Chapter Text
Rozanov is sleeping on the combined bed and couch in the living-room. He should be rich, where had all his money gone? Famous for fast cars, women, parties, and clubbing. Even so, he’s a star with a million dollar salary.
The kitchen is only a tea kitchen, inside the living-room. Yuna automatically picks dirty clothes from the floor, afterwards she continues with washing the dirty plates in the sink, staring horrified at the curtains spotted with mildew.
Here’s Ilya Rozanov, heavily pregnant on the side, a hand protectively pressed under his stomach. His face doesn’t even relax as he sleeps.
Something burns inside her, those babies are Shane’s children too. She’s going to be a grandmother. Shane and Rozanov have been together for years, and Shane never trusted her with something so important. She never knew her son. It would have remained like that if she hadn’t seen Rozanov in the hospital.
***
Ilya wakes up to someone talking. His back is throbbing, and he longs for vodka and a smoke, but neither is possible. One of the babies kicks his bladder. He complains to whoever of them it is in Russian.
Someone cleaned the litter from the floor and the table, and removed his laundry. From the hallway, Mrs. Hollander is speaking next to the bathroom door. He’ll have to pass her to pee.
“I think he might be depressed,” Mrs. Hollander is saying. “No, I didn’t see any medication, but also there’s no actual food in his fridge either, and…”
While Ilya sits and leans his back against the backrest, he glides his palm slowly down his stomach. Is he depressed? He hadn’t thought about it as depression. But no matter what, he showed her how unfit a parent he is. She might take his babies, she would have a right to them? As a lawyer, she would know the legal stuff better than Ilya.
“He must have earned a lot of money. I don’t understand how he can have spent it all, even with his outrageous lifestyle,” she says from the hallway. While he can’t translate every word, the meaning is clear.
When he hopefully starts playing again, will he be home enough to care for two babies? And he’ll have to play soon, he needs the money and the visa. There are also problems with his agent and his American bank account.
He runs his hand over his taunt skin. A month remains, maybe less, since they’re two. He hopes not, it’s safer for them inside, instead of outside in the cruel world.
“Maybe it’s because of Shane. But as far as I know his father also died last spring,” Mrs. Hollander says. Ilya sinks. He cannot think about his father. That is past, but Shane not waking; that is different.
As he tries to stand, he slams a foot into the table leg. She stops speaking.
“I think he’s awake, I should go,” she says, and opens the door to the living-room. A sharp pain spread up his leg as he smiles.
“Hello,” Ilya says stupidly to Mrs. Hollander. “Is okay, you can leave.” He presses a hand underneath his belly, where it feels heavy and stiff. The muscles underneath are hard.
When he stands to follow her out, he notices that she has cleaned his kitchen.
“Ehm, I noticed you didn’t have any food,” she says. Because he hasn’t been in the mood to go shopping, his whole body is heavy. Furthermore, he isn’t that hungry these days.
“Is okay, will go shopping later.”
When considering his situation through Mrs. Hollander’s eyes, he’s not in a situation to care for kids. He hasn’t even shopped for baby things.
She backs away into the hallway.
“Do you want me to pick up some groceries for you or...” she stops, her smile looks so much like Shane’s, Ilya can barely breathe.
“No, am okay,” Ilya says, even though he’s not.
“Right, alright...” She turns and hesitates, if she’s staying much longer, Ilya might cry again. Every muscle is tender, and he cannot continue keeping this together.
She turns at the door.
“Maybe,” she says. “You would like to have dinner with David and me ...”
He blinks, she must have believed that Ilya was closer to Shane than he was. They were nothing, they were fucking, and nothing. He’s going to refuse.
“Then I can drive you to your car afterwards.”
Shit, he forgot his car at the hospital. He’ll have to take a cab there, which will be expensive, and his body protests at the thought.
“And I would like to know about you and Shane,” she says, and in that moment he cannot handle how much Shane looks like his mother. He hasn’t been able to talk about Shane for months. “David will be so pleased.”
Ilya somehow doubts that.
***
The Hollanders lives in a pretty normal looking house, when thinking that their son was one of the biggest sports stars. But even if he hadn’t been, the house is filled with evidence of how proud they are of their only child. Ilya even guesses Shane’s childhood bedroom is somewhere in the house, untouched.
Ilya shyly follows Mrs. Hollander into the house.
In the hallway is a picture of Shane as a young child, and another one of him winning some youth tournament, private pictures, which Ilya will give anything for a copy of.
Mr. Hollander is very polite and offers him a Coke for dinner, which Ilya politely agreed to.
“Would the caffeine be a problem for...” Yuna asks, making a gesturing motion towards his stomach.
“No, but smoking and alcohol no.” They stare at him, like he said something wrong.
