Chapter Text
The phone buzzed, making an angry, obnoxious sound as it vibrated against the bedside table. Ilya frowned and his finger paused over the remote control, his channel surfing coming to an abrupt end as he turned his head away from the TV screen to look at the phone slowly buzzing towards the edge of the table. The name ‘Jane’ was visible in large white letters across the screen as the phone jittered, bumping into the base of the lamp. Ilya could already feel the smile spreading across his lips.
It had only been that morning that Ilya had slunk out of Shane’s hotel room, sneaking out before the rest of the Metros would be woken up to head for their flight out of Toronto, the Bears having flown in late the night before. They’d stolen the snatches of time the brief overlap in their schedules had allowed, but it had been over all too soon. The bed opposite Ilya’s was empty for the time being, but it probably wouldn’t be empty all night: Ilya had found himself suddenly just as boring as Shane, preferring to stay in when his team hit the clubs and bars instead, still wrapped up in the dizzying idea of him and Shane carving out a future together, even if it was one that needed to be done in secret. Tossing the remote carelessly to the side, Ilya reached for his phone, his thumb sliding across the screen to answer the call as he raised it to his ear.
“Missing me already, Hollander?”
His words were met with stuttered breathing that wiped the smile from Ilya’s lips in seconds. “Shane?” The concern leaked into his voice and Ilya sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, his bare feet hitting the short, well-worn fibres of the hotel carpet. “What’s wrong?”
The breathing on the other end of line only made Ilya more tense and he clutched the phone so hard to the side of his face he could have broken the screen on his jawbone. “Shane?”
“There was a plane crash.”
Ilya’s throat seemed to close up at those words, his brain running them over like he might have misunderstood. “A plane crashed? Your plane crashed? Are you–”
He was on his feet, already moving across the room, though without purpose: what could he do, all the way in Toronto when Shane was… Somewhere between there and Vegas. He hadn’t even heard about a crash, though he also hadn’t become quite so boring enough yet to willingly choose to watch a newscast.
“Not me, Ilya,” Shane finally explained, his voice halting and strained. “My mom.”
Shane’s voice cracked again and Ilya’s legs buckled. He practically fell onto the bed, sitting on its edge, slumping over himself as he pressed the phone against his ear and breathed. Relief rushed through him, though his worry didn’t fade; not with the way Shane was breathing, shaky and uneven on the other end of the line.
“She– she came to see my game,” Shane said, as if he hadn’t heard Ilya at all, as though Ilya hadn’t known that already, as if he hadn’t had to wait for Shane and Yuna to finish dinner together before he could see him again. “She wasn’t even supposed to be there. Mom– she– she knows something’s going on with me and - can’t–” Shane broke off in a shuddering breath and Ilya clutched the phone to his ear, waiting. When Shane’s breathing settled a little he continued, “She was flying back home. It– it should have only taken an hour. But the…”
“The storm,” Ilya murmured into the silence. They’d been told, not much earlier, that the snowstorm that had picked up in the northeast had veered southwest on an unexpected change of the wind. It might put a stop to their game the next day, though that annoyance was by far eclipsed by this news. “Your mother, she is alright?”
There was something heavy and unforgiving settling inside Ilya’s stomach as he listened to Shane trying to steady his breathing. Finally, with a small voice, Shane answered, “I don’t know.”
Ilya shifted, moving the phone to his other ear. “You know where she is, yes? Someone called you?”
“I– Yeah,” Shane exhaled noisily into the speaker. “The hospital called my dad, but they couldn’t tell him anything. They were– there were a lot of people, Ilya. Dad said they couldn’t give him an update. I tried to call but they just– they told me the same thing. And mom’s phone is going straight to voicemail.”
The weight in Ilya’s stomach felt heavier all of a sudden, and Ilya shifted again, hunching over himself. Shane was all the way in Vegas.
“What can I do?” Ilya asked. “What do you need?”
Shane went quiet for a moment that seemed to drag on for an eternity.
“Shane?”
“My dad’s in Ottawa,” Shane said, eventually.
Ilya felt his brows furrow, his nose wrinkling. “Yes? I know this?”
“I…” Shane swallowed audibly. “He’s four hours away and they’ve closed half the roads already. All the flights are grounded: neither of us can get to her, to see if she’s okay.”
Shane went quiet again and Ilya felt the silence like an itching under his skin that only grew greater the longer the silence stretched.
“I don’t–” Ilya cut himself off with a small shake of his head that Shane couldn’t even see. “What can I do?”
