. He did. Papers. Questions. Funeral details. Family stories. Responsibility. Connection. All the things he had spent years carefully removing from his life. 

His phone buzzed again, this time a message. He didn’t open it. He couldn’t. Because what if it contained something irreversible? Or worse, what if it contained kindness? That possibility frightened him most. 

“I think…” he stopped before starting again. “I think if I answer, then I become part of it.”

Shane stayed quiet. So Ilya kept going. Words had been doing that lately. Escaping when he least wanted them to.

“My brother dies and suddenly there are papers and relatives and phone calls and–” He swallowed hard. “And I left.” 

There it was. The thing beneath the thing. 

Shane leaned forward slightly. “You survived.”

“I left.”

The correction came sharper. Survival implied heroism. Leaving had often felt uglier. More selfish. 

“I married you,” Ilya continued quietly. “I built this life. I knew what that meant.” 

Russia gone. Family mostly gone. Language shrinking. Doors closing. 

He had accepted the trade years ago. Hadn’t he? 

His phone buzzed once more. Then stopped. Shane watched him carefully. 

“You know what I think?”

Ilya rubbed tiredly at his eyes.

“What?” 

“I think you’re acting like answering means choosing between lives.”

The words landed unpleasantly close to truth. Because yes. Exactly. One phone call felt capable of collapsing two versions of himself together. 

Twelve-year-old Ilya. Thirty-one-year-old Ilya. Russian son. Canadian husband. Traumatized kid. Professional athlete. Survivor. Exile. Too many people to fit inside one body.

He looked again at the phone. Still dark. Still silent. Waiting. 

“I cannot do it tonight.” 

Shane nodded immediately. “Okay.” No disappointment. No pushing. Just okay. 

Relief hurt unexpectedly. 

A few minutes later, Shane stood and moved into the kitchen.

“You should eat.”

“Not hungry.”

“You’ve said that three meals in a row.”

Ilya looked away. Shane sighed softly. Not frustrated. Worried. Somehow worse.

While Shane heated leftovers, Ilya finally turned his phone back over. 

One unread message from Anna.

He opened it before courage disappeared.

I am sorry to keep contacting you. Your niece wants to speak with you. 

His chest tightened. His niece. Not paperwork. Not bureaucracy. A child. 

Somewhere in Russia, a child connected to Alexei existed. Wanted something from him. Wanted him. The thought settled heavily in his ribs. 

Across the kitchen, Shane set a plate down quietly. 

“Ilya?”

He looked up slowly. His voice came out smaller than intended. “I think it is getting harder.”

Shane crossed the room immediately. Not fixing. Not solving. Just arriving. And for tonight–

That would have to be enough. 

💙

The missed therapy appointment happened accidentally. At first. 

Galina’s office called at 2:13PM. Ilya saw the notification at 4:47. Three missed calls. One voicemail. One text reminder from Shane:

therapy today btw

He stared at his phone for a long time. Then looked around the condo. Coffee mug on the table; unwashed breakfast dishes; half-finished documentary paused on the television; blanket around his shoulders.

Right.

He had meant to leave. At some point. 

The realization should have alarmed him more than it did. Mostly, he just felt tired.

By the time Shane came home, darkness had already swallowed the windows. Not late darkness. Winter darkness. The kind that arrived too early and stayed too long. 

Shane stopped in the doorway immediately. Because the apartment looked wrong. Not dirty. Wrong. 

Lights off. Curtains closed. Dinner untouched. Ilya sitting exactly where Shane had left him eight hours earlier. 

“You okay?”

The question had become routine lately. That scared Ilya. 

He muted the television. He hadn’t actually been watching it. 

“Fine.”

Shane’s eyes moved around the room once. Then landed on him again. 

“You missed therapy.”

Not accusatory. Just factual. Which was worse somehow. 

“I forgot.”

Shane set his keys down carefully. “You’ve never forgotten before.”