“So, how come you and Shane started seeing each other?” They think Ilya and Shane were a couple, but of course, with Ilya’s behavior, they might get the wrong impression. They couldn’t know that it is all Ilya, all on his side. That their son doesn’t feel like that.
Would they throw him out if they knew? No, probably not, they are nice. But Ilya is an imposter.
“We talked a little after draft, and when we did commercial together in summer, he invited me to his hotel-room.” Or Ilya invited himself, but he doesn’t say that.
Mrs. Hollander blushes, so Ilya assumes he had revealed too much.
“That was eight years ago,” Mr Hollander says. “Why would Shane never mention you?”
Ilya rubs his stomach under the table.
“Shane never mentioned me?” he says as a joke, because he was pretty certain Shane has mentioned him, but likely not in a flattering way.
“Well, he mentioned you, he said you...” Yuna stops, like she’s realizing something. “He actually avoided talking about you.”
“Were competing captains,” he supplies, that wasn’t what she has been about to say. “We were discreet,” not to mention not a couple, they are nothing.
“Oh,” Mrs. Hollander says.
“Are you alright?” Mr. Hollander says, and Ilya realizes his face is wet. Stupid hormones.
“So, couldn’t your agent do something about being traded?” Mrs. Hollander changes the subject. Her husband glares at her, while Ilya tries to eat pasta without the constant nausea making the food return.
“What?” she says to her husband. “Loyalty is important.”
“Was not my choice,” Ilya says. Because Boston didn’t want him when he was pregnant and into men, and generally a liability.
“But didn’t you have a no-trade clause?”
“Yes, but doctor placed me on permanent leave, and my agent and manager decided I didn’t fit in their, what is it called, portfolio,” he stops, any the sympathy from the Hollanders is impossible. He sounds like he is making excuses. His dad would have hit him.
“Because of…” Mrs. Hollander supplies. “Those assholes.”
“But why Ottawa, I’m sure Scott Hunter and the admirals would have been more than pleased to...”
“Yes, I am sure,” Ilya grunts.
“And even with the cap, they might have room for...”
But Shane isn’t in New York.
“Ottawa is good team,” he says, not wanting to have it scrutinized. Their playing isn’t good, but Ilya isn’t in a place to focus on that. “It will be good place for me now.” They cannot see how he’s cradling his stomach.
They don’t speak more about Shane, even if it was clear they all want to. Ilya helps to clean up and then realizes he didn’t even bring anything. He should have brought a bottle of wine or flowers. But that’s too late.
***
Rozanov is different from what she expected. Much different, but somehow the last year has hit him like a bulldozer, gone is the brash young captain of the Boston Raiders, and now he’s a frightened boy in a foreign country, who is about to have two children and no support net.
Ilya politely helps with cleaning up and assisting David in loading the dishwasher, and now he’s folded in on himself, in what looks like pain, over the counter.
“You need to sit down,” she says.
“No is fine,” the Russian says, clearly pretending not to be super uncomfortable.
He’s muscular and thin, and despite his stomach, he actually looks smaller than last season.
David stops with the washing up of the large bowl, which doesn’t fit in the dishwasher, to look at him.
Rozanov looks like he’s having either a meltdown, or he’s about to pass out again.
“Come sit down on the couch.”
Rozanov looks at David, like he is feeling guilty he’s not helping with more, before he follows her and sinks down on the couch.
David is drying his hand in a dishrag, walking in behind them, looking concerned.
Ilya looks like he’s trying to disassociate while he’s sitting there, breathing fast. He really shouldn’t be alone tonight, and while she would have believed it impossible in the morning, she’s seriously scared about Rozanov’s health. His father died, and then Shane, and now his team dropped him. She cannot imagine. Well, she can, because it’s her Shane that’s in the hospital. Even though as the day has progressed, she’s suspecting that it’s not her Shane anymore.
“Are you in pain?” She asks because he looks like he’s having contractions.
He blinks like this is the first time he’s seeing her.
“Rozanov, are you in pain?” She asks again. He doesn’t respond. His hand is opening and closing, and his breath is rapid and superficial. This isn’t contractions, it’s a panic attack.
“Ilya,” she says slower, and places a hand on his lower arm. Instead of flinching, he seems to relax.
“Stomach is strange,” he says, heaving. “I don’t know.”
David is still staring at them. He’s thinking the same as Yuna.
“Should I go make the bed in the guestroom?” He asks. It’s clear that Ilya shouldn’t be alone. He is pale and shaking.
Rozanov doesn’t reply. Yuna bites her lip and then nods. Her hand resting on his cheek now, and he doesn’t recoil.
But it’s clear that here’s someone who will need her help. And a possibility of them staying connected with the only thing of Shane that’s left, she’ll fight for her grandchildren, and if that means supporting Ilya Rozanov, she’s more than happy to comply.