Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationships:

Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Minor or Background Relationship(s)

Characters:

Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander, David Hollander, Ottawa Centaurs Team Ensemble (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Drama & Romance, Romance, Temporary Amnesia, Amnesia, Ilya Rozanov Loves Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Loves Ilya Rozanov, But he doesn't remember it, Happy Ending, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Intense, Gay Sex, Bottom Shane Hollander, Anxious Shane Hollander, Shane Hollander Needs a Hug, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Post-Book 2: Heated Rivalry (Game Changers), Ilya Rozanov Needs A Hug, Depression, Protective Ilya Rozanov

Language:

English

Series:

Part 1 of Again, and Always

Stats:

Published: 2025-12-12 Completed: 2026-01-26 Words: 59,706 Chapters: 24/24

The Second First Time

Summary

Shane Hollander wakes up in a hospital room convinced it’s 2016 — and that Ilya Rozanov is still his biggest rival, someone he’s supposed to hate.
But the world has changed. It’s 2025. They play for the same team, live in the same house, and Ilya Rozanov is wearing a wedding ring.
Now Shane has to relive nine lost years, learn to trust his ‘enemy,’ and find out whether he can fall in love with his own husband all over again.

Notes

I know, I know! I’m supposed to finish my previous fic (you can find it on my profile), but I just couldn’t help myself! It’s terrible (and wonderful), but the moment I finished The Long Game, this idea moved into my head and refused to leave. I’ve barely thought about anything else for five days.

And I’m sharing it with you only because I finally put the last period in the Epilogue — which means you will definitely get the whole story.

Please keep in mind that the events take place after The Long Game, which means there are spoilers for all of Rachel Reid’s books. Enjoy, and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments.

P.S. Even though I’ve read all the books, I still got confused with the timeline, so I’m not entirely sure about some dates. Let’s just pretend it was all intentional. :)

Chapter 1: Prologue

Consciousness reassembled itself from sharp, jagged shards, each one inflicting nearly physical pain. First came the light. Blinding, sterile white, brutal. It struck his eyes like a needle driving straight into the back of his skull. Shane groaned—or maybe he just thought he made a sound—and tried to squeeze his eyes shut, but his eyelids felt like lead, as if weights had been tied to his lashes.

Then came the sound. A thin, hideous beeping—steady, mechanical. The rhythm felt like it was going to split his skull in two. The noise swelled, resonating with his own fear, twisting into something suffocating. Shane tried to swallow. His throat was raw, as if scrubbed with sandpaper. His tongue felt foreign, wooden in his mouth. He wanted to move, but his body wouldn't obey. It was heavy, cotton-stuffed, pressed into the mattress by some invisible force. His head swam in a murky fog, and the slightest movement triggered nauseating vertigo, as if his brain had been shaken like a cocktail inside his skull.

“Shane?”

The voice was quiet. Rough. But so familiar it sent a hot jolt of electricity down his spine. Shane jerked his head—a flash of pain pierced his neck. The world tilted, the ceiling swimming before his eyes, but he managed to turn. And he saw him.

Ilya Rozanov.

He was sitting right by the bed—impossibly, terrifyingly close—on a plastic chair that creaked pitifully under his weight. And Rozanov looked… like hell. Worse than Shane had ever seen him, even after his most devastating losses. Messy hair, deep, bruised shadows under his eyes. His stubble was thicker than usual, his face gaunt and gray. But that wasn’t the worst part.

Ilya was holding his hand.

Big, warm fingers were gripping his palm tight, as if Ilya was terrified that if he let go, Shane would simply vanish. His thumb was absently, almost intimately, stroking Shane’s knuckles. It was happening openly. Calmly. Under bright lights. In a hospital room.

An icy wave of panic slammed into his chest. The heart monitor skipped a beat, then began to beep frantically.

“What the hell…” his voice cracked into a dry rasp. Shane yanked his hand, trying to pull away, but his muscles trembled traitorously. “You… what are you doing?”

If he expected Ilya to recoil and hide his embarrassment, he was dead wrong. Instead, Rozanov leaned closer. Something flashed in his eyes… something tender. Painfully tender, open. People didn't look at him like that. Not here. Not like this. And certainly not Ilya Rozanov. The expression made Shane feel even sicker. Inside, somewhere under his ribs, everything plummeted.

“Tishe, tishe.”

Shane froze. Was that Russian?

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he switched immediately to English. Softly. Too softly.

Beneath that tone, Shane heard a different subtext, louder than any words: Shut up. Don’t attract attention. He frantically scanned the room. White walls, the smell of antiseptic, flickering lights. The door was ajar. Anyone could walk by. Anyone could see. Ilya Rozanov, sitting by his bedside, holding his hand.

“Get your hands off me,” Shane hissed. The walls tilted dangerously. “Where are we? Who saw us? Why are you here?”

The door pushed open wider. A doctor walked in—a man in his forties with a weary face. He cast a quick, professional glance at Shane, at the monitors, then at Ilya and their joined hands. No surprise. None at all.

“Mr. Hollander, you’re awake,” he stated. His voice sounded muffled, as if coming through a layer of cotton. “Don’t make sudden movements. Dizziness is normal.”

Shane pressed himself into the pillow, wishing he could dissolve into it. He waited for Ilya to jump up, pull away, and slap on his trademark mask of icy indifference. But Ilya didn’t move. He sat quiet and still as a rock.

The doctor stepped closer, clicking a penlight. Shane almost hissed when the beam stabbed his eyes.

“I’m going to ask a few questions; it’s routine. State your full name.”

“Shane…” he swallowed thick saliva. “Shane Brandon Hollander.”

“Good. What year is it?”

The year. What year is it. The question sounded distant. Images flashed through his head in chaotic bursts: ice shavings, the locker room, the hum of the bus, a bar, laughter, the game… but the fragments refused to fit into a coherent picture.

“Two thousand… sixteen. We…” the thought slipped away like wet soap. “We were on the road. No, home. I… I don’t know. Sixteen?”

Silence crashed down between them like a heavy slab. Within his peripheral vision, Shane saw Ilya go pale. Completely. White as a sheet. His fingers twitched, and for a second it looked like he was going to lose control—snap, scream. But Rozanov just took a deep, ragged breath.

“Where are we right now?” the doctor continued.

“Montreal? Maybe…” the lump in his throat grew sharp, making it hard to speak. “It has to be Montreal. After the game… I don’t remember.”

Ilya closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, as if he’d been punched in the gut.

“Shane,” the doctor’s tone hardened, though it still held a professional softness. “You are exhibiting symptoms of retrograde amnesia. It is not 2016.”

Shane stopped listening. He was looking only at Ilya. At Ilya, who was looking back at him as if his ribs were breaking right inside his chest. There was love in that look. Raw, real, exposed. Terrifying.

Shane’s gaze dropped to Ilya’s hand. A gold ring. Real. Heavy. His heart skipped a beat and dropped into his stomach. The air in the room turned viscous, like syrup.

“Ilya…” he breathed out. “Leave.”

Rozanov flinched as if slapped.

“Shane, please…”

“Just leave!” his voice broke into a scream, cut through with panic. The monitor wailed like a siren. “GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Ilya shot up as if he’d been burned. His face twisted in pain—for a split second, real, unbearable pain—but he immediately hid it, pulling on a cold mask.

“Fine,” he said in a dead voice. “I’ll go.”

He turned and walked out without looking back. The door closed with a quiet click that sounded louder to Shane than a gunshot.

He was alone with the doctor. Shane was gasping for air, clutching the sheets until his knuckles turned white. The doctor was saying something—“breathe deeply,” “calm down”—but the words drowned in the rush of blood in his ears.

“Why…” Shane forced out. “Why did you let him in?”

The doctor looked at him over his glasses—surprised, but without judgment.

“Who?”

“Rozanov!” he spat the name. “Ilya Rozanov. How did he get to me? This is private info! Head injury—the press shouldn’t know… We’re rivals…”

He was choking on words, his lungs burning. The doctor opened a tablet, checked his notes, and looked up. The sympathy in his eyes was almost tangible.

“Mr. Hollander. No one let any unauthorized persons in. Mr. Rozanov is here legally.”

“What… legal… grounds?”

“Currently, Mr. Rozanov is your spouse. He is listed as your emergency contact on all medical documents.”

Shane froze. Everything around him vanished. The beeping machines, the lights, the smell of medicine. Only one word remained. Spouse.

“Who?” he whispered, barely audible.

“Your husband,” the doctor repeated, enunciating every word. “You are married, Shane.”

The world finally collapsed. Fragments of memories, sensations, fears—everything flipped upside down. He remembered the ring. He remembered Ilya’s look. He remembered how Ilya had held his hand—confidently, possessively. And he realized the most terrifying thing: this wasn’t a hallucination. He had forgotten his own life.

“No…” he squeezed out, shaking his head. “No, no, that can’t be… You’re lying…”

The pulse on the monitor turned into a solid line of frenzy.

“Shane, you need to calm down…”

“YOU’RE LYING!” he screamed, trying to get up and rip the sensors off. The wires pulled tight. “THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING! I’M NOT GAY! I’M NOT…”

Panic morphed into animalistic, primal terror. He screamed incoherently—about his father, his career, about how Ilya hated him, that it was a trap.

“Nurse, haloperidol and diazepam!” the doctor’s voice clanged like metal. “Stat! Hold him down!”

A nurse rushed in. Shane felt himself being pinned to the bed. Something cold burned his vein. The world began to sink rapidly.

“It’s okay,” the doctor’s voice became muffled, receding, as if speaking from the other end of a tunnel. “Just sleep.”

Strength drained from his body all at once. Shane fell into the darkness—sticky, dense, inevitable. The last thought pierced his fading consciousness like a red-hot knife: I am married to Ilya Rozanov. God… what have we done?

The darkness gave way to the hollow echo of voices.

“The reaction was… very violent…” the doctor’s voice.

“Did you tell him?” Ilya. His voice wrecked, empty as scorched earth.

“I had to. He is disoriented. You should go home, Mr. Rozanov.”

A pause. Heavy, ringing.

“I’m staying.” Steel cut through Ilya’s voice, even though it trembled. “He shouldn’t wake up alone. Even if he… sends me away again.”

Shane wanted to say it was all a mistake. That it couldn’t be. That he didn’t want Ilya to leave.

But the darkness closed over him completely.

Chapter 2: Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

Thank you again for all your comments. It truly means a lot to me that you’re following this story. I’ll try to update daily when possible — at most every other day. I can’t wait to share what happens next. Enjoy!

Waking up was slow, sticky. Like swimming up from the bottom of a deep, silt-choked lake.

This time, there was no sharp jolt, no panic. The shock dose of drugs had receded, leaving behind a heavy, cotton-wool fatigue that felt like a hangover.

Shane blinked up at the white ceiling. Weak, gray morning light filtered through the blinds. Dust motes danced lazily in the air.

So, a night had passed.

He lay motionless, afraid to move, as if any movement could shatter reality into shards again. Memory returned in lazy, painful waves.

The hospital.

The doctor with the penlight.

Ilya Rozanov sitting on a plastic chair.

“Your husband.”

Shane squeezed his eyes shut until colorful spots danced behind his lids. The memory hit him in the gut like a blunt fist. It had to be a delusion. A nightmare conjured by a bruised brain. Ilya Rozanov couldn’t be his husband. A nightmare… A ridiculous joke.

But the ring on Ilya’s finger had been real. And the look—that look full of raw terror and love—had been real too.

Shane slowly turned his head. The chair next to the bed was empty. That made him feel lonely. And scared.

The door creaked softly.

Shane tensed, pressing himself into the mattress, expecting to see the doctor or, worse, Ilya—whom he was now terrified of and desperate to see at the same time.

But it was his mom who walked in.

“Mom?” his voice was weak, cracked with sleep.

Yuna smiled—that same soft smile that had cured every trouble in his childhood, from scraped knees to lost finals. She quietly closed the door and walked to the bed.

“Hi, honey.”

Shane looked at her, and the icy fist squeezing his heart slowly began to loosen. She was exactly as he remembered her yesterday. Warm. Familiar. Impeccably dressed. Only there were a few more wrinkles around her eyes, and silver threads he didn’t remember shimmered in her hair.

“Mom…” Shane felt the treacherous sting of tears in his eyes. “Mom, I… I don’t understand what’s happening. The doctor was talking nonsense.”

He tried to sit up, but his elbows gave way. Yuna was there instantly, hugging him carefully, as if he were made of glass. Shane buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of her perfume, and allowed himself to break. The tears came on their own—hot, angry.

“Shh, sweetie, shh,” she stroked his short hair, rocking him like a child. “You’re safe. I’m here.”

“What year is it?” he sobbed, pulling back to look into her face. “The doctor said it’s not sixteen. Said I forgot everything.”

Yuna cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to focus. Her eyes were serious and full of boundless compassion.

“The doctor wasn’t lying, Shane. It’s two thousand twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five…” Shane repeated it like an incantation in a foreign tongue. The number didn’t fit in his head; it was too huge. “Nine years? Mom, did I lose nine years?”

“Yes.”

Shane stared at the wall in horror. Nine years. That was a lifetime. In hockey, it was an eternity. His career could be over already.

“Where am I?” he whispered, afraid of the answer. “Am I still in Montreal?”

“No, honey. You’re in Ottawa. You’ve lived here for several years.”

“In Ottawa…” Shane closed his eyes. The world flipped upside down. He was on a different team. In a different city. In a different time.

“What about Dad?” Shane’s voice trembled.

The thought of David pierced his consciousness like a sharp needle. He should be here. His father always came when it was a serious injury—not for comfort, but to control the press, the doctors, the situation. His absence was almost more frightening than Ilya’s presence.

“Why isn’t he here? Is he… is he alive?”

“Alive, of course he’s alive,” Yuna reassured him quickly, adjusting his blanket. She sighed, and the sound carried the weariness of endless explanations. “He was desperate to catch the first flight, Shane. But he’s in New York right now, at an emergency board meeting. There’s a complicated situation with the new regulations, voting is this afternoon. You know David. He couldn’t drop everything, even… even for this.”

Shane gave a weak, nervous chuckle.

“Yeah. I know. Work first.”

Strangely, his father’s absence calmed him more than all the doctors' care. At least something in this world remained unchanged. At least one constant.

“He calls every hour,” Yuna added gently, as if apologizing for her husband. “He’ll fly in tomorrow evening, as soon as the meeting is over.”

“Okay…” Shane swallowed. “Mom… Ilya…” the name slipped out on its own, like an anchor his consciousness clung to. “Ilya was here. Yesterday. He was acting so… weird. And the doctor said… Mom, the doctor said we’re married.”

Yuna didn’t look away. She just squeezed his hand tighter, transferring her calm to him.

“It’s true, Shane.”

Shane froze. If Mom was saying it… Yuna never lied to him. So it wasn’t madness.

“But how?” he whispered. “How is that possible? We… we hate each other. We’re enemies. I hate him.”

Yuna smiled sadly but warmly, straightening the collar of his hospital gown.

“Oh, sweetie. You stopped being enemies so long ago I don’t even remember. You love him, Shane. And he loves you more than life itself. He sat outside your door all night, on an uncomfortable chair, afraid to leave even for water.”

Shane fell silent, trying to digest what he’d heard. Nine years. In nine years, he had managed not only to make peace with Ilya Rozanov but to fall in love with him and marry him? It sounded like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie. But the panic strangely receded. If Mom said it was normal… if she accepted it… then his life wasn’t destroyed?

“Is he still there? In the hallway?”

“Yes. The nurses tried to send him home, but they might as well have been talking to a wall.”

“Can I…” Shane swallowed, feeling his heart pick up speed. “Can you call him in?”

Yuna looked at him closely, assessing his state. Then she nodded and stood up.

“I’ll get him. Meanwhile, I’ll find your doctor, ask about coffee, and call your father again. You two need to talk alone. Just please, Shane… try to listen.”

“I’ll try.”

Yuna left. The minutes of waiting stretched painfully slow. Shane adjusted his pillow, smoothed his hair for some reason. His heart hammered against his ribs—not from panic, but from a strange, vibrating anticipation. Meeting the monster. Meeting the future. Meeting a stranger who wore his enemy’s face.

Shane lay there, staring at his left hand. No ring. Of course not—rings come off on the ice and in hospitals. But Ilya had a ring. And there had been such ironclad certainty in Mom’s voice…

The door opened quietly.

Ilya didn’t walk in like he owned the place—he seeped into the room, trying not to make noise. He stopped right at the threshold, hesitant to take a step.

Same wrinkled hoodie, but now in the daylight, Shane could see how exhausted he looked. Eyes red, inflamed, a zipper mark indented on his cheek—he’d slept wherever he could.

Ilya looked at Shane as if expecting another “Get out.” His shoulders were tense, braced for a blow.

Shane looked back. Now he could examine him without the haze of hysteria. Nine years. Ilya had gotten bigger, broader in the shoulders, if that was even possible. His features had sharpened, the boyish puffiness gone. But the eyes… The eyes were the same. Dark, attentive.

“Hi,” Shane broke the silence first. His own voice sounded foreign to him.

Ilya flinched.

“Hi.”

They were silent. The awkwardness was so thick, physically palpable, you could drown in it.

“You…” Shane nodded at the chair. “Sit down. Don’t stand in the doorway.”

Ilya exhaled slowly and walked to the chair. He sat cautiously, on the very edge, as if afraid the creak of furniture would scare Shane off.

“How are you feeling?” Ilya asked quietly.

Shane blinked, momentarily distracted from the meaning of the question. He was struck by how the words were spoken.

In Shane’s memory, Rozanov’s voice sounded different: sharper, rougher, with a heavy, chopped accent you could cut yourself on. In 2016, Ilya often swallowed endings, confused tenses, and built sentences as if translating them in his head from Russian on the fly.

Now his English was terrifyingly flawless.

The speech flowed smoothly, with soft, purely North American inflections. He even placed the stress perfectly. He didn’t sound like a Russian import painfully trying to fit in, but like someone who had lived here for an eternity. Like a local.

This discrepancy hit Shane almost harder than the number “2025” on the calendar. This perfect, smooth English was living, audible proof that a ton of time had passed. That this was a different person.

Shane shook his head, chasing away the daze, and replied:

“Like a guy who woke up and found out he missed nine years of his life,” he said honestly. “And that he’s married to his biggest rival. Been better.”

The corner of Ilya’s mouth twitched in a faint, uncertain shadow of a smile.

“Fair enough.”

“Listen,” Shane looked up, meeting Ilya’s eyes. “Sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have yelled like that. I just… got scared.”

Ilya shook his head immediately, rejecting the apology.

“You have nothing to apologize for. You don’t remember. I’d be freaked out too if someone told me in sixteen that we’d be… here. Together. In 2025.”

“2025,” Shane repeated, tasting the word. “Sounds like science fiction.”

“Yeah. No flying cars yet, but we’re working on it.” Ilya tried to joke, but his voice sounded hollow and brittle.

“Mom said…” Shane stumbled, searching for words. “She said we haven’t been enemies for a long time.”

Ilya’s face softened instantly, as if a mask of pain had fallen away.

“Yuna is right. We’re not enemies, Shane. Not anymore. We’re a team. The best team.”

Shane looked at him, greedily scanning his features, trying to find any response in his own head. A spark of memory. Anything other than the image of a rival on the ice.

But it was empty. A black hole.

“I believe her,” Shane said quietly. “And I believe you. I think. But I don’t remember it. I’m sorry.”

The pain in Ilya’s eyes became sharp, cutting, but he nodded, taking the hit.

“It’s okay. We’ll wait. The main thing is you’re alive. We’ll fix the rest. I’ll remind you. As many times as it takes.”

Ilya’s hand jerked forward involuntarily, as if he wanted to cover Shane’s hand resting on the blanket. An instinctive movement, a habit formed over years.

But he stopped himself halfway. Clenched his fingers into a fist until the knuckles turned white and slowly pulled his hand back to his knee.

Shane noticed the movement. Noticed the aborted gesture.

And to his immense surprise, he felt not relief, but a strange, sharp pang of disappointment.

The body remembered what the mind had forgotten.

Chapter 3: Chapter 2

Chapter Notes

I’m sorry! I’m so sorry for taking so long to update. The end of the year at work is hell. But I’m back — I edited Chapter 2 for you and it’s now up.
Please keep in mind that I’m not very knowledgeable about Canadian laws, including legal and medical ones. I was consulting ChatGPT :)
Thank you if you read this!

The illusion of a fragile truce was shattered by the dry click of the door handle.

Not loud—on the contrary, almost too careful, as if the person entering was trying to slip in unnoticed. But in the ringing silence of the room, the sound cracked like a snapping string.

The atmosphere shifted instantly. The air grew denser, thickening, pushing out the oxygen.

Ilya tensed immediately. It happened in a split second, almost imperceptible to the eye. The relaxed posture vanished. His spine straightened, shoulders squared, his face hardening into an impenetrable mask.

All that weary, human warmth Shane had seen a minute ago was gone. From a life-battered man in wrinkled joggers, he transformed back into Rozanov—the one who called the shots, took responsibility, and never blinked first.

Behind his shoulder, Yuna flashed in the doorway—an apologetic smile, anxiety in her eyes. She stayed in the hallway, seeming to sense it was about to get too crowded for three in here.

The doctor walked in. The same one, with the tablet. He smelled of expensive antiseptic and indifference.

“Good morning, Mr. Hollander,” he said, stopping at the foot of the bed.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t ask how he was feeling. Just opened his tablet.

“I’ve reviewed the latest MRI scans and the overnight monitoring results.”

He was speaking to Shane but not looking at him. The words came out evenly, without emotion, like lines in a report. Shane felt a familiar, sickening sensation: as if he were being discussed like a broken mechanism, not a living person.

“And?” Ilya’s voice sounded hard, taut as a bowstring. “Can we go home?”

“Out of the question.”

The words hit Shane like a puck to an unprotected rib. He jerked up in bed—and the world instantly punished him. The walls swayed, the corners of the room swam in an oily fog, and a hot, sour lump of nausea rolled up his throat.

“What do you mean ‘out of the question’?” he blurted out, swallowing thick saliva and trying to focus his gaze. “I’m fine. I just have a headache, that’s normal after…”

“Mr. Hollander,” the doctor cut him off, finally gracing him with a heavy look over his glasses. “You have a severe closed head injury, complicated by complete retrograde amnesia spanning a nine-year period. This is a critical condition. We must rule out increasing cerebral edema, secondary hematomas, and psychogenic shock. You require strict inpatient care. A minimum of three days.”

“Three days?!” Shane’s voice cracked into falsetto. Panic hit his temples. “No. No way. I can’t stay here! We have a road trip! If I miss practice, Therrien will scratch me! I can’t lose my spot on the roster!”

A heavy, cotton-wool silence hung in the room.

The mention of the Montreal coach from 2016 sounded eerie. Like the voice of a ghost.

Ilya closed his eyes briefly, as if in physical pain. The doctor merely made a dispassionate note on his tablet—another checkmark in the “disorientation” column.

“Mr. Hollander,” the doctor’s voice became softer, but that made it even scarier. “Michel Therrien hasn’t coached you for eight years. And you are not currently in Montreal. You play for Ottawa.”

Shane froze with his mouth open.

His argument crumbled into dust, leaving only a sense of humiliating helplessness. His cheeks burned with shame. He had just proven his own insanity out loud. He didn’t even remember whose jersey he wore.

He turned sharply to Ilya, instinctively seeking support. Expecting him to explain to this idiot in the white coat that it was just a mistake.

The Ilya he remembered would have exploded by now. He would have torn this office apart with his voice, his fists, threats. He would have raised hell with agents, lawyers, the devil himself. The old Ilya would have dragged him out of here, even through the fire exit, just on principle—because no one dared lock him, Shane, up.

But this Ilya sat quietly. Still as a rock. Watching the doctor so intently, as if solving a chess problem.

“What are the medical risks if we refuse inpatient care?” Ilya asked. Calmly. Businesslike. Dry.

Shane stared at him, not believing his ears.

Are you serious? You’re negotiating? You’re playing by their rules?

“High,” the doctor didn’t even try to soften the verdict. “Seizure syndrome. Recurring loss of consciousness. Worst case scenario—stroke or coma. You require complete sensory rest, pharmacological support, and 24-hour observation. It is impossible to provide that at home.”

“I’m conscious,” Shane said sharply, digging his fingers into the blanket. “I’m here. I can decide.”

“You can speak,” the doctor didn’t argue. “I believe you’re now capable of making your own medical decisions. Your ability to assess risks is currently critically impaired. That is not a rebuke. It is a symptom.”

Ilya nodded. Slowly. Once. As if stamping a document.

“I agree.”

Shane choked out a strangled sound, as if he’d been punched in the gut.

“What?!” he tried to swing his legs off the bed, but his body was cottony, alien, disobedient. “You can’t speak for me! I didn’t consent!”

Ilya finally turned his head.

He looked at him—and in that gaze, there was neither anger nor condescension. Only deadly fatigue and an old fear he kept hidden somewhere very deep.

“I’m not speaking for you,” he said dully. “I’m speaking next to you. Because right now, you don’t see the edge of the cliff. And I do.”

He looked back at the doctor, cutting off any objections.

“What are the conditions?”

“You already have a darkened room,” the doctor replied, looking back at the tablet. “Visits are limited. One person at a time. Close relatives.”

“Phone?” Ilya asked.

The doctor shook his head.

“I strongly advise against it. Screens, news, information flow—all of this can trigger a seizure or worsen the amnesia. The fewer stimuli, the better the prognosis. Total information detox.”

Shane felt something snap inside. He was being cut off from the world.

“You want to lock me up,” he whispered. “Like a psycho.”

“No,” the doctor answered immediately. “We want to give your brain a chance to reboot.”

He handed the tablet to Ilya.

“We need legal consent for the treatment plan and temporary restrictions. At this moment, the patient is unable to give informed consent due to disorientation and cognitive deficit following TBI.”

He looked at Shane—not coldly, but with professional attentiveness.

“This is temporary, Mr. Hollander. We will re-evaluate your condition daily.”

Shane flinched.

“What do you mean—unable?” he breathed out hoarsely. “I’m here. I understand everything. I refuse!”

The doctor looked at him without wavering.

“I understand this sounds harsh. But right now, you cannot fully assess the risks. As your spouse, Mr. Rozanov is your substitute decision-maker.”

Substitute decision-maker.

It was a spit in the face of his sorest spot. His control. His independence. He had just been stripped of a voice in his own life, right before his eyes, the control panel handed over to a man he barely recognized.

Ilya took the stylus.

He didn’t hesitate for a second. The scratch of plastic on glass sounded in the silence like a shot from a silenced gun. He signed—a sweeping, sharp scrawl—without a single pause. As if he’d been waiting for this moment. As if he liked this right.

Shane watched Ilya’s moving hand and felt his freedom being signed away with that damn flourish. Without him. Against him.

The doctor took the tablet, nodded, and left.

From behind the door came Yuna’s voice—quiet, anxious. Ilya threw a short “Go home, I’m staying” to her, and closed the door. Locked it.

They were alone.

The silence in the room wasn’t empty—it was heavy, electrified, ready to explode from a spark.

Shane glared at Ilya with impotent rage that made his hands shake.

“You signed. For me,” his voice broke into a serpentine hiss. “You agreed to this without even letting me speak. Like I’m not even here. Like I’m furniture.”

“I agreed to treatment,” Ilya replied calmly, turning his whole body toward him. “Because the alternative is seizures, coma, or stroke.”

“You have no right to decide for me! I’m not a thing! I’m not your pet! It’s my life!”

“That is exactly why,” he said it not loudly, but the words had the ring of cold metal, “I took it upon myself.”

He stepped closer. A step. Another step.

And he was right by the bed. Big. Calm. Inevitable.

He leaned down, bracing his palms on the mattress on either side of Shane’s shoulders, boxing him into the trap of his body, but not touching him.

A shiver ran through Shane’s skin: not fear—an irritating, humiliating impulse of the “flight” instinct. But there was nowhere to run. Pillow behind him, Ilya in front.

“Listen to me,” Ilya said quietly, looking him straight in the eyes. Each word landed heavy as a stone. “Right now, you cannot say a conscious ‘no’. Right now, you see an enemy in me. You’re scared. You feel helpless. And you are angry not at me, but at the fact that control was taken from you.”

He was close. Too close. He smelled of strong coffee, cold outside air, and exhaustion. All of it reminded him—but tragically didn't match—the Ilya Shane remembered. That one was fire. This one was a rock.

“But you are not okay, Shane,” Ilya continued, and a hardness cut through his voice. “You are not in 2016. Your brain right now is an omelet. A beautiful, talented omelet, but scrambled nonetheless. And I am the only person in this room who knows what to do. Not because I want to boss you around. But because I know your insurance, your allergies, and exactly which yogurt you can eat when you start puking in half an hour.”

Shane blinked. All his pathos shattered against that stupid, mundane word.

“Yogurt?” he breathed out, completely thrown off balance. “Are we… talking about yogurt right now? I’m talking about freedom, and you’re talking about yogurt?!”

“Blueberry. No chunks. Low sugar,” Ilya rattled off, absolutely serious, without a shadow of irony. “And I’m the only one who knows that if I give you a phone right now, you’ll open nine years of news. You’ll find out who won the Cups, who got traded, who died. And your brain won’t handle it. You’ll burn out like a lightbulb.”

Ilya straightened up, removing his hands, but didn’t retreat a single step. He stood like a wall, blocking access to the door, to the world, to escape.

“I’m not humiliating you, Shane. I’m saving your life. That’s my job right now. So…” he paused briefly, and his face flickered for a second, revealing hidden pain. “Just let me do it. Okay? Stop fighting me for twenty-four hours.”

Shane breathed heavily, looking up at him. The anger was draining away, leaving behind devastation.

“You took away my right to say ‘no’,” he said dully.

Ilya didn’t look away.

“I took on the duty to say ‘yes’,” he replied. “Until you can.”

Shane peered into him, greedily trying to latch onto old familiar traits—a flash of anger, resentment, that spark that used to explode at any conflict on the ice.

But this Ilya couldn’t be baited.

He was collected. Cold-blooded. Dangerously confident in his right.

And—as much as it pissed him off to admit—it felt safe next to him.

Shane’s body, exhausted by pain and fear, treacherously relaxed. The adrenaline left, leaving behind emptiness and leaden fatigue. His anger ran into this solid wall of care and crumbled to dust.

Shane slumped back onto the pillows, feeling the dizziness start to spin again.

“Fine,” he muttered, turning away to the window to avoid that all-knowing gaze. “Fine. You win. But if you bring yogurt with fruit chunks—I’m throwing it at you. I hate chunks.”

A barely noticeable but warm smile twitched on Ilya’s face.

“I know,” he said quietly. “I know everything about you.”

Shane closed his eyes.

The scary part wasn’t even that he had forgotten nine years of his life.

The scary part was that next to this new, adult, overwhelmingly caring Ilya… he suddenly stopped wanting to fight.

And that scared him more than the amnesia itself.

Chapter 4: Chapter 3

The next three days blurred for Shane into a single murky, viscous smear the color of sterile plastic.

They were soaked in the smell of antiseptic, cold hospital food, and the quiet, monotonous hum of machines that never ceased for a second—as if the illness itself had its own heavy breathing.

Time no longer existed. It was dead.

Without a phone, without a watch, without a TV—without a single anchor to the reality that used to belong to him—Shane drifted in a void. Morning differed from evening only in the color of the pill the nurse brought, and the rectangle of light on the floor shifting from gray to graphite. Days didn’t matter anymore. Only one endless, suffocating “now.”

His brain refused to work. The moment Shane tried to focus on anything more complex than the pattern of cracks on the ceiling—like recalling the 2016 Ottawa roster or even his debit card PIN—a sharp, twisting pain pierced his temples, as if someone were driving red-hot screws into his skull. Nausea followed, dense and icy, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut and breathe through his mouth, counting to ten.

The doctor called it “cognitive overload.” Shane called it personal hell.

And in the middle of this hell, unchanging and unshakable as a cliff in a storm, stood Ilya.

He almost never left. He loomed over the place like a keeper, like a jailer. Shane hated it. And he hated that his body, defying all common sense, reacted to this jailer not with fear, but with a treacherous warmth somewhere in his solar plexus. As if it remembered that this warden knew how to be… different.

He sat in the same armchair, in eternally wrinkled joggers, but with a straight back. Working on a laptop—always angling the screen away from Shane, as if protecting not his files, but the patient’s brain from excess information. Drinking endless black coffee from cardboard cups.

Watching.

Watching to make sure Shane ate that damn blueberry yogurt, even though the mere sight of the purple sludge made his stomach cramp. Watching to keep the curtains drawn if the light became unbearable. Watching to ensure Shane didn’t try to get to the bathroom on his own, even if he felt steady enough on his feet.

Ilya barely spoke. And neither did Shane.

Shane sulked, feeling like a prisoner tethered to the bed by IVs and the will of a man who claimed to love him. While Ilya looked as if knowing one fact was enough for him: Shane was breathing.

But on the second day, the rhythm broke.

Toward evening, Ilya began to get ready. For the first time in three days, he swapped his “hospital husband” uniform for a suit—dark blue, perfectly tailored, emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist.

In Shane’s memory, Rozanov lived in sweaty gear, hoodies, and gray sweatpants. The man now standing by the sink adjusting the collar of a crisp white shirt looked like an alien from a life Shane had lost the password to.

In 2016, their “relationship” fit within a statistical error. Three times a year. They saw each other in person only three times a season—when game schedules and cities aligned almost perfectly. It was enough to vent adrenaline in a hotel room, but too little to start truly missing him. At least, that was what Shane told himself.

Of course, there were texts. His phone vibrated constantly—after games, on buses, on planes. They discussed matches, gossiped about coaches, sent each other stupid memes. But Shane was sure it meant nothing. Just talk. A way to kill time with the only person who understood hockey as well as he did.

He was absolutely certain he wasn’t in love. So much so that he would have laughed in the face of anyone who tried to convince him otherwise.

But now… looking at Ilya’s straight back, at the familiar way he adjusted his cuffs, Shane felt an icy prick of fear.

Could he even trust his memory?

If his brain had erased nine years of life with such ease, where was the guarantee it hadn’t distorted the rest? Maybe that “confidence in indifference” was a lie even back then? Maybe his memory was an unreliable witness, rewriting the protocol right now, trying to protect him from pain?

Shane caught himself just staring. Greedily. Trying to read in Ilya’s movements the answer his own mind refused to give.

Ilya fastened his watch on his wrist—a precise, confident gesture, but a ringing nervousness hid in the line of his shoulders. He turned to the bed, avoiding direct eye contact.

“I have to go,” he said quietly, adjusting his cuffs. “Toronto tonight. Home game. I can’t miss two in a row. The team will crumble.”

“Finally,” Shane scoffed, trying to make his voice sound scathing rather than… abandoned. “Freedom. Hope you get checked into the boards so hard your teeth rattle.”

Ilya’s jaw twitched—as if from a slap. But he held back.

“Yuna will stay with you. She’ll be here in ten minutes. Don’t try to get up.”

Shane raised an eyebrow.

“You’re paranoid, Rozanov.”

“I’ll be back right after the game.”

He lingered for a second—took half a step toward the bed, as if he intended to cover Shane’s hand, breathe out something important, maybe an apology or a promise. But he remembered in time who was in front of him.

He only gave a short, military nod and left.