“The plane went down in the middle of nowhere,” Shane said, leaving Ilya feeling lost in the conversation again. “They took her to the nearest hospital. I checked: it’s only half an hour from Toronto.”
His words were met with a silence that felt far too loud, it deafened Ilya like a ringing in his ears. The itching under Ilya’s skin only grew more persistent as he turned Shane’s words over in his mind and put the pieces together.
“You want me to go to hospital, collect your mother?” Ilya asked, his words coming out as quickly as his mind could parse them into a language Shane might hope to understand.
“I– yeah?” Shane’s voice was small, and so painfully hopeful that it felt like a punch to Ilya’s gut. “Would– could you?”
Ilya’s tongue clicked in his suddenly dry mouth. He took a breath, a sharp inhale and a short exhale and ran his tongue over his lips to wet them. “I go to hospital and say what? ‘Hello, this is ilya Rozanov, your son’s hockey rival and she tells me how she is doing? And then what? I bring Mrs Hollander back to my hotel room? With hotel full of Bears to see? You know I am rooming with Marly tonight, yes? I just bring Shane Hollander’s mother to my hotel. Very normal. No questions.”
“I… I just need to know that she’s okay.” Shane’s voice cracked over the words, and even through the phone, Ilya could hear the hitch in Shane’s breathing, the too-fast rhythm of it that meant he was teetering on the edge of a panic attack. “All the flights are grounded, and I’m stuck here and I can’t do anything and it’s gonna take my dad at least four hours to get there, when the roads open, and you’re so close: she’s just outside the city, and I know I shouldn’t ask–”
“Breathe,” Ilya said, cutting him off. “Hollander– Shane. Breath with me.”
It was only as Ilya took his own deliberately slow inhale and long exhale that he realised how erratic his own breathing had become, that he could feel his pulse thundering under his skin. He took another slow breath and rubbed at his forehead with the side of his hand, listening to Shane do the same on the other end of the line, until finally their breathing was slow and steady and in perfect synchronicity.
The thought of his own mother, his last glimpse of her, the stray pills still scattered on the floor beside her, the terrible image that was seared into his brain, pushed itself to the forefront of his mind. Ilya wiped haphazardly at his forehead, as if he could scrub the image away when it was anchored so deeply within him. Quietly, he asked, “Your mother, will she even come with me?”
“I don’t know,” Shane answered honestly.
Ilya squeezed his eyes closed for a moment before getting to his feet.
“Text me address,” he said, moving around the room, looking for his coat and the thick socks that were buried somewhere in the depths of his bag.
–
The driver’s stilted attempts at conversation had faded into awkward silence, had turned into fiddling with the radio, snippets of music and conversation interspersed with white noise, before finally settling on a news program. Ilya crossed his arms more firmly over his chest and pressed his forehead to the window glass. He didn’t need to listen to the radio to know the weather was getting worse. He didn’t need some grainy voice to tell him that the storm that had taken down Yuna’s plane was heading towards them. He could see it already in the flurries of falling snow. He could see in the way the world had darkened long before it should have.
They sat in relative silence as the city thinned to suburbs, thinned to trees, then returned to suburbs again. The hospital stood taller than the other buildings around it, the large ‘H’ visible on a tower of glazed glass, surrounded by red brickwork. The car slowed to a stop. Ilya paid and left the driver five stars on the Uber app, simply for having driven into a road-closing storm for the fare. There was a pressure against the door when Ilya tried to open it and he had to lean his considerable muscle against it, fighting against the wind until the door swung open wide. A flurry of snow filtered into the warmth of the backseat, but it was nothing compared to the wall of cold he slammed into once he was outside, shoving the door closed behind him.
The car pulled away, but Ilya stood frozen to the spot, staring up at the hospital before him. The word ‘Emergency’ glowed neon red, prominent against the darkening grey of the world around them. Ilya’s eyes squinted against the wind, feeling it ruffle his hair, flakes of snow catching in the curls, slipping down the collar of his jacket to melt there, leaving ice cold trickles running down to dampen his shirt underneath. A shiver ran through him and Ilya rolled his shoulders, pulling the front of his coat closed as the chill cut straight through his clothes and seeped all the way down into his bones. It reminded him painfully of the home he loved and hated by equal measure, the home he could never return to now, even if he wanted to. A different chill ran through him and set off a familiar ache in his bones.