Ilya shrugged. The motion felt expensive. Everything did lately. Showering. Texting people back. Deciding what to eat. Choosing clothes. Tiny tasks had become negotiations.

Shane stood quietly for a second. 

Then:

“When did you last eat?”

Dangerous question. Because Ilya genuinely wasn’t sure. Lunch? Yesterday? He frowned slightly. Shane noticed.

“Oh.”

Just one word. Soft. Concerned. Devastating. 

Later, while Shane cooked because otherwise neither of them would eat, Ilya stood in the kitchen pretending to help. He dried dishes slowly. Too slowly. 

At one point Shane handed him the same plate twice. He hadn’t noticed.

“You’re somewhere else again.”

Ilya set the plate down. “I am here.”

“You know what I mean.”

Yes. He did. Unfortunately. Because lately there had been moments– more and more moments– where existing felt strangely delayed. Like there was a three-second gap between himself and the world. 

He looked toward the dining table. The box remained there. The letter remained unopened. His mother’s photograph still leaned against the stack of documents, watching. Always watching now.

Shane followed his gaze. “Do you want to put it away?”

“No.” 

Too quick. 

Because if the box disappeared–

Wouldn’t that make Alexei disappear again too? Wouldn’t it mean losing his mother twice? 

Shane nodded slowly.

Okay. 

That night, medication sat untouched on the bathroom counter. Not intentionally. He simply forgot. Again. 

He realized at 1:08AM while staring at the ceiling. 

Beside him, Shane slept lightly now. Not because Shane was a light sleeper, but because worry changed people. 

Ilya turned onto his side carefully. His chest hurt. Not physically. The other way. The quieter way. The dangerous way.

He reached for his phone, opened his messages, scrolled. Stopped. 

Anna had texted earlier. He hadn’t replied.

Galina had emailed asking if he wanted to reschedule. He hadn’t replied. 

His niece still existed somewhere across the world waiting. He hadn’t replied. 

His thumb hovered uselessly. Then dropped. 

Too much. Everything felt like too much lately. 

💙

Practice the next morning was worse. 

Not catastrophic. Slightly worse. 

Which somehow frightened him more. 

He missed an easy pass. Forgot a drill sequence. Lost his helmet for ten minutes only to discover it beside his stall. 

His brain felt packed with cotton.

Coach Wiebe blew the whistle sharply. “Rozanov.”

Ilya looked up.

“You good?” 

There it was again. That question. Everywhere now.

“I’m fine.”

Coach Wiebe studied him briefly. Then nodded once. But not convincingly. 

After practice, Shane cornered him gently near the parking garage. Not literally, but emotionally.

“You forgot your helmet.”

“I found it.”

“You forgot your wallet yesterday.”

Silence.

“You missed therapy.”

More silence.

“You’re forgetting meds.”

Ilya’s stomach tightened. Because he hadn’t told Shane that. 

Shane answered the unasked question immediately. 

“You’ve moved the pill bottle three times this week.”

Right. Observant husband. Terrible feature. 

Cold air curled around them. Teammates filtered past toward their cars. Ordinary afternoon. Ordinary parking garage. 

Nothing about this conversation should have felt life-altering. 

But it did.

Because Shane looked scared now. Not panicked. Scared.

“You’re disappearing again,” Shane said quietly. 

The words hit harder than intended. Again. Not for the first time. Again.

Depression was cruel that way. Even recovery could not erase history. 

Ilya looked down at the concrete. “I know.” His voice came out almost inaudible. 

Shane’s expression shifted immediately. Because admission itself was unusual. Dangerous. Honest. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Ilya admitted. 

There. The truth. Not polished. Not brave. Just true. 

Shane moved closer. Not touching immediately. Giving him room. 

“You don’t have to figure it out alone.”

Ilya laughed quietly. Tiredly. 

A long silence stretched between them.

Then:

“I think,” Ilya said slowly, carefully, like handling glass, “I think I was okay when this was grief.”

Shane waited. 

“But now it feels familiar.”

And that–

That was the real fear. 

Not Alexei. 

