Chapter Text
It happens so fast that at first Ilya thinks Shane has been tripped.
Shane is skating hard through the neutral zone, jaw set, eyes sharp, moving on muscle memory and spite the way he always does when the game is tight. No one touches him. No stick clips his skates. No collision, no check.
And then Shane folds.
It isn’t dramatic. That’s the terrifying part.
His stride stutters. His body goes rigid, like something has locked up inside him, and then he goes down hard on one knee, one hand braced against the ice like he’s trying to hold himself together by force alone.
The whistle blows immediately.
The arena noise swells and then distorts in Ilya’s ears because all he can see is Shane’s face — white, stunned, breath coming too fast. Shane pushes himself upright, teeth clenched, nodding at the refs like I’m fine, I’m fine, because Shane always tries to finish things even when his body is screaming at him to stop.
He gets two steps.
Then he gasps.
Not pain like a pulled muscle. Not injury pain.
This is deeper. Sharper. Something wrong.
Shane bends forward, both hands on his thighs now, breathing ragged, eyes unfocused. Ilya is already at the boards before he realises he’s moving.
“Shane,” he says, too loud this time, and does not care.
The refs wave for medical. The ice is cleared. Players drift back to benches, confused, uneasy.
Ilya steps onto the ice without asking.
Someone yells his name. Someone grabs at his jersey. He shrugs them off.
Shane is kneeling now, forehead pressed to the ice, making a sound Ilya has never heard from him before — small, broken, frightened.
“Ilya,” Shane breathes when he sees him, like the name is a lifeline. “Something’s— something’s wrong.”
“I am here,” Ilya says immediately, dropping beside him. He doesn’t touch yet — Shane is hypersensitive when he hurts — but he stays close enough that Shane can feel him. “You stop now. Is okay. You did enough.”
The medics arrive fast. Words blur together — pain onset, vitals, can you move — and Shane tries so hard to answer, to be good, to be cooperative, until another wave of pain hits and he cries out despite himself.
Ilya’s chest cracks open.
They get Shane onto the stretcher. Ilya walks with them all the way down the tunnel, ignoring officials, ignoring the game continuing without him. Someone finally blocks his path at the ambulance bay.
“You can’t ride with him,” they say. “You’re on the opposing team.”
Ilya stares at them like they’ve lost their minds.
“I am not leaving,” he says flatly.
They argue. He doesn’t hear most of it. Shane reaches out from the stretcher, fingers weakly curling into Ilya’s sleeve.
“Ilya,” he whispers, dazed. “Please don’t go.”
“I will be right behind you,” Ilya promises, bending down so Shane can see his face. “I swear on everything.”
They pry his hand away anyway.
Ilya watches the ambulance doors slam shut.
Only then does he remember how to breathe.
⸻
The hospital smells like antiseptic and panic.
Ilya paces until a nurse finally recognises him and leads him down a quiet corridor. His hands are shaking. He keeps replaying the fall, the sound Shane made, the way his body had betrayed him without warning.
They stop outside a room.
“Your… partner?” the nurse asks carefully.
“Yes,” Ilya says, immediately, fiercely.
She nods and opens the door.
Shane is sitting up in the bed.
Alive. Awake.
Exhausted beyond words.
Relief hits Ilya so hard he nearly buckles — and then he notices what Shane is leaning over, cradled against his chest, small and wrapped in a hospital blanket.
Something tiny.
Something breathing.
Shane looks up, eyes glassy with shock and awe and something dangerously close to joy. “Hey,” he says weakly. “Uh. So. This is… a lot.”
Ilya cannot move.
“What,” he manages. “What is that.”
Shane huffs a breathless, incredulous laugh. “She decided to show up during the second period.”
Ilya’s brain short-circuits. “She.”
Shane shifts carefully, revealing a newborn — red-faced, scrunched, impossibly small — tucked against his chest. “I didn’t know,” Shane says quickly, words tumbling. “It was— cryptic. I thought the pain was something else, and then suddenly it was very much not something else, and—”
“Ilya,” Shane says softly, cutting through the spiral. “Come meet our daughter.”
Ilya makes a sound that might be a sob.
He crosses the room on unsteady legs. Shane guides the baby into his arms with trembling care.
“She’s Irina,” Shane says. “If that’s okay. I— I wanted—”
Ilya breaks.
He sinks into the chair, cradling her like she’s made of light, tears spilling freely as Irina curls her tiny fingers around his thumb.
“My mama,” Ilya whispers, voice wrecked. “You named her after my mama.”
Shane nods, eyes wet. “She was important to you. So she’s important to us.”
Ilya presses a kiss to Irina’s downy head, then looks back at Shane — pale, wrecked, brave beyond reason.
“Thank you,” he says, meaning everything. “For her. For trusting me. For staying.”
Shane smiles tiredly. “You always show up.”
Ilya holds his daughter closer.
“I always will.”