The glass windows of the waiting room glowed with the heavy electric lighting. Ilya stood in the shadows outside, watching as people in scrubs rushed around, moving past the rows of seats, filled with people, some standing in the open area between them, some sitting on the floor, all of them waiting for their turn to be raced after. Lurching forwards, Ilya pulled a cap from his back pocket and jammed it down low over his head. He moved towards the entrance doors, and they slid open when his feet hit the mat outside, sending in a rush of cold air. Several heads snapped towards him, but they lost interest quickly. Picking his way through the crowd, pushing past people and stepping over legs spread out across the floor, Ilya made his way to the reception desk.
There were three nurses manning the station and all of them were speaking hurriedly into the receivers of landline phones, the cords curling down from the handsets to the bases, somewhere out of sight on the long desk. Ilya stood in front of the desk, his eyes scanning between the women, but none of them made eye contact with him as they talked, long streams of fast words that overlapped over each other and tangled together before they reached Ilya’s ears. He looked over his shoulder at the crowded room, watching a gurney be rushed past, a half a dozen people surrounding it. Ilya turned back to the desk, rapping his knuckles against the surface, eyes darting to each of the nurses until finally, finally one met his eyes.
“I’m looking for–” Ilya started, but the nurse frowned at him, still talking into the handset. She raised her index finger at him, a gesture asking him to wait a minute. Ilya exhaled, his jaw tightening and his lips thinning. He leaned his forearms against the desk as he waited, listening to the garble of too many English words, the chatter and beeps and buzzing of the room.
Finally, the nurse set the handset down and looked up at him expectantly. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Yuna Hollander,” he said, as clearly as he could. “She came in from the plane?”
“Ah,” the nurse replied, dropping her head as she shuffled through the stacks of papers cluttering the desk. “Are you family?”
Ilya swallowed and nodded his head. “Yes.”
“Alright–” the phone rang again and the nurse shot him an apologetic look. She thrust a paper in his direction and picked the phone up off the hook. “Fill those out and I’ll be with you in a moment,” she said, before raising the handset to her ear again.
With a pained exhale, Ilya looked down at the paper in front of him. A second later, a pen was placed down on the desk beside his hand and Ilya snatched it up, slowly filling out the visitor’s log and signing his name. It was several more minutes before the nurse could talk to him again. She offered him an apology, took his paperwork, and pointed him down the hall to his left.
Shane had promised to try and call his mother again, to let her know Iya was coming. It was a small consolation, not having to deal with her shock as well as the ire Ilya expected he’d be greeted by. It still wasn’t enough to make Ilya feel comfortable with the scenario. How was one supposed to act around the mother of their secret lover and public rival? How was one supposed to introduce themself to a person who already had a grudge against him before they could meet? One day, he and Shane could be out together, and then they would have to tell his parents. Ilya didn’t want to sour them on him anymore than his reputation already had. They were supposed to slowly start sowing the seeds of a friendship, but Ilya didn't think that dropping Ilya onto Shane's family with no warning was part of that plan. If it was, it probably wouldn't be a helpful part of the plan.
The nurse hadn’t given him a room number, but Ilya followed the hallway, peering through the open doorways and eyeing the people sitting in plastic chairs along the corridor. Finally, he found himself coming to an abrupt halt. Ilya opened his suddenly dry mouth, then closed it again. He barely had a handful of seconds to figure out what he might say to Yuna when she noticed his shadow looming over her and looked up.
Her eyes widened with the surprise of recognition before her brows furrowed in confusion. “Rozanov?”
So the call hadn’t made it through. Ilya looked away for a second, shrugging his shoulders. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, his arms pressing tightly to his body as he hunched down, trying to make his considerable size seem smaller.
“What are you doing here?”
“Shane sent me.”
“Shane sent you?” Yuna asked, the disbelief clear on her face and in her voice. “Shane sent you?”
Ilya felt his teeth grit together so tightly it was painful. The incredulity and distrust in her tone was no surprise, but it dug itself under his skin, nonetheless. A small part of him wanted to snap back, or to turn and run away, back out into the familiar cold of the snowstorm outside, but that reaction was eclipsed entirely by the knowledge that he was meeting Shane’s mother officially for the first time, even if it wasn’t as… whatever he and Shane were. He still couldn’t say where they had landed, too much still floating up in the air, but they were together in it, and freefalling together was a thousand times better than plummeting blind and alone, never quite knowing when the ground would rush up to meet him. The piercing stare of Yuna Hollander’s gaze was a little too much like hurtling towards a painful impact for Ilya.
“Yes,” Ilya confirmed. “Shane called. Asked me to come check on you.”
“Why?” she asked, still struck with disbelief. And Ilya knew she was asking ‘Why you?’ but that was far too big a question, and one he couldn’t even begin to answer without betraying Shane’s trust and everything they were hoping to build together.