Not Russia.

Not the documents.

The familiarity.

The awful realization that the fog returning felt recognizable. Like an old house he never wanted to live in again. 

Shane reached for his hand finally. Warm fingers. Wedding ring against wedding ring.

“Okay,” Shane said quietly. “What do we do now?”

Ilya stared at the ground. Then answered with the hardest sentence he’d said in weeks.

“I think I need Galina.”

And somewhere beneath the exhaustion–

Beneath the ghosts–

That felt like movement. 

💙

Galina’s office looked exactly the same, which irritated Ilya immediately. The lamp still glowed softly beside the bookshelf. Tea still smelled faintly like bergamot. The blanket folded over the armchair still existed despite his long-standing belief that therapy blankets were psychological warfare. 

Worst of all: Galina herself looked unsurprised. 

“You missed last week.”

No hello. No small talk. Just violence.

Ilya sat heavily on the couch. “Yes.”

She waited. He hated when she did that. 

“You are not going to yell at me?” 

Galina adjusted her glasses. “You are thirty-one years old.”

A pause.

“Yelling would be inefficient.”

Right. Of course.

He rubbed both hands together slowly. His wedding ring caught the lamplight. For a second he focused only on that. Metal. Weight. Present.

Galina watched quietly.

“How bad?”

Straight to it. Cruel woman.

Ilya looked toward the bookshelf instead. 

“Medium.”

She remained silent. He sighed.

“Bad.”

“How bad?”

The question irritated him instantly. Because what was the measurement scale here? He had showered today. He was still going to practice. He was eating when Shane reminded him. Mostly.

“I am functioning.”

Galina nodded once. “That was not my question.” 

There it was. The trap. Functioning had always been his favorite hiding place. He stared at the carpet. Words came slowly. 

“Everything feels difficult.”

Galina made a note. He hated the note.

“What does everything being difficult mean?”

“Everything.”

More silence. 

Annoying, strategic silence.

He exhaled sharply. 

“Thinking.” A pause. “Sleeping.” Another pause. “Answering texts.” He looked down. “Existing.”

Galina’s expression softened slightly. 

“Are you taking medication consistently?”

He hesitated, which answered enough for both of them.

“I forget.”

“How often?”

“Sometimes.”

“How often, Ilya?” 

He looked away. 

“Enough.”

The room settled around them quietly. Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows. It had rained for weeks. Or maybe his brain had simply decided weather and mood should collaborate. 

Galina set her notebook down.

“Tell me what scares you.”

That was easy enough. Everything. 

Instead he said:

“This feels familiar.”

There. The real thing. Not grief. Not Alexei. Not panic attacks. Familiarity. 

Galina nodded slowly. “As in depression?”

He swallowed.

“Yes.”

Saying it aloud felt dangerous. More real somehow. 

She leaned back slightly. “What does depression sound like right now?”

He almost laughed. Because she asked these questions like depression was a roommate. Like it had dialogue. 

Unfortunately–

It did.

“You are getting worse.”

The words came quietly.

Galina nodded once.

“What else?”

“You ruin things.”

Another pause. 

“You are exhausting Shane.”

That one hurt. He looked down quickly. Galina noticed immediately. Interesting. She made another note.

“Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

Fast. Too fast. 

He corrected: 

“Sometimes.”

Galina folded one leg over the other.

“Ilya.”

Dangerous tone. Gentle.

“Your husband loves you.”

“I know.”

“You are allowed to be difficult to love sometimes.”

His chest tightened unexpectedly. Because difficult had always felt synonymous with temporary. People loved you until you became inconvenient. 

His mother had disappeared into selfishness. His brother into rage. His father into illness. 

Love, historically, had not been especially durable. 

Galina seemed to read some version of that from his face.

“Depression isolates,” she said quietly. “It convinces you that withdrawal is kindness.”

His throat tightened. Because yes. Exactly. 

The past month suddenly rearranged itself:

Skipping therapy. Ignoring Anna. Ignoring messages. Sitting alone. Staying quiet. Performing fine. Protection. He had called it protection. 