When the door clicked shut behind him, the room suddenly stretched, as if the walls had receded miles away. It became enormous. And terrifyingly empty.

The air, which had seemed electrified before—charged with Ilya’s presence, his attention, his anxiety—turned cold and sterile, like a morgue.

Shane fell back against the pillow, staring at the empty plastic chair where a person had just been.

Ten minutes later, his mom arrived.

She brought the scent of rain and fresh baking—the smell of home, childhood, something constant. But even her soft, familiar presence couldn’t fill the hole left by the warden’s departure. Ilya’s exit was like pulling the plug in a bathtub—all sense of reality drained away.

The evening dragged on agonizingly slow. Yuna sat in Ilya’s chair—and it looked wrong, alien, as if she had occupied a throne that carried its own weight. She read a paperback, occasionally casting a cautious, scanning glance at her son.

“How’s the game?” Shane asked after two hours of silence. His voice sounded rough—from exhaustion, from the headache, from the need to control something.

Yuna smiled apologetically, setting the book aside.

“Ilya forbade me to tell you the score. Said you’d get agitated, your heart rate would spike.”

“I won’t get agitated for him,” Shane snapped, too quickly, too hotly. “I just want to know the score. Actually… who’s playing? My team?”

“Your team, honey. The Ottawa Centaurs. And Ilya is your captain.”

Shane exhaled. Slowly.

Captain.

Of course.

That commanding, arrogant bastard couldn’t be anything else. The ‘C’ was burned into his subcortex.

“So…” he swallowed. “Are they losing?”

Yuna hesitated for a second, but yielded to maternal instinct (give the child a toy).

“Second period. 2-1. Your lead. Ilya scored the first one.”

Shane stared at the white ceiling. The information dropped into him like a stone down a well.

Somewhere out there, a few miles away, the ice was gleaming under floodlights, adrenaline was exploding in bloodstreams, twenty thousand throats were roaring in unison. Life was boiling.

And he lay here. In silence and darkness. Trying to remember how to hold a stick properly.

“He’s playing… aggressively,” Yuna added, checking the phone hidden inside her book cover. “Commentators say it looks like he’s trying to kill someone on the ice. Six penalty minutes already. There was a fight.”

“Idiot,” Shane muttered.

But inside, something clenched painfully, sweetly.

He knew this style.

Ilya fought like that when he was scared. When he lost control of a situation off the ice, he tried to destroy everything on the ice. Shane remembered that look. He had seen it in the dim light of hotel rooms when Ilya lost control. Only then, that rage didn’t spill out onto opponents with fists, but onto him—with kisses.

Ilya returned deep in the night.

Shane wasn’t asleep—sleep wouldn’t come, only a sticky half-doze. But he lay facing the wall, the blanket pulled up to his ears, pretending.

He heard the door open, Yuna whisper a quiet goodbye, the lock click. Then—steps: heavy, shuffling, exhausted to the limit.

The smell in the room changed instantly—expensive perfume and Mom’s baking vanished, replaced by a sharp, masculine scent: sweat, the cold of the ice, rubber, leather. The smell of a locker room after a battle.

Shane inhaled the scent against his will. Sharp, masculine, painfully familiar. This smell always meant one thing: they were both exhausted, adrenaline was spiking, and something was about to happen. Now the door would be locked.

The chair creaked pitifully. Ilya sat down.

He was silent. Breathing heavily, but steadily, like a ridden-out horse. Watching Shane—Shane could physically feel the gaze on his back, like a warm, heavy hand resting between his shoulder blades.

Shane turned over. Slowly.

In the nightlight’s glow, Ilya looked like he’d been through a meat grinder.

A fresh bruise was darkening on his cheekbone, his lower lip was split and swollen. The top button of his shirt was torn off, tie loosened. The knuckles of his right hand were skinned raw and scabbed over.

“You look like shit,” Shane said quietly. His voice came out raspy, defenseless.

Ilya flinched—barely noticeably—and tipped his head back against the chair, closing his eyes.

“Thanks,” he responded hoarsely, with a smirk. “You’re no beauty queen either, Hollander. Why are you awake?”

“Did you win?”

“4-2.”

“Did you score?”

“Two. And the assist on the winner.”

He rubbed his face with his palms, and Shane noticed a fine, treacherous tremor in his fingers.

He had fought again. Because of him. Because of fear. Because of all this madness.

“Does it hurt?” Shane asked.

Shane looked at the raw knuckles. The memory of those hands on his skin—rough, demanding—surfaced in his mind. He wanted to… no, not pity him. But make sure the hands were intact.

Ilya dropped his hands. Looked at him directly, unblinking. Dark, bottomless eyes.

“No,” he said quietly. “Not here.”

He didn’t point to his face or hand. He didn’t say where “here” was. But Shane understood.

Not on the ice. Not on the body.

The pain was inside. Where Ilya had lived these three days—in animal fear, in absolute powerlessness, in silence soaked with the expectation that Shane would wake up… and look at him like a stranger.

“Sleep, Shane,” he breathed out, closing his eyes again, as if he himself could no longer keep his lids open under the weight of gravity. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere else. I’ll be here until you fall asleep.”

And—to his own horror and surprise—it was those words, spoken by the rival, that finally allowed Shane to close his eyes and fall into a calm, deep sleep.

Chapter 5: Chapter 4

Chapter Notes

Hi everyone! I truly hope you’ve already watched episode five and survived it. I don’t know about you, but it completely wrecked me emotionally. I can’t keep it to myself — I’m having a full-on emotional hangover. If you haven’t seen it yet, I honestly envy you!
To celebrate the new episode, here are two whole new chapters. We need to speed things up — I want to post everything before the end of the year. Thank you to everyone who’s reading and commenting!

On the third morning, the doctor entered the room without his usual retinue of nurses—as if to emphasize: today would be different. Shane realized it immediately by the way Ilya instantly straightened in his chair, setting aside his cold coffee. Even the air in the room seemed to thicken and stretch until it hummed.

The doctor took his time. He studied the data on his tablet intently, swiping through the results of the morning scan. A heavy, ringing silence hung in the room, broken only by the hum of the machines.

Finally, he looked up.

“The swelling has gone down faster than we expected,” he said in an even, professional tone devoid of emotion. “Hemodynamics are stable. Intracranial pressure readings are normal. The risk of secondary hemorrhage or delayed complications is now approaching zero.”

Shane sat on the bed, clutching the edge of the blanket. His spine seized with cold. He knew that tone. That’s how coaches talk before announcing you didn’t make the roster.

“Does that mean…?” his voice trembled traitorously.

The doctor looked at him over his glasses.

“It means that further inpatient care offers no medical benefits, Mr. Hollander. Physiologically, you are healthy. We have done everything required by the protocol.”

The pause that followed was thick as cotton wool.

“We are preparing discharge papers. You can go home today.”

“What about his memory?” Ilya’s voice cut sharply through the silence. He stood by the window, arms crossed over his chest like a sentry. “He still doesn’t remember the last nine years. You’re discharging a man who doesn’t know where he lives.”

The doctor didn’t reprimand him. He merely gave a curt nod, accepting the grievance, and shifted his gaze back to the patient.

“The amnesia persists, that is a fact. But we see no organic damage hindering cognitive processes. The MRI is clear. Your problem right now lies not in the field of surgery, but in the field of neuropsychology.”

He swept his gaze around the sterile white room.

“A hospital is a sensory vacuum. There are no smells, sounds, or textures here that make up your life. This is the worst place for restoring associative connections. The brain needs triggers. Familiar stimuli. ‘Anchors’ that will pull memories to the surface.”

The doctor paused to let the words sink in.

“A home environment is the best medicine right now.”

The word “home” hit Shane harder than the diagnosis. For him, home was an apartment in Montreal, in 2016. The place they were planning to take him… was a set. Alien territory.

“Before discharge, I must outline a strict regimen,” the doctor’s tone hardened. “I am addressing you, Mr. Hollander. But,” he turned a heavy gaze to Ilya, “as his guardian in this situation, you need to hear this too.”

Ilya peeled himself off the windowsill and stepped closer.

“I’m listening.”

“First. Routine,” the doctor began ticking off fingers. “Sleep—minimum nine hours. Mandatory rest during the day. The brain only repairs itself during sleep. Alcohol is categorically excluded—it is a neurotoxin; right now, it is poison to you.”

He paused and looked Shane straight in the eye.

“Physical exertion. Forbidden.”

Shane jerked as if shocked by electricity.

“What do you mean forbidden? The season just started…”

“No ice,” the doctor interrupted, not raising his voice but with steel in his intonation. “No gym. No jogging. Not even light jogging. Your heart rate must not exceed one hundred beats per minute. For a minimum of one month. Any pressure spike could trigger a relapse of symptoms.”

“A month…” Shane exhaled. For a professional athlete, it sounded like a death sentence.

“This is not up for discussion if you want to return to sports rather than remain an invalid.”

Shane clenched his jaw until the muscles turned white, but nodded.

“Second—stress,” the doctor continued. “Emotional overload is currently more dangerous than physical. Any severe shock could set progress back.”

Now the doctor looked exclusively at Ilya. Looked demandingly.

“Your task is to be a buffer. Filter news, calls, visits. Reduce tension. Do not engage in conflicts and do not provoke them. Even if he is irritable, harsh, or unbearable—and he will be; it is a consequence of frontal lobe trauma. You must be calmer than ever.”

Ilya was silent for a second, looking at Shane, then nodded.

“I got it. I can handle it.”

“And most importantly,” the doctor switched back to Shane. “Don’t force it. Don’t try to ‘hack’ your memory. If memories return, they will do so on their own. If you push, try to remember by force, it will lead to headaches, anxiety, and panic attacks. Live in the moment.”

He held out a folder with documents.

“Sign here. This confirms you have received the recommendations, are aware of the risks, and agree to the treatment plan.”

Shane took the pen. The plastic barrel felt alien, heavy. His hand trembled as he scrawled his signature under the sentence that sent him into the unknown.

When the door closed, the silence became thick as viscous syrup.

Shane looked at his hands, clasped on the blanket.

Discharge. Freedom. Should be joy. But everything inside him turned to ice with terror.

Here, there were walls, security, doctors, and clear rules. Out there was chaos. A world where he remembered nothing. And a person who was supposed to be his guide, but whom he didn’t know at all. Or thought he didn’t know?..

And who was his… what? Partner? Roommate? Warden?

Shane didn’t know, and it made him want to howl.

“Well,” Ilya said briskly, but his voice sounded fake, too loud for the silence. “Pack up, Sleeping Beauty. We’re going home.”

He tossed a gym bag onto the bed.

Shane pulled the zipper. Inside were clothes. Jeans, a hoodie, underwear.

Stranger’s clothes. The clothes of a 34-year-old man, which he had never bought. He had to put them on his body.

“Get changed. I’ll wait in the hall.”

Ilya already had his hand on the door handle when Shane called out hoarsely, surprising himself:

“Ilya.”

Rozanov froze. Shoulders under the thin fabric of his shirt tensed, as if expecting a blow from behind.

“What?” he asked without turning around.

Shane closed his eyes for a second, gathering his strength. He had to ask this question.

“What if I… what if I don’t remember? Ever? If I come to… this house. And nothing there is mine. Is never mine. What then?”

Ilya turned slowly.

Morning sun fell on his face, mercilessly highlighting the deep violet bruise under his eye and the gray fatigue of his skin. He looked for a long time, intently. As if seeing not Shane, but a crack in the foundation that could ruin the entire building of their life.

And said simply:

“Then we’ll get to know each other again.”

He smiled barely noticeably—crookedly, almost uncertainly, just with the corners of his lips.

“I’m not that bad, Hollander, when I’m not trying to smear you into the boards. I promise. You’ll figure it out and… you might even like it.”

He nodded—briefly, to hide the awkwardness of the moment—and left, closing the door firmly.

Shane was left alone.

He held the gray hoodie in his hands as if it wasn’t clothing, but a parachute before a jump into the abyss.

Stranger’s clothes. Stranger’s life. Stranger’s home.

But the only person who could guide him through all this had just promised not to push and called it “getting to know each other again.”

And for some reason, breathing became a little easier.

The discharge passed in a fog. Papers, doctors' recommendations, prescriptions for painkillers—Shane perceived all of it distantly, as if it wasn’t happening to him.

Reality hit only in the car.

It wasn’t his old Jeep. It was a black, expensive, and terrifyingly family-style SUV. The interior smelled of leather and some faint cologne—expensive, tart. The smell of Ilya.

Shane sat in the passenger seat, aimlessly letting his gaze slide over the landscape outside the window. Ottawa.

The city wasn’t alien—on the contrary, it was painfully familiar. Shane knew these interchanges, remembered where this turn led. It was his territory, the place where he grew up. And yet, looking at familiar streets felt strange. In the nine missing years, the city had changed imperceptibly: new high-rises where he remembered vacant lots, different signs, denser traffic.

But it wasn’t about the city. It was about him. Shane never thought he would return home like this—a passenger lost in his own biography, driven by a man who, in his memory, should only be a rival, not a driver. His hometown seemed like a set for a movie he had started watching from the middle.

Ilya drove confidently, holding the wheel relaxed with one hand. On his ring finger, a ring gleamed dully. Shane caught himself staring at it and sharply turned away to the window.

The silence in the cabin was dense, but not hostile. More… expectant.

“Almost there,” Ilya said quietly, turning into a quiet suburban neighborhood. “You’ll like the house. You picked the wall color in the living room yourself. Remember? I mean…” he stumbled. “I mean, you chose it. Back then.”

“I don’t remember,” Shane replied dully.

The car braked softly in front of a two-story house. Light façade, manicured lawn, wide porch. It was a picture-perfect house. A house where happy families live. Shane felt his stomach twist in a spasm. “I live here? With him?”

Ilya killed the engine.

“Let’s go.”

As soon as Ilya opened the front door, a furry hurricane rolled out to meet them.

It was a dog—medium-sized, with floppy ears and a completely mutt-like but charming face. She whined, wagging her tail so hard her whole body shook, and, ignoring Ilya, rushed straight to Shane.

Shane instinctively recoiled, pressing his back against the door.

“Hey!”

The dog froze, not understanding why her beloved owner wasn’t crouching down to cuddle her. She let out a questioning “woof” and nudged Shane’s palm with a wet nose.

“Аня, место!” Ilya commanded gently but firmly. Then he looked at Shane with a guilty smile. “Sorry. She missed you. She doesn’t understand.”

Shane looked at the dog. She looked at him with devoted brown eyes.

“Anya?” he asked.

“Yeah. Anya.” Ilya crouched, scratching the dog behind the ear. “Remember… no, of course you don’t. Friends found her in winter, in the freezing cold. They nursed her back to health but couldn’t keep her—they already had three dogs.”

Ilya smiled at the memory, stroking the soft fur.

“When I found out they were looking for a new home for her, I just took her. Without even asking you.”

Shane raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“And I… agreed?”

“At first you grumbled that we have a crazy schedule, flights, and we wouldn’t cope,” Ilya chuckled. “And two days later I found you sleeping cuddling her on the rug in the living room. Since then, she’s daddy’s girl. Yours, I mean.”

Shane looked at his hands, which the dog was trying to lick again. Him? Sleeping with a dog on a rug? It sounded so implausible and at the same time so… warm.

“She’s beautiful,” he squeezed out.

“She adores you,” Ilya added quietly. “Come on.”

They walked into the living room. The house inside turned out to be cozy. There was no sterility of a designer renovation here. There was life. A throw blanket tossed on the sofa. A stack of books on the coffee table. And photos.

There were many of them. On walls, on shelves. Here they were with Ilya in the mountains—laughing, squinting from the sun. Here they were with the Stanley Cup (Shane went cold—they won the Cup? Together?). And here was a black-and-white photo: they were standing forehead to forehead, eyes closed, and such peace was written on their faces as Shane had never felt in his life.

“Is this…” Shane walked to the shelf, picking up a frame. A wedding photo. They were in suits, but without ties. Ilya was laughing, head thrown back, and Shane was looking at him as if Ilya was the center of the universe.

“Our wedding,” Ilya’s voice sounded right nearby. He stood behind him, keeping distance. “We did it quietly. Just close ones.”

Shane put the frame back. His fingers trembled. All this evidence screamed: “You were happy. You loved him.” But his mind refused to believe it.

“Shane,” Ilya called.

Shane turned around. Ilya stood in the doorway, hands in pockets. He looked uncertain, like a guest in his own home.

“You’re probably tired. The doctors said you need rest.”

“Yeah. A little.”

A pause hung. The scariest question hung in the air: “Where will I sleep?” Shane knew there was surely a master bedroom in this house. With one big bed. The thought of lying there with Ilya—with this adult, alien, terrifyingly close man—caused panic.

Ilya, seemed to read his thoughts.

“I made up the guest room for you,” he said quickly, nodding at the stairs. “Second floor, door at the end of the hall. It’s quiet there. Windows face the garden. Your things are already there.”

Shane exhaled. The relief was so strong his knees buckled.

“Thanks,” he said sincerely. “That’s… thank you.”

“And I…” Ilya looked away. “I’ll be in our… in my bedroom. It’s at the other end of the hall. If you need anything—just shout. Or text. I put a phone on your nightstand.”

“Okay.”

Ilya shuffled on the spot, as if wanting to say something else, but changed his mind.

“Well… Go. Anya, leave him alone, let him rest.”

Shane went upstairs. He entered the guest room. As soon as the door closed, he did what any paranoid person in his situation would do: turned the lock. The click of the mechanism sounded soothing.

Stranger’s cozy house.

Stranger’s dog wagging her tail at him.

Stranger’s husband looking at him with a broken heart.

Shane sat on the bed and covered his face with his hands. He was told he was home. And he had never been so far from home.

He lay down on the bedspread without even taking off his shoes. No strength remained for thoughts or conclusions—his body seemed to collapse into itself. The fatigue from the discharge, the road, foreign walls, foreign voices hit all at once, without warning. He only wanted to close his eyes “for a minute.”

A minute didn’t happen.

Sleep came abruptly, like a cliff edge. He fell completely—dressed, on the unmade bed, with a bitter, sticky lump of anxiety under his ribs.

Chapter 6: Chapter 5

Chapter Notes

Don’t miss Chapter 4 before this one! I’m posting two updates at the same time, and I’d hate for you to miss a whole piece of the story :)

He woke up closer to evening.

First—fog. Not a room, but blurred spots of light and shadow. Thoughts tangled into a tight, slippery knot. His temples throbbed—dull, hollow, as if someone were striking his skull from the inside. Shane blinked, trying to focus, but the world tilted again for a second—the consequences of the concussion reminding him with a vile, treacherous dizziness.

He didn't immediately realize where he was. The ceiling—unfamiliar. The fabric under his cheek—foreign. The smell—too clean, too domestic, definitely not hospital-like, but certainly not his own either.

He propped himself up on his elbows, and that was a mistake: his head instantly split with a fresh surge of pain, and his stomach clenched unpleasantly. He had to freeze, breathe slowly so as not to spin further. Only then did reality gradually assemble into a coherent picture: a living room, a soft carpet, heavy curtains… Ilya’s house.

His husband’s house.

And he—in the middle of all this, still in his shoes, feeling as if he had been pulled from the water and thrown onto the shore.

He sat like that for a while, trying to wait until the world stopped rolling in waves. Gradually, the throbbing in his temples became bearable, and the fog in his head cleared slightly. His breathing steadied.

And with that came the realization of silence.

Strange. Thick. Alien.

Shane slowly lowered his feet to the floor, feeling the soft resistance of the carpet under his soles, and looked around—first absently, as if his gaze slid over objects without lingering. Then—more attentively, clinging to details, trying to gather at least some sense of footing in his mind.

Only now did he truly see the room.

The room was spacious, bright, decorated in neutral tones. Too… cozy. In 2016, his apartment in Montreal looked like the sterile cover of an interior design magazine: not a single superfluous detail, precise geometry, manic order. Here, a lamp with a fabric shade stood on the bedside table, a fluffy rug lay on the floor, and the curtains were thick and expensive. It was clear the setting was made with soul—not by a designer.

Shane walked to the window. The backyard was enormous. A manicured lawn, a barbecue area, some bushes. This was the home of a person planning to live happily ever after.

He turned away from the window and noticed the bathroom door.

Inhale. Exhale. He needed to see.

Shane walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. A large mirror hung over the sink. He looked up.

A stranger looked back at him from the glass.

Of course, it was him. But it was a version of himself filtered through nine years of time and pain. His face had become rougher. The boyish softness of his cheeks had vanished. Fine rays of wrinkles settled around his eyes—traces of thousands of smiles or thousands of squints on the ice.

But what struck him most were the scars.

Shane touched his chin with his fingers. There, under the stubble, a thin white scar he didn’t remember stood out. Where from? Stick? Puck? Fight? He unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it off his shoulders. On his left shoulder was another scar—surgical, old, faded white. Surgery? He had undergone a serious surgery he didn’t know about? Didn’t remember.

The body was his, but the map of this body had changed. It had become more powerful, heavier, more “worn.” It was the body of a league veteran.

“Who the hell are you?” Shane whispered to the reflection. The reflection remained silent. In the eyes of this adult man splashed the fear of a boy.

He washed his face with ice-cold water, trying to wash away the delusion, and returned to the bedroom.

On the nightstand lay a phone. Black, sleek, a solid screen without a single button on the face. Shane turned it over in his hands, feeling like a Neanderthal. Where was the “Home” button? Where do you put your finger?

He touched the screen, and it lit up.

“Swipe up to unlock.”

Shane swiped. A keypad for code entry appeared.

“Damn,” he exhaled through his teeth.

Anger flared instantly. Ilya left him the phone, said “text if anything,” but didn’t give the damn password! Typical Rozanov. Left a tool that was impossible to use.

“Ilya!” he wanted to shout, but his voice stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to call him.

Shane glared angrily at the dark screen. Try an old password? Or Mom’s birthday? He tapped the glass again, bringing the phone to his face to see the numbers, and had already lifted his finger to type, when suddenly…

A small lock icon at the top of the screen clicked and opened. By itself. Without a code. Without a fingerprint.

Shane recoiled, nearly dropping the gadget onto the blanket.

“What the hell…” he whispered.

He locked the phone with the side button. Brought it to his face again. Click. Open. Turned the phone away, pressed the button. Locked. Turned it toward himself. Open.

Facial recognition, Shane realized. A chill ran down his spine. In 2016, this was shown in James Bond movies or sci-fi. And now it was in his pocket.

This little technological miracle scared him almost more than the gray in his temples. The future had arrived, and it knew him by face.

The lock was open.

The wallpaper was a photo. Not hockey. Not a team logo. In the photo, Shane was asleep on the sofa, face buried in a pillow, and on his back, curled into a ball, slept Anya. The ginger dog had rested her muzzle on his shoulder. The shot was taken by someone else. By Ilya.

His heart skipped a beat.

Shane pressed the messages icon.

First pinned chat. Contact name: “Ilya”. And an emoji—a red heart.

Shane froze, staring at that name. In 2016, there was no Ilya Rozanov in his phone. That number was saved under the name “Lily.” A harmless female name. Cover. If someone saw a notification from “Lily,” they’d think Shane got a girlfriend. No one would guess that hiding behind that name was his main enemy on the ice and the only obsession in his life. No one would think anything seeing messages from a contact “Jane” on Ilya Rozanov’s phone.

“Lily” and “Jane” were their secret. Their fear. Their way to survive.

And now it said here: “Ilya ❤️”. Openly. Honestly. Without shame. This meant only one thing: they had stopped hiding.

He opened the chat.

His fingers trembled as he scrolled up through the messages. It was a chronicle of their life. Banal, domestic, murderously normal chronicle.

14:30 | Ilya❤️: Stopping by the store after practice. Need that protein?

14:31 | Me: Nah, already ordered. Get wine. We have dinner with Mom on Friday, remember?

14:31 | Ilya❤️: I remember. Unfortunately :)

14:32 | Me: Don’t be an ass. She loves you more than me.

14:32 | Ilya❤️: Because I’m charming. Love you.

14:33 | Me: Love you too. Drive safe, it’s raining.

Shane dropped the phone onto the blanket.

“Love you too.” He wrote that himself. Easily. Simply. Like “buy bread.”

It didn’t look like a passionate romance or a secret affair. It was routine. Established, reinforced concrete routine of two people sharing a life.

He picked up the phone again. His hands were sweating. Gallery. 34,000 photos and videos.

Shane opened the “Recents” section and started scrolling, winding years back. 2024. Christmas. Huge tree in the living room. Ilya in a stupid sweater with reindeer holding a glass of champagne. Shane kissing him on the cheek. 2023. Beach. Ilya in swim trunks (God, he’s still in perfect shape) walking out of the water. Shane filming a video, his laughter audible off-screen. 2020. Both of them with overgrown hair sitting on the floor playing video games.

The further he scrolled, the scarier it became. In 2016, Shane didn’t have a single photo of Ilya. That was the main evidence. He deleted everything. Here, Ilya was everywhere.

In his phone. In his house. In his life.

Shane stopped on a random video from three years ago. Pressed Play.

On screen, Ilya was teaching Anya to give a paw.

“Come on, Anya, show Daddy what a good girl you are,” Ilya cooed, laughing. The camera jerked, and Shane’s face entered the frame (he was filming in selfie mode). Shane in the video was smiling. Not that strained smile for the press he had practiced for years. He was smiling with his eyes. He looked at Ilya with such tenderness that the real Shane’s breath hitched.

Shane lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The evidence was irrefutable. Ilya Rozanov made him happy. And he, Shane-Hollander-of-2025, allowed it to happen.

At what moment did they break the pact? At what moment did sex stop being just a way to release tension and become… this?

The problem was only one thing: he didn’t feel this love. He saw it on the screen, saw it in the mirror, but inside was emptiness, fear, and guilt. He lived in a lucky man’s body while being emotionally bankrupt.

The video ended. The screen went dark.

It was a chronicle of a normal life. A life Shane-from-2016 was afraid to even dream of.

He needed to know more. Not about “love,” but about facts.

Shane opened the browser and typed into the search: Shane Hollander.

The internet spat out millions of results. The first link was Wikipedia. Shane clicked it.

Shane Brandon Hollander Born: May 10, 1991 (34 years old). Height: 180 cm. Current team: Ottawa Centaurs (NHL). Previous team: Montreal Voyageurs (NHL).

Ottawa. Shane sank onto the bed. In 2016, the Centaurs were the laughingstock of the league. Moving there from Montreal—a club with the greatest history—could mean only one thing: his career went downhill. He was kicked out. Exiled.

“Why?”

He scrolled down to the “Personal Life” section and felt the blood drain from his face.

“…Hollander found himself at the center of a major media scandal following the leak of a private video recording. The source of the clip was Hayden Pike, Hollander’s best friend at the time. While recording a video greeting for a fan, he failed to notice Shane Hollander (forward and captain of the Montreal Voyageurs) and Ilya Rozanov (forward and captain of the Ottawa Centaurs) kissing in the background. The video was published online by the fan who received the recording and instantly went viral…”

The phone fell from his hands as if it were red-hot. Video. They weren’t just exposed. They were stripped naked before the whole world. His worst nightmare—the thing that made him wake up in a cold sweat—had come true. Everyone saw.

“We were so careful,” flashed through his mind. “We left rooms separately. We did everything right. And we still screwed up.”

Shane closed his eyes, trying to fight the nausea. So that’s how it happened. Ilya left Boston for Ottawa first (presumably traded or signed). And then, when the video surfaced, Montreal got rid of the disgraced Hollander, throwing him out like defective goods. And the only team that accepted him turned out to be Ottawa. Ilya’s team.

He picked up the phone again with trembling hands. He needed to make sure he was still playing, that he wasn’t an outcast. His gaze fell on the “Awards” section, scrolling down to the 2020s.

Stanley Cup Champion (2022) — with Ottawa. Conn Smythe Trophy (2022) — Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. Frank J. Selke Trophy (2020, 2023).

Shane blinked. Stanley Cup. With Ottawa. They didn’t just survive this hell with Ilya. They took the worst team in the league and made it champion after the scandal.

Shane tossed the phone aside. He was shaking.

He is a legend who survived a catastrophe. He is Ilya Rozanov’s husband.

And he remembers none of it.

Chapter 7: Chapter 6

Chapter Notes

Hi! Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments — I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reply to each one, the last couple of days have been a bit crazy. I have a flight tomorrow, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to update, but I promise I’ll post several chapters in a day or two.
Your feedback means so much to me, and I truly appreciate you reading (even quietly).

Footsteps echoed in the quiet of the house. From downstairs, in the kitchen, came the clinking of dishes and a quiet whistling. And then—the smell of fried meat and garlic. Ilya was cooking dinner.

His stomach rumbled loudly. His body demanded food, cynically ignoring the emotional drama. Shane sat on the edge of the bed. He needed to go downstairs, but everything inside him resisted. Not out of fear—of course not, what the hell was there to be afraid of? He just needed a couple more minutes to gather his thoughts. Shane furiously pushed away the realization that he was simply being a coward.

He tried to tread silently on the stairs. He assured himself he just didn’t want to catch Ilya off guard or distract him from cooking. A convenient lie that allowed him not to admit the main thing: he was sneaking like a thief just to delay the inevitable meeting for at least a second.

Voices drifted from the kitchen area. Ilya was talking to someone on speakerphone. His tone was hard, businesslike—a captain’s tone.

“…no. No details, Harris. Absolutely none.”

Harris? Shane frowned, freezing on a step. He didn’t know any Harris. Agent? Lawyer? In 2016, Ilya had a different agent.

“Ilya, listen,” the stranger’s voice from the speaker sounded tired and professional. “Rumors are already circulating. One of the nurses might have talked. We can’t sign an NDA retroactively. And if we stay silent, insiders will invent something worse. Let’s just say it?”

“We’ll say: ‘Upper body injury.’ Concussion. But not a word about amnesia,” Ilya cut him off. “If the press finds out he forgot nine years… it’ll be a circus. They’ll write him off. The sharks will start discussing his contract, the salary cap, LTIR… I won’t let them bury his career while he doesn’t even remember how to hold a stick.”

Shane gripped the railing until his knuckles turned white. This stranger and Ilya were discussing his contract. His career.

“Fine,” Harris sighed. “Official version: concussion. I’ll tell my staff to release a statement. Ilya… are you sure you’ll make it? The flight leaves in three hours.”

“I’ll make it,” Ilya answered sharply. “I’ll be at the airport. Don’t start the briefing without me.”

Leaves? Shane tensed.

“And now off the record,” Harris’s voice softened, losing its official edge, genuine notes of concern appearing in it. Only a close friend could talk like that. “How are you holding up, Ilya?”

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie to me. I heard your voice this morning. You’re on the edge.”

Ilya exhaled heavily. Shane couldn’t see his face, but he heard that exhale tremble.

“It’s a fucking nightmare, Harris,” Ilya said quietly. “He looks at me like a wall. No, worse. Like an enemy. I brought him home, and he locked himself in the guest room like it’s a bunker.”

“He needs time.”

“I know. But seeing him like this… a stranger? It hurts. I’m afraid he’ll never…”

Shane felt a pang of guilt somewhere under his ribs. He didn’t want to hear this vulnerability. It was too intimate. Too real for an “enemy.” He decided enough hiding. Shane loudly, intentionally stomping his heels, came down the last step and walked into the kitchen.

Ilya, standing by the stove in simple house jeans and a black t-shirt, flinched and darted to the phone lying on the marble island countertop.

“I gotta go, Harris,” he threw out quickly. “Stick to the plan.”

He ended the call.

Silence hung in the air. Only something sizzled in the pan. Anya clicked her claws on the parquet, tried to nudge Shane’s palm with her nose, but he didn’t even look at her. Realizing there would be no affection, she snorted offendedly, turned around, and demonstratively went under the table.

“Who is Harris?” Shane asked point-blank.

Ilya tensed, wiping his hands on a towel. He looked caught red-handed.

“Harris Drover. Director of Public Relations.”

“For my team?” Shane clarified.

“For our team,” Ilya corrected. “The Centaurs.”

Shane sat at the island, looking at the food. He picked up a fork. He knew Mom had talked about the trade to Ottawa, but the realization was only sinking in now. He and Ilya were on the same team. Living in the same house. Eating the same food.

“So you and he decide what I say?”

“We’re saving your reputation, Shane. If they find out about the memory—they’ll eat you alive. Eat. You need strength.”

“You mentioned my career,” Shane started, chewing the first bite (damn, it was actually delicious). “That they might write me off. But physically I feel decent. Head’s buzzing, but my coordination seems fine. What’s the real prognosis?”

Ilya, pouring himself water, froze but didn’t turn around immediately.

“Not comforting.”

“I know the concussion protocol,” Shane frowned, pushing the plate away. It wasn’t the patient speaking now, but the professional assessing risks. “Usually it’s a week of observation, then bike tests. If symptoms don’t return—ice. Why did the doctor say a month? Is that just playing it safe?”

“It’s a necessity, Shane,” Ilya finally turned to him, leaning his lower back against the countertop. There was no pity in his gaze, only dry calculation. “You don’t just have a bruise; you lost nine years of your life. Doctors forbade any exertion. No ice. No gym. Complete rest until the brain stabilizes.”

“A month without ice…” Shane gripped the fork until his knuckles turned white. “I’ll lose form. Muscle mass will drop, conditioning will tank. I’ll be useless to the line.”

“You’ll be useless if you get on the ice prematurely and go down after the first check,” Ilya cut him off harshly. His voice changed—became heavier, more commanding. “The coach won’t let you on the arena premises without a clean bill of health. And I, as captain of this team, will personally make sure you don’t even think about bypassing that ban. We need a healthy sniper, not a suicide mission.”

Shane opened his mouth to snap back but changed his mind at the last moment. Captain? Ilya is captain of their team?..

“You said ‘captain’… And you told Harris you’d make the flight.”

Ilya looked away. He started twisting the ring on his finger—a nervous gesture Shane had already noticed.

“Yeah.”

“You’re leaving?” A strange feeling sounded in Shane’s voice. Not relief, as he expected. But fear. He was being left alone in a strange house, in a strange time.

“We have a game tomorrow. Road trip,” Ilya said quietly, his accent breaking through as if across time. Was he nervous? “In Boston.”

Twist of fate. Ilya was going to play against his former team. Shane frowned, trying to build a timeline in his head. How many years had Ilya not played for Boston? Seemed like an eternity. Was that enough time for everything to burn out? He probably didn’t care anymore. For him, it was just a dot on the map, another sheet of ice, nothing personal.

“Can’t you stay?” the question slipped out before Shane could bite his tongue. He immediately tried to mask the vulnerability with venom: “I mean… since you took on the role of my babysitter.”

Ilya looked at him… strangely. Shane frowned, trying to classify that expression, but couldn’t. There was something heavy, vulnerable in that look, but the exact name of the emotion slipped away, as if Shane lacked the necessary file in his memory.

“I wanted to. I asked the coach,” Ilya rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. “But we have two centers injured. I already haven't been on the ice for three days. I just can’t miss a second game in a row. The line will fall apart.”

Shane froze, digesting what he heard.

Second game?

The thought scratched at his consciousness. So Ilya had already missed one match? While Shane was lying unconscious, hockey-obsessed Rozanov blew off a game to keep vigil by his bedside?

This discovery should have warmed him, but instead, for some reason, it angered him. So then you could, but now you can't?