“You were in a plane crash,” he said, instead.
“It didn’t crash; it was an emergency landing,” Yuna clarified, though Ilya didn’t see what the difference mattered. The plane fell out of the sky all the same.
“He is worried about you.”
Yuna’s expression crumpled, just a bit, at his words.
“He was going to call you,” Ilya continued.
“I don’t have my phone anymore,” Yuna replied. “It’s… It fell when the plane was coming down.”
“This is why he worries,” Ilya said. “He did not know if you were alright.”
“I’m fine,” Yuna replied, eyeing him sceptically again. “You never explained why Shane would send you, of all people. How did he even reach you?”
Ilya shrugged one shoulder, his body tensing. “We talk.”
“You… talk,” Yuna repeated, arching an eyebrow at him. “You and Shane, archrivals who have hated each other since rookie season, talk?”
Ilya’s back felt painfully tight. Almost on cue, there was a buzzing in his pocket and Ilya reached his fingers in to retrieve his phone. Ilya almost sighed in relief when he was ‘Jane’ on his screen. Flicking his thumb over the call button, Ilya raised the phone to his ear.
“I’m with her now,” Ilya said, without waiting for pleasantries. Shane’s voice was tinny and crackled, his words spilling out so quickly, Ilya was shaking his head as if doing so might clear it. “Shane. Shane, she’s okay. She is alive, awake, looks fine.”
He shot a way glance at Yuna and found her leaning forward, one arm held close to her body, but the fingers of her other hand twitched, as if wanting to reach out.
“Here, you talk to her,” he said, and held the phone out.
There was a look in Yuna’s eyes like she thought it might be a cruel trick of some kind, and Ilya felt that weight in his stomach sink further, a sickening drop and a crushing weight inside of him. Still, she reached her hand hesitantly forward until she could grasp the phone and Ilya let his own fingers slip free from it, relinquishing it. Yuna turned the phone screen towards her, peering at it curiously and Ilya knew the moment she registered the name on the screen: her entire face seemed to shutter, going cold and closing off. And yet she still raised the phone cautiously to her ear, the tensions snapping from her body when she heard Shane’s voice on the other end.
“No, no, Shane, sweetie, I’m okay, I’m okay,” she insisted, turning her body, as if seeking privacy that the public corridor they were in could never afford her. “I’m alright. I think my wrist is broken but–”
Yuna let out a breath and Ilya took a few steps backwards, until his back hit the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, letting it bear his weight.
“A lot of people were hurt a lot worse than I was,” Yun explained, calmly. “If anything, it’s a good sign that I’m not at the top of their list.”
There were still people everywhere: waiting to be seen by the doctors, checking in on patients, people trying to find family members. The small space was too bright and too loud, and Ilya could feel a headache forming. He was certain that, even with his hat pulled down low over his forehead, the only reason he hadn’t been spotted yet was because everyone was distracted with bigger concerns than the best player in the MLH.
“Thank you,” Yuna said, snapping Ilya’s attention back to her. The phone screen was blank, and she held it out towards him.
Ilya made an abortive gesture with his hand. “Your phone is gone, yes? You know your husband’s number?”
Yuna frowned. “I do.”
Ilya gestured at his phone in her hand. “Call. Let him know you are alright.”
Yuna’s frown deepened but, slowly, she pulled the phone back towards herself. “It’s locked.”
Ilya let out a breath and motioned for her to hand it over again. He typed in his passcode quickly and opened the phone app. He handed it back; his eyes meeting Yuna’s for a long moment. She was looking at him like he was a puzzle she might be able to solve, like maybe the complete picture of him might be something different than the one on the box, and that picture might show something even less savoury.
“Coffee,” Ilya said, turning his head one way then the other, looking down the identical stretches of corridor.
“What?” Yuna asked, looking up from where she was typing a number with the keypad.
“You want coffee?” Ilya asked.
Yuna’s eyes narrowed at him, scrutinising.
Ilya shrugged, clasping his hands in front of himself, his shoulders dropping. “I’m getting coffee. You like coffee?”
“I… yes,” Yuna answered, her brow furrowing. “With milk. Thank you.”
“Is no problem,” Ilya replied, though there was absolutely no part of this experience that wasn’t a problem.