Galina continued. “But isolation and safety are not the same thing.”

He stared at the floor.

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Small things.”

He almost rolled his eyes. Tiny solutions for catastrophic feelings. Classic therapy. 

Galina ignored the look. 

“You missed therapy. So you came back.”

A point.

“You forgot medication. So we make systems.”

Annoying but reasonable. 

“Your niece wants contact.”

His head snapped up.

There it was. The word. Niece. Not daughter-of-my-abusive brother. Not obligation. Niece.

Galina watched carefully. 

“You do not owe anyone access to you,” she said. 

Relief arrived immediately.

Then she continued:

“But avoiding connection because you are afraid of grief is different than choosing distance.” 

That landed unpleasantly hard.

Because maybe–

Maybe he had been acting like answering meant surrender. Like speaking to one child in Russia would somehow erase the life he built. 

Galina leaned forward slightly. 

“What would contact look like on your terms?”

He frowned.

“My terms?”

“Yes.”

Not Russia’s.

Not Alexei’s.

Not Anna’s. 

His. 

The question sat between them. Strange. Unfamiliar. 

Finally:

“Maybe…” He swallowed. “Messages first.”

Galina nodded. “Good.”

He looked down at his hands, still shaking slightly, but less. Interesting. 

“You know,” Galina said quietly, “when you first came to me, you described survival as disappearing.”

He blinked. Had he? Probably.

“That strategy kept you alive.”

A pause.

“It may not keep you healthy.”

The room went quiet. Not heavy. Just honest. 

Ilya stared at his wedding ring again. Then at the rain outside. Then finally back at Galina.

“I think I am tired.”

Galina’s expression softened.

“Yes,” she said gently. “I think you are too.”

For once, he didn’t argue. 

💙

The letter sat unopened for twenty-three days. Not because Ilya counted, but because Shane did. Quiet. Internally. Like one tracks weather systems.

Twenty-three days since the box. Twenty-three days since Alexei became dead instead of absent. Twenty-three days since grief moved into their condo and quietly rearranged the furniture. 

Tonight, though–

Tonight felt different. 

Not better. Just possible. 

Outside, snow pressed softly against the windows. First real snowfall of the year.

Inside, Shane stood at the stove making tea while Ilya sat at the kitchen table staring at the envelope. 

Still uneven handwriting. Still block letters. ИЛЬЯ.

His name looked wrong in Alexei’s handwriting. Too intimate.

“You don’t have to,” Shane reminded him gently from across the kitchen.

“I know.”

“You can stop halfway through.”

“I know.”

“You can also set it on fire.”

Ilya looked up. “You suggest arson often for someone with anxiety.”

Shane shrugged. “I contain multitudes.” 

A tiny smile. Brief. Gone. 

Ilya reached for the envelope before courage disappeared again. His hands still shook slightly. Less than before, but enough. The paper felt old. Cheap. Russian stationery with faint blue lines. 

His chest tightened immediately. He unfolded it slowly. 

The handwriting was worse inside. Uneven. Messier. As if written quickly. Or painfully. He started reading.

I do not know if Anna will find you. 

Pause. Breathe. Continue.

Maybe this letter leaves Russia. Maybe that is better. 

Already, irritation. Classic Alexei. Starting emotionally constipated. He kept reading.

You will hate hearing from me. You should.

His throat tightened unexpectedly. Because yes. He should. Shouldn’t he?

The letter continued.

I was cruel to you. 

Simple. No qualification. No because our mother died. No because I was young. 

Just cruel. 

Ilya stared at the sentence. Read it again. Cruel. Not strict. Not angry. Not difficult. Cruel. His chest hurt.

Across the room, Shane stayed quiet, letting silence exist. 

Ilya continued.

After Mama died, I thought if I acted hard enough, maybe grief would not find me. 

His vision blurred slightly. Not tears. Just fatigue. Probably. 

Instead it found both of us.