“I can’t let them down, Shane,” Ilya added, as if justifying himself. “It’s my team. And yours.”

Shane nodded and turned away. He didn’t ask a second time—pride wouldn’t allow it. Though somewhere deep down, irrationally and presumptuously, he was for some reason sure: Ilya would drop everything. Just send it all to hell and stay because Shane wanted him to. The fact that this time hockey outweighed it after all stung harder than he was ready to admit.

“Of course,” Shane said dryly. “You have to go. I’ll manage. There’s… Anya. And Netflix.”

Ilya smiled faintly.

“Mom is coming to you. Yuna promised to be here in an hour, she’ll stay with you for a couple of days until I get back. You won’t be alone.”

Mom. That was good. It was safe with Mom. But for some reason, the thought that Ilya would now pack a bag and leave left an unpleasant chill inside.

Packing was quick. Ilya changed into a comfortable tracksuit for the flight, and carefully packed the sharp dark blue suit into a garment bag. Shane watched these manipulations with a strange mix of recognition and alienation. The suit was for tomorrow’s game, but even just packing it, Ilya changed. That same “hockey” Ilya emerged—collected, pedantic, ready for war. Only now this ritual was happening in their shared bedroom.

A taxi was already waiting at the house, headlights illuminating the driveway.

Ilya came down to the hallway with a travel bag. Anya milled around his feet, whining, sensing the imminent separation.

“I’ll be back in three days,” Ilya crouched, ruffling the dog’s scruff. “Guard him with your life, Anya. I’m holding you responsible.”

The dog licked his nose. Ilya smiled, straightened up, and looked at Shane standing by the stairs.

“Yuna will be here in forty minutes,” he said. “If anything happens before that—call me. Or Harris. His number is saved in your phone.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Shane nodded. “Don’t worry. Focus on the game.”

Ilya chuckled—briefly, but warmly.

“I’ll try. And, Shane… no TV. Don’t even think about it. And put the phone away. You need total brain rest right now, no screens.”

Shane just scoffed mentally, keeping a poker face. Did Ilya seriously think he would miss the match? He’d sooner go blind than not see him play against Boston after so many years.

Ilya grabbed his bag, glanced quickly at his watch.

“Ну всё, я побежал. Не скучай, родной*,” he said softly, a rapid slur of words, habitually leaning toward Shane.

Shane froze. The meaning of the words slipped away, leaving only a set of melodic sounds. Was that Russian? Was he speaking Russian to him?

Panic hit his temples. Ilya said it so simply, so casually… meant Shane was supposed to understand? Do I know Russian? Shane frantically searched his memory—emptiness. A blank wall. I don’t know Russian! I don’t know a damn thing!

Ilya cut himself off, stumbling upon his empty, glazed stare. A shadow crossed his face—he had forgotten again.

“I said: I have to go,” he translated to English, straightening sharply and retracting the hand that was already reaching for Shane’s shoulder. “See you in two days.”

Ilya opened the door, letting cold evening air into the house, and left. The lock clicked. The sound of the engine faded in the distance.

Shane was left alone.

Chapter End Notes

*Ну, все, я побежал. Не скучай, родной (Russian) — Alright, I’ve gotta run. Don’t miss me, sweetheart.

Honestly, I can’t really find a perfect English equivalent for the word rodnoy — I’m sorry. It doesn’t just mean beloved or dear; it carries a sense of kinship and family. Rodnoy isn’t just a word — it’s a state of being.

Chapter 8: Chapter 7

Chapter Notes

Guys, you’re incredible — I’ve received so many wonderful comments, more than I think I ever have on any of my work. Thank you so much! I wanted to reply to each of you personally, but right now I’m in another country on vacation, so it’s a bit difficult.

The silence in the house instantly turned heavy, tangible. Anya sighed heavily, looked at the closed door, then at Shane, and trudged into the living room, her claws clicking.

Shane stood in the hallway, listening to the creaking floorboards. He was the master of this house. And he was a stranger here.

His legs carried him to the stairs on their own. He didn’t want to go to his “safe” guest room. It was boring there. It was empty there. He was drawn upstairs. To where Ilya had come from.

The climb was harder than he expected. The doctor hadn’t been joking about exertion: by the middle of the flight, his breathing hitched as if he’d just skated a double shift in overtime, and a dull, hot pain began to pulse at the back of his head. Shane had to grab the railing, waiting for the black spots dancing before his eyes to vanish.

Once up, he walked down the corridor past closed doors (office? another bathroom? another guest bedroom?) and stopped at the slightly open door at the end. The master bedroom. His heart hammered hollowly, echoing painfully in his temples. He felt like a thief breaking into someone else’s sanctuary. Shane pushed the door.

The room was enormous. In the center stood a bed—a giant King Size, dressed in dark gray linens. The windows faced the garden, the curtains were drawn open, and bright daylight slashed at his eyes, forcing Shane to wince and shield his face with his hand.

But the first thing that hit his senses was the smell. It smelled of them. A mix of that woody cologne of Ilya’s, fresh laundry, and… the smell of Shane himself. The familiar scent of his own body, only more concentrated. The scent of intimacy.

Shane walked inside, stepping on the soft carpet. His legs felt like cotton; the floor tilted slightly to the left.

He approached the bed. Two pillows. One was fluffed and lay perfectly straight. Shane’s pillow (he always liked order). The second was crumpled, mashed. Ilya’s pillow.

He shifted his gaze to the bedside tables. It was a map of their personalities.

The nightstand on the right (presumably Ilya’s): chaos. A watch charger, some sports magazine, a tube of hand cream, an empty mug, a handful of change. And a book in Russian—Dostoevsky? Seriously?

Shane’s gaze snagged on something gold lying atop the handful of coins. He reached out.

It was a ring. A simple, smooth, heavy gold band. An exact copy of the one Shane had seen on Ilya’s finger. Only slightly smaller in size.

Shane picked it up. The metal warmed from the heat of the lamp. His wedding ring.

Presumably, it had been taken off at the hospital before the MRI. Given to Ilya. And Ilya hadn’t returned it. Hadn’t put it on Shane’s nightstand, hadn’t forced it on him. He had simply taken it for himself. Like a keeper. He understood that for the current Shane, this ring wasn’t a symbol of love, but shackles. And he had spared him the need to wear them or, worse, throw them in his husband’s face.

Shane turned the ring in his fingers. There was an engraving inside. Very fine. Shane brought the ring to his eyes. Focusing was painful. His eye muscles protested, trying to assemble the blurring lines into letters; a lump of nausea rolled up his throat. But he managed. There was a date stamped there and two words in Russian. He didn’t know the language, but for some reason, he was sure it wasn’t “love until death.” Knowing Ilya, it was something like “Don’t fuck it up.”

He felt a strange desire to put it on. Just to check the size. His finger twitched. But Shane stopped himself. He had no right. As long as he didn’t remember why he had said “I do,” wearing this ring would be a lie.

He carefully placed the gold back on Ilya’s nightstand, atop the change. Right where it belonged right now—under the protection of the person who remembered for both of them.

The nightstand on the left (obviously Shane’s): perfect order. Thin-rimmed glasses.

Shane picked them up. His reading glasses. In 2016, it was just a slight correction, a barely noticeable “plus” for books and documents. He put them on. The near plane gained surgical sharpness, bringing instant relief to his tired eyes, but the moment he lifted his gaze—the space swam in a thick fog. The lenses had become much stronger. It was another proof of time. His body was aging, his vision failing, while his mind slept.

Next to the glasses lay a blister pack of pills. Melatonin. And joint pain relievers. “We turned into old men,” Shane thought bitterly.

He walked to the walk-in closet. The sliding doors were open. Rows of clothes hung inside. Shane’s shirts—sorted by color, ironed. Next to them—Ilya’s hoodies and t-shirts, hanging haphazardly. But the strangest part wasn’t that. The things were intermingled. Shane’s gray cardigan hung next to a Boston jersey (an old one, presumably a keepsake). On a shelf lay a stack of sweatpants. Shane pulled one pair out—soft, flannel. They were clearly too big for Shane, meaning they belonged to Ilya. But they lay on Shane’s shelf. They wore each other’s clothes.

Shane pressed his forehead against the cool mirror of the wardrobe. The cold glass slightly soothed his burning skin. Standing was becoming increasingly difficult—the strength gathered during sleep had run out, and his body demanded a horizontal position.

It was unbearable. Every inch of this room screamed of love. Not of passion, not of sex, but of deep affection ingrained in everyday life. Of how they shared a blanket at night. How Ilya put his watch on the nightstand, and Shane took off his glasses before sleep.

“How could I forget this?” he whispered into the silence. “How can you forget a whole life?”

Anya entered the room quietly. She didn’t bark. Just walked to the bed, lightly jumped onto the bedspread, and curled up right on the side where Shane’s fluffed pillow was. She put her muzzle on her paws and sighed heavily, never taking her eyes off him. Waiting for him to lie down next to her.

Shane felt a lump rising in his throat. He wanted to lie there. Curl up next to the dog, bury his face in the pillow that smelled of Ilya, and wake up in 2016. Or remember everything. He hastily took off the glasses, put them back in place—perfectly straight, strictly parallel to the edge of the nightstand—and headed for the exit. The click of claws on parquet followed: Anya jumped down after him immediately. She didn’t want to be in this room without him.

Shane walked out hastily, closing the door behind him. He had no right to be there.

The hallway was drowning in twilight. Anya, without stopping, clicked down the stairs. Shane wanted to follow her but froze. His gaze caught the adjacent door. It was ajar. An office.

He pushed the door. The smell here was different—old paper, leather, polish. Bookcases lined the walls. In the corner—a massive desk with a computer. But that wasn’t what drew Shane’s attention. What drew his attention was a glass display cabinet against the wall.

There, under soft lighting, stood them. The trophies.

Shane walked closer, leaning a hand against the wall for balance. The shelves shimmered with an abundance of silverware. In the center, on velvet stands, stood miniature replicas of the Stanley Cup—mementos of his and Ilya’s victories with Montreal, Boston, and Ottawa. Next to them, an impressive row of Selke awards lined up. On the very edge, marking the beginning of the journey, shone the Calder—the trophy for the best rookie of 2009. And slightly to the side, towering above the rest, stood it. The Conn Smythe Trophy. The prize for the playoffs' most valuable player.

This wasn’t just a statuette. This was the Holy Grail of personal excellence. Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin… and Hollander.

With trembling hands, Shane opened the cabinet. He reached out and touched the cold metal. Heavy. He took the trophy in his hands. The weight proved excessive for his weakened muscles—his hands shook traitorously, and sharp pain shot through his neck from the strain. The plate was engraved: Shane Hollander, 2022.

He looked at his name stamped in metal and tried to remember. Remember the roar of the crowd, the taste of victory, the weight of the real Cup over his head. But in his head, there was ringing emptiness and a rising noise, like static in a radio signal. He held proof of his greatness in his hands but felt like a thief who had stolen someone else’s award.

“I don’t remember earning you,” he whispered to the trophy, placing it back with both hands so as not to drop it.

The doorbell slashed through his ears, echoing in the back of his head with a sharp flash. Shane winced as if struck and grabbed the edge of the cabinet—the floor under his feet swayed dangerously. The short excursion had backfired: the adrenaline receded, and nausea returned, punishing him for his initiative.

He carefully closed the cabinet door, trying not to make sudden movements. Downstairs, Anya barked joyfully, and every sound hit his exposed nerves.

Yuna. Mom had arrived.

Shane walked out into the hallway, firmly closing the door behind him and leaning heavily with his shoulder against the wall. No strength remained. He had no right to be there. This room belonged to two happy people, and he felt like merely a defective, pain-splintered copy of one of them.

Chapter End Notes

I promise you, Shane will see Ilya play very soon :)

Chapter 9: Chapter 8

Chapter Notes

Hi everyone! Thank you once again for all your wonderful comments — I can’t put into words how much they inspire me to keep going. The total number of chapters might change, as I’m still rethinking a few scenes, so don’t be alarmed if you suddenly see more than planned :)
Enjoy the next chapter — and Ilya’s game :)

Yuna entered the house the way only mothers do: bringing with her the scent of fresh air, absolute calm, and the concrete-solid feeling that everything would now be under control.

She didn’t rush with dramatic hugs upon seeing Shane’s pale face and painfully squinting eyes. She just embraced him—carefully, gently, so as not to shake him unnecessarily—and got straight to business.

Ten minutes later, a saving twilight reigned in the house. Yuna drew the heavy curtains in the living room, dimmed all the lamps, leaving only soft under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen.

“Headache?” she asked, setting a cup of herbal tea in front of him.

“A little,” Shane lied, wincing.

His head wasn’t just aching—it was splitting. Any light source felt like a laser burning his retinas.

“Don’t lie to me, Shane Brandon Hollander. You have photophobia, it’s written on your forehead. Drink.”

They spent the evening quietly.

Yuna shared family news—who got married, who had babies, who got divorced. She filled the giant gaps of nine years of his life with careful, safe strokes, intentionally avoiding the topics of hockey and Ilya so as not to overload his traumatized brain.

Shane listened, nodded, but his thoughts were far away. A question had burned his tongue ever since he panic-closed the browser on his phone an hour ago.

He couldn’t hold back and interrupted her in the middle of a story about Aunt Martha:

“Mom. I googled myself.”

Yuna’s face remained calm. She just looked attentively at her son over her cup.

“And what did you find?”

“About the video,” Shane’s voice was tense, a string inside pulled to the limit. “About how… how everything came out. It says Hayden leaked the video. Is that true? Hayden outed us?”

“Oh, no, sweetie,” Yuna shook her head, setting down her tea. “Hayden was just as horrified as you were. He was recording a silly greeting for a fan at his place, you and Ilya just… got in the frame in the background. You were kissing. Hayden didn’t notice, sent it right away. The fan posted it on Twitter, and ten minutes later it was everywhere.”

Shane gripped the warm ceramic of the cup until his knuckles turned white. An accident. A stupid, ridiculous accident had destroyed years of their paranoid secrecy.

“Did you and Dad see it too?” that was the main question. The one that made his insides go cold.

“The whole world saw it. But we didn’t care.”

“Didn’t care?” Shane raised his eyebrows in disbelief, forgetting the pain. “But… the scandal? The press? Reputation? I thought you’d be furious.”

“Shane,” Yuna covered his hand with her palm, warm and dry. “By the time that video came out, we had known everything for a long time. Both Dad and I. We’d known for a couple of years.”

Shane froze. The world tilted again.

“A couple of years?”

“Yes. It started with that incident at the cottage… Remember the cabin by the lake? You and Ilya went there alone. And David…” she smiled warmly, a bit slyly. “David decided to stop by for dishwasher tablets. He didn’t know you weren’t alone.”

Shane felt his ears start to burn with fire. He didn’t remember this, but the situation was classic, like in a bad sitcom.

“He… caught us?”

“Let’s just say he saw enough to understand everything. If you knew how you two arrived at our place that same evening. Both pale, scared to death. Especially Ilya. He was shaking, he was sure we’d kick him out, destroy his career, kill him on the spot.”

Yuna sighed, stroking her son’s hand with her thumb.

“Your father just poured us all tea with whiskey and said everything was fine. We told you the most important thing immediately—that we wanted you to be happy. And then… then you started coming over for dinner. Regularly. Ilya became family long before the world knew about you. We dote on him. He and David watch baseball together and complain about the officiating. He helps me with baking.”

Shane listened, and the icy knot of fear in his chest, tied back in 2016, began to slowly unravel.

He wasn’t kicked out. He wasn’t rejected. Ilya didn’t steal him from his family—he became a part of it. They were a family.

“So, everything is good?” Shane asked quietly, almost in a whisper.

“Couldn’t be better,” Yuna said firmly.

Shane took a sip of cold tea. His soul felt lighter, as if a lead vest had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Thanks, Mom.”

But the next day, as the clock hands approached seven in the evening, the atmosphere in the house changed.

Shane began pacing from corner to corner like a beast in a cage. Anya, sensing his nervousness, trotted behind, whining quietly and looking into his eyes.

Tonight, the Centaurs were playing in Boston.

When Yuna entered the living room with a tray (light dinner: broth and toast), she found Shane standing in front of the huge, turned-off plasma TV. The remote lay on the coffee table like a forbidden fruit.

“Don’t even think about it,” Yuna said strictly, setting down the tray. “The doctor forbade screens. The flickering will trigger a migraine.”

“Mom, it’s Boston,” Shane turned to her. In the twilight of the room, his eyes shone with feverish stubbornness. “You don’t understand. Ilya is playing in Boston. Against them.”

“Ilya will manage perfectly fine without your supervision. He’s a professional.”

“I have to see,” Shane’s voice became quiet, almost pleading. “Mom, please. I need to see… my husband. I need to understand how he plays now. Who he is on the ice.”

Yuna sighed, looking at her son. She saw this wasn’t a whim. It was a desperate attempt to assemble the puzzle of his shattered identity. Hockey was the language Shane understood best.

“If you throw up or pass out, Ilya will kill me,” she grumbled, but capitulation was already audible in her voice.

She walked to the console table in the hallway, rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out Shane’s sunglasses.

“Put them on.”

“Mom, I’m inside the house…”

“Put them on, or the TV stays off until Christmas.”

Shane obediently put on the dark glasses.

“I’ll turn the brightness to minimum and mute the sound. You don’t need commentators, you’ll understand everything yourself.”

“Thanks.”

The screen flared up. Shane winced but held it together. Yuna really had turned the settings down so the picture became dim, almost gray. But it was enough.

The ice of TD Garden in Boston. The stands roared—Shane felt that vibration with his skin even without sound. The camera cut to the Centaurs’ bench.

Ilya.

He stood by the boards, leaning on his stick. On the chest of his white away jersey, the letter “C” was stitched.

Captain.

He looked different than in 2016. Gone was that twitchy, explosive, chaotic energy, when he darted around the ice like a madman, trying to score alone against five. Now he was a rock. Calm. Focused. A heavy gaze from under the visor. He was saying something to a young winger, patting him on the shoulder with a glove.

The game began.

Shane sat on the very edge of the sofa, clutching a pillow, unable to look away. What he saw broke all his stereotypes.

Ilya Rozanov was no longer a selfish sniper. He was a playmaker. He conducted the game. He saw the rink three moves ahead, read the ice like an open book.

There—he intercepted the puck in his own zone, but instead of dashing into a frantic solo run, he paused, drew two defenders to himself, and delivered a perfect, hidden pass across two zones to an open teammate.

“He passes,” Shane whispered, not believing his eyes. “He actually passes.”

“He changed,” Yuna said quietly, sitting down next to him. “You changed his game.”

Shane scoffed, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Me?”

“You taught each other. You taught him to play defense and trust the team, and he taught you to take risks and improvise.”

On screen, Ilya took a hard check from a Boston defender against the boards. Shane flinched as if he’d been hit himself. Anya, sleeping at his feet, raised her head.

But Ilya didn’t even stumble. He stayed on his skates, as if rooted in the ice, kept the puck, turned on a dime, and shot on goal from his backhand.

Goal.

Ilya didn’t celebrate by skating on one knee and miming shooting an arrow, as he did in his youth, annoying everyone around. He simply raised his arms, hugged the teammates skating up to him, and went for a change.

There was no smugness on his face. There was work. Hard, quality work.

The camera gave a close-up of the bench. Ilya took off his helmet, wiping sweat with his sleeve. He shouted something, encouraging the team, and then…

Then he looked straight into the camera.

For a split second. The gaze was heavy, tired, but piercing. Ilya brought his glove to his lips, brought the back of the glove to his mask, as if kissing his knuckles, and, looking into the lens, nodded barely noticeably.

Shane’s breath hitched. Air got stuck in his lungs.

He knew who that gesture was meant for. Not the fans. Not anyone else.

Him.

The husband sitting in a dark living room in Ottawa, in sunglasses, with a splitting headache, watching him.

“He knows you’re watching,” Yuna said, as if reading her son’s thoughts.

“How?” Shane asked hoarsely. “I’m not supposed to. Doctor forbade it. He knows I’m a rule-follower.”

“Because it’s you two,” she answered simply. “You always sense each other.”

Shane leaned back against the sofa cushions, feeling his temple pulse. The pain was becoming unbearable, but he couldn’t close his eyes.

This man on the screen—strong, noble, an undisputed leader—was his husband. And for the first time in days, Shane felt not fear, not rejection, but something else.

Pride.

And a burning, painful desire to remember what it was like—to be loved by such a man.

“That’s it,” Yuna commanded, grabbing the remote when the period ended. “Turning it off. You’re pale as death.”

“Mom, one more period…”

“No. To bed. Immediately.”

The screen went dark. Shane remained in darkness, but that image still stood before his eyes: Ilya kissing the ring under his glove.

Shane involuntarily touched the base of his ring finger with his thumb. It was empty there. But now he knew where the missing piece was. Upstairs, on Ilya’s nightstand, amidst his coins and mess. Ilya kissed his ring thousands of miles away. And Shane thought he felt the phantom warmth of gold on his own skin.

“Fine,” Shane surrendered, standing up. His head spun, the floor tilting under his feet. “I’m going.”

He shuffled to the stairs, leaning on the wall. In his room, he lay in bed without undressing. Anya habitually jumped to his feet, curling into a warm ball. Shane closed his eyes. The darkness under his eyelids pulsed with pain, but now there was an image in it.

“He is playing for me,” Shane thought, falling into restless sleep. “While I can’t, he is playing for both of us.”

Shane woke up in the darkness of the bedroom an hour later.

A dull, heavy pain pulsed in his head, radiating to the back of his neck. Yuna was right: watching a game with a concussion was an idiotic idea. He felt nauseous, colored spots swam before his eyes.

But he didn’t regret it.

Shane fumbled for his phone on the nightstand. The screen lit up, seeming like a searchlight even at minimum brightness. Face ID worked instantly, unlocking the screen.

Shane opened the messenger. The chat with “Ilya ❤️” hung at the top.

The last message was from Ilya, sent before the game: “Did Yuna arrive? Everything okay?”

Shane looked at the blinking cursor.

What to write? “You were magnificent”? Too cheesy. “My head is splitting”? Ilya would start panicking. “I don’t remember us, but I remember hockey”? Too complicated.

Shane typed one word. Deleted it. Typed it again. It was the only thing that mattered. Confirmation of contact. A signal from Earth.

Me: Saw it.

He pressed “Send.” The message went through, the checkmark turned gray, then—instantly—blue. Ilya was online.

Three typing dots appeared a second later. They jumped for a long time, as if Ilya was writing and deleting, writing and deleting, searching for words.

Finally, the answer came.

Ilya ❤️: Doctor forbade screens.

Shane chuckled weakly into the darkness. Of course. First things first—grumbling and care. A second message followed.

Ilya ❤️: Head hurts?

Shane hesitated but decided to be honest. Lying now made no sense.

Me: A little. It was worth it. You learned to pass. Who would have thought.

The answer flew back instantly.

Ilya ❤️: I learned a lot. Go to sleep, Shane. Turn off the phone.

And after a pause, a third message:

Ilya ❤️: Thank you for watching.

Shane looked at those letters.

“Thank you for watching.”

There was so much hope in that. Ilya wasn’t asking for love, wasn’t asking for memory, wasn’t demanding he “remember everything.” He was simply grateful that Shane was there, on the other side of the screen.

Shane locked the phone and put it on the nightstand screen down. Anya, sensing the movement had stopped, shifted at his feet, getting comfortable, and sighed heavily, cozily.

He closed his eyes. The pain in his temples hadn’t gone anywhere, but the icy lump of fear in his chest had become a little smaller.

He was in a stranger’s house. He was married to a stranger. But that person had played for him tonight.

“Goodnight, Captain,” Shane whispered into the void.

And for the first time in three days, he fell asleep without nightmares.

Chapter 10: Chapter 9

Chapter Notes

Guys, you’re amazing! I almost cried reading all your lovely comments. I want to emphasize once again that this story is fully finished - I’m just editing it before posting and rereading everything to polish it for you.
I was planning to post all the chapters before New Year, but now I’m not so sure (my vacation turned out better than I expected), though I’m still very determined.
Sorry - there’s still no Ilya in this chapter :(

The next two days passed in a strange, cotton-wool limbo—the kind that follows a severe illness or a long transatlantic flight, when the body is already home but the mind is still wandering somewhere far away, unable to find its way back.

Ilya was gone.

And the house, where Shane had spent nearly a week now, seemed simultaneously too spacious and stiflingly cramped. The air stood dense, motionless, like before a storm. It felt as if no one had truly breathed here since the front door slammed behind Ilya two days ago.

Shane tried to occupy himself, but his thoughts wandered in circles, hitting a blank wall.

He couldn't remember the last nine years of his life.

He tried formulating this thought aloud, whispering it while standing in front of the mirror, but each time it scared him like a stranger's voice. He didn't know who he was now. He didn't know what he had lost. And the scariest part—he didn't know what he was supposed to protect himself from. The enemy was inside.

TV was strictly forbidden (Yuna guarded the remote with the jealousy of Cerberus entrusted with the keys to hell's gates), so Shane found a loophole—a tablet. Brightness at minimum, sound off, screen turned so Yuna wouldn't accidentally see from the kitchen. Five-minute sessions—only while knives were chopping or a pan was sizzling, or when Yuna went into the garden to talk to Dad on the phone.

He didn't google the news. He couldn't. Every time his finger hovered over the search bar, his heart pounded so hard as if warning: “Don’t. Not today. Not now. Maybe never. You are not ready to find out who else you lost or betrayed.”

Instead, he watched hockey.

His own hockey.

He found a compilation on YouTube: “Shane Hollander: Ultimate Defensive Highlights 2023–2024”.

Shane looked at the tiny screen and didn't recognize the man moving in the frame. Number 24. His number. His name on the back. But this was a different person—or perhaps the one he was always meant to become, but in 2016 didn't know how yet.

In 2016, he was sharp, hot, obsessed. He rushed forward, barreled into the attack, as if he could ram through the world and force it to submit by the sheer force of desire alone. That Shane was a fire that burned everything around, including himself.

This one—was ice.

Precise, economical, calculated to the millimeter. Not a single wasted movement. He moved as if he knew where the opponent would go a second before the opponent himself. As if he read the game like an open book. As if he heard the breathing of every player on the ice.

Intellect instead of rage. Analysis instead of animal instinct.

Shane watched and felt a strange, blurred feeling rise inside—a mix of pride and… deep, wistful alienation. As if he were watching a video of his younger brother's successes, who had suddenly grown up while you were in a coma and became who you only dreamed of becoming.

“Are you watching yourself block shots?” a voice came from the door.

Shane flinched so sharply that pain shot through his neck. He flipped the tablet screen down—reflexively, like a schoolboy hiding a comic book under a textbook.

The voice was male, unfamiliar. Confident, but with notes of light, habitual mockery.

A man of about thirty-five stood in the doorway. Reddish hair, glasses in thin trendy frames, a blazer that cost as much as a used car but fit so casually, as if he had lived in it for the past three days, bouncing between airports and meetings, running exclusively on caffeine and wicked self-irony.

“Door was open, Yuna let me in,” he said, walking deeper into the room and almost collapsing into the armchair opposite. With a heavy sigh, he placed a pink box on the table. “I brought a bribe. Donuts. Ilya said you’re on a strict diet and a monk’s regimen, but if you don’t eat at least one maple pecan—I’m leaving deeply offended.”

Shane tensed all over. His arms crossed over his chest in a defensive gesture on their own. Instinct screamed: “Intruder in the perimeter.”

“You’re Harris,” he said slowly, recalling the name from Ilya’s stories.

“Harris Drover,” the man put a hand to his chest as if introducing himself on a theater stage. “Director of Public Relations, head babysitter of twenty grown men, keeper of the coaching staff’s nerves, and the man who knows where all the skeletons of this club are buried.”

He smiled so openly and warmly that it threw Shane off balance a bit. Instead of a slippery corporate shark, sitting before him was… almost a friend? Or someone a friend could be.

“Did Ilya ask you to stop by?” Shane asked cautiously.

“Ilya?” Harris chuckled nervously, opening the donut box. “If Ilya knew exactly why they sent me here, he’d kill me. I’m here because club management is in a panic.”

Shane tensed. The word “panic” in the middle of the season never meant anything good.

“Social media is a mess. Someone started a rumor that you have a brain hemorrhage and won’t get up again,” Harris explained casually, as if talking about the weather. “Sponsors are blowing up the phones. The GM wants to nip this in the bud immediately. They need a statement. Or better—a photo.”

“A photo?” Shane repeated, feeling a wave of protest rising inside.

“Yeah. Simple, domestic photo. You in a sweater, alive, smiling, maybe with the dog. Caption like: ‘Thanks for the support, back soon.’ So stocks don’t drop.”

Harris took out his phone, looked at the screen, and winced.

“Your husband, by the way, is aware of this ‘brilliant’ marketing idea. And he is currently unleashing Armageddon in the group chat. Look.”

He turned the screen to Shane. Messages from contact “Cap” were pouring in one after another: “Don’t you dare touch him.” “No photos.” “Harris, if you pull out a camera, I’ll get you fired.” “Shane needs rest, not a photoshoot. Leave him alone.”

“He’s been at war with the office from the bus for an hour now,” Harris sighed, putting the phone away. “Ilya is categorically against it. He thinks it’s a violation of your privacy while you’re vulnerable. And you know… he’s right. But I was ordered to try.”

Shane looked at the closed curtains, then at Harris. It was pleasant to know that Ilya, even in another city, stood guard over his peace like a watchdog.

“Ilya is right,” Shane said firmly. “No photos. I won’t pose to calm sponsors. I look like shit, and I don’t remember half my life. Not the best time for a selfie.”

Harris just spread his hands, closing the subject with visible relief.

“I’ll tell the GM exactly that. ‘Mission failed, agent told to go to hell by both Hollanders.’”

He chuckled, nodding at his pocket where “Cap” was raging.

“See? He won’t calm down until I report that I left and left you alone. Honestly, your husband is a nightmare for the club right now. He’s terrorizing the whole office, demanding silence for you. But…” Harris smiled warmly, opening the donut box and offering it to Shane. “We love him. For exactly that.”

Shane looked down. The words hit unexpectedly hard.

We love him.

So simple. So matter-of-fact. So… real.

“Okay, photo is canceled,” Shane nodded, ignoring the offered box. “What then? What’s our cover story?”

Harris instantly turned serious. The jester mask vanished. He set the donuts aside and turned on his tablet screen.

“Standard legend. Officially: ‘Upper body injury,’ ‘complications after concussion.’ No timeline for return. Journalists have swallowed it for now. But you need to be ready in case one of the particularly slick ones finds a way to get to you directly.”

“I don’t need to lie, Harris,” Shane interrupted quietly. “I truly remember nothing about the last years. I have nothing to tell them.”

Harris looked at him intently and nodded slowly.

“And that’s the best tactic. ‘No comment’ is your best friend. But…” Harris locked the tablet. “I’m not just here for the briefing. The club sent me for the photo, but I came because I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Personally. Ilya told me…”

He hesitated for a second, choosing words.

“He said you didn’t remember that you were… together.”

That stung. Shane looked away to the window, where the wind swayed the branches of unfamiliar trees.

“I knew who he was,” Shane corrected in a hollow voice. “I remembered his face, remembered his name. I just didn’t know we were married. In my head, he was still the rival from 2016. In my head, I hadn’t come out of the closet. We hadn’t come out,” Shane swallowed. He was admitting this to himself for the first time.

“Brain scramble,” Harris nodded sympathetically. “But don’t stress about it. You’re alive—that’s already a win. Everything else will catch up. Memory is a tricky thing, it’ll come back when you’re ready.”

Shane exhaled barely noticeably. These simple words without pity were needed more than he wanted to admit.

“The guys say hi.”

“The guys?” Shane perked up anxiously. “Do they know?”

“About the amnesia? No. Only the coaching staff and the GM know. To the rest, you’re just sick. But they miss you. Especially Troy. He’s whining that he has no one to practice the penalty kill with.”

And then the phone in Harris’s pocket started playing some ridiculous, upbeat pop hit.

Harris glanced at the screen—and his face lit up with the smile of a lovestruck idiot.

Shane noticed the name. And the emoji.

Troy 🍆.

Shane blinked. Was he seeing things?

“Yeah, babe,” Harris said into the receiver, his voice turning soft as molasses. “He’s alive. No, he doesn’t want to talk to you, he looks like he’s seen a ghost. … Yeah. I’ll be there soon. Love you. Bye.”

He hung up and put the phone away. Shane looked at him like a man who had just announced he was dating a Martian.

“Troy?” he uttered in an icy voice. “Troy Barrett?”

“Yep,” Harris said, still smiling at his thoughts. “My boyfriend.”

Shane felt dizzy. The concussion pain responded with a dull throb in his temples.

“Troy Barrett? The one who laughed at Kent’s jokes? The one who nearly broke my arm in the 2014 playoffs?”

Pause.

Harris slowly took off his glasses. His eyes turned hard, cold.

“Ah, right… Exactly. You’re from 2016.”

The conversation sharply veered to where Shane least expected to end up. Onto a minefield.

“You’re dating him?” Shane froze. His gaze read only absolute, genuine lack of understanding. As if Harris said water was dry. “Harris, you… you’re gay. How can you be with him?”

He frowned, trying to assemble this puzzle.

“He’s Kent’s lackey. He’s a homophobic bastard. I remember his interviews. I remember what he said on the ice. It… it’s just illogical.”

Harris looked at Shane point-blank. His gaze became steely, protective.

“Troy Barrett is not a homophobe, Shane. And he hasn’t played for Toronto for a long time.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” Shane scoffed. “They probably kicked him out for drinking or bar fights. It was a matter of time.”

“They kicked him out because he was the only one with the balls to tell the truth,” Harris replied sharply, like a slap in the face.

Shane fell silent mid-word.

“What?”

“Dallas Kent is in prison, Shane. For rape. Serial.”

Shane felt a chill run down his spine. Kent was untouchable. A star. Captain of Toronto. Idol of Canada. In 2016, he was king of the world.

“Troy wasn’t a witness,” Harris continued, enunciating every word. “He didn’t see anything with his own eyes. But when the victims started speaking… everyone was silent. The League was silent. Everyone was afraid of Kent. And Troy… Troy just believed them. He caused a scene right at practice. He yelled at Kent, called him a rapist and an asshole in front of the whole team, coaches, and press.”

Harris took a breath, his voice trembling with contained pride.

“He said he believed the women. He broke his career that day. Toronto stood up for their star. They claimed Troy was lying, that he was a toxic element, that he was destroying the ‘chemistry’ in the locker room. They destroyed his reputation and traded him to us, to Ottawa, for a bag of pucks. He arrived here completely broken. An outcast.”

Shane listened, feeling shame shifting inside him. Heavy, sticky. He had judged a man by headlines from a decade ago.

“That was… when?” he asked hoarsely.

“Six months before you came to us,” Harris said. “Ilya was already here. Then came Troy. And then… then your story happened.”

Shane swallowed. His story. The video.

“When you arrived in Ottawa, Shane… you were a shadow of yourself. You expected a blow from everyone. You thought they’d greet you in the locker room like a leper. But Troy… Troy Barrett was the first one to walk up to you and shake your hand. He knew what it’s like—when you get dragged through shit for doing the right thing.”

Harris put his glasses back on, hiding the shine in his eyes.