But he couldn’t stand awkwardly through one side of another too-personal phone conversation. His stomach rumbled, despite the sick feeling that had settled there. Maybe some coffee would settle it. So, he followed the corridor around several twists and turns until he passed another nurse’s station and, after following the corridor to the very end, he found a small kitchen with a coffee station. Ilya looked around, but there was no one around, so he stepped inside and startled fiddling with the coffee pot. He was just opening the small refrigerator in search of milk for Yuna when someone stepped into the room with him. Ilya stood up straight, a carton of milk in one hand and turned to find a tired looking man, beaming at him.
“You’re a new dad too, huh?” he asked and Ilya frowned, his brow furrowing. His silence didn’t seem to deter the newcomer, who barrelled on: “Lucky the maternity ward has this set up, hey? I don’t think I’ve slept in three days, and I doubt I’m gonna get a wink of sleep any time soon.”
“Right,” Ilya said, slowly, making his way back to the cups he’d set up, starting to pour a dash of milk into one.
Then the man tilted his head to the side, his eyes squinting. Ilya resisted the urge to pull the cap down even lower. His day was questionable enough already, he didn’t need news of him appearing in a maternity ward to hit the tabloids, too.
“You know this is only for patients of the maternity ward, right?” the man said.
“Ah, yes,” Ilya agreed, quickly putting lids onto his cups. He didn’t need to be kicked out of the maternity ward by hospital security, either. That wasn’t a headline he wanted to star in any time soon.
“I am very happy papa,” Ilya said in a rush. “Must be going.”
He picked up a cup in each hand and sped out of the room, ducking his head as he went. He didn’t slow down until he reached the nurse’s station in the emergency room. With a frown, Ilya turned and walked back down the corridor, until he had definitely passed where he’d found Yuna the first time. Ilya paused and turned around again, walking slowly back to the waiting room. He stood at the desk again, coffees clutched in his hands, until the nurse on reception met his eyes again.
“Yuna Hollander,” Ilya said. “I went to get her coffee and she is gone.”
“Hold on,” the nurse replied, clicking at something on the computer. “Yes, she’s in with one of the doctors. You can take a seat: she’ll be out soon.”
Ilya let out a long sigh and found a spot by the wall. He slumped down, sliding until he was sitting on the floor. Setting Yuna’s coffee down beside him, he raised his own coffee to his lips. It was bitter and strong and hot enough that he might end the day with ulcers, but Ilya sipped it anyway, his eyes on the ticking hands of the clock on the wall. He didn’t even have his phone for entertainment. It was twenty minutes later when Yuna emerged, her wrist encased in plaster and held in a sling. Ilya got to his feet, leaving his empty cup on the floor, but picking Yuna’s up. She walked over when she saw him and Ilya held the cup out to him.
“Coffee,” he said, when she didn’t take it.
“Your phone,” Yuna replied, holding it out with her one good hand.
“Thank you,” Ilya said, quickly taking it and sliding it back into his pocket, while Yuna accepted the coffee cup.
She sniffed at it cautiously before taking a sip. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “It’s cold.”
“It was hot when I made it an hour ago,” Ilya replied.
Yuna gave him an unimpressed look. “I wasn’t gone an hour.”
“You were gone long enough for coffee to go cold.” Ilya shrugged, his eyes dropping to Yuna’s cast. “You are all better, ready to go?”
“They’re discharging me,” Yuna said, “But I don’t have anywhere else to go until the roads clear or the flights are opened.”
“Okay, we go, get you a hotel room, yes?”
“You know, I think I’m fine waiting here,” Yuna said, unconvincingly.
“What, you are going to sit here all night? Until storm passes and husband comes?” Ilya asked. “They do not have enough beds for everyone. Not enough chairs.”
Yuna’s expression shifted into something Ilya couldn’t quite read.
“You do not trust me,” Ilya surmised. “That is fair. But what do you think I will do? Kidnap Yuna Hollander? Shane knows I am with you, you tell your husband I am with you too, yes?”
“Of course I did,” she replied.
“So, you call them again. You tell them I am taking you to find hotel. You tell them hotel name when we get there, they know where you are.”
Yuna frowned but looked around at the overcrowded room.
“And how are we going to get to a hotel when the storm is already starting to hit and half the roads are closed.
Ilya raised his phone. “Uber.”
“Uber?” Yuna echoed.
“Uber,” Ilya agreed.
Yuna’s gaze dropped to the empty cup Ilya had abandoned on the floor by his feet. “You’re not leaving your trash on the ground, are you?”
Ilya looked from Yuna’s unimpressed expression down to the cup. “No,” he replied, quickly bending down to pick it up. “I am not.”
Yuna only watched him, sharp and assessing, before turning towards the doorway, “So, how long will this uber take?”