He swallowed. The kitchen suddenly felt too warm. He kept reading.

You looked like her.

That sentence alone nearly stopped him. Because he knew. Of course he knew. He had always known. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same tendency toward sadness. 

But seeing it written was different.

Every time I looked at you, I remembered she chose drugs. I remembered finding you crying. I remembered being seventeen and suddenly old. 

Ilya’s hands tightened around the paper. Not an excuse. Context. Dangerous difference.

He almost stopped there. Almost folded it back up. Almost chose not knowing.

Then:

I hurt you because I did not know where else to put grief. 

Silence. Snow against windows. Kettle humming quietly. His heartbeat too loud.

Shane set tea beside him wordlessly. Warm mug against cold hands. Anchor. 

Ilya kept reading. 

This does not forgive me.

Good. Because it didn’t. It couldn’t. 

The next paragraph was shorter.

I kept Mama’s things because throwing them away felt like killing her again. 

His breathing caught. Mother’s scarf. Photographs. Paperwork. Everything in the box. Not random. Preserved. For decades.

He looked toward the stack of belongings on the counter. Nineteen years. Alexei had kept them for nineteen years. 

The realization landed strangely. Like grief wearing someone else’s clothes. 

Then the final page. His stomach twisted before reading it. Instinct. Always instinct.

Anna says our daughter asks questions about family. 

There. The girl. His niece. Suddenly real.

Her name is Sofia.

She had a name. Not abstract anymore. Sofia.

You owe us nothing.

Pause.

Then:

But exile already took enough. 

Everything inside him went quiet. 

Not peaceful. Worse. Still.

He kept reading.

Do not let it take everything.

The final line sat alone. Separated from the rest.

I am sorry I made survival feel like loneliness.

That did it. Not dramatically. No sobbing. No collapse. Just a sharp ache directly beneath his ribs. 

Because that sentence understood something.

He lowered the paper slowly.

Shane remained where he was, waiting.

“How bad?” Shane asked quietly.

Ilya stared at the letter. Thought carefully.

“Not bad.”

He swallowed.

“Worse.”

Shane sat beside him. Close enough to touch, but not touching yet. 

Ilya stared at the snow outside. At the reflection of their kitchen in the dark glass. 

Two men. Tea. A dead brother’s handwriting. An ocean between countries. 

And somehow grief had crossed anyway.

“I wanted him to be simpler,” Ilya admitted quietly. 

Shane nodded. “Yeah.”

“I wanted a monster.”

Another nod.

Because monsters were easy. Monsters required no mourning. People did.

Ilya looked back down at the letter. At Sofia. At exile already took enough. At survival feel like loneliness. 

Then, very quietly:

“I think I want to know her name in her own words.”

Shane turned slightly. Not surprised. Just listening. 

Ilya folded the letter carefully. Not lovingly. Not angrily. Just carefully. 

Then he reached for his phone. Opened Anna’s messages. Scrolled. Found the one mentioning his niece. 

His thumbs hovered above the keyboard. Fear arrived immediately. Then grief. Then something else. 

Choice.

Not tonight, maybe.

But soon.

Soon suddenly felt possible. 

And for the first time in weeks–

The ghosts were not quieter. 

But they were no longer the only voices in the room. 

🩵

The first snowfall stayed for once. Ottawa had turned white overnight. Not beautiful, exactly. Just quieter. Snow did that. Covered edges. Muted sounds. Made entire cities feel like they were holding their breath. 

Ilya stood at the kitchen window before sunrise watching streetlights glow against fresh snow while coffee cooled slowly in his hands. He hadn't slept especially well. But he had slept. Which counted now. 

Behind him, the condo remained dark except for soft yellow light above the stove. The box still occupied part of the dining table, though not all of it anymore. Progress. Maybe. 

His phone buzzed softly. Not alarming, just a reminder. Medication. He took it immediately. Small things. Galina had been annoyingly correct about small things. 

Footsteps approached behind him. Then warmth. Shane wrapped both arms around his waist and pressed his face between Ilya’s shoulder blades. 