“So don’t you dare talk to me about 2016. We live in 2025. And here, Troy Barrett is a good man. The best I know. And he loves me. And I love him.”

A ringing silence hung in the room. Only the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the ticking of the clock could be heard.

Shane fell silent. It clicked in his head: he had just done what he himself hated most—judged a person without knowing the context. He saw Harris’s shoulders tense and realized he had crossed a line.

Years of media training and self-work hadn’t been for nothing. Shane knew: when you get facts wrong and hurt someone, you don’t just shut up, you repair the bridge. He took a deep breath, consciously switching registers from “analytical” to “friendly.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, and this time his voice sounded softer not because it had to, but because he truly regretted it. “I judged by what I remember. That was stupid. I didn’t mean to hurt you, really.”

Harris exhaled, and his shoulders relaxed.

“Water under the bridge. You missed a lot of shit, Shane. But a lot of good, too. People change. Sometimes for the better.”

He stood up, adjusting his impeccable blazer.

“I gotta go. Troy’s waiting with dinner. Eat a donut. Ilya won’t know, my lips are sealed.”

“Harris,” Shane called out to him at the door.

“Hm?”

“Thanks. For telling me. And… say hi to Troy.”

Harris smiled—sincerely and brightly.

“I will. Get well, Shane. We miss you. Truly.”

The door closed.

Shane was left alone with a box of donuts and another shattered stereotype. He looked at the tablet where a frame of his game was frozen. If Troy Barrett could become a good man… maybe I could too? Maybe the Shane I became wasn’t pretending.

Smart hockey. Smart life. Seems like over these nine years, he had ended up in the company of very decent people.

Chapter 11: Chapter 10

Chapter Notes

Merry Christmas to everyone who’s celebrating today! Wishing you warmth, comfort, and a little magic wherever you are ✨
And thank you so much for all your comments once again — they truly mean the world to me. Every bit of feedback, every kind word matters more than I can properly express, and it gives me so much motivation to keep going.
Enjoy the new chapter - the boys finally talk :)
P.S. Please don’t hate me ^_^'

On the third day, the atmosphere in the house changed.

It was an almost physical sensation—as if the air temperature in the rooms had shifted by half a degree, the shadows had become denser, and the silence heavier, more electrified. Shane couldn't explain it, but the skin under his sweater reacted with a faint itch.

Yuna had been unusually active since morning. Too active.

She put something complex in the oven—the smell of thyme, lemon, and garlic hung in the air like a thick, warm curtain. She fluffed the pillows on the sofa as if their geometry held cosmic significance. Wiped invisible dust. Rearranged fruits in the bowl.

Shane watched her with a growing lump of anxiety under his ribs.

Anya sensed the change too. The dog paced between rooms, lying down by the door one moment, then jumping up and doing a nervous lap around the living room the next. She whined constantly—quietly, gutturally, as if warning.

“He’ll be here soon,” Yuna said without turning around, wiping the already clean countertop. “He’s in a taxi.”

Those words hit unexpectedly hard, as if the ground had slipped from under his feet.

Ilya is coming back.

Three days of distance. Three days of texting—careful, polite, like a conversation on thin ice. Three days of respite where he could pretend he controlled the situation.

Now the respite was over.

“Mom…” Shane nervously picked at the hem of his t-shirt. “Will you… will you stay for dinner?”

Yuna shook her head.

She had already changed—a beautiful dark coat, a neat scarf, warm lipstick. Not “Home Yuna” in an apron. Yuna the Lady.

“No, sweetie. I’m going home. Dad is coming back from his trip. I want to meet him.”

“But…” the words stuck in his throat. “I… I’m not sure I’m ready to be alone with him.”

Yuna walked over, cupped Shane’s face in her palms. Her fingers were warm, smelling of cream and flour.

“You are ready,” she said very softly, looking him in the eyes. “You’re just afraid.”

She tilted her head slightly.

“Ilya isn’t scary. Ilya is your family. Even if you don’t remember it. You need to be together. Without me. Without doctors. Without Harris. Just the two of you, here, where you’re safe.”

Shane wanted to nod, but his neck muscles had turned to wood. Everything inside twisted into a tight knot—fear, guilt, a strange, misplaced tenderness, and anxiety as vast as this house.

The noise of an engine outside hit his nerves like a siren.

Anya shot up, barking deafeningly, and rushed to the door, scrabbling her claws on the floor.

Yuna smiled—briefly, but with that special warmth only mothers who know everything in advance possess—and undid the chain lock.

The door swung open.

Cold, damp air of the airport evening burst into the house—a mix of kerosene, melting snow, and exhaustion.

Ilya stepped inside.

He looked like he hadn’t slept in three days or rested in ten years.

Dark circles under his eyes—almost black bruises on pale skin. His stubble had turned into a short, unkempt beard. The hood of his jacket was wet with snow. A travel bag hung on his shoulder, dragging him down.

But the main thing was the bouquet.

A huge, ridiculous, disheveled bouquet of wildflowers, clearly bought in a rush at the airport—too bright, too loud for this deathly gray evening.

“Hi,” he breathed out. Steam escaped his mouth in a small cloud.

Anya jumped around, whining joyfully. Ilya crouched, ruffled her sides, let her lick his cheek—but his gaze didn't tear away from Shane, who stood deep in the hallway, pressed against the wall.

The cautious, fearful hope in Ilya’s eyes was deafening.

“Hi, hero,” Yuna stepped toward him, hugging him. “Congrats on the win.”

“Thanks, Yuna,” his voice was quiet, raspy.

He hugged her with one arm, the other still clutching the bouquet. But his eyes—again and again—returned to Shane.

People only look like that at someone they have already lost once and are terrified of losing again.

“Alright,” Yuna said, briskly picking up her purse. “Dinner is in the oven. Instructions are on the fridge. Don’t kill each other.”

She kissed Shane on the cheek, whispering: “Breathe.”

And left.

The door closed. The lock clicked. The sound felt like the last escape route being cut off.

Silence descended instantly. Enormous. Blinding.

Only Anya’s rapid panting. And the distant hum of the refrigerator.

Ilya took a step, locking the deadbolt. The movement was slow, as if he was trying not to spook a wild animal. Setting the bouquet down, he took off his shoes. His coat. Placed his keys on the dresser—carefully, almost ceremoniously, next to Shane’s keys. Then he picked up the flowers again.

Shane stood, not knowing what to do with his hands. With his back. With his eyes.

“How are you?” Ilya asked, walking closer. His voice was quiet, hoarse. He held out the bouquet. “This is for you. I… don’t know why. Saw them at the airport and thought… well… never mind. Stupid.”

Shane took the flowers. They smelled of the cold street and the honeyed warmth of a greenhouse.

“Thanks,” he said, and his voice trembled traitorously.

Ilya nodded. He stood in the middle of his own living room as if for the first time. His shoulders were tense. A big, strong, confident man, an NHL captain—and at the same time a boy afraid to take an extra breath.

“I’ll… go shower,” he said finally, pointing upstairs. “Wash off the road dust.”

He hesitated.

“And then… dinner?”

“Dinner,” Shane confirmed, and for the first time that day, the word didn’t feel like a sentence.

Ilya nodded quietly, grabbed his bag, and headed for the stairs. Shane watched him—watched his broad back, watched how tiredly his shoulders slumped.

The back of a man who had been carrying the load for two.

When Ilya’s steps faded somewhere upstairs, a ringing, dense silence hung in the living room. Shane exhaled slowly, feeling the tension that held his spine straight loosen a bit.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were still convulsively gripping the flower stems, as if that were the only thing anchoring him to reality. Shane loosened his grip, found a vase with his eyes, filled it with water—the noise of the running stream seemed deafening in the silence. Wet stems slid against the glass with a quiet, rubbery squeak. He reached out, lightly touching a velvety petal, and in that moment, something inside fluttered.

It felt like an echo. Not a clear picture, not a specific memory, but a blurry yet incredibly warm sensation. Like sunlight on skin. As if he had done this a hundred times before, and in that forgotten past, it brought him quiet, calm joy.

But the moment he tried to grasp that feeling, focus on it, it dissolved, leaving behind only the bitter taste of emptiness.

Shane tried to sit on the sofa, force himself to just wait, but inaction began to burn from the inside. Thoughts swarmed in his head, tangling, frightening. He physically needed to occupy his hands to not go crazy.

He stepped into the kitchen, led by the smell of food. At that moment, the oven timer emitted a loud, demanding beep. Ready.

“Okay,” he muttered under his breath, grabbing a kitchen towel like a lifeline. His voice sounded raspy but determined. “I can handle this. I’m not helpless.”

Shane started setting the table. It turned out to be harder than he thought. He had to open cupboard doors at random, feeling like an awkward guest in his own home.

The first held mugs. The second—some containers. Only on the third try did he find the plates—heavy, dark gray, rough ceramic.

He had better luck with the cutlery—logic suggested checking the top drawer by the sink. Shane took out forks and knives, laying them out on the table. He acted cautiously, constantly doubting: is he putting them in the right place? Do they use napkins? Do they even have a ritual? Every movement was a search, not a habit.

When he was placing a pitcher of water, footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Ilya came down, towel-drying his wet hair as he walked. He had changed into house clothes: soft gray sweatpants, a white t-shirt. Seeing the set table—plates, cutlery, hot casserole—he only grunted approvingly. No unnecessary questions, no drama. He accepted Shane’s initiative naturally.

“Smells great,” he said simply, pulling out a chair. “Just in time.”

“Couldn’t just sit around doing nothing,” Shane grumbled, feeling the tension release. “Sit down.”

They ate almost in silence. Ilya ate quickly, hungrily, but constantly glanced at Shane’s plate, checking if he was eating.

“Harris stopped by,” Shane broke the silence, pushing a piece of casserole with his fork.

“I know,” Ilya nodded without looking up from his food. “He texted that ‘mission failed’ and he was banished in disgrace.”

“He told me about the photo. About the club wanting to calm the sponsors.” Shane looked up at his husband. “And he showed me the chat. How you fought them.”

Ilya slowly lowered his fork. The clink of metal on ceramic sounded too loud in the quiet kitchen. His face hardened.

“They’re idiots,” he said evenly, but steel rang in his voice. “I warned them: don’t touch you. You’re not a media figure right now, you’re a patient. Your recovery is more important than their charts and stocks.”

“You wrote that he’d be fired if he pulled out a camera,” Shane noted. Disbelief and a strange, unfamiliar gratitude mixed in his voice. “Were you really ready to issue an ultimatum to management? Just so I wouldn’t be forced to smile?”

“I’d go against anyone,” Ilya replied simply, looking him straight in the eyes. “You’re not a zoo animal, Shane. As long as I’m captain, no one dares barge into our home and demand a ‘picture’ from you. I don’t care about sponsors. I care about you being left alone.”

Shane was silent, digesting that answer. The realization that Ilya Rozanov—the Rozanov—was ready to risk relationships with bosses for his comfort was no less baffling than the amnesia.

“Harris said you’re their nightmare,” Shane finally chuckled. “But they love you.”

“Harris talks too much,” Ilya grumbled, but his shoulders relaxed, and he picked up his fork again. “Eat. It’s getting cold.”

Shane obediently speared a piece of vegetables, but his thoughts were far away.

“He also said he’s dating Troy Barrett,” Shane said, still not believing what he was saying. “Harris said point-blank that Barrett is his boyfriend.”

“I see,” of course, for Ilya this wasn’t news at all, unlike for Shane.

“I was… surprised. I thought Barrett was a piece of shit,” he was still trying to find the words. How to explain that he was still matching his memories against this new reality?

“Everyone did,” Ilya replied calmly. “But he changed. We all changed.”

“Mom tried to show me that too,” he said quietly. “While she was with me, she talked a lot.”

Ilya tensed, as if expecting a trick, and reached for his water glass.

“She told me about that evening at the cottage,” Shane began quietly. “When Dad walked into the room and… caught us.”

Ilya nodded slowly, taking a sip of water. A shadow of a smile touched his lips, but his eyes remained serious.

“That was a long day.”

“She said I was terrified when we got to their house,” Shane rubbed his forehead, trying to grope for that memory, but there was emptiness. “Was I afraid they’d reject me?”

“No,” Ilya shook his head. He spoke softly, as if explaining the obvious. “You knew they loved you. You weren’t afraid of their reaction. You were terrified because your choice had been taken away.”

Shane froze.

“You always wanted to control everything, Shane. You wanted to tell them yourself, when you were ready, choose the words. And in that moment, everything was decided for you. The door opened—and there was no way back. You felt cornered by circumstances, not by your parents.”

Shane was silent, digesting what he heard. Ilya’s words fit perfectly, filling the gap in his memory. Loss of control. Inability to decide for himself.

“We both had our choice taken away when that video leaked,” Shane said suddenly. His voice sounded firmer, harder. “History repeated itself.”

Ilya’s face turned to stone instantly.

“Shane…”

“It’s the same thing,” he interrupted, looking Ilya straight in the eyes. “We were put on display without our consent. Only then it was a room in a cottage, and later—the whole world. My choice was taken, but yours was too.”

He leaned forward across the table.

“Ilya, why didn’t you leave? Back then? You were stripped of a voice too. Your career was put at risk, you were dragged into this by force. Why stay with someone who brings such trouble?”

Ilya held his gaze. He didn’t look away, didn’t try to joke it off. He covered Shane’s hand with his, squeezing his fingers tightly.

“I couldn’t leave. Because without you, I didn’t want any career.”

“But that’s unfair.”

“We loved each other,” Ilya said firmly. “Yes, they took away our choice of ‘when’ and ‘how’. But no one could take away my choice of ‘with whom’. I chose you. Back then, in the car on the way to your parents. And then, when the video hit the net. And now.”

Ilya’s words hung in the air, dense and heavy with sincerity. Shane felt a lump rising in his throat. It was too much. Too much love that he couldn’t remember yet, but felt with his skin right now. His system was overloaded. He urgently needed to lower the temperature, escape to where everything followed clear rules, where there was no pain or complex choices. To the ice.

He exhaled sharply, clinging to the only safe topic that had always connected them.

“Thanks for the game,” Shane changed the subject abruptly, unable to bear the emotional intensity any longer. His voice sounded a bit louder than necessary, but it was his defense. “You were good. Especially in the third, when you locked down the zone.”

Ilya instantly understood the maneuver. He didn’t push, didn’t demand an answer to his confessions. He simply accepted the pass. The relief in his eyes was almost tangible.

“Boston got slower,” he responded, instantly switching to professional mode. “They’re collapsing in the neutral zone. Did you notice how their defensemen lost position on counterattacks?”

“I noticed,” Shane nodded, feeling the tension release. His heartbeat leveled out. “They lack speed on the backcheck. In 2016, they would have eaten us alive for gaps like that.”

“Different league now, Shane. Different speeds.”

They talked about hockey for half an hour. It was their safe zone. Here there was no amnesia, no strange marriage, no awkward pauses. Here there was only ice, tactics, and two professionals who understood the game on the same—transcendent—level. Shane was surprised to find he enjoyed discussing this with Rozanov. Their views aligned, their analysis complemented each other. It was that chemistry the coach talked about, just translated into words.

Then they got up to clear the dishes.

It happened automatically. Ilya gathered the plates, Shane reached for the glasses. A domestic dance practiced over years, which Shane’s body remembered before his brain could object.

They bumped into each other at the sink.

The space collapsed. The spacious kitchen with the island suddenly became tiny, unable to contain two large men.

Shane froze. He ended up too close. Too close to the person he slept with. He felt the heat of Ilya’s body—that same post-game heat that hadn’t cooled yet. Caught the scent—a mix of expensive shower gel, damp hair, and something else, barely perceptible but strangely familiar. The smell of home.

Ilya froze too, holding a soapy plate under the stream of water. He didn’t move away. He stood as if this was his rightful place—shoulder to shoulder with Shane.

Shane shifted his eyes, unable to turn his head. He looked at his profile—hard, focused. His gaze slid lower. To the strong hands covered in foam. To the wrists where veins bulged.

And to the ring.

A simple platinum band on the ring finger glinted under the water. An alien, impossible object on Ilya Rozanov’s hand. Shane stared at it, mesmerized, and the same thought beat in his head: “It’s real. Damn it, it’s all real.”

“Ilya,” he called.

Ilya turned his head. Their faces ended up dangerously close. Ilya’s gaze fell to Shane’s lips, darkened, hunger flared in it—that same hunger from 2016.

Shane froze, his heart skipped a beat. His body reacted faster than thought. It leaned forward, led by an ancient, unerring instinct that no amnesia had erased. Shane wanted this touch. Here and now.

But Ilya exhaled slowly, as if extinguishing a flame inside himself, and took a step back. An invisible wall grew between them again.

“Go rest, Shane,” he said hoarsely, turning sharply back to the sink. He gripped the edge of the countertop until his knuckles turned white. “You have a regimen. I’ll finish.”

Shane stood there, feeling cold flood the place in his chest where electricity had sparked a second ago. He felt like an idiot. Ilya retreated again. Turned on the “perfect husband” again. Showed that damn nobility again, protecting Shane from himself, as if he were a crystal vase, not a man.

And that made Shane angry to the point of trembling. He didn’t need pity or caution. He needed… something real.

“Goodnight,” he tossed dryly, turned on his heel, and walked out without waiting for an answer.

He went upstairs. Walked past the ajar door of their bedroom—the one where their shared life remained—and turned into the guest room.

Shane closed the door behind him and leaned his back against it, staring into the darkness.

The irony of the situation was suffocating. He was home. With a husband who loved him and to whom he was drawn. But he would have to sleep here. In this cold, sterile room. Alone.

Because Ilya decided to be noble to the end.

Chapter 12: Chapter 11

Chapter Notes

Content warning: this chapter includes discussion of a canon character’s diagnosed depression. It also mentions medication — please note that you should never take medication without a doctor’s prescription. If the symptoms described feel familiar or resonate with you, please consider reaching out to a qualified professional.

The morning didn’t start with coffee, but with a sharp, dry sound coming from downstairs.

First—a dry rattle of something hard against plastic. As if someone shook a maraca.

Then—click. The loud, plastic sound of a childproof cap.

Shane went downstairs, drawn by the smell of toast and that strange noise. He found Ilya by the open medicine cabinet above the sink. Ilya stood with his back to him, wearing the same gray sweatpants but shirtless. Scars were clearly visible on his broad back in the morning light—old, faded, chaotic traces from sticks, boards, and other people’s skates. The map of their shared life.

Ilya shook an orange plastic bottle in his hand. Tipped two pills onto his palm. Tossed them into his mouth with a habitual, practiced movement and washed them down with water straight from the tap, not even taking a glass.

Shane froze in the doorway.

“Good morning,” he said louder than necessary, breaking this intimate silence.

Ilya flinched with his whole body. He spun around, instinctively clenching the bottle in his fist, as if trying to hide it like a caught teenager.

“Hey,” his voice was raspy with sleep. “You’re up early. I thought you’d sleep till ten.”

Shane kept his eyes on his clenched fist.

“What’s that?”

Ilya followed his gaze. He could have lied. Said it was vitamins, painkillers for old injuries, or melatonin. But he was too tired for lies. He unclenched his fingers and set the bottle on the marble table with a dull thud.

The label turned toward Shane. Sertraline.

“You’re on antidepressants?” Shane asked. His voice held a mix of surprise, fright, and involuntary accusation.

Ilya rubbed his face with his palms, as if trying to wipe gray exhaustion from his skin.

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why?” Ilya turned to the coffee machine, showing with his whole demeanor that he didn’t wish to continue the conversation. “It doesn’t affect our life. It’s just… technical support. Like tape for a knee.”

“Doesn’t affect it?” Shane stepped into the kitchen, feeling resentment boil up. “You control my every move. You decide what I eat and when I sleep. And you’re on heavy meds yourself and keeping quiet? We’re supposed to be a team, Ilya! Or does that only work one way? I’m the patient, and you’re the saintly doctor?”

Ilya froze. His shoulders turned to stone. He slowly turned to Shane, and irritation flared in his eyes—not angry, but desperate, cornered.

“We are a team, Shane. But right now, only one player on this team remembers the rules.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I didn’t hide this from you!” Ilya’s voice cracked, growing louder, hitting the ears. “You knew. You knew everything! I told you about this years ago. We went through dosage adjustments, side effects, everything. You were the first one who supported me.”

Ilya cut himself off, looking at Shane’s bewildered, paled face. All the energy spilled out, leaving only ringing emptiness. He chuckled bitterly and leaned his lower back against the countertop, crossing his arms over his chest as if defending himself.

“But you forgot. Of course, you forgot. You forgot how I came to you when it all got to be too much. You were the one who said it didn’t change a thing, that we’d handle it together...” Ilya shook his head, staring at the floor. “It was your idea to get help. I knew I couldn’t handle it alone, but I took that step. I did it for us, Shane. I did it for you, so I wouldn't go crazy from the pressure. And now... Fuck, this is cruel. I have to justify myself to you for a decision you told me to make.”

Shane fell silent. His anger hit this wall of pain and crumbled, leaving behind an unpleasant, scratching sensation in his solar plexus. He didn’t know exactly what to call this feeling—guilt, shame, or just a system failure—but he clearly saw the cause-and-effect link: his words broke something in Ilya.

He miscalculated. He applied the rules of the past to the present and got a catastrophically wrong result. He needed to explain this glitch.

“Sorry,” Shane said quietly. He tried to put remorse into his voice. “I didn’t mean to attack. I was coming from different logic. In 2016... in my head... if you took that stuff, it was considered weakness. You’d get written off. I just reacted to a threat to your career.”

Ilya closed his eyes. He had to take a deep breath to get air into his lungs.

“I’m not weak.”

Those words came hard to him. It was physically painful to say them out loud. He spent years in therapy to understand: asking for help is strength. He accepted it. He built it into his personality. But now, forced to defend this truth before Shane, he felt like he was spitting out shards of glass. It was humiliating—proving an axiom to the one who once helped him accept it.

“I’m not weak,” he repeated firmly, opening his eyes and staring at the wall. “I’m just trying not to drown under the weight of all this shit. The video, the press, the pressure... And now this.”

He waved a hand vaguely in Shane’s direction, but the gesture came out limp, broken.

“I take them to handle all this, Shane. To get up in the morning, practice, and take care of you when you look at me like a stranger. If that makes me weak in your eyes—so be it. I don’t have the strength to argue with you.”

He turned to the fridge and started taking out eggs. His movements were jerky, mechanical, as if he were trying to drown out his own thoughts with the clatter of dishes.

Shane watched him. At the broad back, the tense shoulders, the way his hands trembled. Ilya didn’t look angry. He looked like a man holding up the sky with his last bit of strength and terrified to death that it was about to collapse and crush them both. He felt anxiety rising inside. The thin thread of understanding they had been weaving over the last few days was now stretched to the limit. If they stayed here, in this echoing, stifling silence of the house, it would snap.

“Ilya,” he called.

“I’m making an omelet,” Ilya tossed back without turning. His voice was hollow. “You need to eat. Protein is important for...”

“I need to get out of here,” Shane breathed out. “I need to go to the arena.”

Ilya froze. The egg in his hand cracked. The shell caved in, yolk ran down his fingers.

He turned slowly, not noticing the mess on his hand, and instant, automatic protest read in his eyes.

“We discussed this. The doctor said clearly: no exertion. Your head isn’t...”

“I’m not talking about practice,” Shane interrupted gently, taking a step forward into his zone. “I know I can’t skate. I’m not planning to put on skates.”

“Then why?”

“To not go crazy,” Shane answered honestly. “I just need to... get out. See the guys. Smell the locker room. Hear the sound of the puck. Make sure my life still exists out there, not just in this house.”

He looked at Ilya’s hand dripping with yolk.

“And you need it too. Look at yourself. You’re shaking. These walls are crushing both of us right now. We’re going crazy together.”

Ilya looked down at the crushed egg in his hand. Grimaced as if in physical pain, and with a sharp movement threw the mess into the trash. Grabbed a paper towel and started wiping his fingers—furiously, until they were red.

“I can’t practice,” he said quietly. “I have to watch you.”

“You will watch. Just drive me there. Please. I won’t skate. I’ll just... breathe.”

Ilya finally turned. He looked exhausted, but something resembling gratitude appeared in his eyes. Shane wasn’t prying into his soul, wasn’t demanding details of the depression (thank god), he was offering a solution. Their shared solution. Hockey was always their solution.

“Fine,” Ilya nodded. “We eat, then we go. Just wear your sunglasses. The lights are bright there, halogens will kill you.”

“Deal.”

The drive to the practice arena took twenty minutes. Shane, in dark glasses, watched the gray streets of Ottawa pass by. Ilya drove in silence, not turning on music, but this silence wasn’t so heavy anymore.

The parking lot by the staff entrance was half-empty. When they walked through security and the heavy double doors into the rink area, Shane stopped.

The smell.

It hit his nostrils, instantly pushing out the sterile smell of the hospital, the house, and medicine. The smell of freshly cut ice. The smell of Zamboni exhaust, old rubber flooring, damp cold, and sweat.

It was the smell of home. The only home Shane remembered with every cell.

He stopped, inhaling deeply, feeling his lungs expand.

“Best smell in the world, huh?” Ilya asked quietly, stopping beside him.

“Yeah,” Shane exhaled. “The best.”

They walked down the corridor to the bench. There were about five people on the ice—the “after-school group.” One of the players noticed them first. He braked sharply, kicking up a cloud of ice shavings, and upon seeing who was standing by the boards, broke into a wide grin.

“Well, holy shit!” he yelled, his voice echoing hollowly off the rafters. “The second coming of Christ!”

It was Troy Barrett. He skated to the boards, took off his glove, and extended a hand over the glass.

“Alive!” Troy grinned, looking Shane over. “Harris said you looked like a zombie, but you look like a Hollywood star in those shades. Autograph please, Mr. Hollander?”

Shane took his hand out of his pocket and shook Troy’s hot palm. The handshake was firm, real.

“Neck,” Shane explained briefly, pointing to the glasses. “Lights bother me.”

“Classic,” Troy nodded understandingly. “Don’t worry, we’re managing here. Get well. We need our first-line center. Without you on the power play, it’s boring as hell, the puck doesn’t move.”

He slapped the boards, about to skate off, but turned back to Ilya:

“Cap! Since you’re here. Petrov’s shot from the slot is off. Struggling for an hour. Show the kid how it’s done?”

Ilya chuckled but shook his head immediately.

“I’m off today, Barrett. And I...”

He glanced sideways at Shane. Ilya was clearly torn. The ice pulled him like a magnet—especially after a rough morning. He needed to blow off steam, burn off that adrenaline accumulated in the kitchen. But he was afraid to leave Shane alone even for a meter.

“Go,” Shane said firmly.

Ilya frowned.

“No. I promised.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll sit right there, in the stands. Go. You need this more than Petrov.”

Ilya hesitated for a second, looking intently at Shane through the dark lenses of his glasses. Looking for a trick. Didn’t find one.

“Ten minutes,” he warned. “If you feel dizzy—wave.”

He went to the locker room, and Shane went up a couple of rows and sat in a plastic seat.

Five minutes later, Ilya came out onto the ice. Without full gear, just skates, gloves, and helmet. In gray sweatpants and a white practice t-shirt.

Shane watched Ilya step over the boards.

The moment the blade touched the surface, Ilya changed. The tired, exhausted man with pills in his fist vanished. The solicitous “mother-hen husband” vanished.

The Predator appeared.

Ilya took a couple of powerful strides, gaining speed. He moved with the frightening grace of an animal—powerful, relentless, cutting the ice so deep a crunch could be heard. He picked up a puck at the blue line. Sharp turn, hip work, powerful slap shot—and the puck buried itself in the top corner with a sound that made it seem like the crossbar had snapped.

And suddenly the air in the stands around Shane became thick.

Low in his stomach, right under his belt buckle, a familiar, hot tension coiled into a tight, painful knot. This wasn’t a memory. This was a reaction.

Alive. Sharp. Biological.

Shane stopped breathing. He swallowed convulsively, feeling his mouth go dry, and gripped the armrests of the seat.

He watched Ilya skate up to the rookie Petrov. How he shoved him in the shin pads with his stick, harshly, possessively, forcing him to get lower. How he grabbed his shoulder, turning his torso.

There was so much confident strength in that gesture, so much dominance and competence, that Shane’s throat tightened.

The last few weeks he had lived with dry information. He was given facts: “This is Ilya. Your husband. You are together.” He took note of it. But it’s one thing to understand with your head that the person in front of you is a “loved one.” And quite another to feel with your skin, to trembling knees, why he became loved.

His body, deprived of memory, suddenly responded to this man on the ice with frightening force. It recognized him.

It recognized this rhythm. This dangerous grace. This power.

Nerve endings that seemed to have been in a coma along with his memory suddenly flared up. Shane watched Ilya laughing at something, head thrown back, and felt he wanted to be down there.

Not to play hockey. But for Ilya to look at him like that. With that same attention. For those strong hands in gloves to grab him by the jersey and pull him close.

“So that’s how it works,” flashed through Shane’s head through the fog of arousal.

Their marriage wasn’t just friendship. It was chemistry. Heavy, knock-you-off-your-feet, animal chemistry.

This attraction proved so deep that it survived even after personality was erased. Shane could forget their wedding, but his instincts—his blood, his hormones—forgot nothing.

Ilya did a victory lap and skated to the boards. He braked sharply, kicking up a fountain of ice shavings that hit the glass right in front of Shane’s face.

Ilya took off his helmet, shaking out wet curls plastered with sweat. His face was flushed, chest heaving heavily, but that same fire burned in his eyes that wasn’t there at home.

He was smiling—widely, wildly, like a boy.

“Well?” he shouted through the glass. “Still good for an old man?”

Shane looked at him through the foggy glass.

He didn’t see a “stranger husband.” He saw the very guy who was his main obsession in 2016. Dangerous. Untamable. The one it was impossible to look away from.

Only now, in that gaze directed at Shane, there was no icy hostility.

There was warmth. And a promise. A hot, possessive promise that made Shane’s mouth go dry.

Shane swallowed thick saliva. His heart hammered somewhere in his throat.

“Good enough for the farm team, Rozanov,” he replied hoarsely, trying to keep his voice steady. “But work on your backward skating. You’re leaning too much on your left skate.”

Ilya laughed. Loudly, sincerely, throwing his head back.

“Alright, I’m leaving before you cut me!” he shouted. “Give me five minutes to change. I’m hungry as a wolf.”

He turned and skated toward the exit.

Shane followed him with his eyes, feeling everything burning inside. His body remembered Ilya. Every inch of him.

He hadn’t forgotten what it was like.

He remembered perfectly. Remembered the ragged breathing in hotel rooms, remembered the greed with which they threw themselves at each other the moment the door closed. He remembered that sex with Ilya Rozanov was the best drug of his life.

That same hunger that drove him crazy then was here. Right now.

The difference was only one thing. Before, after this, they had to dress and leave, pretending to hate each other. Today, Ilya would go home with him.

And at the thought—that all this power now belonged to him officially and unlimitedly—Shane’s breath hitched.

He gripped the armrests until his knuckles turned white. The impulse was almost uncontrollable—to stand up, follow him into the locker room, press him against the wet tiles of the shower, remember what it felt like.

But he remained seated.

It was too much.

Too bright. Too loud. Too real.

His brain, exhausted by the morning argument, new information, and attempts to piece reality together, simply wouldn’t handle this storm right now. If he went there, if he allowed this to happen—his fragile balance would collapse. He would burn out like a lightbulb from a power surge.

He needed time. Just to wrap his head around it. Get used to the thought that this incredible man on the ice was truly his.

Shane slowly exhaled, pushing the hot lump of desire deeper, into a safe place.

Not now.

He would wait. He wasn’t rushing anywhere.

Ilya disappeared into the tunnel. Shane leaned back against the seat, feeling the adrenaline slowly give way to familiar, safe fatigue.

“Good practice,” he whispered into the void.

For now, it was enough just to watch. And act... he would act when the ground stopped spinning under his feet.

Chapter End Notes

I’ve been so encouraged by your reactions and thoughtful responses — they’ve been a huge motivation for me. After the latest episode of Heated Rivalry, I’m still riding that emotional high, so the next chapter might arrive sooner than you think.
Once again, thank you so much for all the comments you leave.

Chapter 13: Chapter 12

Chapter Notes

As promised - the second chapter is up in less than 24 hours, no regrets (though if you haven’t read the previous one, don’t forget to go back to it). Please keep in mind that I wrote this before the final episode of the show aired. I’m still very much under the impression - both from the series itself and from your responses. You honestly have no idea what they do to me.

Also (and I think it’s finally time to announce this), I want to share that a part from Ilya’s point of view is in the works - everything Shane didn’t see and missed. I don’t know when it will be ready yet, there’s still a lot of work ahead, but I can’t wait to share it with you. Thank you for staying with me!

Sunday turned out sunny, which was almost a gift for an Ottawa autumn. The sky was high, piercingly blue, and the air was crisp and cold, like water in a mountain stream.

Shane felt... okay. The dizziness that had tormented him for days had receded, leaving behind only a light, background heaviness, similar to the pleasant fatigue after a long, quality practice.

“You ready?” Ilya shouted from the first floor.

Shane looked at himself in the hallway mirror. Jeans, dark blue cable-knit sweater. An ordinary guy going to Sunday lunch at his parents'. Except in his head—a hole the size of a decade, and in his chest—a strange mix of anxiety and anticipation.

He went downstairs.

Ilya stood by the door, twirling car keys on his finger. He wore a simple gray hoodie and jeans. No suits, no captain’s armor. Just Ilya.

“Dad asked to pick up wine on the way,” he said, opening the door and letting Shane pass. “That tart red he likes. I know the brand and year.”

Shane chuckled, settling into the passenger seat.

“You know my father’s tastes better than I do.”

“I’ve been drinking this wine with him for almost ten years,” Ilya shrugged, starting the engine. “Had to memorize it to avoid his lectures about ‘youth not understanding the bouquet’.”

The drive to his parents’ house took half an hour. Shane looked out the window, recognizing and not recognizing the city. The neighborhood was the same—the old, affluent suburb where he grew up. The same maples, the same wide lawns. But the details had changed: repainted fences, new extensions, trees that were saplings in his memory now covered roofs.

As soon as they turned into the driveway, the front door swung open.

David Hollander stood on the porch.

He had aged. That hit Shane harder than he expected. His father’s hair had turned completely, nobly gray, his figure had widened a bit at the waist, but it was still the same David—tall, with a booming voice filling all the space, and the confident movements of a master of life.

“Ah, you showed up!” he boomed, descending the steps.

Shane got out of the car, shrinking internally. He prepared for long, suffocating hugs, tears, and pitying looks of “poor boy lost his memory.”

But his father just walked up, clapped him firmly on the shoulder, and gave him a short, manly hug. He smelled of tobacco and aftershave—the smell of stability.

“Glad to see you on your feet, Shane. Scared us good. But you look sturdy.”

And then he switched to Ilya.

Ilya approached, politely extending a hand for a handshake, but David ignored this formal gesture. He stepped forward and pulled Ilya into a real bear hug, slapping his back so hard the sound carried down the street.

“So, how are you, son?” his father asked, pulling back and keenly scanning Ilya’s face. “You look like hell. Not sleeping again? Eyes are red.”

“I sleep, David,” Ilya smiled. The smile was relaxed, domestic—the one Shane saw so rarely. “Just a tough season. And yesterday’s game... you saw.”