“Why are you awake?”

Ilya stared out at the snow.

“Existential crisis.”

Shane hummed sleepily. Accepted this answer.

Eventually:

“You’ve been staring outside for fifteen minutes.”

“I know.”

A pause.

Then:

“I think I want to do something today.”

Shane straightened slightly. Not tense. Interested.

“What kind of something?” 

Ilya looked toward the dining table. Toward the scarf folded neatly beside old photographs. Toward the paperwork. Toward nineteen years of things surviving. 

“I do not know.” 

That was honest. Mostly. 

Because he knew one thing. He did not want a funeral. Funerals belonged to people invited. He had not been. And Russia still existed in the same possible way it always had: too far, too complicated, not home. But grief remained anyway. 

By noon, their kitchen smelled like soup.

Not because grief required soup. Because grief required eating and Shane had weaponized practicality years ago. 

The scarf sat folded beside the stove. Thin wool worn soft with age. His mother’s. Ilya had touched it only twice, both times briefly. 

Across the counter, Shane chopped vegetables with the concentration of someone performing surgery. 

“You know,” Shane said carefully, “normal people just buy candles.” 

Ilya glanced up. “What are we doing?” 

Shane gestured vaguely. “There’s soup. Scarves. Three photographs. Tea.” He pointed with the knife. “You’ve reorganized the table twice.” 

Ilya considered. “Ritual.”

Shane nodded immediately. “Cool.” No questions. No correction. Just acceptance. 

It still surprised him sometimes. 

🩵

The photographs stayed propped against mugs. Not framed. Temporary. One picture of his mother laughing. One of young Alexei holding hockey skates over his shoulder. One tiny photograph of Ilya himself. Serious child. Too-small coat. Big skates. 

He looked tired even then. 

The realization hurt less today. Not because it mattered less. Because it finally made sense. 

Shane lit a candle after asking permission. Vanilla. Safe. Not lavender. Definitely not lavender. 

Snow continued falling outside. Soft. Relentless. 

Ilya wrapped the scarf carefully around his hands. Not wearing it. Holding it. The wool smelled faintly like cedar from storage. Not her. That disappointed him unexpectedly. Then relieved him. He wasn’t sure which emotion won. 

“You want to say anything?” Shane asked quietly. Without expectation.

Ilya stared at the photographs. Thought quite a lot. 

Then:

“My mother tried.”

His voice sounded strange in the quiet kitchen. He continued anyway.

“Alexei failed me.”

A breath.

“But he kept these.”

Another breath.

“I survived.”

The last sentence almost disappeared. Shane reached for his hand beneath the table. Warm fingers. Wedding ring against wedding ring. Anchor. 

Later, after soup and dishes and silence and snow–

Ilya sat alone at the table. Phone in hand. Heart behaving stupidly. 

He had opened the message thread three times already. Closed it three times too. 

Because what exactly did one say?

Hello. Your father hurt me. We are related. Sorry about the international trauma. 

He exhaled sharply. Opened the chat again. This time he typed. Not perfectly. Not bravely. Just honestly.

Hi Sofia. 

Deleted it. Retyped.

Hi Sofia. My name is Ilya. I’m sorry it took me time to answer. 

Pause. Thumb hovering. Fear arriving right on schedule. Because this mattered. Because connection always did. 

He thought of Galina. 

On your terms.

He thought of Alexei’s letter. 

Exile already took enough. 

He thought of his twelve-year-old self. Alone.

Then pressed send. 

Nothing happened immediately of course. Russia existed several time zones away. 

Still.

The message remained there.

Sent. Real. 

Across the room, Shane looked up from the couch. 

“You okay?”

Ilya looked down at the phone once more. Then toward the photographs. Then toward the snow outside. 

Not home. Maybe never home. But not nowhere either. 

“I think,” he said quietly, “maybe.”

Shane smiled softly. 

“Maybe is good.”