“Yeah, tell me stories. Go inside, Yuna started some complex pear pie, she needs manpower or at least moral support. She doesn’t trust me, says I’ll burn everything.”

Ilya laughed, grabbed the wine bag, and disappeared into the house as if he had lived there all his life. Shane noted that Ilya didn’t even ask if he needed to take his shoes off—he knew the rules of this house.

Shane remained outside with his father. David nodded at the wicker garden chairs on the veranda.

“Sit? Before we get drafted to chop salad.”

They sat. The autumn sun warmed their faces, the wind rustled dry leaves.

“How’s the head?” his father asked, taking a cigar from his cardigan pocket but not lighting it (Mom was apparently waging war on his smoking). “Doctors say the prognosis is good?”

“Empty,” Shane admitted honestly. “I remember you, remember Mom, remember hockey up to 2016. But the last nine years... like someone cut the film in the editing room. I know facts, but I don’t feel them.”

David thoughtfully twirled the unlit cigar in his fingers.

“That will pass. And if not... well, you have us. We’ll remind you. The main thing is you’re here.”

“Mom told me,” Shane said, looking at his father’s familiar profile. “About how you found out. About Ilya and me.”

David snorted, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with laughter.

“Oh yeah. Dishwasher tablets. The greatest intelligence failure in history. You were terrible spies, Shane.”

“Were you angry?” Shane asked. In 2016, he was sure his father would take it calmly, but still, an old, childish worm of doubt gnawed at him.

“Angry?” David looked at him with genuine surprise. “Shane, I was angry about only one thing: that you thought you had to hide it from me. I’m your father. I love you. I don’t care who you sleep with, as long as that person respects you and makes you happy.”

He nodded toward the kitchen window, where Ilya’s silhouette flickered, discussing something with Yuna.

“And that guy... He doesn’t just respect you. He breathes you. I saw you that evening, at the cottage. You were scared to death, but Ilya... I saw his eyes. He was ready to fight me, Shane. He was ready to lunge at me if I said a single word against you or tried to kick you out. I realized then: this guy won’t back down.”

Shane smiled. Ilya-the-Protector. That was a constant in any timeline.

“He’s a good man, Dad.”

“The best,” David said firmly, without a shadow of doubt. “He became a son to us, Shane. He has a complicated history, you know. But he found a home here. With us. And with you. You changed him, but he changed you too. You became... calmer with him. More whole.”

The house door opened, and Yuna stepped onto the porch, wiping her hands on a towel.

“Hey, loafers!” she shouted. “Dinner is getting cold! David, if you’re chewing that nasty thing again, I won’t let you at the table! Shane, bring your father inside before he gets nicotine poisoning through his skin!”

“Coming, darling, coming!” David winked at Shane, hiding the cigar in his pocket. “Let’s go. Ilya opened the wine, need to save the bottle.”

Dinner was loud and warm.

Shane sat and observed. He wasn’t a participant, but rather an anthropologist studying this tribe.

He saw Ilya serving salad to Yuna, knowing she would be too shy to take seconds herself. Saw David furiously arguing with Ilya about yesterday’s match (“You held the puck too long in the third, should have passed to the wing!” — “That was a tactical move, David, you’re stuck in the nineties, nobody plays like that now!”).

They argued loudly, interrupting each other, but there was no conflict in it. It was their language of love. They were a family. Real, forged by years, jokes, and shared dinners.

And Shane felt his own anxiety—that feeling of being an “imposter”—dissolve in this warmth. He didn’t need to pretend he remembered everything. He just needed to be. This place accepted him as is.

The drive back was already in darkness. The city outside the window blurred into multicolored lights. Ilya was driving, relaxed, fed, content. The visit to the parents had clearly done him as much good as it had Shane. His shoulders dropped, his grip on the wheel softened.

“They love you,” Shane said quietly, breaking the cozy silence of the cabin.

“I love them too,” Ilya replied simply, eyes on the road. “They replaced... a lot for me. Your mom taught me to read people, and your dad taught me to drink whiskey and not take losses to heart.”

The car turned toward their house. The garage door crawled up with a quiet hum.

When they entered the hallway, the house met them with silence and the joyful but sleepy clicking of Anya’s claws on the parquet.

Ilya, without even taking off his jacket, exhaled wearily and reached for the leash hanging on a hook.

“Go lie down, don’t wait up,” he said, clipping the carabiner to the collar. “We’ll do a big loop, she needs to run, and I need to clear my head before sleep.”

Shane nodded, watching them go out into the night cool.

The door slammed. The lock clicked, cutting him off from Ilya.

Shane was left alone in the ringing silence of the big, empty house.

Logically, he should have listened: go upstairs, take a shower, and collapse into bed in the guest room. The day had been endless, his body ached with pleasant but heavy fatigue.

But his legs refused to carry him to the stairs.

Shane paced the living room. Fluffed a pillow on the sofa. Walked to the dark window, peering into the street where Anya’s glowing collar flickered in the distance.

A feeling of incompleteness wouldn’t let him go. As if the last variable was missing from the day’s equation.

All day he had fought to regain control. In the kitchen, on the way, at his parents'. He built boundaries, he analyzed. But now, after the warmth of his parents' house, left alone, he suddenly realized clearly: he didn’t need boundaries.

He needed a base.

The guest bedroom with its sterile order, folded clothes, and alien smell of laundry detergent suddenly seemed not a refuge, but an isolation ward. A cold cell of solitary confinement.

It was a system error. A glitch. Husbands don’t sleep in guest rooms unless they are fighting. And they... they weren’t fighting anymore.

He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be where it smelled of cedar, musk, and Ilya. Where his rightful place was.

Shane nervously rubbed his neck, pacing the hall. He needed to say this. Right now. Otherwise logic would take over again, turn on the “don’t violate personal space” mode, and drive him back into the safe cage.

When twenty minutes later the lock of the front door clicked again, Shane wasn’t wandering anymore. He stood in the center of the hall, arms crossed, ready to talk.

Ilya entered, letting in a stream of fresh night air, unclipped the leash, and said something quietly to the dog. He clearly thought everyone in the house was asleep. Turning to the stairs, his gaze bumped into Shane, and he flinched in surprise.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” Ilya frowned, pulling off his jacket. Shadows lay under his eyes, he looked truly exhausted. “I told you not to wait.”

“I didn’t want you to think I ran away,” Shane replied calmly.

“Where? Into a dream?” Ilya chuckled mirthlessly, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily. “Shane, go to sleep. Tomorrow is a hard day.”

He tried to walk past, habitually heading for the stairs to then turn into his bedroom, but Shane took a step to the side, blocking his path.

“I don’t want to sleep in the guest room,” he said firmly.

Ilya froze, never reaching the first step. Slowly turned his head.

“What?”

“I’m serious. I waited for you to say this. The guest room is a mistake. It’s cold and smells of emptiness.”

Ilya looked at him uncomprehendingly, warily.

“Shane, you need space. The doctors said...”

“Screw the doctors,” Shane interrupted. “I don’t remember our wedding. I don’t remember the last nine years. But I remember how I looked at you on the ice. And I see who you are to my parents. You are my family, Ilya. The only one I have here.”

Shane took another step toward him, entering his personal space.

“I’m tired of sleeping alone in a strange room like a guest. I want to sleep in our bedroom. With you. That is my base.”

Ilya looked at him as if trying to find a trick or signs of another disorientation episode. In the dim light of the corridor, his face seemed sharpened, vulnerable. He was silent for a long time, weighing every word.

“I won’t...” he began finally, and his voice sounded hollow, raspy. “Shane, I won’t have sex with you until you are one hundred percent sure. If you think this is a duty, or payment for care, or just a way to test yourself...”

“I’m not talking about sex,” Shane interrupted gently but confidently.

It was a half-truth. Of course, his body remembered the arena and wanted everything at once. But his mind, overloaded with the day’s emotions, understood: right now the main thing was to reclaim territory. Sex could wait. Closeness could not.

“I’m asking just to sleep. Side by side. I want to feel you at night. I want to wake up and see you, not a blank white wall. I need to know you’re there.”

Ilya’s shoulders dropped. The composure that had held him tense all these days—on the ice, in front of parents, in front of himself—finally cracked. He exhaled, and there was so much relief in that sound that Shane’s heart squeezed.

“Okay,” Ilya said quietly. “Let’s go.”

Shane followed him up.

The master bedroom was dark, but the smell... The smell was right. It smelled of them. Ilya took a soft cotton sleep t-shirt from the closet and tossed it to Shane.

“Here. Your favorite. Old, stretched out, but you refuse to throw it away.”

They lay down in the huge bed. Turned off the light.

The darkness was thick and warm.

At first, they lay at a distance, each on his own half, as if getting used to the new old order. Between them was a strip of cool sheet—a neutral zone.

But a minute later Ilya shifted, sighed, and moved closer. Shane felt the heat of his body radiating in waves. And then Ilya’s heavy arm landed on his waist. Carefully. Unobtrusively. As if asking permission to be there.

Shane froze for a second, listening to himself. There was no fear. There was a feeling that the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place.

“Goodnight, Shane,” Ilya whispered into the back of his head. His voice was sleepy and infinitely familiar.

Shane covered his hand with his own, pressing it tighter to his stomach. Anchoring it.

“Goodnight.”

And that night, for the first time in a long while, he dreamed not of hockey and not of frightening emptiness, but simply of warmth.

Chapter 14: Chapter 13

Chapter Notes

Look at this — see what the amazing reader EquallyLoyalAndLethal (TooCreative4Life) made for me! https://www.tumblr.com/equallyloyalandlethal/804137864762900480/the-second-first-time?source=share It means so much to me when my writing inspires other creative works.
I’m endlessly grateful to each and every one of you for your comments, and if you have any more thoughts about this story, I’d be happy to read them in the comments!

The first night in the same bed did not bring a miraculous return of memory.

Shane didn’t wake up with Ilya’s name on his lips and the knowledge of his debit card PIN. His brain was still a blank sheet from which someone had erased nine years of life with an eraser.

But he woke up rested.

It was a strange, almost forgotten sensation. For the first time in a week, he wasn’t woken by a nightmare, didn’t bolt up in panic (“where am I?”), wasn’t crushed by a phantom headache. He was woken by weight.

Pleasant, grounding weight.

Shane opened his eyes and found himself lying on his side, back to the center of the huge bed. And his back was being warmed by something big, hot, and alive.

Ilya.

In his sleep, the Centaurs captain turned out to be a brazen invader. His arm, heavy and relaxed, lay across Shane’s chest, holding him in place like an anchor holds a ship in a storm. Ilya’s face was buried somewhere between Shane’s shoulder blades, and his even, deep breathing tickled the skin through the thin fabric of the t-shirt.

Shane froze, afraid to move. His body, usually tense and ready for defense, was traitorously soft now. It felt safe.

In 2016, they never slept like this. Sex was fast, and then they scattered to different rooms or different edges of the bed to maintain distance. Sleeping cuddling? That was for wimps. Or for lovesick idiots.

Shane cautiously covered Ilya’s hand with his own. Ilya’s fingers twitched in sleep and instinctively interlaced with Shane’s. Tightly. Painfully. Even unconsciously, he was afraid to let go.

“You’re awake,” Ilya rasped right into his neck. His voice was low, vibrating, morning-rough—a sound that sent shivers down Shane’s spine.

“You’re crushing me,” Shane replied, trying to sound grumpy, but making not the slightest attempt to move away. “Your arm weighs a ton, Rozanov. Did you sleep with weights on?”

Ilya made a contented, guttural sound, like the purring of a huge, well-fed cat, and… pressed even closer, hooking his leg around Shane.

“Deal with it,” he mumbled somewhere into the t-shirt. “I’m recovering. I need warmth.”

“You’re stealing my warmth. I’ll freeze.”

“I’m your husband. We have jointly owned property. Warmth counts too. And besides, you asked for this bed yourself yesterday.”

Shane scoffed, feeling a flush spread across his cheeks. This sleepy, brazen, cozy Ilya was completely disarming. It was impossible to fight with this Ilya.

“Get up, warmth thief,” Shane tried to disentangle himself from the hold, though honestly, he wanted to stay like this all day. “Game day.”

Ilya groaned agonizingly, burying his face in the pillow, but removed his arm, releasing Shane to freedom.

“Don’t remind me. Tampa. They’re sticky as a swamp. Lots of skating, Kucherov will be weaving lace in our zone again.”

“Good for you to move,” Shane grinned, sitting up in bed and stretching. “This orthopedic mattress has spoiled you.”

Ilya opened one eye and looked at him. The gaze was mocking but warm.

“I can still kick your ass on the ice, Hollander. Even from this mattress.”

“Dream on.”

Game day was always different from other days.

The moment they got out of bed, the magic of the warm, lazy morning dissipated, evaporated like fog. Even the air in the house changed. Static electricity hung in it, making hair stand on end.

From the very morning, the house plunged into radio silence mode.

Ilya was no longer a lazy cat. He moved around the kitchen like a perfectly programmed mechanism. Breakfast at a strictly defined time. Chicken, rice, vegetables (boring, functional, clean fuel for the machine). No conversations. No jokes. Face impenetrable.

Then—mandatory afternoon nap. A sacred ritual.

Shane watched this from the sidelines, trying to be invisible and not interfere. He recognized these rituals. It was tuning an instrument before a concert.

When Ilya came down after his nap, he was already there. Mentally at the arena. His eyes became harder, movements—sharper, more economical. He put on a suit (perfectly ironed white shirt, dark blue tie, cufflinks), barely looking in the mirror. He was putting on armor.

“I’m coming with you,” Shane said, blocking his path in the hallway.

Ilya stopped, fastening his cufflinks.

“No.”

“I can’t stay here,” Shane said firmly. “I’ll go crazy from the silence and my own thoughts. I need to see the game.”

“There are twenty thousand people at the arena, Shane. Siren, music, strobe lights. Your head will explode in the first period. Sensory overload is guaranteed.”

“I know how to handle it, Ilya. I’ll take noise-canceling headphones and sunglasses. I’ll be in a box, behind glass. I won’t go into the crowd. I feel good, no dizziness. I don’t need to lie in the dark, I need to see the game.”

Ilya looked him up and down. In his gaze, the husband’s worry fought with the icy focus of a captain who needs to think about the match, not his spouse’s health.

“If you feel bad—you leave. Immediately. Without waiting for the end of the game, without goodbyes. The driver will wait at the staff entrance with the engine running.”

“Deal.”

Approaching the Canadian Tire Centre, Shane realized for the first time the scale of the disaster… or triumph.

The parking lot was packed. Crowds of people in red and black flowed toward the entrances like a river of lava. And everywhere, absolutely everywhere, were them.

Shane pressed his forehead against the cool tinted glass of the car.

There walked a guy in a jersey with the name ROZANOV and number 81. Next to him—a girl in a HOLLANDER jersey with number 24. They were holding hands.

On the huge screen above the main entrance, a promo video played. Ilya scoring a goal. Shane making a pass. Them hugging on the ice. A huge poster by the entrance: a photo of the two of them lifting one Stanley Cup together, and a caption in giant letters: “THE HEART OF OTTAWA.”

“Jesus,” Shane exhaled. “We’re everywhere.”

“We’re stars,” Ilya noted dryly, turning into the closed VIP parking. “Get used to it. You’re on every second billboard in the city.”

The box was a salvation. Tinted glass, soft deep armchairs, dimmed lights. Harris was already waiting for them there, with his inevitable tablet and a thermos of herbal tea instead of beer.

“The captain threatened to rip my head off if you overexert yourself,” Harris chuckled, handing him the tablet with stats. “So no heroics. Tea?”

Shane put on the headphones. The roar of the stadium was cut off, leaving only a safe vibration. He felt not sick, but protected. Like a pilot in a cockpit. Now he could focus on the main thing—on Ilya.

The game began.

Shane looked down at the ice. It was completely different from practice.

Here was war.

The Centaurs were playing against Tampa. The speeds were insane. Ilya was the center of the hurricane. Shane saw him smash an opponent into the boards—hard, clean, but making the glass shudder. Saw him yell at the ref, defending his goalie. Saw him dig the puck out of corners, sparing neither himself nor others.

There was no figure skating elegance in this. There was pure, primal, concentrated aggression.

Ilya was angry. He was sublimating all the monstrous tension of the last few days—fear for Shane, his own depression, fatigue, the silence at home—into the game. He was burning emotions on the ice like fuel, so as not to burn down at home.

Shane felt his throat go dry.

In the past, he and Ilya often clashed on the ice. Sparks flew so hard it seemed the ice was melting. Then, after matches, they found each other to continue that fight in bed, biting lips until they bled.

Watching Ilya score a goal and throw his arms up in furious triumph, roaring something at the arena ceiling, Shane felt blood rush to his groin.

The body memory, awakened at practice, was now screaming at full volume. He wanted this angry, sweaty, dangerous man.

“He’s on fire tonight,” Harris commented, looking at the ice with professional admiration.

“Yeah,” Shane replied hoarsely, not taking his eyes off number 81. “On fire.”

The game ended with a 4-1 victory. Ilya scored a double.

Shane didn’t go to the main locker room—it was too noisy. Harris took him to the “family room” and tactfully evaporated. It was empty today, but a large screen hung on the wall, broadcasting post-game interviews.

Ilya appeared on the screen.

He stood in the corridor, still in gear but without a helmet. Hair wet, plastered to his forehead. Sweat running down his face, mixing with melted ice. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving.

A journalist shoved a microphone under his nose.

“Ilya, great game! A double, first star of the match. But everyone is concerned about one question. Shane Hollander has missed four games now. Rumors are circulating about something serious. How is he?”

Ilya wiped his face with a towel. His gaze, directed straight into the camera, became heavy as a concrete slab.

“Shane is recovering,” he cut off. “That’s all you need to know.”

“But is there a timeline for his return? Fans are worried. Without him, the first line looks different.”

Ilya stepped closer to the camera, as if shielding the invisible Shane from the whole world with his body.

“Shane is a fighter. He’ll be back when he’s ready. Until then…” Ilya swept a heavy gaze over the journalists. “Until then, I’m playing for two. We are all playing for him. He’ll be back. He is the heart of this club. Just give him time.”

He nodded sharply and walked out of the frame, ending the conversation.

Shane stood before the screen, feeling his heart skip beats.

“I’m playing for two.”

The door to the family room opened. Ilya walked in.

He hadn’t changed yet. He was in compression bottoms and shirtless. A fresh crimson bruise was blossoming on his shoulder from hitting the boards. Heat radiated from him in waves, the heavy smell of sweat, ice, and adrenaline.

He saw Shane and froze. His chest heaving heavily. Eyes dark, dilated—pupils almost drowning the iris.

Shane took a step forward. He saw his man in front of him.

“You were incredible,” Shane breathed out.

Ilya sucked in air noisily through his nose. He didn’t move, as if afraid to spook the moment.

“Head?” he asked hoarsely. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Better than ever.”

Shane walked right up to him. He felt the heat radiating from Ilya’s skin like from a stove. Ilya’s gaze fell to Shane’s lips. The muscles in his jaw twitched. He was holding back. With all his might.

But Shane was tired of being protected. He was tired of sterility.

He reached out and touched Ilya’s damp, hot neck, right where the pulse vein beat frantically.

“You played for two,” Shane whispered. “But now I’m here.”

Ilya made a strangled guttural sound, and his restraint snapped. He grabbed Shane by the waist, pulling him close—sharply, greedily, until bones cracked. Their bodies collided.

“Shane,” Ilya breathed into his lips, burning him with his breath. “If you…”

Instead of an answer, Shane leaned forward and covered his lips with his own.

It wasn’t a kiss—it was a collision. Hungry, rough, salty with sweat. Shane didn’t ask for tenderness, he demanded contact. Ilya responded instantly, pressing Shane into himself, burying his fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. For a second, the world narrowed down to the taste of Ilya, the heat of his skin, and the pain of an embrace that was too tight.

But just as abruptly as he started, Ilya stopped.

He tore himself away from Shane’s lips with effort, breathing heavily. His forehead rested against Shane’s forehead. His hands still held him firmly, but there was no demand in that grip anymore. There was restraint.

“No,” Ilya exhaled hoarsely, forcing it out. “No.”

“Why?” Shane tried to reach for him again, feeling disappointment and the body’s resentment. “I want you.”

Ilya grabbed his jaw with his fingers, forcing him to look into his eyes. There was torment in his gaze.

“Because you’re not yourself, Shane. You’re on adrenaline. You just saw the game, you’re excited by the win, the crowd, my goal. This is chemistry, not a conscious decision.”

Ilya swallowed, looking at Shane’s lips.

“You see a hockey player in me who won a match. And I want you to see a husband. I won’t take advantage of you being high on this. Not when you don’t remember how we got here.”

“I won’t regret it.”

“I won’t give you a chance to regret it,” Ilya cut off firmly. “I won’t exploit the moment. Not when you don’t remember who we are to each other outside of bed. I don’t want to be just a way to release tension.”

He slowly pulled away, removing his hands. It cost him titanic effort.

“I need a shower. And to change. Wait here. Or go to the car.”

He turned and walked toward the showers without looking back. His back was tense to the limit. Ilya was fleeing to keep from breaking.

Shane was left standing in the middle of the room, breathing heavily, with swollen lips.

“Damn you, Rozanov,” he whispered into the silence, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “You really did become a good man. Too good.”

They drove home in silence.

But it wasn’t that alienated, empty silence as before. The air between them was electrified—dense, taut as a string ready to snap—and yet strangely safe. As if they had walked up to the edge of a cliff, looked into it, and both took a step back.

When they entered the house, Anya met them with a sleepy yawn, lazily getting up from her bed and studying them with a bleary gaze for a couple of seconds before sinking back to the floor.

Ilya didn’t take off his shoes. He remained standing in the hallway—in his jacket, keys in hand. First he looked at the dog, then shifted his gaze to the stairs leading to the bedroom. A heavy, dark gaze that held too much unsaid.

“I’ll take Anya out,” he said dully, not looking at Shane. “I need a walk.”

Shane froze, not finishing unzipping his jacket.

“Now?” he mechanically glanced at the clock. “It’s past midnight. She was already asleep.”

“I need to,” Ilya reached for the leash. His movements were sharp, jerky, as if his body was still living in the rhythm of the game. “I’m wired after the match. Too much adrenaline. If I lie down now… I won’t sleep. I need to burn this off.”

He looked at Shane.

That same dark flame splashed in his eyes as in the family room. Only now it burned more steadily—restrained, dangerous. Not a flash, but a smoldering heat. He was afraid that if he lay in the same bed with Shane right now, his nobility would evaporate.

“Go to sleep, Shane,” he said softly, but with an insistence that left no room for argument. “Don’t wait for me. Lie down. You need your regimen.”

“Ilya…”

“Please,” he gripped the leash in his fist so tight the leather creaked quietly. “Just go to sleep. I’ll come later.”

Shane looked at him and nodded.

He understood.

Ilya wasn’t rejecting him—he was protecting both of them. Going into the night, into the cold, to cool down.

“Okay,” Shane said quietly. “Just don’t walk long. It’s cold.”

“Go,” Ilya answered briefly, opening the door and letting a portion of night cold into the house.

Shane went up to the bedroom—big, too quiet. Undressed, feeling a strange emptiness without Ilya’s heavy, tangible presence nearby. Climbed under the blanket that kept his scent—a mix of cedar, tobacco, and something elusively familiar.

Fatigue took its toll. Eyelids grew heavy as lead.

He drifted into a viscous, alert doze.

Through sleep, he heard the front door slam. Then—quiet footsteps on the stairs. And following that—the sound of water in the bathroom.

Shane didn’t open his eyes, balancing on the edge of sleep and wakefulness. The water ran for a long time. Ten minutes. Twenty. Ilya was taking a shower—endlessly long, ice-cold or scalding hot, as if trying to wash off all the tension of this endless day.

Finally, everything went quiet.

The mattress sagged under the weight of a body. Shane felt the cold, the freshness of shower gel, and calmness radiating from Ilya.

Ilya lay on the very edge of the bed, back to him, maintaining distance—measured, conscious.

But he was here.

Shane smiled into the pillow—barely noticeably—and, feeling safe, finally fell into a dreamless sleep. 

Chapter 15: Chapter 14

Chapter Notes

Sorry, guys — from today on, all comments on my fics will be pre-moderated. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Happy New Year everyone! And thank you for all your reviews!

Shane woke up in the center of the huge bed. Habitually reached his hand to the right, feeling for the warmth of another body, but his palm met a cool sheet.

Ilya was gone. The spot next to him was empty and already cold. He must have gotten up very early, trying not to make noise.

On the bedside table, a bright sticky note shone yellow. The handwriting was sprawling, sharp as a cardiogram:

“Gone for morning skate. Back by three. Breakfast downstairs. P.S. Took my pills, don’t worry. Don’t be bored.”

Shane peeled off the note and looked at it for a long time, tracing the ink with his finger. He hadn’t even heard Ilya get up.

“Took my pills.”

Ilya was reporting to him. It caused a mixed feeling of slight guilt and strange, deep satisfaction.

Shane showered, dressed, and went down to the kitchen. A large plate of syrniki awaited him on the table under a glass dome to keep them warm. Next to it stood a glass of water and vitamins, which Ilya had apparently set out in advance.

Care. Quiet, unobtrusive, like background noise.

Shane ate mechanically, looking out the panoramic window at the backyard. There, on the yellowed autumn lawn dusted with morning frost, a small puffed-up sparrow hopped. It pecked busily at something in the withered grass, completely alone in this huge, freezing garden.

Yesterday Shane took a huge step. He moved into their bedroom. He admitted to himself (and Ilya) that he had always wanted him and wanted him now. But his brain, accustomed to analyzing an opponent’s tactics down to the smallest detail, demanded logic.

Emotions are great, passion is understandable (the body remembers). But what is the rest built on? How did they go from “secret hotel sex” to a family where one bakes syrniki for the other and takes pills so as not to go crazy with fear for the other? Why did he, Shane Hollander—a man who let no one into his soul and built walls as high as skyscrapers—bring his main enemy into his main fortress?

No one gave him facts. Yuna talked about feelings. Ilya talked about duty and love. Shane needed data. He needed proof of evolution.

He pushed the empty plate away and picked up his phone.

34,000 photos and videos. He had already seen “Recents”—the glossy, happy life. But he needed the beginning. The source.

Shane opened the “Albums” section and scrolled to the very bottom.

Empty. A couple of photos from Montreal practices, photos of food, boring views of a plane wing from a porthole. Not a single face. Not a single hint of a personal life. Shane-2016 was a paranoid who scrubbed traces as if he worked for the CIA, not the NHL.

His finger hovered over the “Hidden” folder. He kept PIN codes and passport photos there.

Shane pressed the folder. Face ID blinked, scanning his (older, but still his) face. The lock opened.

There were 48 files.

Shane opened the first one.

Video. May 2017. Cottage.

Shane pressed Play. The camera shook. An old wooden pier was visible, sun glinting on the lake water. Ilya stood on the very edge, in just wet swim trunks. He was trying to keep his balance on a shaky board, arms spread wide.

“Don’t fall, Russian!” Shane’s voice came from off-screen.

Shane flinched. He didn’t recognize his voice. It was… different. Cheerful. Teasing. Relaxed. It lacked that tension that permeated every 2016 interview.

In the video, Ilya turned around, flashing a white-toothed grin.

“Shut up, Hollander! I am graceful as a swan!”

“You’re graceful as a drunk moose!”

Ilya gave the camera the finger, slipped on the wet wood, and with a loud yell and splash crashed into the water. The camera jerked, and laughter rang out off-screen.

Pealing, sincere, hiccupping laughter. Shane was laughing in a way he thought he didn’t know how.

The video ended. The screen went dark.

Date: November 2018.

Photo taken inside a car, at night. The dashboard glows with dim neon. Ilya sits in the passenger seat. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and a hood—he’s clearly hiding. But he is smiling, and his hand covers Shane’s hand resting on the gear shift.

Shane felt a prick in his heart. 2018. Ilya was an Ottawa star then, Shane played for Montreal. They were division rivals. Their meeting was a violation of sports regimen and, possibly, a betrayal of team colors. But in the photo, they looked like accomplices who had run away from the whole world.

Shane swiped.

Date: February 2019.

Hotel corridor. Typical faceless carpet of chain hotels where NHL teams stay.

Ilya’s back. He is walking toward door 312. A Centaurs gym bag on his shoulder. The photo taken with a shaking hand, quickly, stealthily. As if Shane was filming the rival captain sneaking into his room in the middle of the night before a game.

It was madness. If they had been caught then, the press would have torn them apart. But they risked it for one night.

Date: July 2019.

Summer. Off-season. Here there was no hiding.

Ilya sleeping. Close-up. Face buried in a white pillow, lips slightly parted, hair messy. A sunbeam falls on a bare shoulder, illuminating those scars and a scatter of moles on the shoulder blade.

This photo breathed peace. No caps, no hotels. Only a lazy, languid morning somewhere where no one knows them.

Shane lowered the phone to the table. His hands were trembling.

Here it was. Proof. He was obsessed with him. He collected moments with Ilya, hiding them in the deepest folder of his phone, because it was the only treasure he had.

But he needed confirmation. A live voice from the past.

He opened contacts and froze his finger over the name Hayden Pike. Best friend. The person he shared rooms with on road trips, drank beer with, and discussed everything in the world.

Shane hadn’t called him all these days. Honestly, he was afraid to pick up the phone at all. Dialing the number meant admitting defeat. Saying out loud: “Hade, I don’t remember the last years” meant making the amnesia real, irreversible. Shane was too scared and lost, trying to glue fragments of reality together on his own, pretending everything was fine.

But pretending didn’t work anymore. If anyone could explain to him what was happening in his head in 2016, it was only Hayden.

Shane pressed the FaceTime icon.

The ringing went on for a long time. He was already reaching to end the call, deciding Hayden was busy, when the screen finally lit up.

“Hollander!” Hayden’s face filled the screen, the camera shaking as if he was walking. “You’re alive! I thought you decided to join a monastery, take a vow of silence, and grow cabbage!”

Shane smiled involuntarily. It was Hayden. A bit older, with some ridiculous hipster beard that definitely wasn’t there nine years ago, but his eyes laughed just as infectiously.

“Hi, Hayden.”

Hayden stopped, plopped onto a couch, and brought his face close to the camera, peering intently.

“Dude… you look like you got your head solidly introduced to the ice. Although, wait—” he winced. “Too literal. How’s the neck? The press says you’re out for a month. Is that true? Or did you and Ilya just decide to have a second honeymoon and are lying to everyone?”

Shane inhaled deeper than he intended. Words suddenly became heavy, as if they had to be pulled out one by one.

“Hayden… are you alone right now?”

The smile on his friend’s face vanished instantly.

“Yeah. Jackie’s at the park with the kids.” He lowered his voice. “What happened? Is Ilya okay?”

“Ilya is… yeah. He’s fine.” Shane ran a hand over his face, gathering his courage. “Hayden, I need you to believe me. And not interrupt.”

“Okay,” immediately and seriously. “I’m with you.”

Shane closed his eyes for a second.

“I have amnesia.”

Silence hung on the screen. Hayden blinked. Then again.

“You’re not joking right now,” he said slowly.

“No.” His voice failed him, and Shane had to clear his throat. “I woke up in the hospital and was sure it was 2016. I don’t remember the last nine years. I don’t remember…” he swallowed, “how we lived. How everything became like this.”

Hayden exhaled and leaned back against the couch, staring somewhere at the ceiling.

“Jesus…” quietly. Then back at Shane: “I texted you. Called. When you didn’t answer, I called Ilya. He said it was better for you to decide right now who to talk to and about what. I didn’t want to push.”

Shane nodded. That made sense.

“I’m calling you because…” he stumbled, choosing words. “It feels like everyone around knows my life better than I do. And everyone is afraid to say too much. And I… I’m trying to understand at least the basics. How Ilya and I got together.”

Hayden was silent.

“Then you came to the wrong address,” he finally said.

Shane frowned.

“But you’re my best friend.”

“That’s exactly why I’m telling the truth,” Hayden replied gently. “I don’t know the details. You never told me details.”

“I didn’t tell you anything about the cottage?” Shane asked hopefully. “That summer. I invited him there. Why?” it seemed vital to him. As if pieces of the puzzle just wouldn’t stick together, as if reaching out—and he would grab this memory.

Hayden shook his head.

“Sorry, buddy. I know nothing about the cottage. I found out you two had something (and have something) much later.”

Disappointment pricked sharply, almost physically. Shane was silent—that sounded like him. Telling no one until the last moment, holding the defense as if it were the only thing that mattered in his life.

“I’m sorry. I never told you?”

“No, I guessed. Myself. Remember ‘Lily’?”

Shane smiled crookedly. As if he could forget.

“Hard to forget,” he replied.

“Exactly. For years I saw that name on your screen. You smiled like an idiot looking at your phone. I was sure you were hiding some incredible girl from us. I constantly pestered you: ‘So, when will you introduce us? Is she a spy? Why have we never seen her?’.”

Shane shook his head.

“And I denied it all the time.”

“Yeah,” Hayden nodded. “And then you came out. And I started rewinding everything. I realized ‘Lily’ wasn’t a girl. And started looking at the schedule.”

Hayden raised a finger.

“I remembered ‘Lily’ texted you most often when we played against Boston. That you disappeared from the hotel precisely on those nights. And then Rozanov was traded to Ottawa… and ‘Lily’ suddenly changed residence too. The geography of your nightly disappearances changed synchronously with Ilya’s transfer.”

“And you guessed?”

“It was the only explanation. That’s why I cornered you back then.”

“And what did I say?”

“First you turned white. And then your shoulders dropped, as if you dumped a sack of cement. And you said: ‘Yes. It’s Ilya’.”

Hayden smiled at the memories, but his eyes remained serious.

“Later, when you and Ilya stopped hiding from me… it was the first time I saw you exhale.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before him, you were…” Hayden waved his hand, searching for the word. “You were like a taut string. Always. Twenty-four seven. Even when we were just sitting at a bar, you were ‘Shane Hollander.’ You kept face, kept your back straight, kept distance. You were perfect, but damn it, Shane, you were incredibly lonely. Even among us.”

Hayden sighed.

“But with him, you became… alive. You stopped trying to be flawless. You started being late, started joking, started telling everything to go to hell. You just stopped carrying that load alone.”

He leaned closer to the camera.

“I don’t know why you invited him to the cottage. But I know you love him insanely. I’ve never seen two people look at each other like that. Even when you argued about some domestic bullshit, it looked like you were alone in the whole Universe. You’d kill for him. And he for you.”

“I know about the video,” Shane said, feeling his ears burn from such candor. “That it was your video.”

Hayden winced as if from sharp pain.

“Forgive me. I still… I didn’t mean to. I was recording a damn greeting for a fan. You guys were just standing there, in the background…”

Hayden fell silent, lowering his eyes. It was clear he had been dragging this guilt for years. He expected anger. Expected that Shane, even having lost his memory, would condemn him for what turned their lives upside down.

Shane looked at his friend. There was no anger in his head. Only strange, calm understanding.

Yes, the video destroyed their secret. But if Hayden was to be believed, before that Shane was a “taut string,” a loner in armor. Perhaps that explosion was the only way to destroy the walls Shane built around himself.

“Hayden, look at me,” Shane said firmly.

His friend reluctantly looked up.

“I’m sitting here, in Ilya’s house. I’m wearing his ring. We survived it. Whatever happened then, it didn’t break us. Maybe…” Shane pondered, choosing words. “It even forced us to stop lying to everyone. So stop eating yourself up. I’m not angry. And Ilya, I’m sure, isn’t either.”

Hayden’s shoulders visibly relaxed, as if he exhaled air he had been holding in his lungs since the start of the conversation.

“You’re too kind, Hollander,” he grinned crookedly, wiping the corner of his eye. “Seriously. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Shane felt fatigue rolling over him again, but now it was good fatigue. “I gotta go. Thanks for the truth, Hayden. I needed to hear that.”

“Call anytime,” Hayden said seriously. “And say hi to your Russian bear. Jackie and I expect you for dinner as soon as you get a day off.”

“Deal. Bye.”

The screen went dark.

Shane put the phone on the sofa and leaned back into the silence of the living room.

“You were like a taut string. But with him, you became alive.”

He raised his hand and looked at his fingers. They weren’t trembling.

Hayden was right. Even now, without memory, in this strange suspended state, Shane felt it. When Ilya wasn’t around, he turned into a function: analyze, remember, make no mistakes.

But the moment Ilya walked into the room, control went to hell. Shane started getting angry, wanting, feeling.

Ilya really was the only one who knew how to play that string without breaking it.

The picture was coming together. He didn’t need to remember the cottage to understand the main thing: he couldn’t lose this person. Again.

He looked at the clock. Three hours until Ilya’s arrival.

Shane stood up decisively. He was tired of being a passive observer of his life, eating syrniki. He didn’t remember how they got close, but he could start getting close again. Right now.

He went to the kitchen and opened a grocery delivery app.

Ilya is a Russian man who works on the ice for four hours. He needs meat. And he needs normal, unhealthy, human food, not his mom’s diet soups.

His gaze fell on a recipe for “Perfect Homemade Burger.” Shane didn’t know why, but the picture resonated inside with something warm and right. He ordered ground beef, brioche buns, cheddar, and bacon.

When the courier brought the bags, Shane began preparing the kitchen for battle. He acted strictly according to instructions, like in a lab. Weigh the meat. Form the patty. Salt. Fry.

He got carried away. The process was soothing. His hands formed dense meat pucks on their own, the knife sliced tomatoes into perfect circles. He didn’t calculate portions—just used all the meat that was in the pack.

As a result, a mountain grew on a huge platter. One, two… eight pieces. Perfect, juicy, dripping-fat burgers.

He found beer in the fridge, the frosted glass pleasantly cooling his palm. He felt a strange confidence. Today he wouldn’t be a “patient.” Today he would be a husband waiting for his man from work.

At exactly three o'clock, the front door lock clicked.

Shane tensed, adjusting the towel. Why was he nervous? It’s just Ilya. Why was he delaying?

Finally, Ilya, as if following a thread of aroma, walked into the kitchen.

Shane stood by the stove, feeling stupid in the apron. He expected a normal reaction: “Oh, food, thanks.” Or: “Why did you bother?”

But Ilya stopped dead in the doorway. His gaze fell on the platter with the mountain of food. And stuck to it.

Shane saw Ilya’s eyes quickly run over the burgers, as if he was… counting them? One, two… Ilya’s lips moved soundlessly.

A strange, ringing silence hung. The reaction was disproportionate. It’s just dinner, and Ilya was looking at the plate as if he saw a ghost there.

Slowly, very slowly, Ilya raised his eyes to Shane. And Shane was burned by that gaze. There was no simple hunger in it. A wild, painful hope flared in it, making Shane feel uneasy.

“Burgers?” Ilya’s voice trembled, breaking into a rasp. “You… you made burgers?”

Shane frowned. Why was he asking as if Shane had just proven Fermat’s Last Theorem?

“Yeah,” Shane nodded slightly embarrassed at the mountain of food. “I found a recipe. Think I overdid the amount of meat a bit, got eight of them. But I thought you’d be hungry after the ice.”

The light in Ilya’s eyes went out as instantly as it flared. Shoulders slumped again. He blinked, as if chasing away a delusion, and the strange magic of the moment dissipated, leaving behind only fatigue and poignant tenderness.

“Eight,” he repeated quietly, calmer now. “Yeah. You always did that.”

“Did what?” Shane didn’t understand.

“Nothing,” Ilya shook his head, chasing away ghosts of the past. “Just… it’s perfect. I could eat them all right now.”

He walked to the table, still looking at the food like a miracle.

“Seriously, Shane. This is the best thing I’ve seen in the last month. Yuna thinks a bun with a patty is a direct path to a heart attack.”

“Mom cares about your cholesterol. And I care about your mood.” Shane slid a misted bottle of cola toward him. “Sit. Before they get cold.”

Ilya sat. He picked up a burger—with two hands, greedily, like back then. Bit into it, squeezed his eyes shut. Juice ran down his chin.

“God,” he groaned with a full mouth. “This is good. This is damn good.”

“I tried to follow the recipe,” Shane smiled, watching him.

“You succeeded,” Ilya said seriously. “Spot on.”

They ate, and the tension that hung over them all these days began to melt. Shane watched Ilya. He ate with appetite, sweepingly, not shy about getting messy. And Shane understood: it didn’t matter if he remembered or not. What mattered was that right now he guessed right. Intuition worked better than memory.

“I called Hayden today,” Shane said, popping a french fry he found in the freezer and fried as a side dish into his mouth.

Ilya’s hand with the burger froze. He tensed.

“And how is he?” Ilya’s voice became deliberately even. “Alive and well?”

“Alive. Grew a ridiculous beard.” Shane looked Ilya in the eyes. “We talked about us. About what I was like before 2016.”

Ilya slowly lowered the burger onto the plate. Fear read in his gaze. Fear of hearing: “Hayden said you ruined everything.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said I was like a taut string. Perfect, correct, and infinitely lonely. And with you, I became alive.” Shane reached across the table and covered Ilya’s hand resting on the countertop. “He said you were the only one who could change that. That you taught me to exhale.”

Ilya was silent. He looked at their joined hands as if not believing his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed.

“Hayden always talks too much,” he finally rasped, but there was so much hidden gratitude in his voice that the air around became thick.

“Hayden isn’t lying,” Shane said firmly. “I just feel he’s right.”

Ilya interlaced his fingers with Shane’s, squeezing tightly, securely. A storm raged in his eyes—Shane only hoped they would weather this storm together.

“I don’t remember falling in love with you,” Shane said quietly, looking straight into his husband’s eyes. “But looking at you now… I understand it was inevitable.”

Ilya exhaled noisily and brought Shane’s hand to his lips. Kissed the knuckles—briefly, but so intimately that Shane’s breath hitched.

“Eat, Hollander,” he whispered, not breaking eye contact. “Yours is getting cold.”

Shane smiled and picked up his own. He was home.

“Ilya?” he asked a couple of minutes later.

“Hm?”

“Tonight we go to bed together. At the same time.”

Ilya looked at him. Satiated devils danced in his eyes.

“Fine. But I guarantee nothing about not hugging you in my sleep.”

“I’ll survive,” Shane chuckled, taking a big bite. “I’ll return the warmth. It is jointly owned property, after all.”

Chapter End Notes

Syrniki are traditional Russian cottage cheese pancakes. They’re made with tvorog (a soft farmer’s cheese), eggs, a bit of flour, and sugar, then lightly fried until golden. They’re usually served warm with sour cream, jam, honey, or berries.

Chapter 16: Chapter 15

Chapter Notes

Thank you for continuing to support me and to read this story — it truly means a lot to me.
Your comments bring me to tears, just as, according to you, some chapters have brought you to tears as well.
I promise you there will be a happy ending.

November in Ottawa arrived quickly—gray, damp, with freezing rains that turned roads into a solid ice rink by morning.

Life settled into a rhythm Shane remembered with his body, but had unlearned with his mind. The rhythm of an NHL season.

A “hockey wife mode” reigned in the house, except he, Shane Hollander, was the wife. Ilya lived on a schedule of “arena – plane – hotel – arena.” He returned home deep in the night, smelling of airplane air conditioning, hotel soap, and exhaustion. Dropped his bag in the hallway, ate what Shane left for him under a cover, and fell into bed, instantly plunging into a dreamless sleep.

Shane didn’t complain. On the contrary. His brain, exhausted by attempts to remember the void, rested in this predictability. He liked this algorithm: coffee – walk – dinner – waiting. There was safety and structure in this routine, which he lacked so much.

In 2016, Shane would have considered such a life a boring hell. Dependency? Domesticity? Never. Now it was his therapy. Finding strange, quiet pleasure in being the rear guard for a man on the front lines.

When Ilya fell asleep, Shane often lay awake, listening to his husband’s breathing even out. Sometimes he touched his shoulder or back with his fingers, just to make sure: Ilya is here, he is warm, he is real. This tactile check-in became more important than prayer for Shane.

On Wednesday, a rare day off between a West Coast road trip and a home game, they went to the clinic.

Ilya looked pale. Shadows lay under his eyes, his stubble was thicker—he simply had no energy to shave. But he insisted on driving.

Everything in the clinic was habitually sterile. Shane was shoved into the MRI tube again. The loud, rhythmic sounds of the magnet—clang-clang-clang—reminded him of sticks hitting the boards. Shane lay motionless, eyes closed, thinking that he needed to change the coffee filter at home. Domesticity had displaced the existential crisis.

Then they sat in Dr. Vogel’s office. The doctor, a lean man with a keen gaze, hung the scans on the light box.

“The hematoma has practically resorbed,” he stated, tracing a pointer over the gray swirls of Shane’s brain. “No edema. I see no structural changes. Physically, you are recovering excellently, Shane. Headaches?”

“Rarely,” Shane replied. “Only if I look at a screen too long or don’t get enough sleep.”

“Nausea? Dizziness?”

“No.”

Dr. Vogel nodded and turned off the screen. He sat at the desk, clasped his hands, and looked at Shane over his glasses.

“Now for the main thing. How is the memory?”

Silence hung in the office. The hum of the computer fan was audible. Ilya, sitting next to him, remained outwardly motionless, but Shane noticed his knuckles turn white as he gripped the armrest of the chair. Ilya held his breath, awaiting the verdict. He was afraid of this, much more than he showed.

“Nothing,” Shane said honestly.

“At all?” the doctor clarified. “No flashes? Déjà vu? Images in dreams?”

Shane thought. Were there flashes? He remembered how his body reacted to Ilya. He remembered the smell of ice. But those weren’t memories of events. Those were sensations.

He didn’t remember the wedding. Didn’t remember buying this house. Didn’t remember a single conversation over these nine years.

“No facts,” Shane said. “I know who I am. But I’m studying the chronicle of my own life over these years via Wikipedia and stories from relatives. Personal memories—zero. For me, it’s still 2016, just… I’m learning to accept the new date as a given.”

Dr. Vogel sighed and made a note in the chart.

“That is normal. Less than a month has passed. Memory can return spontaneously—tomorrow, in a year, or never. Retrograde amnesia is unpredictable. The brain may be blocking this period as a defense mechanism, or neural pathways were disrupted too severely.”

He shifted his gaze to Ilya.

“Ilya, how is this affecting you? Do you notice changes in his behavior? Aggression, depression?”

“No,” Ilya’s voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. “He’s calm. He’s… adapting.”

“Good. We continue observation. Shane, I permit light cardio loads. Exercise bike, elliptical. Ice—for now only individually, no contact, no shooting.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

They walked out to the parking lot under a fine, nasty rain. Got into the car. Ilya was in no hurry to start the engine. He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

Shane looked at his profile. At the stubborn jawline, the tired eyelids.

“Are you upset?” Shane asked.

Ilya didn’t open his eyes.

“About what?”

“That I didn’t remember. The doctor said ‘never.’ This could be forever, Ilya. You’re married to a man who forgot your entire life together.”

Ilya slowly turned his head.

“I’m not upset, Shane. I’m just tired. We had a tough road trip.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Ilya chuckled—weakly, but warmly. He reached out and touched the back of Shane’s head, running fingers through his short hair.

“I’m not lying. You know what I was afraid of most when you were in a coma? That you wouldn’t wake up. Or wake up and not be able to speak. The fact that you don’t remember how we chose curtains for the living room… I don’t give a damn.”

“Don’t give a damn?” Shane repeated.

“We’ll pick new ones,” Ilya said simply. “We have the present. You are here. You are alive. You cook me dinner and aren’t trying to kill me. That is enough.”

Shane covered his hand with his own, pressing it to his cheek. Suddenly, he felt so light. He didn’t need to painfully dig through his head, trying to fish out files that might have been deleted forever. He didn’t need to be that Shane from the past. He could be Shane right now.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “You need to sleep. Game tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Ilya nodded, starting the engine. “Home.”

Shane looked at the rain outside the window. November was dark and cold. But at home, it was warm. And it seemed he no longer needed another past.

The doctor’s permission to get on the ice burned a hole in his pocket like a winning lottery ticket.

Nothing special—just a signature on a form allowing “light cardio” at a morning rink. But for Shane, it was the first step toward normalcy. To the part of it he remembered at least somewhat.

He remembered hockey. Remembered how to position his body correctly, how the right leg enters a turn, how the ice “breathes” under blades. Memory of games was ragged, but his body confidently suggested that hockey was his home.

And still, he waited.

Waited for Ilya to finally have a day off.

It seemed ridiculous—he could go alone. First steps, light skate, check if he gets dizzy. Routine stuff. But every time he was about to say: “I’m going now,” something inside hit the brakes.

Not fear. Not uncertainty.

Rather… a feeling that Ilya should be there. As if they used to do this together—he didn’t remember it, but the idea seemed strangely logical and the only right way.

And that day arrived.

The practice arena locker room met them with echoing silence. Shane inhaled the smell of rubber and sweat. He sat on the bench, taking out his skates.

His hands remembered everything. How to tighten laces correctly—tight at the instep, a bit looser at the top so the ankle works. How to tape shin pads. How to put on shoulder pads. It was a ritual honed to automatism by thousands of repetitions. While he dressed, he didn’t feel lost. He was Shane Hollander preparing for a shift.

Ilya dressed next to him, silently, methodically. He didn’t interfere, letting Shane enjoy the moment of return.

“Ready?” Ilya asked, snapping his helmet buckle.

“Born ready,” Shane grinned.

He stood up. The gear added weight, but it was the right weight. The weight of armor.

They walked out to the ice. Shane was the first to hop over the boards. Blades bit into the ice. Crunch.

He pushed off. One, two.

His body responded instantly. Wind hit his face. Speed picked him up like an old friend. Shane did a lap, gaining tempo. He banked into a turn, feeling edges bite into the ice. No dizziness. No pain. Only pure, ringing delight.

He felt that his body had changed. It became heavier, more massive than in 2016. Center of gravity shifted lower. He wasn’t as springy, but felt more stable, like a tank.

He picked up a puck at the blue line. A switch clicked in his head.

Shane dashed forward.

He imagined defenders in front of him. Sharp feint to the left. Acceleration. Dragging the puck. Another burst of speed. He rushed toward the goal at maximum speed, putting all the anger, all the unspent energy of the last weeks into the run.

Wind up.

The slap shot was so powerful the recoil shot through his arms to the shoulders. The puck hit the crossbar and with a ring flew into the safety netting.

Shane turned around, breathing heavily but smiling ear to ear. He felt like a god. He skated to the center where Ilya stood leaning on his stick.

Shane expected praise. Expected to see admiration for his speed in his husband’s eyes.

But Ilya wasn’t smiling. He looked at Shane with a strange expression—a mix of recognition and… regret?

“Well?” Shane asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Didn’t forget how, did I?”

“Technically—no,” Ilya said slowly. “You skate perfectly.”

“But?” Shane sensed a catch.

“But you play like a child.”

The smile slid off Shane’s face.

“What?”

“You play like Shane Hollander model 2016,” Ilya explained, skating closer. “Lots of running around. Lots of unnecessary movements. You’re trying to beat everyone at once. You waste tons of energy on bursts that aren’t needed.”

Shane frowned. Resentment pricked sharply.

“That’s my style. I always played like that. Speed and pressure.”

“You played like that when you were twenty-five,” Ilya said calmly. “And when you wanted to prove to the whole world you were cooler than everyone else.”

Ilya tossed a new puck onto the ice.

“Look at yourself. You’re winded after one rush. Your body is the body of a thirty-four-year-old man. It’s powerful, durable, but it’s not built for sprints back and forth without a goal.”

“I would have scored if I hit the net!”

“You wouldn’t have scored,” Ilya shook his head. “Because in the modern NHL, a defenseman would have read you, pinned you to the boards, and you’d have lost the puck. You haven’t played like that for five years, Shane.”

“And how do I play?” Shane snapped. “Since you’re such an expert.”

“You play smart,” Ilya said.

He skated right up, dropped his gloves on the ice, and placed warm, heavy palms on Shane’s waist, turning his torso slightly.

“Lower,” he commanded quietly but authoritatively. “Sit deeper. Like that. Feel the ice with your thighs, not your calves.”

Shane obeyed, feeling how under Ilya’s hands his body found the correct, stable position on its own. It was like tuning a complex instrument.

“Before, you tried to run away from everyone,” Ilya’s voice sounded right over his ear, calm and low. “Now you meet them here. You cut off lines. You use your body to block, not to run. You became a wall, Shane. Feel the difference?”

“I feel it,” Shane exhaled. In this position, he really felt like a tank. Powerful, cumbersome, but unkillable.

Ilya removed his hands, and Shane immediately felt cold on his sides where warmth had just been.

“Right now I see a ghost,” Ilya said quietly, remaining dangerously close. “It’s strange, Shane. Seeing your face, but the movements of a kid who tried to do everything alone. You and I haven’t been alone for a long time.”

Shane lowered his stick. The euphoria evaporated.

He stood in the middle of an empty arena and realized that even his hockey—the only thing he considered constant—had betrayed him. He was playing in the past. While his body and his team lived in the future.

“So what do I do?” he asked quietly. “I don’t remember how to play ‘smart.’ I only remember: ‘grab the puck and run’.”

“Then we’ll learn again,” Ilya said simply. “We have time. The doctor allowed practice. We’ll come out here, and I’ll show you. Your hands remember, Shane. Your head just needs to stop fussing.”

Ilya nudged him lightly with his shoulder.

“Come on. Get on the dot. Let’s see if your hands remember how to beat me on the draw.”

Shane looked at him. Ilya wasn’t criticizing him to humiliate him. He was bringing him back to reality. To the reality where they were equal partners.

“Fine,” Shane exhaled, skating to the face-off circle. “But if I beat you, you cook dinner for a week.”

Ilya chuckled, standing opposite and lowering his body into a low stance.

“Dream on, Hollander. Dream on.”

Shane gripped his stick.

He lost the face-off. Ilya turned out to be cunning, lifting his stick from below before Shane even twitched. But this time Shane didn’t get angry. He realized he had a long road ahead.

And, it seemed, he liked that he would walk this road with Ilya.

Chapter 17: Chapter 16

Chapter Notes

This chapter depicts a depressive episode and mentions a character skipping prescribed medication. Please note that missing or discontinuing medication without medical supervision can be dangerous in real life. Do not change or stop treatment without consulting a healthcare professional. If these themes resonate with you, please consider reaching out to a qualified specialist.

It didn’t happen in one day.

Just like in hockey, where a goal against often starts with an unnoticed mistake in the neutral zone a minute before the fatal shot, Ilya’s breakdown had its precursors. And Shane—a man who had spent his life training the ability to read the play before the puck even left the stick—noticed them all.

First, the routine changed.

Shane didn’t know how it “should have been before”; he didn’t remember what Ilya was like prior to his amnesia. But he saw a body that had tried to go through the motions for too long, and he saw it losing ground. Before, according to Ilya, he used to jump up at the first alarm. Now—he hit snooze three, four times in a row. Crawling out from under the blanket looking like a man carrying an extra block of lead.

Then the little things vanished—the ones Shane only knew about from stories, but whose absence he felt with his skin.

Ilya stopped humming in the shower those stupid Russian songs that supposedly annoyed Shane (though he didn’t remember a single one). He stopped teasing him about his pedantic orderliness—even that little friction, apparently, used to be part of their routine. He stopped shaving daily, letting stubble creep down his neck, as if every attempt to groom himself had become a small feat he could no longer perform.

Shane saw plates returning to the sink half-full.

He saw Ilya freeze in the mornings before the bottle of pills, looking at it like a personal enemy, sighing, and finally swallowing the capsules with the air of a martyr.

He saw too much.

And he knew the theory. For the last week, the browser history on his tablet resembled not the life of a hockey player, not the life of a husband—but the report of a psychiatry intern before an exam.

“Signs of relapse of Major Depressive Disorder.” “Seasonal Affective Disorder in athletes.” “How to help a partner if they are withdrawing.”

Shane formulated a plan.

He acted like the perfect crisis manager—because he didn’t remember how to act like a loving husband.

Monitor nutrition (added fatty fish, nuts, broths—omega-3 and protein).

Don’t burden him with problems (handled bills, insurance, and household chores himself).

Ensure silence (walked Anya for two hours in the rain so Ilya could sleep an extra hour).

He thought he was controlling the situation. He thought if he did everything “by the manual,” he would keep Ilya afloat.

The catastrophe happened on Tuesday.

The Centaurs were playing Detroit. Shane watched the game on TV.

He didn’t know what his current baseline was—good, brilliant, terrible—but he saw that something had broken tonight.

In every movement. In every wrongly chosen angle of attack. In every micro-choice a hockey player makes faster than he can think.

He caught himself thinking he wasn’t watching a match—he was scanning Ilya. Like scanning a mechanism for a malfunction. And the longer he watched, the stronger the horror grew inside, similar to the feeling when you see a puck flying at your face and you’re standing there without a helmet.

When the camera gave a close-up—there was a frightening, glassy void in Ilya’s eyes. The look of a man falling inside himself and unable to climb out.

In the third period, he took a stupid penalty. Detroit scored on the power play. They lost 2-3.

Shane turned off the TV the moment the siren sounded.

He went to the kitchen. Reheated turkey (tryptophan, good for the nervous system). Dimmed the lights. Put Anya in another room so she wouldn’t make noise. He was ready. He had a protocol.

The door opened at one-thirty in the morning.

Ilya walked in. Didn’t even brush the wet November snow from the shoulders of his coat. He smelled of something Shane couldn’t describe in words but knew instinctively: a mix of damp gear, sweat, adrenaline, and bitter defeat. The smell that usually stays on the ice, but today Ilya seemed to have carried it all home with him.

He walked past Shane like a shadow, not even nodding.

“Ilya?” Shane called softly, choosing the right, safe tone. “Dinner is on the table. You need to eat.”

Ilya stopped only for a second, holding onto the banister. Shoulders slumped. Back tense. But he didn’t turn around:

“I don’t want to.”

“You have to replenish calories,” Shane automatically switched on care mode, the only way he knew how. “Skipping meals worsens your condition and cortisol levels. I made turkey, it’s light, it’s…”

Ilya turned around.

In the nightlight’s glow, his face was gray, like poorly fired clay. Eyes red, inflamed. But this wasn’t the abyss Shane feared. It was dull, hollow irritation—the heavy, painful fatigue of a person who wants to disappear for at least a few hours.

“Shane,” his voice creaked like a door someone forgot to oil. “Fuck off.”

The word hit not loudly—but painfully. Like a puck to an unprotected spot.

“What?” Shane didn’t even understand at first.

“I said: fuck off. Don’t doctor me. Don’t quote articles for teen psychiatrists at me. I just want to lie down and die until the next practice.”

The word “die” scorched him. He felt everything collapse inside.

“Don’t say that,” he took a step, his voice trembling treacherously. “It’s just a bad game. You’re wired. You need to take a shower, take your pills, and…”

“I didn’t take them today,” Ilya tossed out, indifferent, as if talking about the weather. And in that indifference lay a challenge.

Shane froze.

Then abruptly caught up to him, grabbing the wet sleeve of his coat.

“What do you mean you didn’t take them?! You know you can’t skip! That’s withdrawal syndrome, Ilya, that’s why you feel bad! Come on, I’ll get water…”

Ilya yanked his arm away—sharply, roughly.

Shane recoiled, hitting his shoulder painfully against the wall.

“I’m not taking anything!” Ilya barked. It wasn’t a scream—it was the snarl of a beast cornered. “They make me sick. Hockey makes me sick. And it makes me sick that you look at me like a lab technician looking at a guinea pig!”

“I’m looking at you as a husband!” Shane broke into a shout, forgetting all instructions and rules of silence. “I see what’s been happening to you all week! I’m trying…”

“You’re not helping,” Ilya interrupted, lips twisting into an angry, tired sneer. “You’re a guy who remembers nothing and is trying to play a role based on instructions from the internet. I saw your tablet. ‘Signs of relapse.’ Are you ticking boxes? ‘Fed Ilya—good job,’ ‘Ilya smiled—progress’?”

Shane opened his mouth—but words didn’t come out.

He wanted to say: “I’m trying to remember.” Wanted to say: “I’m terrified of losing you because I have no one and nothing—except you.” Wanted to say: “I don’t know how to be your husband, but I really want to be.”

But he knew: any of these confessions right now was salt on an open wound.

“I was studying information to know what to do,” was all he managed to squeeze out. Dryly. Defensively.

“You’re trying to soothe yourself,” Ilya said evenly, harshly. “You’re scared I’ll break. And that you’ll be left alone in a stranger’s house with a stranger’s life. You don’t care what I feel. You need me to be convenient. Functional. So your ‘Stone Wall’ doesn’t crumble and crush you with rubble.”

It was almost physically painful. As if someone placed a blade against his ribs and slowly pressed.

Because there was a grain of truth in those words. A terrible grain of truth.

“That’s not true,” Shane whispered. Almost inaudibly.

“It is,” Ilya rubbed his face with his palm. The anger drained away; only leaden apathy remained. “I can’t be your babysitter right now, Shane. I have no strength. I’m going to sleep. In the guest room.”

“Ilya…”

“Don’t come near me,” he put up a hand, stopping Shane mid-step. “Don’t knock. Don’t bring food. Just give me silence. If you want to help—disappear for a while.”

He walked up the stairs, dragging his feet like an old man.

The guest bedroom door slammed. The lock clicked.

Shane was left standing in the dark hallway.

His perfect plan had failed. The instructions didn’t work. Theory crashed against reality like a puck against the post.

He went to the kitchen. Saw the cold “healthy” turkey. Grabbed the plate—and hurled it into the sink. Porcelain shattered into pieces with a crash.

Anya whined quietly in the living room, frightened by the sound.

Shane braced his hands on the countertop, breathing heavily. A hot, prickly lump stood in his throat. His eyes burned. Shane wiped his face with his hand, surprised to find moisture. He was crying. Not from self-pity. From anger. From the humiliating feeling of powerlessness.

He did everything by the book, he tried to be perfect, and he got told to go to hell and had a door locked in his face.

He angrily wiped his cheeks with the sleeve of his sweater.

“Bitch,” he exhaled into the void of the kitchen.

Anya sat by the entrance, shifting from paw to paw. Anxiety read in her brown eyes. She felt the pack falling apart.

“Let’s go,” Shane tossed at her, grabbing the leash. “Let’s get out of here. It’s suffocating.”

He pulled his jacket right over his house clothes, pulled on a beanie, and went out into the night.

The street met him with an icy slap: fine rain mixed with snow hit his face, wind howled between houses, chilling to the bone. But it was exactly what he needed. The cold cooled his burning face, he greedily gulped cold air, displacing the heavy air stuck in the house.

They walked fast. Shane almost ran—as if slowing down meant he would simply crumble into pieces right there on this empty manicured street. Anya, ears pinned back, trotted alongside, glancing anxiously at her owner now and then.

He took out his phone. The screen was dark—dead, like everything around him for the last twenty-four hours. He had kept “Do Not Disturb” mode on since discharge. Total silence. Total isolation. He shut out the world to focus on Ilya.

“So, did it help?” an inner voice whispered venemously. “You focused so hard you suffocated him.”

Shane stopped under the only streetlight on the street. Light fell from above, snatching the steam escaping his mouth from the darkness.

His fingers were freezing, but he furiously pressed the crescent moon icon, turning off silent mode.

The phone seemed to come alive: vibrated once, twice… then nonstop. Dozens of notifications. News. Twitter. Work emails. Spam. Missed calls from Mom.

And one personal message.

From contact “Troy Barrett”.

Shane froze. Troy never texted him directly. Never.

He opened the chat. The message came an hour ago, right after the match.

Troy:

“Hey, Shane. Up?”

“Listen, don’t chew Cap out for the penalty. He knows he screwed up. In the locker room, he looked like he got run over by a train.”

“I shouldn’t be saying this, but… he’s been carrying us all on his back for a month now. And you too. I see him flinch every time his phone vibrates. He’s at his limit, man. Just let him breathe.”

Shane reread it. Then again. Letters swam—first from rain, then from tears he didn’t even try to defend against.

“He’s carrying us all.” “He’s at his limit.”

Troy—motherfucking Barrett, king of moronic jokes and a man whose hockey IQ fluctuated between “lucky” and “accidental”—saw what Shane, with his diplomas, articles, and methodical attempts to “help,” missed at point-blank range.

Ilya wasn’t breaking. He was burning out.

Not because of weakness.

Because of the strength that held everything—the team, the season, the media, Shane—for too long.

And today he simply died from banal human exhaustion.

And Shane met him with… turkey. And a lecture. And anxiety that pressed like a concrete slab.

“What an idiot I am,” he whispered, looking at the wet screen.

Anya squeaked quietly, nudging his hand with a cold nose. Shane crouched, hugged her wet neck, burying his face in fur that smelled of dog and rain.

“Sorry, girl,” he said to her, but was speaking not only to her. “We’re both idiots. But we’ll fix it. I’ll fix it.”

He stood up. His chest still hurt—but differently. Not anger remained, but firm, calm determination. Not “professional.” Not “correct.” Human.

He turned toward the house.

He wouldn’t kick down the door. He wouldn’t corner Ilya, forcing him to talk. But he wouldn’t disappear, as asked, either.

He would be nearby. Quietly. As long as needed.

Because love is not a lecture and not an instruction. It is presence.

The morning began not with sunrise, but with an intrusive sound drilling into the brain.

An alarm clock.

It wasn’t ringing in Shane’s bedroom. The sound came from behind the wall, from the guest room.

Shane opened his eyes and froze, expecting the habitual click—the sound with which Ilya had invariably hit the “snooze” button in recent days. Shane had already noticed this new, painful habit: Ilya, who in his memory always jumped up before the first signal like clockwork, was now desperately bargaining with reality for every five minutes of oblivion.

The clock showed 07:30. Usually by this time, the “ring-cancel” cycle had repeated thrice already.

But now the ringing continued. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.

No one pressed the button. No one tried to stall for time.

Shane sat up in bed, feeling a string of anxiety tighten under his skin. It’s one thing not to want to get up, and quite another not to hear that wail. If Ilya isn’t reacting… it means the system has suffered a critical failure.

Shane got up, walked barefoot down the icy corridor, and approached the guest room door. The ringing of the alarm behind the thin partition seemed so loud, as if hitting directly on his exposed nerves.

The door yielded immediately, though Shane expected resistance. He distinctly remembered the lock clicking last night—Ilya shutting himself off from him and the whole world.

So he went out at night? Maybe wandered the dark house looking for water or pills, and upon returning simply forgot to turn the latch back. Another marker of fatigue or indifference: before, Ilya always checked the doors, now he left his perimeter open.

The room met him with dense, stifling darkness. Curtains were drawn to the floor, air was stagnant—smelling of sleep and heavy, sticky depression.

Ilya lay on his side, wrapped in the blanket head and all, like a cocoon. He didn’t move. Only the fabric rose barely noticeably in time with heavy, viscous breathing.

The phone on the nightstand vibrated furiously, jumping in place and threatening to fall to the floor. Its screen cut the darkness with white light.

Shane walked over, swiped the icon, and killed the sound.

Silence crashed down instantly. Thick, like in ICU when life support is turned off.

Ilya didn’t even twitch.

A message lit up on the screen.

Coach Wiebe: “Rozanov. Where are you? Ice in 40 minutes. You’re not answering.”

Shane looked at the sleeper. At the man who never allowed himself weakness. At the man who lived in 24/7 mode and held on by sheer willpower and stubbornness alone. And now he lay here as if his body had finally pulled the power cord from the socket.

If he woke him now, he would get up. On grit, on inertia, on self-hatred. He would drive. He would go out on the ice—in the only way he currently could: broken.

And suddenly Shane understood clearly, crystal clear: if Ilya went today, he might not return as he was. He would break completely.

Shane shifted his gaze to the phone in his hand.

Password.

Reason returned an error—he had no idea what numbers were needed here. He didn’t even know if Ilya changed passwords.

But his hand acted faster than thought. It was like skating—the body simply knew what to do, bypassing consciousness. His thumb habitually slid over the glass, tapping a quick rhythm on four points of the screen.

2... 4... 8... 1.

The screen unlocked.

Shane blinked in surprise, looking at the menu icons. His fingers typed the code automatically, obeying a reflex honed by thousands of repetitions. 24—his number. 81—Ilya’s number.

His body remembered access to his husband’s life without even asking permission from his head.

The choice was simple and impossible at the same time. Wake the captain—or protect the husband.

He left the room, silently closing the door, and went down to the kitchen.

He needed preparation. Shane acted methodically, like before a tough match.

Took a glass. Poured ice water. Drank it in one gulp—too fast, purposefully, so his breath hitched and caught in his throat. Then took several shallow, rapid breaths, hyperventilating his lungs so his voice became raspy and weak. Rubbed his eyes vigorously with his fists, achieving redness and tears. Coughed hollowly several times.

And only then pressed call.

The ringing didn’t last long—the phone was picked up almost immediately.

“Rozanov?” the coach’s voice was hoarse, but not angry—rather, tense. “Where are you? Your car isn’t in the lot.”

“It’s Shane, Coach,” he breathed out, making his voice weak, brittle.

Pause. Slight rustling of paper on the other end of the line.

“Hollander?” Wiebe’s tone changed instantly, becoming softer and more anxious. “What happened? Why are you on Ilya’s phone?”

“We…” Shane leaned heavily on the countertop, closing his eyes, getting into the role. “We’re both down. Since last night. Shaking, vomiting… fever. Think it’s some virus. Stomach flu, probably. Ilya…” he let his voice tremble, but just a tiny bit, adding realism, “Ilya is in the bathroom. Hasn’t come out for an hour. He’s in bad shape.”

The coach cursed quietly, under his breath. Not angrily—concerned.

“Damn. Shit happens. How are you guys? Send someone over? Doc? Nurse with IVs?”

“No,” Shane shook his head immediately but weakly, though the coach couldn’t see him. “Coach, really, no need. It’s normal stomach crap. We’re not the first to catch this during the season. We just need… to lie down. And keep fluids down. If a doctor comes—he won’t do anything anyway except ‘rest and drink electrolytes.’ We’ll manage.”

The coach fell silent. For a long time. Too long—that’s how people think when they genuinely worry and make a decision.

“Hollander,” he said finally, evenly, but very seriously. “If it gets worse—you call me immediately. No heroics. I’m serious. I don’t want either of you ending up in the hospital with dehydration.”

“Yes, Coach,” Shane made his voice quiet, full of gratitude. “Thanks. We’ll… try to sleep. But Ilya definitely won’t make it today. He can’t even stand up.”