Ilya looked back out the window. The city remained covered in white. Quiet. Not empty. 

For the first time in weeks, the grief did not feel smaller. Just shared. And somehow–

That changed it. 

🩵

December arrived quietly. No dramatic turning point. No miraculous morning where Ilya woke up lighter. 

Just winter. Dark mornings. Snowbanks taller than parked cars. Too many layers. Life continuing.

Which, Galina kept insisting, counted. 

The box was gone now. Not disappeared. Integrated. His mother’s scarf hung over the back of a dining chair. The photographs lived on a bookshelf beside hockey trophies and wedding pictures. The paperwork sat organized in a folder Shane labeled Russian Emotional Damage.

Ilya had rolled his eyes for three full minutes but kept the label. 

Progress looked stupid sometimes. He still had bad days. Still missed medication once last week. Still woke up occasionally with grief sitting heavy in his chest before consciousness fully arrived. 

But now Shane noticed faster. 

And now, more importantly, Ilya told him faster. That part remained uncomfortable. Healing, apparently, contained far too much communication.

🩵

Practice ended early. Snow fell steadily outside the arena. Players filtered toward parking lots and buses while equipment managers shouted reminders no one listened to. 

It was so ordinary. So blessedly ordinary. 

Ilya sat slowly at his stall removing tape from his stick. His phone buzzed. He didn’t feel immediately anxious anymore. Interesting. 

He opened the message. Sofia. Three unread messages. He smiled before he realized he was doing it. 

Mama says you play hockey but everyone here already knows that

Did papa really make you skate outside at 6am

He laughed quietly. 

Across the locker room, Shane looked over immediately, suspicious. 

“You smiling at someone else?” 

Ilya held up the phone.

“My niece thinks I had tragic childhood training montage.”

Shane walked over instantly. “Did you?” 

“Yes.”

“Cool.”

He sat beside him, close enough that their knees touched. Warm, even through layers. 

“Can I ask something?” 

Ilya nodded. Shane looked down briefly. 

“Does it still hurt?” 

Simple question, complicated answer. Ilya thought carefully. Because yes. Obviously yes. Sometimes grocery stores still felt dangerous. Sometimes Russian words still landed strangely in his chest. Sometimes he still woke up expecting sadness before opening his eyes. Sometimes Alexei remained dead in ways that surprised him. Sometimes twelve-year-old Ilya still appeared unexpectedly. 

But–

He looked down at Sofia’s messages. At his wedding ring. At melted snow dripping from equipment bags. At teammates yelling down the hallway. At the life waiting outside the rink.

“Yes,” he answered honestly. 

Then:

“But I’m not alone.”

Shane’s expression softened. “Okay.”

They sat quietly for another minute. Then two.

Then:

“Galina says I need routine.”

Shane narrowed his eyes.

“Your therapist blames me for your wellbeing too much.”

“She likes you.”

“She terrifies me.”

“Correct response.”

Shane bumped his shoulder lightly. 

“Dinner?” 

“Yes.”

“Depression meal or real meal?”

Ilya considered it seriously. 

“Compromise.”

Shane nodded gravely.

“Chicken nuggets and vegetables.”

“Balanced.”

They stood. Collected their gear. Walked toward the parking lot together. 

Outside, snow covered everything again. Streetlights glowing gold against white sidewalks. Cars buried halfway. Cold enough to sting lungs. Ottawa winter. Not Russia. Never Russia. 

Good.

His phone buzzed again. Another message from Sofia.

Mama says you live in Canada. Is it actually cold or is everyone dramatic

He typed back while walking.

Everyone is dramatic. 

Pause. 

Then he added:

But yes. Very cold. 

Send. 

Easy. Not because grief ended. Not because depression disappeared. Because connection had become slightly less frightening than isolation. 

Shane reached for his hand automatically as they crossed the icy parking lot. A familiar motion, years old now. Still surprising. Ilya squeezed back.

Home, he realized, had never returned. Home had changed shape.

And maybe–

Maybe that was enough.

Fin