“Health is more important than ice,” Wiebe cut off firmly. “Tell him I said that. And let him lie there. Block his phone if you have to. I know Rozanov: he’ll try to crawl in. Tell him I personally banned him from appearing at the arena for the next 48 hours. He has one feat now—to get well.”

“I’ll tell him,” Shane whispered. “Thanks.”

“Get well.”

Dial tone.

Shane pressed “end call” and put the phone on the table. His hand was trembling—not from sickness, but from adrenaline crash.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening to the silence of the house.

He had just lied to the head coach. A man who treated them like sons. He faked the captain’s illness to cover his breakdown.

But this lie was the only shield that could keep Ilya from burning to the ground.

Ilya would kill him when he woke up. There would be rage. There would be a scandal. Maybe he would tell him to get lost again.

But Shane would survive. He had to survive it for both of them.

All day Shane existed in the house as if in a bunker.

He moved almost silently, as if afraid to disturb the air and cause a backdraft of anxiety. He put Ilya’s phone in airplane mode slowly, with two fingers, as if defusing a bomb. Then placed it on the kitchen table—neatly, strictly parallel to the edge. He turned off his own smartphone completely and hid it in a drawer.

Silence reigned in the house. No digital pulsations, no vibrations, no annoying calendar reminders.

It became easier to breathe with the silence.

He fed Anya—the dog ate slowly, occasionally raising intelligent eyes to him, or touchingly licking her nose, as if she also understood the importance of the moment. She went out to the backyard almost on tiptoes. Shane even smiled when she, looking at him, “forbade” herself to bark at a squirrel. She understood everything—and, it seemed, better than many people.

Then Shane walked through the house. He closed the curtains—thick, heavy, blocking light. Each fabric fold fell like a theater curtain, closing the stage from prying eyes. When the last slit of light disappeared, the house plunged into soft, sleepy shadows.

He didn’t even peek into the guest room.

“Ilya’s strength is not my responsibility,” he told himself. “My task is not to pull him, but to cover the flanks while he lies low.”

He sat in the living room, opened a book—a random one taken from Ilya’s shelf, Keith Richards’ biography. The page was thick, smooth. He read the first five words. Then the next four. Then his gaze just wandered over the lines, while Shane listened to the silence, listened to the house, listened to his own heart working in an even tense rhythm: beat, beat, beat.

His role today was simple: to be a sentry. Not let the world get to Ilya.

He heard the bed creak upstairs. Long, plaintive. Then—a step. A second. Shane lowered the book, stuck a bookmark between pages, and looked up.

Heavy, shuffling steps moved toward the stairs.

Ilya appeared at the top.

A wrinkled t-shirt hung on him like on a hanger. Hair stuck out in different directions like a nest. On his cheek—a deep red imprint of a pillowcase crease. He looked not just tired, but as if he had been held underwater without oxygen for days.

He came down, holding the banister, blinking from the semi-darkness.

And suddenly his gaze fell on the wall clock. As if he had been shocked by electricity.

“Блять…” he rasped. Voice cracked. “Three o'clock? Three o'clock?!”

Panic flared instantly, like dry straw from a spark. Sleep flew off him in a second. Ilya darted around, started patting the pockets of his sweatpants, turned around his axis.

“Where’s my phone?!” hysteria rang in his voice. “Shane, where is it?! God… I… What day is it? I slept through morning skate! I slept through video review!”

“Ilya,” Shane said calmly, not getting up from the chair.

But Ilya didn’t hear him. He was already in the kitchen, flinging cupboards open, as if the phone could materialize between jars of coffee.

“You don’t understand!” Ilya turned to him sharply, his eyes wild. “This is a disaster, Shane! I’m the captain! I can’t just… disappear! Wiebe will kill me. The team… they’re waiting…”

“You don’t need to call anywhere,” Shane repeated in the same even tone.

“Of course I do!” Ilya yelled. “They’re probably searching for me with police by now! It’s a breach of contract! It’s…”

“I called Wiebe at 7:30.”

The words fell into the silence like heavy stones into water.

Ilya stopped so abruptly as if he had crashed into invisible glass. His mouth remained slightly open. Hands, raised for another frantic gesture, hung in the air.

“What?” he asked in a whisper.

“I called the coach,” Shane repeated calmly, looking him straight in the eyes. “From your number. Said we both got food poisoning. Badly. Stomach flu. You have fever, vomiting, dehydration. You can’t even stand up. We were given two days. Complete rest.”

A long, ringing pause.

Ilya looked at him, and the gears of realization slowly, creakingly turned in his eyes.

“You… lied? To the coach?” his voice became completely quiet, hoarse.

“I covered you,” Shane answered simply. “The way you cover a partner on the ice. Or a husband. In any order.”

Ilya took a step back, bumped his legs against the sofa, and collapsed onto it as if his tendons had been cut. He covered his face with his palms and sat like that for a minute, rocking.

“Stomach flu…” came from under his palms. Hollowly, stifled.

“Classic card,” Shane shrugged. “No one asks unnecessary questions if they think you’re hugging the toilet.”

First, Ilya made a strange, gurgling sound. Shane tensed.

And then Ilya’s shoulders shook. And he laughed.

It wasn’t a happy laugh. It was the laugh of a man who stood on the edge of a cliff and suddenly realized there was a railing. Low, raspy, on the verge of hysteria, but alive.

Ilya took his hands off his face. His eyes were shining.

“You asshole, Hollander…” he exhaled. “And a genius.”

“Troy texted me last night,” Shane said. “Said you’re holding everything on yourself and that you’re on the edge. He was right. You would have fallen today anyway, Ilya. Right on the ice. Better at home, from ‘flu’.”

Shane stood up and went to the kitchen.

“I ordered pizza,” he shouted, taking the box out of the oven (where it stayed warm). “Pepperoni with double cheese. Coke—regular, with sugar and caffeine. Full antidepressant kit.”

He returned, placed the box on the coffee table before the sofa. Opened the lid. The smell of melted cheese, sausage, and dough filled the room—the smell of normal, wrong, human life.

“I’m not fixing you, Ilya,” Shane said very seriously. “I’m just holding the line while you learn to breathe again.”

Ilya looked at the pizza. Then at Shane.

He silently took a slice. Slowly bit into it. Chewed. Took a big gulp of Coke straight from the can.

And his shoulders finally dropped. For real. The armor fell to the floor with an invisible crash.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“Eat,” Shane took the remote and turned on the TV. “I found a documentary about great white sharks. No hockey. We have two days off. We’re going to degrade professionally.”

Ilya leaned back against the sofa, chewing pizza and looking at the blue screen.

And for the first time in many weeks, he allowed himself to just be. Without responsibility. Without the captain’s 'C'. Without fear.

Because knowing your back is covered is a luxury he had forgotten.

But today he remembered.

Chapter End Notes

I’m truly grateful to each and every one of you for the way you’ve responded to this story - for your comments, private messages, recommendations, and even TikToks. Seeing this story resonate and live beyond the page is an incredible feeling, and I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around it.

I’m really sorry that I’m not able to reply to every comment individually - there are so many now that I simply can’t always keep up. Please know that I read everything and appreciate every single response without exception. Thank you for your support, your attention, and for sharing this story with others. It truly means more to me than I can put into words.

Chapter 18: Chapter 17

Chapter Notes

I can’t thank you enough for all your feedback and support. Reading your thoughts, theories, and emotions means more to me than I can put into words.
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The two days of their voluntary quarantine passed like one long, quiet exhale.

They didn’t discuss feelings, didn’t dig into the past. They just slept, ate cold pizza, watched stupid nature documentaries, and existed in the same space without tension. Ilya slept enough, the deathly grayness left his face. Shane stopped feeling like a prison guard.

It was a reboot. A pause before the storm.

But reality couldn’t wait forever. December came into its own. The city was decorated with garlands, shop windows screamed of Christmas sales, and the NHL calendar became ruthless.

Shane sat in the kitchen, studying the game schedule on his tablet.

December. Ahead—“Hell Week” and Boxing Day. The densest, meat-grinder schedule of the season. Games every other day, flights, back-to-back matches.

The Centaurs were holding on in the playoff zone, but barely. Without a first-line center, Ilya’s line had lost chemistry. Ilya was working for two, Troy was trying, but the rookies from the farm team simply couldn’t handle top-6 level. They were surviving, not playing.

Shane looked at his hands. He had been training individually for two weeks now. His skating was back. His shot was back. His conditioning was normal. His head didn’t hurt even with sharp turns. Yes, he didn’t remember the tactical schemes of the 2024/25 season, but he re-learned them by watching videos at night.

Enough hiding.

Ilya walked into the kitchen.

He was wearing a team tracksuit: black pants, red hoodie with the logo. A bag hung on his shoulder. He looked collected, rested, but in his eyes flickered the tension of a man who has to explain two days of absence to the coach.

“Wiebe is already at the arena,” Ilya said instead of a greeting, pouring coffee into a travel mug. “Texted me. Asking how I am and when to expect me. I’m sure he would have put me on sick leave if we had anyone to play.”

Shane looked up from the tablet. He had been reading the same sentence for the third time and only now realized it—the letters had stopped making sense.

“What about me?” he asked. “Did he ask when I’m coming back?”

The question slipped out on its own. Too fast, too sharp. He was surprised himself at how important the answer was to him.

Ilya looked at him with slight bewilderment, as if the question wasn’t just unexpected, but absurd.

“No, of course not. Who’s expecting you, Shane? You’re officially in protocol. Wiebe isn’t counting on you and certainly won’t bother you or me with questions.”

Something inside pricked unpleasantly. Not resentment—no. Rather, confirmation of what he already feared: in the system, he was currently a blank space.

Shane put the tablet down. The screen clicked off, like a period in a conversation that hadn’t really happened yet.

“Then he’s wrong not to count on me,” Shane said, standing up. “I’m coming with you.”

Ilya froze with the thermos in his hand, as if someone had abruptly turned off the sound in the room.

“Where?”

“To practice.”

“Shane, sit down.” Ilya’s voice dropped. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re prescribed rest.”

“Rest was two weeks ago!” Shane was already walking toward the stairs to the second floor, feeling something familiar, almost forgotten, rising in him with the movement. “I’ve been grinding on an individual program for two weeks, Ilya. Ice, cardio, recovery. Doctors gave the green light. You saw my stats yourself when we skated.”

“Individual sessions are one thing,” Ilya followed him. “There you’re alone. Silence. Control. A team practice is chaos.”

“I don’t care about chaos,” Shane spun around sharply, already having put a foot on the first step. “I’m a hockey player, Ilya. Not a rehabilitation project. I can’t sit and watch you fall apart anymore.”

He said it—and realized he scored a hit.

“You’re playing thirty minutes a game,” he continued faster, before Ilya could close up. “First line, penalty kill, power play. And after games and on rare days off, you don’t sleep—you drive me to an empty arena and teach me how to be me again. You show me how I play now. You’re working for two. No. For three.”

“I’m managing,” Ilya hissed.

Too fast. Too harsh.

“Managing?” Shane lowered his voice. “Ilya, let’s not lie at least here. We both know why we sat at home for the last two days. And it wasn’t stomach flu.”

Ilya turned away. His shoulders tensed as if expecting a blow.

“Your breakdown isn’t weakness,” Shane continued more quietly. “It’s a signal. You’re at your limit.”

Silence stretched. The blow had indeed hit the mark.

“I see it,” he added. “And the team feels it. Without a center, everything starts to crumble. I’m not asking for heroics. I’m asking to let me be useful.”

He inhaled.

“Just because I don’t remember who won the Cup in ’18 doesn’t make me an invalid. My legs remember. My hands remember. You said yourself yesterday that I’m getting it.”

“I was talking about shooting at an empty net!” Ilya replied sharply. “Out there, there will be contact.”

“I’m not asking for contact.” Shane squared his shoulders. “I’m asking for a yellow jersey. No-contact. Just to get out there. Get into the rhythm. I have to be there, Ilya. Otherwise, I’ll go crazy from the feeling that I’m furniture.”

“You can’t,” Ilya said stubbornly. “You don’t even remember the plays.”

“I’ll learn the plays. And instincts don’t get erased. The body remembers. I know it.”

Ilya turned away, gripping the wooden banister with force, as if wanting to leave fingerprints on it.

“I need a live husband!” he snapped. “Not a patient. Not a hero. Alive. I won’t let you into the meat grinder if there’s a chance you’ll get broken there. You don’t remember how to brace for a hit…”

“I remember!” Shane shouted. “I know I remember. It’s like breathing.”

Ilya stopped. Looked at him for a long, heavy moment. In that gaze was everything at once: fear, anger, love, and the cold calculation of a captain who understood—the team really was missing a center.

“Then let’s do this,” Shane said, softer but firmly. “We go to the arena. To the doctors. Full testing. Reaction, vestibular, NeuroTracker—everything. With you watching.”

Ilya was silent.

“If they find even one thing—I stay home until the All-Star Game and keep quiet. But if I’m clean…” he paused. “I get on the ice. In a yellow jersey. Just to feel that I’m still here.”

Ilya slowly exhaled. Like a man who just relinquished control but hadn’t accepted it yet.

“Can’t change your mind?”

“No.” Shane looked him straight in the eye. “I want to play hockey. That’s the only thing I’m sure of right now.”

“Fine,” Ilya said finally. “Get ready. We’ll stop by Sylvain. But if you fail even one metric…”

“I won’t fail.”

“And one more thing,” Ilya stepped toward him, grabbing his shoulders. His fingers dug into the jacket fabric. “On the ice, I’ll be watching you. If I see you drifting, losing focus—I’ll take you to the locker room myself. And I don’t give a damn about Wiebe, the whistle, or what the guys think. Understood?”

Shane looked into those dark, anxious eyes. Ilya’s fear was tangible, heavy. He was afraid of losing the fragile balance they had built over these days.

“Understood, Cap,” Shane said softly. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Ilya gave a short nod and released him.

“Harris will kill us. Wiebe will kill us. But if you’re really in shape... maybe we have a chance not to die this season.”

Shane nodded and dashed up the stairs.

Packing was quick—hands found the necessary things on their own, body working on autopilot. Tracksuit, baseball cap to cover eyes, phone.

He came down eight minutes later. Ilya was already waiting by the door, twirling car keys on his finger.

He swept a critical gaze over Shane—from sneakers to the cap visor.

“You’re ready,” Ilya stated.

“Ready.”

Ilya stepped toward him, but instead of opening the door, he unclenched his fist.

“Not quite,” he said quietly. “You forgot the most important piece of equipment. If we want everyone to believe we’re okay... you can’t show up there ‘naked’.”

On his palm lay a gold ring. Heavy, smooth, warm from his hand.

Shane froze, looking at the gold. He remembered this ring—saw it on the nightstand in the bedroom but didn’t dare touch it, as if it were an artifact from an alien civilization. But now, seeing it in Ilya’s hand, he felt a strange prick. Not of fear. Not of rejection. But of sharp, almost painful necessity.

Like a puzzle missing the central piece.

“Without it, rumors will start,” Ilya said simply, looking him in the eye. “They’ll decide we have problems. And we don’t need extra questions, Shane.”

It was an argument for the press. But Shane saw Ilya’s fingers tense around the ring. For him, this wasn’t about the press.

Shane silently extended his left hand. He didn’t need to convince himself. He wanted to feel that weight.

Ilya froze for a second, as if giving Shane a chance to change his mind, and then himself—with a quick but unexpectedly gentle movement—slid the ring onto his ring finger.

It fit snugly. Like it belonged there.

The skin under the metal instantly warmed. Shane clenched and unclenched his fist. Strangely, the ring didn’t bother him, didn’t seem like a foreign object. On the contrary, his hand suddenly felt a forgotten, correct heaviness. Balance was restored. As if the left hand had always been slightly lighter than the right, and now that weight had evened out.

“Not tight?” Ilya asked. His voice sounded steady, but he didn’t let go of Shane’s hand, lingering his fingers a moment longer than necessary.

“No,” Shane answered, looking at the glint of gold. “Just right.”

Ilya nodded and finally pulled away, restoring distance.

“Then let’s go. And try not to look like you’ve seen a ghost. You are Shane Hollander, and you’re just going to work.”

Shane nodded and stepped out into the cold December air, unconsciously twisting the ring with his thumb.

Now he was fully dressed.

The medical block of the arena was hidden deep in the bowels of the building—a windowless place where the air smelled of rubbing alcohol, sports freeze spray, and anxious sterility.

Shane sat on the high couch, feeling a drop of cold sweat roll down his spine under his training shirt. Not from exertion. From fear of failing.

Dr. Sylvain had been running him through tests for forty minutes.

NeuroTracker flashed multi-colored dots on the screen, and Shane forced his eyes to track them as if his life depended on it. Yellow. Green. Yellow. His brain worked sharply, picking out patterns, hands reacting instantly.

Ilya stood by the wall, arms crossed. Motionless as a rock. His gaze was heavy, scanning. He looked for the slightest sign of weakness: trembling hands, delayed reaction, paled face. He knew the price of a mistake with a concussion too well.

“Well then…” Dr. Sylvain finally took off his glasses and tapped the tablet with a stylus. “Reaction is normal. Coordination is excellent. NeuroTracker scores are even better than pre-season. You’ve clearly missed work, Shane.”

Shane allowed himself a short exhale, maintaining a mask of confidence.

“Left to check the neck. Turn your head left. Right.”

The doctor put his hands on his shoulders, then pressed his fingers into the muscles at the base of the skull, checking tone and resistance.

“Resist the pressure. Like that. Any pain?”

Shane listened to the sensations. There was no sharp pain. Just a light, pulling stiffness somewhere deep in the muscles—an echo of the impact, a reminder that the body still remembers the injury. But it wasn’t a “stop” signal, rather ordinary muscle memory. Discomfort that would vanish once he warmed up.

Shane met Ilya’s gaze. In his husband’s eyes read a silent plea: “Tell the truth.”

But the truth—even about this slight discomfort—could mean another week of over-caution. And Shane knew he was ready.

“None,” Shane answered firmly, looking the doctor straight in the eye. “Feel one hundred percent. Neck is fine.”

The doctor’s fingers froze over the tablet—the moment of truth. Then the stylus glided over the screen, leaving an electronic signature.

“Good. I’m signing clearance for general practice.”

Shane nodded, trying not to betray his triumph.

“But, according to protocol,” the doctor raised a finger, cooling his ardor, “we start with stage five. Non-contact mode.”

“Yellow jersey,” Shane nodded understandingly.

“Exactly. Yellow jersey. No battling at the boards, no checking. Only skating, tactics, and shooting. We need to see how your vestibular system reacts to the chaos and noise of the rink.”

“Fair.”

“At the slightest dizziness, nausea, or ‘fog’—you leave the ice. Immediately. Heroism isn’t needed here.”

“Got it, Doc. I’m not my own enemy.”

Ilya exhaled noisily, peeling himself off the wall as if he hadn’t breathed all this time. He looked as if a concrete slab had been lifted from his shoulders. The yellow jersey was the compromise that satisfied him.

“You lucky son of a bitch, Hollander,” he said quietly when they walked out into the corridor. “I was sure you’d get bounced.”

Shane tried to respond with a habitual smirk, but his facial muscles seemed to have forgotten how to do it naturally.

The path to the locker room was like walking through a minefield.

He walked down the corridor next to Ilya, feeling his heavy presence—a mix of protection, control, and expectation. And simultaneously—a strange, new distance. Shane didn’t remember their shared past, but felt that any wrong step, any false note would betray the emptiness inside him.

All night, while Ilya slept, Shane browsed the team website, old interviews, scrolled through Instagram feeds back to 2018. He absorbed information the way he used to study opponent playbooks before playoffs.

He crammed other people’s lives.

Number 25—Mike Johnson, defenseman. Recently became a father for the second time, daughter’s name is Emma. Loves fishing.

Number 88—Alex Petrov, rookie. Nervous around Ilya, worships Shane. English is bad.

Number 31—Carter, backup goalie. Listens to country music, has three Labradors, specific sense of humor.

He knew enough to survive. He could only hope no one noticed his gaps between the lines.

Ilya pushed the heavy locker room door.

The hum of voices, laughter, sound of tape ripping—everything went silent instantly.

Twenty pairs of eyes stared at him.

The smell of sweat, heating ointment, tape, and expensive men’s deodorant hit from the threshold like a shock wave.

“Well, holy shit!” a familiar voice broke the silence. Troy Barrett jumped up from the bench, half-wrapped in a towel. “Look who resurrected! The prodigal son returns!”

“Alive!” the others chorused. “Shane! Hollander!”

Shane headed to his locker. He learned its location on the diagram beforehand—in the corner, next to Ilya, under the nameplate with number 24.

He put on that smile—slightly restrained, confident, with a touch of self-irony. The smile he had seen on thousands of videos but never felt as his own.

“Keep waiting, boys,” he tossed out. His voice sounded loud, even, with familiar proprietary intonations. “I heard you got relaxed without me. Decided to blow Boxing Day? Had to come back and restore order.”

Laughter swept through the locker room. An approving hum. The tension collapsed.

Shane—real, familiar, one of them—was back.

Shane began to undress, carefully copying the movements of the others. First the hoodie. Then jeans. Neatly onto the hanger.

Johnson (number 25, defenseman) approached him.

“Glad to see you, Shane. Seriously. Without you on the penalty kill—it’s a turnstile. How’s the stomach? Guys said you got hit hard.”

“Normal, Mike,” Shane answered easily, almost automatically, taking out thermals. An info card popped up in his head. “Still a bit queasy this morning, but I’ll live. And congrats on the second daughter. Saw photos in the group chat. Cheeks are fire.”

Johnson blossomed like a May rose.

“Thanks! She’s a copy of my wife. Luckily for her. You know my mug.”

Shane chuckled.

Contact established. Role played correctly.

He took a jersey out of the locker. Not the usual practice one. Bright yellow. The color of “caution, danger.” The color of a non-contact player.

A short silence hung in the locker room as he pulled it over his head. The yellow color screamed louder than any words: I’m here, but I’m broken.

He looked up—and ran into Ilya’s gaze.

Rozanov sat in his place, already dressed. He wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t participating in the general merriment.

He was watching Shane.

Watching the way one looks at a person who has just achieved the impossible. Cautiously. Admiringly. Disbelievingly.

And with a frightening shadow of anxiety at the bottom of dark eyes.

This was the most dangerous gaze of all. Because Ilya Rozanov suddenly realized: his husband could lie so virtuously that even the best team in the league didn’t notice the switch. And if he lies to them like that... then where is the guarantee he isn’t lying to Ilya?

“On ice in five minutes!” Ilya barked, breaking eye contact and putting on his helmet. “Stop yapping. Hollander, you’re on my line. Let’s see if you forgot how to hold a stick.”

On the ice, everything was more serious.

The cold met him with a thin vibration under skate blades—as if the ice was listening too, assessing who stepped onto it. Imposter or master?

Coach Wiebe stood by the boards. Face—a stone slab. He saw Shane in the yellow jersey, gave a short nod, calling the whole team to center ice with a whistle.

“Listen up!” Wiebe barked. “Hollander is with us today, but he’s in yellow. That means—he’s a ghost. No contact. No shoving, no checks at the boards. Anyone touches him even with a finger—will run suicides until the end of the season. Clear?”

“Clear, Coach!” players answered disjointedly.

Wiebe shifted his gaze to Shane.

“No heroics, Hollander. Slightest dizziness, ‘stars,’ nausea—and get off the ice. I don’t need a corpse on the first line before playoffs. I need a center who thinks, not dies.”

“I got it.”

“Get with Rozanov and Barrett. Let’s see if your hands remember the work.”

Whistle.

The ice came alive. Shane did the first laps. The yellow jersey worked like a magic shield—a vacuum formed around him. Players flying at speed carefully skated around him, avoiding engagement.

This gave time. That very time his brain needed to adapt to the chaos.

When 3-on-2 zone entries began, he was already breathing evenly. Adrenaline washed away the fear.

Troy picked up the puck in the neutral zone, dragged it along the boards, drew a defender, and left a “blind” drop pass.

Shane caught it in stride, picking up speed.

Ahead was only the goalie and one defender, who was backing up, opening a lane for a shot.

In 2016, Shane would have shot. Without hesitation. A clean slap shot, a selfish desire to pierce the goalie with power, the ring of the crossbar. “I’ll do it myself.”

He wound up. Muscles tensed for the strike. It was a reflex of that old Shane.

But now… something stopped his hand. Some new knowledge, hardwired into the subcortex during the nine years he forgot.

In 2016, he saw the net. In 2025, he saw the field.

Time seemed to slow down. Shane didn’t see Ilya—he was skating parallel, slightly behind, in the “dead zone” on the far wing.

But Shane knew where he was.

As if this information was part of his own navigation system. He felt Ilya with his back, his skin, every nerve.

Shane didn’t shoot.

He made a fake wind-up—powerful, convincing, making both the goalie and defender twitch, covering the short side.

And in that brief moment, Shane softly—with just wrists, without looking—sent the puck through a forest of enemy sticks. To the far post. Into the void.

No one was supposed to be there.

But Ilya was there.

He met the puck one-touch.

Bang.

Empty net, clean goal. The goalie didn’t even understand how the puck passed through traffic.

The tapping of sticks on ice rolled through the arena.

“Ye-e-ah!!!” Troy roared, flying up to Shane, but remembering the yellow jersey at the last moment and just slapping his glove. “That’s the shit we were missing! Magic is back, baby! Did you see that pass?! I’m hard!”

Shane laughed, feeling tension leave his shoulders.

Ilya skated up to them.

He wasn’t celebrating. Wasn’t shouting. He was just looking. Heavy breathing escaped in clouds of steam. His eyes burned—dark, bright.

“Not bad,” Ilya said, and quiet, cautious, but enormous pride shone through his voice. “For a guy who was in a coma a month and a half ago.”

“Pass was so-so,” Shane grinned, feeling adrenaline hum in his blood. “You had to reach.”

“Next time put it more precisely, on the tape,” Ilya chuckled. Softly. Intimately. “I’m old, it’s hard for me to bend down.”

“Rozanov, Hollander, don’t relax!” Wiebe barked from the other half of the rink. “That was practice speed. In a game, they’ll eat you alive with that laziness. Next shift!”

Shane skated to the center.

Something clicked inside. He still didn’t remember how they won the Cup. Didn’t remember the taste of the wedding cake.

But this feeling... the feeling of knowing where your partner is without looking. The feeling of absolute trust when you pass into the void, knowing he will be there. On the ice, this thread between him and Ilya was material. It couldn’t be erased by amnesia, knocked out by a concussion, torn by years of silence. It was built into both of them, like part of biomechanics.

They were two halves of one perfect mechanism.

Shane stood on the face-off dot, leaning low over the ice. Ilya took his place on the wing, to his right.

Shane glanced sideways at his profile. And realized: he was ready.

Even if he didn’t remember who he was—he clearly felt who he is right now.

And that was enough.

Chapter 19: Chapter 18

Chapter Notes

First of all — thank you so much for the huge amount of comments. Truly. Some of them actually made me cry, and reading them has been incredibly emotional in the best possible way. I don’t have words for how much your support means to me.
I also want to apologize for the longer-than-planned absence. Life happened, and this story kept growing while I was away. Which brings me to another small update: what was originally planned as 22 chapters has now become 24. The story simply grew too big, and I didn’t really have a choice.
I hope you’ll enjoy this chapter — and I really hope the next one will be worth the wait too. Thank you for staying with me.

The Centaurs’ plane began its descent over New York late in the evening.

The last few days had merged into a rapid succession of events. First—official clearance for full contact. Then—a club press release that blew up feeds with headlines “Hollander Returns.” Shane scrolled through social media comments where thousands of strangers wished him luck, and it was strangely warming. He skipped the next game, as planned. But in the following match, he took the ice—for only ten minutes, filling in on the fourth line for a farm-club call-up. One hard check, one won face-off—and no headache. That was enough to understand: he was truly back.

Ilya, however, did not share this enthusiasm. He spent those ten minutes on the bench looking like a man awaiting a firing squad, not a goal. Even after the final buzzer, he didn’t relax, continuing to scan Shane with a heavy, X-ray gaze, as if looking for cracks in the facade. This stifling care was starting to irritate. Shane caught himself thinking: is this just fear for his health? Or is there something else behind it? Maybe Ilya simply doesn’t trust him? Thinks that since Shane forgot the last nine years of their life, he also forgot how to be a reliable partner on the ice?

The city below glowed like a giant, pulsating golden web stretched from horizon to horizon. For Shane, this was the first road trip in nine years (by his internal calendar)—and simultaneously the first road trip in Ottawa gear, not Montreal’s.

This combination made his stomach churn unpleasantly. It was a strange, nauseating mix: bitterness from betraying his best friend and the sheer surrealism of what was happening. He sat in a seat with the logo of the team he worshipped in childhood but was obligated to wage war against as a loyal soldier of Montreal. Irony of fate. He was flying to a game wearing the uniform of those who had been his principal rivals for years, and remembered absolutely nothing of how or when he managed to switch barricades.

The plane was the same as always: a team charter, a flying locker room where hundreds of flights had fused in his head into one endless line. But now every detail seemed slightly shifted, wrong, like in a mirror reflection. Instead of Montreal’s familiar blue-and-white scheme, the cabin was done in strict black-and-red tones. The logo on the leather headrest was alien. It hurt his eyes, causing an irrational feeling that he had boarded the wrong flight.

Sleepy, businesslike silence reigned in the cabin. No rowdiness, no parties. This was a business trip. Coaches in the front were already breaking down video on laptops, illuminated by the cold light of screens. Rookies sat quietly in headphones, trying to be invisible.

In the back, where the team core usually gathered, it was calm this time too. Veterans talked quietly, discussing league news, someone was reading, someone just looking out the porthole at the lights of passing cities. It smelled of burnt coffee, menthol lozenges, and old felt. Routine honed to automatism.

Troy Barrett, sitting across the aisle from Shane, clearly demonstrated this professional nonchalance. He was asleep. And sleeping as if he were in his bedroom, not in an airplane seat.

He sprawled as much as the space allowed, unceremoniously stretching his long legs into the aisle, risking tripping any flight attendant. On his face sported a ridiculous fluffy sleep mask in the shape of a panda’s face, which looked completely surreal on the face of a two-meter forward. His mouth was slightly open, and Troy snuffled quietly, cozily, absolutely not caring about the upcoming match, press pressure, or the return of the prodigal Shane. For him, it was just another Tuesday.

The flight attendants, by the way, moved through the cabin confidently, almost like family. They knew everyone by name, knew who needed a second blanket, who was afraid of turbulence, and who forgot their charger again.

One of them—a tall, statuesque brunette—lingered by their row.

“Glad to see you on board, Mr. Hollander,” she said with a warm, professional smile. “Tea with lemon and honey? As usual before landing?”

Shane blinked. “As usual.” He had his rituals here that he didn’t know about.

“Yes,” he squeezed out. “Thanks.”

“You’re back,” he read in her gaze. “Well, almost,” he answered to himself.

He was sitting next to Ilya.

That was the strangest part. In Montreal, he always sat alone or with Hayden. Here his place was next to the captain.

Ilya, as if to spite all stereotypes about dumb hockey players, was reading. A real, paper book. Thick, in a battered binding. Shane stole a glance at the cover.

Cyrillic. The Brothers Karamazov. “Snob,” he thought, and at that thought, everything inside clenched with sharp, poignant tenderness.

In 2016, such a scenario wouldn’t even have crossed his mind. They were on opposite sides of the fiercest war in the league. Montreal versus Boston. Historical hatred sewn into the subcortex. Imagining them on the same plane was as impossible as imagining a truce between fire and gasoline. They met only on the ice to destroy each other, or in dark rooms to love each other. But always—secretly, on the run, stealing minutes from the eternal confrontation.

The thought of sitting like this—openly, shoulder to shoulder, dressed in identical team suits with the emblem of a third team, Ottawa—would have seemed like the ravings of a madman back then. Bad science fiction.

But now Ilya’s elbow touched his elbow. Warmly, calmly, possessively. Ilya flipped a page, sometimes bumping Shane with his shoulder, and didn’t even notice. For him, this was routine. And for Shane, this simple, everyday touch felt more surreal than the amnesia itself. It screamed that the world really had turned upside down, and all old maps of the war were no longer valid.

Every vibration of turbulence seemed symbolic to him—as if the plane was reminding him that everything is fragile. And that he was still a stowaway passenger in his own life.

New York met them with luxury and aggressive bustle.

A hotel in Manhattan. Revolving glass doors, a shiny lobby with marble floors, the smell of expensive sandalwood and lemon polish. People flashed by like in a time-lapse. Camera flashes behind the glass—paparazzi were already staking out the entrance.

Shane pulled his cap lower over his eyes, feeling his temple start to throb from the noise and harsh light. He wanted to fall through the earth or at least into a dark room.

The team’s travel manager was already waiting for them by the elevators with a stack of envelopes. Ilya, passing by, just nodded to him, grabbed his key on the go, and gestured for the others to hurry up so as not to create a jam in the lobby.

“We’re in 412,” he said, handing a plastic card to Shane.

Calmly. Casually. As if it were a law of physics.

In the NHL, players usually roomed in pairs. Everyone knew that. But for them… the rules were different. Had become different.

They rode up the elevator in silence—the kind that holds more meaning than any conversation. Floor numbers lit up in soft gold. The elevator swayed—steadily, smoothly, carrying them up, away from the city noise.

The doors opened on the 4th floor.

The corridor was typical for expensive hotels: thick carpet muffling steps, dimmed sconces on the walls, an endless row of identical doors like honeycomb cells in a hive.

But the moment he took a few steps on this carpet—it hit Shane hard.

A flash of memory struck so powerfully as if someone blew a fuse in his head.

Boston. 2014.

Darkness of a hotel room, diluted only by the red glow of a digital clock. 00:15.

Rhythmic snuffling comes from the neighboring bed. Hayden, his roommate, his best friend, is sleeping soundly, but Shane still lies motionless, afraid to even take a full breath.

The phone under the pillow vibrates once. Briefly. A text.

Shane slowly extends his hand, covering the screen with his palm so the light doesn’t hit his eyes. Only two numbers on the screen: “803”. Room number.

Eighth floor. Montreal occupies the fourth. Ilya rented a room in their hotel, but on neutral territory where coaches don’t go. It was madness—to come into the enemy’s lair, check in right under the nose of the entire rival team.

Shane slides off the bed. He pulls on jeans lying down, wriggling like a snake. Picks up sneakers in his hands—he’ll have to lace them in the corridor.

The scariest moment—the click of the door lock. In the silence of the night, it seems like a gunshot. Shane freezes, looking at Hayden’s back. He snores, turns to the other side, but doesn’t wake up.

Corridor. Elevator. Button “8”.

Shane walks on the carpet of a strange floor, feeling like a spy behind enemy lines. 801… 802… 803.

He doesn’t have time to knock. The door opens as soon as he approaches. Ilya wasn’t sleeping; he was watching through the peephole.

A yank on his arm—and Shane is inside.

It’s a standard faceless room, an exact copy of the one he just fled, but here the air is so electrified that the hair on his arms stands up.

“Your roommate?” Ilya’s quick, curt whisper.

“Sleeping like the dead.”

Ilya exhales, presses his forehead to his forehead, closing his eyes. The risk paid off. They have this room, this night, and this illusion of safety in the middle of the enemy camp.

“Shane?”

Ilya’s voice cut through the flashback like a cold scalpel.

Shane blinked, gasping for air. The Boston corridor dissolved, giving way to the New York corridor.

Ilya stood by door 412, holding the card to the lock. He was looking at Shane with anxiety.

“You went pale. Head?”

“No,” Shane breathed out. “No. A memory.”

Ilya didn’t probe. He just nodded and opened the door.

Inside was a suite. Spacious, in beige tones, with a huge king-size bed and a panoramic window behind which the lights of the metropolis burned.

Ilya entered first. He dropped his bag at the entrance and immediately walked to the window. With a sharp, habitual movement, he yanked the heavy curtains shut, cutting off the city, cutting off the world.

Automatically. Almost ritually.

Shane recognized that movement. His muscles remembered that gesture before his consciousness did. First curtains. Then lock.

He followed him in.

The click of the lock behind him sounded… too loud. Too intimate.

Like a starter pistol shot. Like a confession.

They were alone. In a hotel. In a strange city. In one room.

“How are you?” Ilya asked, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs and hanging his blazer in the closet. His movements were calm, domestic.

“Normal,” Shane sat on the edge of the bed. The springs gave softly under him. He ran a hand over the starched sheet. Cold. “Just… déjà vu. Hotels. You. Me. This smell.”

Ilya stopped. Turned to him, leaning his shoulder against the closet.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I understand. I remember every time too.”

“It was like a drug,” Shane admitted, looking at his hands. “Fear of getting caught. And desire.”

“Now we play for the same team, Shane,” Ilya said gently. “And we don’t need to hide. No one will kick you out of the room if they see your bag here. We are here officially. Your name is on the guest list next to mine.”

Shane looked up. Ilya looked at him calmly, openly. Without that tension that always hung between them in the past.

Shane exhaled and for the first time all day felt the tension leave his shoulders.

“It’s strange,” he said. “Strange not to fear a knock on the door.”

Ilya smiled—that rare, “private” smile that always made the ground slip from under Shane’s feet.

“You’ll get used to it,” he promised. “You get used to good things fast.”

He walked to the mini-bar, took out two bottles of water, and tossed one to Shane.

“Catch. Wiebe said drink water. Early wake-up tomorrow.”

Shane caught the cold plastic.

“Game tomorrow,” he reminded.

“Tomorrow we kick the Admirals’ ass,” Ilya corrected, pulling his shirt over his head. “And now—sleep. I want to take the left side before you settle in.”

Shane looked at the scars on his husband’s back, at how possessively he occupied the space of the room. And thought that maybe New York wasn’t so bad after all.

Especially if you don’t have to run from it at dawn.

Chapter 20: Chapter 19

Chapter Notes

I can’t thank you enough for all the comments and messages. Truly - this is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Having so many wonderful readers who write to me, recommend my work, and care this much about the story means more than I can put into words.
I’ve even been told there was some discussion about the lack of updates since January 5th - I’m so sorry for making you worry! Thank you for your patience and for sticking with me.
We’re on the final stretch now. And if you’re concerned about tags or content warnings, please make sure to check the notes at the end of the chapter.
Thank you for being here.

The game against the Admirals the next day was a meat grinder.

The Barclays Center roared like a hungry beast. Shane felt like a gladiator thrown to the lions after a long vacation. The speeds were insane. In the first period, he made two mistakes, losing the puck in the neutral zone. Wiebe yelled on the bench so loud Shane’s ears popped.

But then Ilya turned on.

He seemed to sense where Shane would falter. He covered for him, shut down zones, took the game on himself, fought for every inch of ice. In the second period, Shane made a pass—that same “smart” one, no-look, back to the net. Ilya received it, deked the defender, and put it five-hole. 1-0.

They won 3-2 in overtime. Troy scored the winner, but he and Ilya did all the dirty work.

Euphoria reigned in the locker room. Shane sat, soaked through, with an ice pack on his neck (preventative), and felt every muscle humming. It was a good pain. The pain of life.

They returned to the hotel by midnight.

Adrenaline after the game kept sleep away. It was the curse of all hockey players—the body dead tired, but the brain still on the ice, replaying moments.

They ordered room service. Burgers (screw the diet, they won) and Coke. They ate right in bed, in just boxers, with the TV on in the background.

“Did you see that defender’s face when you went around him?” Shane chuckled, wiping sauce from his lip with the back of his hand. “He almost died on the spot.”

“He’s a rookie,” Ilya replied lazily, leaning back on the pillows. “Bought the fake. In 2016, you would have bought it too.”

“Hey!” Shane kicked him under the blanket. “I was elite.”

“You were an elite pain in the ass.”

Ilya caught his foot by the ankle.

His palm felt like sandpaper—dry, hot, with hard calluses from the stick. It was the hand of a man who had been gripping composite for twenty years until his knuckles turned white. But he squeezed carefully. Not locking on tight like a trap, but rather grounding. As if dropping an anchor: you are here, you won’t disappear, I’m holding you.

Shane exhaled, feeling electricity run up his leg, under the denim fabric, from that simple, rough touch. It wasn’t a spark—it was high voltage that made nerve wires hum.

His body recognized that grip. His brain could forget dates, names, the taste of wedding cake, but the skin on his ankle remembered the temperature of Ilya’s hands.

The room had a thick, heavy smell. A mix of cooling frying oil from fries, cheap floral scent of hotel soap, and the sharp, metallic smell of their own sweat—ammonia and testosterone that soaked into pores even after a shower. This wasn’t sterile romance from movies. It was the smell of reality. The smell of two grown, tired men locked in a small room with one bed for two.

And to Shane, this smell seemed better than any expensive perfume. It was soothing. It said: this is real.

Ilya slowly ran his thumb over Shane’s ankle bone, parting the hairs on his skin. His pupils dilated, almost drowning the iris in inky darkness. There was hunger in that gaze—ancient, heavy. But there was also fear. Fear of making a wrong move, scaring off, breaking what they had been so carefully gluing together over the last weeks.

Shane set the tray with unfinished burgers on the nightstand. Glass clinked, greasy sauce dripped onto polished wood. Whatever.

He crawled up the bed, feeling his knees sink into the soft, too-yielding mattress. The sheets bunched up in messy lumps.

“Come here,” he called. His voice dropped, turning into a vibration somewhere in his chest. “Stop thinking, Ilya. Just come here.”

Ilya didn’t need to be asked twice. He leaned forward, covering Shane with himself, blocking the light of New York streetlamps seeping through the gap in the curtains with his back.

Their lips met.

Not with a movie kiss, but a collision. Heavy, wet, greedy. Teeth clashed against teeth, biting a lip until the salty taste of blood appeared. Ilya kissed as if he wanted to verify the physical reality of what was happening, as if he wanted to drink the air from Shane’s lungs. He tasted like salt, cold coffee, and fatigue.

Shane felt Ilya’s heavy hand land on the back of his head—fingers buried in overgrown hair, pulled slightly, forcing his mouth wider, exposing his throat. It was a possessive movement, but there was so much hidden plea in it that Shane’s breath hitched.

My body knows this, flashed through his mind. My mouth knows the shape of his mouth. My hands know where to rest.

Shane’s palms found Ilya’s bare shoulders on their own. Hard, tense deltoids.

The last barrier became unnecessary. They got rid of it in jerks, fingers hooking under waistbands, impatiently pulling the fabric down. Shane kicked the underwear away, freeing himself completely.

When Ilya was left naked, a strip of light highlighted the map of his body.

Shane froze, looking at him. It was the body of a gladiator who had survived a hundred battles. A fresh bruise blossoming purple-black on his ribs—a trace from today’s hit. Whitish, glossy scars on knees—surgical scars tightening the skin like old seams on a favorite toy. A lumpy collarbone that had broken twice.

It was a body that had been broken, screwed together with titanium, and stitched up so it could go into battle again.

Shane ran his palm over his chest, feeling heat radiating from the skin like from a stove. Under his fingers, the heart beat hollowly, heavily, skipping beats.

“Does it hurt?” Shane asked, touching the bruise on the ribs.

“No,” Ilya exhaled, pressing his sweaty forehead to his forehead. His breath scorched the skin. “Nothing hurts when you’re here.”

He pushed Shane onto his back—carefully, supporting him with a hand under the shoulder blades so he wouldn’t hit his head. The mattress creaked pitifully and sagged under their combined weight—over two hundred kilos of live weight, dense muscle, and heavy bone.

Ilya loomed over him, spreading Shane’s legs apart. But instead of lying on him, he began to shift down. His lips left a wet, hot trail on Shane’s sternum, stomach, moving lower. His stubble scratched the tender skin of inner thighs, making Shane shudder.

Ilya settled on his knees between Shane’s spread legs. He froze for a second, looking at Shane’s groin with some reverent, almost religious hunger, and then leaned down.

A hot, wet mouth covered the head.

Shane sucked in air sharply. Sensation hit his nerves. It was good—wet tongue, confident suction, the warmth of Ilya’s mouth. Ilya worked diligently, deeply, trying to give pleasure, trying to serve, trying to give Shane everything without demanding anything in return.

But for Shane, it wasn’t enough.

He didn’t need affection. He didn’t need service. He didn’t need Ilya to be down below or separate. This sensation—wet, slippery pleasure—was too localized. It left emptiness inside.

Shane needed everything. Weight. Heaviness. Fullness. He needed Ilya to become part of his skeleton.

“No,” Shane exhaled, jerking.

He tangled his fingers in Ilya’s thick hair and pulled. Sharply. Insistently.

“Stop. Stop it.”

Ilya stopped immediately. He raised his head. His lips were wet, glistening with saliva, misunderstanding and fright read in his eyes—did I do something wrong?

“Wrong,” Shane rasped, reading his thoughts. “That’s not what I need.”

“Then what?” Ilya’s voice was broken, hollow.

“You,” Shane pulled him up by the hair, forcing him to rise. “I need you. Inside. Now. I want to feel your weight. Fill me.”

Ilya’s pupils dilated even more. He understood. Shane didn’t want pleasure—he wanted fusion. Ilya nodded, breathing heavily. He pushed up on his arms, looming over Shane like a huge, hot shadow, leaned down for another kiss, taking Shane’s lips prisoner, and finally pulled away to reach for the nightstand.

Sound of a drawer opening. Rustling. Snap of a bottle cap.

That sound hit Shane harder than the kiss. Familiar, mundane sound. They had a routine. They had logistics even in sex. It meant they had done this hundreds, thousands of times. This wasn’t a one-night passion, this was the technology of their love.

Ilya squeezed gel onto his fingers, warming it in his palm. His hands trembled slightly—tremor of overexertion or excitement. He looked Shane in the eye—seriously, focused, like looking at the ice before a decisive face-off.

“Tell me if something’s wrong,” he asked quietly, almost harshly. “Shane. Tell me immediately. I might not gauge the force right.”

“Everything is right,” Shane whispered, looking into those dark, anxious eyes. “I trust you. More than myself.”

Ilya touched him.

Carefully. Slowly. Cold gel on hot, pulsating flesh. Shane reflexively clenched his glutes but immediately forced himself to relax. Ilya prepared him not mechanically, but with reverence, stretching, checking readiness.

Every movement of his fingers resonated in Shane’s brain with a flash of recognition. Yes. Like that. A bit deeper. A bit to the right. His body knew this route better than the map of Ottawa.

When Ilya began to enter, he slowed down to the limit.

Shane was crucified by the sensation of invasion. It was a feeling of ultimate fullness bordering on pain that took his breath away. Muscles resisted, then surrendered, accepting the foreign body, letting it in.

It was heavy. It was tight.

Ilya froze halfway, resting on elbows dripping with sweat. One salty drop fell on Shane’s eyelid, making him blink.

Ilya peered into Shane’s face, looking for the slightest signs of pain, ready to stop and withdraw at any second. His face was a mask of tension: cheekbones sharpened, a vein beat frantically at his temple, jaw muscles worked. It cost him titanic effort to hold back and not move.

“Okay?” he asked hoarsely through clenched teeth.

Shane felt himself being stretched, felt the hot flesh of his husband pulsing inside. And it was… right. It filled the void that had been gaping in him for the last month.

“Yes…” Shane exhaled, lifting his arms and wrapping them around Ilya’s broad, sweat-slicked shoulders. Nails dug into skin. “Yes. Move. Please, Ilya. I need to feel you.”

Ilya exhaled noisily through his nose, like a bull, and pushed in all the way. Heavily. Deeply. To the hilt.

Shane groaned—loudly, shamelessly, feeling this heaviness at the very center of his being. It was a feeling of coming home that was stronger than any memory.

Ilya began to move.

At first smoothly, viscously, catching the rhythm, listening to Shane’s ragged breathing. Skin to skin. Belly to belly. Sweat mixed, making bodies slippery like wrestlers. Only the erratic thumping of the bed against the wall, heavy wheezing, and wet, smacking sounds of bodies colliding were audible in the room.

No beauty. No sublimity. Only pure physiology, friction, and closeness.

Shane felt Ilya’s rough stubble scratch his neck, leaving red marks. Felt his husband’s rock-hard back muscles tense under his palms. Felt the weight—real, crushing, grounding weight.

The gold wedding ring on Ilya’s finger, which he pressed into the mattress by Shane’s head, sometimes touched his ear or cheek—cool metal amidst blazing heat.

Shane closed his eyes and let the sensations flood him.

His hips knew how to move to meet him on their own. His legs knew how to wrap around Ilya’s waist to give him deeper access. His throat knew what sounds turned Ilya on.

I remember, beat in his head in time with the thrusts. I remember all this. It’s not amnesia. It’s in the blood.

“Ilya…” Shane squeezed his lower back with his legs, pulling him closer, demanding more contact, more pressure. “Harder. Don’t pity me.”

Ilya understood. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

He picked up the pace. Movements became sharp, hammering, knocking the wind out. The bed shook. Ilya pounded into him, but still looked Shane in the face. He didn’t retreat into himself, didn’t hide in pleasure. He was with him. He monitored every breath.

“I’ve got you,” Ilya rasped, interlacing his fingers with Shane’s and pinning his hands to the pillow above his head. “I’ve got you, Shane. You’re not going anywhere.”

Shane looked up at him through a veil of tears and sweat.

Ilya’s face distorted with pleasure. Bulging veins on his neck. Darkened, insane eyes. Disheveled wet hair. He was beautiful in this animal, open tension. He was the most beautiful creature Shane had ever seen.

Tension low in his stomach coiled into a tight, hot knot.

Orgasm hit suddenly, not like a wave, but like an electric shock. Shane cried out, arching his back, lifting his hips off the bed. Perineal muscles convulsively clenched around Ilya. Toes curled.

Ilya felt that clench. He let out a low, guttural moan, like the roar of a wounded beast. His hips worked faster, more erratically. Three more sharp, deep thrusts—and he froze, pressed into Shane painfully, pouring himself inside with hot pulsations.

Shane felt those thrusts inside him like an echo of his own heartbeat.

Ilya didn’t collapse immediately. Breathing heavily and wheezily, he held his enormous weight on shaking arms, waiting out the tremors in his muscles so as not to crush Shane. Sweat dripped from his nose, mixing with the moisture on Shane’s chest.

Only when his heart stopped hammering in his throat did Ilya slightly relax his arms, carefully lowering himself onto Shane, but shifting part of the weight to his elbows.

“How are you?” he whispered somewhere into a wet temple. His voice was gone. “Alive?”

Shane blinked lazily, staring into the darkness of the ceiling. The room smelled of cold food, sex, and peace. His body hummed, every muscle felt like cotton, but his brain had finally shut up. No thoughts, no questions. Only ringing silence.

“Alive,” Shane breathed out, barely moving his tongue. “Just… don’t move yet.”

Ilya exhaled and buried his forehead in Shane’s shoulder, going still.

“Дурак ты, Холландер,” he muttered in Russian.

Shane didn’t understand the words—to him, it was just a set of soft, guttural sounds of a foreign tongue. But he didn’t need a translation. He read the meaning directly from the voice. There wasn’t a drop of anger in that incomprehensible phrase. Only tired, boundless tenderness.

Lying like that for another minute, Ilya finally pushed off the mattress. He slowly, carefully slipped out of Shane’s body—and only then heavily rolled onto his side, freeing him from his weight.

Shane immediately felt the cold of emptiness and unpleasant, sticky moisture on his thighs and sheets. Reality returned. He instinctively twitched, trying to sit up—his manic cleanliness, hardwired into his subcortex, rebelled. Lying in a puddle of cooling sweat and lube was unbearable.

But there was no strength to get to the shower. His legs felt alien.

Ilya, who was already about to pull up the blanket, froze. He looked at the grimacing Shane, shifted his gaze to the spots on the sheet. He didn’t need words. He knew that expression.

With a quiet grunt, Ilya got out of bed.

“Stay,” he commanded softly. “I’ll be right back.”

Slapping bare feet on the carpet, he went into the bathroom. The sound of water was heard.

A minute later Ilya returned. In his hands, he held a rolled-up white towel steaming with heat.

“I know,” he said quietly, catching Shane’s surprised look. “I know you hate the mess.”

He began to wipe Shane down.

Carefully, methodically, confidently. Hot terry cloth glided over skin, removing stickiness, warming cooling muscles. Ilya wiped traces from thighs, went over the stomach, carefully dabbed the groin. There wasn’t a gram of erotica in his movements—it was pure, concentrated care. Sanitary treatment of the most valuable thing he had.

Shane lay with eyes closed, feeling the hot towel wipe away the last tension. He didn’t need to ask. Ilya remembered his body and his quirks better than he did himself.

Finishing with Shane, Ilya quickly cleaned himself up, threw the towel onto a chair in the corner, and finally dove under the blanket, turning off the light.

He pulled clean, dry Shane back-to-chest, covering both of them, and hugged him with a heavy arm across the chest.

“Now—we sleep,” he exhaled into the back of his head. “Legs will be falling off tomorrow.”

Shane closed his eyes. It stung pleasantly inside, reminding him of what happened. A bruise was forming on his thigh from Ilya’s grip.

But he was clean. He was warm. And he wasn’t alone.

He needed nothing else.

Chapter End Notes

Warning: anal sex, oral sex, unprotected sex (they are husbands).
Please do not attempt to replicate this if you are not informed, prepared, and confident in your safety and consent.
Дурак ты, Холландер - You’re a fool, Hollander

P.S. Huge thanks to JayeReid1 <3

Chapter 21: Chapter 20

Chapter Notes

Thank you so much for every single comment, message, and kind word. I’m endlessly grateful for all of you. I truly wish I could leave kudos under every review - if I could, I absolutely would.
And please… don’t kill me after reading this chapter :)

Morning in New York began not with frantic packing of clothes scattered on the floor, and not with the usual paranoid calculation of escape routes from the room.

It began with the smell of coffee, warm, stagnant air, and the strange, unfamiliar feeling that the world was not demanding they disappear immediately.

They woke up late—so late that the winter sun already sliced through the room with a bright, dusty wedge of light falling right onto the blanket.

Shane felt wrecked. But it wasn’t that heavy, impotent exhaustion that had accompanied him through the last depressive weeks. It was the pleasant, honest ache of a body after a winning game… and after a night he was still afraid to call truth out loud. Muscles ached, skin smarted, but inside was a ringing lightness.

He lay on his back, watching Ilya scroll through news on his phone. Saw how his finger moved on the screen, how his jawline tensed barely noticeably when he read something annoying.

So close. So simple. As if it had always been this way.

And yet every time he looked at that calm profile, a wave rose inside—warm and sharp simultaneously. Happiness he wanted to believe in, but which still seemed like a dangerous, undeserved luxury.

“Flight’s not until evening,” Ilya said without looking up. “We have tons of time.”

“Great,” Shane stretched, burrowing back into the blanket. “Then the plan is: room service, TV, and horizontal position until departure. I don’t want to see anyone.”

It wasn’t so much fear as a desire for comfort. Why complicate life by going out into a world he hadn’t quite gotten used to yet?

“Boring,” Ilya delivered the verdict. “I want normal coffee. And a walk. We’ll sit in rooms when we retire. Get ready.”

Shane sighed but didn’t argue. Coffee it is.

New York met them with air smelling of frost, exhaust fumes, roasted chestnuts, and thousands of other people’s plans. Fifth Avenue shimmered with Christmas displays—gold, red velvet, strings of lights clinging to the glass so brightly as if trying to compensate for the lead-gray sky above the skyscrapers.

Shane habitually pulled his beanie lower and popped his collar. He wasn’t hiding, just turned on “do not disturb” mode. The last thing he wanted was for someone to recognize him and pester him with talk or requests for a selfie. He scanned the crowd purely automatically—like a driver habitually checking rearview mirrors even when stuck in traffic. Ilya walked beside him absolutely relaxed. No glasses, jacket unzipped, coffee cup in hand. He was clearly enjoying the walk and the fact that no one was bothering him.

A few tourists recognized them. Whispered something to each other, nodded. One teenager in an Admirals hoodie recognized Ilya and silently gave a thumbs up. Ilya nodded back.

The world walked ahead, behind, past—indifferent, busy with its shopping, its problems, its holidays. New York was too big to worry about two hockey players walking side by side.

Wind from the Hudson blew harder, throwing a handful of fine snow in their faces. Shane winced, trying to hide his chin in the scarf that kept slipping down.

Ilya, noticing this, turned to him. With one smooth, calm movement, he reached out and began adjusting the askew scarf. Shane flinched. Barely noticeably, purely reflexively—like jerking a hand away from something hot.

Ilya didn’t make a scene of it. He just chuckled, caught his eye, and calmly, without any drama, finished fixing the knot.

“Relax,” he grinned. “It’s just a scarf, Hollander. Not a crime.”

“Habit,” Shane grumbled, feeling a bit stupid.

“Break it,” Ilya replied just as easily and, shoving his hands in his pockets, moved on.

Shane stood for a second, looking at his back. People walked around, cars honked, the city lived its life. No one fainted because one man fixed another man’s scarf.

Shane exhaled a cloud of steam, adjusted his beanie, and followed.

They really were free. And, it seemed, getting used to it would be easier than he thought.

And there was so much of this realization that Shane had to take a deeper breath than usual not to lose balance from the surging feeling.

“Let’s go,” Ilya nodded somewhere ahead. “There’s a rink. I want to watch people fall on the ice. It calms me.”

Shane scoffed, and that sound was the most natural thing he had emitted in weeks.

“You’re a sadist, Rozanov.”

“I’m just a professional on almost-vacation.”

They moved further down the street. Shoulder to shoulder. Close. Sleeves almost touching. And for the first time in nine years, Shane didn’t want to increase the distance.

The rink in the park swarmed with people. The ice was hopelessly killed, cut up by thousands of rental blades, but loud Christmas music and holiday bustle made up for it. They found a free spot by the boards. Ilya watched tourists floundering on the ice with the same analytical attention he usually watched playoff tapes with.

“Look,” he nodded casually at a guy in the center windmilling his arms. “Ankles aren’t holding at all. Center of gravity somewhere around the ears. He’s going down. Three, two…”

The guy landed on his rear with a dull thud, dragging a girl down with him.

“Got him,” Ilya exhaled with satisfaction, hiding a smile in his collar. “World in balance.”

They stood there for about fifteen minutes, commenting on amateurs’ mistakes and sharing snide remarks. But the December wind was getting meaner. Shane felt his toes going numb—he had gotten out of the habit of long walks without movement. Standing in the cold turned out to be much harder than skating.

“That’s it, I’m freezing,” Ilya announced, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing his gloved hands. “Enough of other people’s suffering for me. We need to warm up. Urgently. Coffee, tea, boiling water intravenously—I don’t care, as long as there’s heating. I want to stop by a place,” he said in a businesslike tone, confidently turning off the wide avenue into the maze of cobbled Tribeca streets. “It’s nearby.”

“Where?” Shane tensed, checking the time on his phone. “Flight in five hours. Traffic…”

“We’ll make it. It’s a bar. Kingfisher.”

Shane stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

“A bar? Ilya, there’ll be tons of people. I’m not eager to end up in some tourist’s or local blogger’s lens. ‘Look, Hollander and Rozanov strolling in Tribeca instead of prepping for a match.’ I want quiet right now, not to become a hero of someone’s stories.”

“There won’t be an audience,” Ilya’s voice was calm, with that note of confidence that usually brooked no argument. “It’s safe. Trust me. It’s a place for insiders, dark even in daytime, and nobody cares who we are. And they make the best coffee in the district, and I need to warm up.”

They walked another block and stopped at a heavy dark wood door. No neon signs, no screaming names. Only a small, elegant brass plaque with an engraving of a kingfisher.

Ilya opened the door, and warm air smelling of cinnamon, leather, and expensive alcohol touched Shane’s face.

Inside was dark and cozy. The interior resembled a private English gentlemen’s club: deep dark chocolate leather sofas, stained oak panels, muted jazz pouring from hidden speakers. There were almost no customers.

Behind the long bar stood a man. Young—thirty-five max. Fit, with perfect hair and complex tattoos peeking from under the rolled-up sleeves of a crisp white shirt. He was wiping a glass with a towel, moving with that professional negligence that betrays an owner or manager.

Seeing them enter, he looked up. For a second, a keen, assessing pro’s gaze flashed in his eyes, and then he broke into such a sincere, beaming smile as if not customers, but blood brothers returning from a long voyage had walked in.

“Boys!” he loudly set the glass on the counter and walked out into the hall, wiping his hands on his apron as he went. “Long time no see. I thought you’d drop by yesterday after the game, but…” he chuckled meaningfully, “guess you had more important plans.”

He walked right up to Shane. Shane instinctively tensed, ready to step back or shake hands formally, but the guy familiarly, warmly slapped him on the shoulder.

“How’s the head, Shane? We were all worried sick here, honest. Eric almost broke a glass yesterday when he saw that hit in the third. Yelled at the TV so loud he scared away a couple of tourists at table three.”

Shane froze.

His heart skipped a beat, then hammered somewhere in his throat. He looked at this smiling, charismatic guy and understood one thing: he was seeing him for the first time in his life. There wasn’t a single file with this face in his memory.

But this guy knew him. He knew about the injury. He knew he and Ilya might “celebrate privately.” He spoke to him with a degree of intimacy that money can’t buy.

“Hi,” Shane squeezed out. His voice sounded dry, like a snapping twig. He pulled on polite smile #4 (“Polite Captain”). “Head’s… attached. Thanks.”

“Kyle, make us some coffee,” Ilya intervened, gently but insistently nudging Shane toward a secluded table in a niche. “And for him… decaf.”

Shane opened his mouth to object, but Ilya beat him to it:

“Dr. Vogel said ‘no stimulants.’ Decaf, Kyle. We’re not staying long.”

“You wound me, Cap. Coming right up, best quality.”

Kyle had already turned to the coffee machine, but suddenly stopped and turned back to Shane, snapping his fingers:

“By the way, Shane! That wine we sent you to Ottawa for the anniversary—how was it? Eric was worried the 2018 vintage was a bit acidic, wanted to send another case, but I said you like it tart.”

Shane felt an icy trickle of sweat run down his spine under his sweater.

Anniversary. Wine. Gifts.

This person knew his tastes. He sent gifts to their home, and obviously not for the first (or last) time.

Shane felt like a conman wearing someone else’s skin. He stole happy Shane Hollander’s life, and now, right here, he would be exposed.

“Excellent wine,” he lied, looking at a point somewhere over Kyle’s shoulder. The lie tasted like sour milk. “We… liked it. Tell Eric thanks.”

Kyle winked and, whistling, busied himself with coffee.

Shane collapsed onto the leather sofa. His knees were trembling so hard he was afraid the table would start vibrating. He hid his hands under the tabletop and clenched them into fists, digging nails into palms until it hurt.

“Who is that?” he hissed, leaning toward Ilya across the table. Panic mixed with rage rang in his voice. “And what Eric is he talking about?”

Ilya calmly took off his scarf, neatly folding it. He looked pleased, relaxed—he was clearly enjoying the moment, not noticing his husband’s state.

“That’s Kyle,” Ilya answered. “Manager of this place. And Eric Bennett’s partner.”

Shane blinked, trying to match facts that refused to fit.

“Eric Bennett? The Eric Bennett? Admirals goalie?”

“Yeah. It’s their bar. Bennett and Scott Hunter’s.”

Shane stared at Ilya like he was crazy. The picture in his head began to crumble.

“Wait. Stop. Eric Bennett. Huge bearded guy who broke sticks on goalposts? He’s married. I remember his wife. We met at charity galas in 2014 and 2015. Blonde, always perfectly dressed.”

“They divorced eight years ago, Shane,” Ilya explained quietly. “No kids, split fast. And then Eric met Kyle. They’ve been living together for seven years.”

Shane shifted a glassy gaze to the bar, where Kyle virtuously handled the portafilter. Bennett, that symbol of old-school brutality, lives with this guy?

“And Scott Hunter?” Shane asked, feeling reality slip from under his feet. “You said it’s Bennett and Hunter’s bar. What does the Admirals captain have to do with it?”

“He’s co-owner. And also our friend.”

“Scott Hunter…” Shane muttered. “We played with him at the All-Star Game. He shook my hand when he nearly knocked my tooth out. He… he’s flint. I always thought he is ‘traditional hockey’.”

“He came out,” Ilya said. “Right after he won the Stanley Cup. It was a bomb.”

Kyle approached the table, deftly placing steaming cups before them.

“Espresso for Papa,” he winked at Ilya. “And smooth decaf for the victim. Enjoy.”

Shane leaned back against the sofa, feeling short of breath. In 2016, which he remembered, gay men in hockey didn’t exist. There were only rumors, fear, and locked hotel doors. Scott Hunter was an idol, an unreachable magnitude, a machine for winning. And the thought that this man was “one of us” seemed absurd. Impossible.

At that moment, the door to the back room opened.

Eric Bennett himself walked into the hall.

He had aged. There was more salt than pepper in the thick beard, shoulders became even wider, more massive, but the heavy, swaying gait of a goalie remained the same. He occupied all the space.

He saw their table.

“Rozanov! Hollander!” his bass filled the entire room, making crystal on the shelves ring and the few customers turn around. “Why the hell are you drinking coffee? My establishment has whiskey that costs more than your kidney!”

He walked up and gave Shane a swinging, bear-like handshake. His palm was hard, rough, enormous.

“Glad to see you vertical, buddy. Honestly. You scared us.”

He spoke simply, without falsehood. Like with an old friend with whom he had been through fire and water.

“Where are Scott and Kip?” Ilya asked, looking around the half-empty hall. “I thought we’d catch them here.”

“Nope, flew off to warm up,” Eric snorted. “Kip has some important lecture in Florida. And Scott went with him—working as support group and suitcase carrier. But they’ll be back for the holidays.”

“Listen,” Eric continued, leaning on the edge of the table and looming over them like a mountain of muscle. “Scott and I are gathering people at our place for New Year’s. Price will be there, the whole old guard. Kip asked if you’d come. Promised not to joke about your neck… well, almost not to joke.”

Shane froze with a pasted, dead smile.

New Year’s. Price (RYAN Price???). Kip. Old guard.

Shane had a whole life where he was friends with these legends. Where he was an insider at their holidays. Where he knew what gifts to give and which jokes to laugh at.

And now he sat here, clutching a warm cup of drink, and felt like a complete nobody. He didn’t know who Kip was. He didn’t remember a single shared Christmas.

He was lying. He was nodding and smiling at a person who genuinely cared about him, and this lie burned his insides like acid.

“We’re passing this year, Eric,” Ilya answered calmly but firmly, not even glancing at Shane, but clearly sensing his panic. “We’re staying home for all the holidays.”

Eric raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Home? Just the two of you for New Year’s? That’s deadly boring.”

“We need boring right now,” Ilya covered Shane’s hand with his, demonstrating the topic was closed. “Shane is still recovering. Fireplace, dog, and no parties.”

“Well, your call,” Eric didn’t push. “Alright, won’t interrupt the cooing. Kyle! Put their order on the house!”

Eric slapped the table, winked at Shane, and headed for the bar. Passing Kyle, he possessively placed a heavy hand on his lower back and whispered something in his ear. Kyle smiled at him without interrupting work.

Shane watched this. Openness. Freedom. Normalcy.

Everything he feared so much in 2016. Everything he didn’t have then.

He started shaking. Not from cold. From the monstrous dissonance between what he remembered and what he saw. And from shame for his helplessness.

“See?” Ilya said quietly, watching him with the pride of a discoverer. “Everything changed, Shane. We aren’t alone. We have friends. A community.”

Shane stood up abruptly. Drink sloshed over the rim, flooding the saucer and snow-white napkin with brown sludge.

“We have to go,” he tossed. His voice sounded like metal screeching on glass.

“Shane, we just got here…” Ilya looked up in confusion.

“I said: we have to go.”

He didn’t wait. Turned and walked quickly, almost running, toward the exit, saying goodbye to neither Eric nor Kyle. He flew out onto the street like a cork from a bottle, greedily gulping New York’s dirty, freezing air that burned his lungs.

Ilya ran out a minute later, trying to button his coat on the go.

“Shane!” he caught up and grabbed his elbow, turning him around. “What happened? Why did you run?”

Shane yanked his arm away. He turned to Ilya, and rage mixed with despair blazed in his eyes.

“Why the hell did you do that, Ilya?!”

Ilya was taken aback, stepping back.

“Do what? I brought you to a safe place, to friends…”

“To your friends!” Shane yelled, not caring that passersby were turning around. “I don’t know them! I remember Bennett with a wife! I remember Hunter as a rival captain whom I feared and respected, but who was a stranger to me! And you bring me to where they invite me for holidays and ask about damn wine!”

“I wanted you to see that the world has changed…”

“The world changed, but I didn’t!” Shane’s voice broke into a rasp. “Do you even understand how I felt? I stood there lying to the faces of people who consider me a friend! I felt like an imposter, Ilya! I felt like a thief who stole Shane Hollander’s life!”

Shane was gasping, steam escaping his mouth in clouds.

“You wanted to brag. ‘Look, Shane, how great everything is, how open we are.’ And you just rubbed my nose in the fact that I forgot everything. That I’m an invalid. Thanks. Big help.”

Ilya stood opposite, pale, eyes wide with horror. His “surprise” turned into a catastrophe.

“Shane, I… I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry.”

“Let’s go to the airport,” Shane said dully, turning away to the road. “I want to go home. I want to go where I at least know where my toothbrush is.”

Ilya silently raised his hand, hailing a taxi.

They got into the back seat, slamming the door and leaving New York outside. There was only half a meter of worn leather between them, but in this silence a wall grew again—colder and higher than the one that crumbled this morning.

Shane looked out the window at lights floating by, feeling the gold ring on his finger become heavy and alien again.

The fairytale was over. Reality returned.

Chapter 22: Chapter 21

Chapter Notes

We’re officially on the home stretch! It feels surreal that we are so close to the end.
I cannot thank you enough for all the love you’ve shown this fic. To everyone who has commented, left kudos, or just read along – thank you! Your detailed reviews and screaming in the comments have been the absolute highlight of this journey for me. You guys are the best.
Apologies for the delay with this update. I’ve been wrestling with the next chapter and I'm not entirely sure if it fits the flow of the story. If I decide to cut it from the main narrative, I will definitely post it as a separate bonus part, so don't worry – you’ll get to see it either way!
Thank you very much (again) <3

The flight home was torture.

Quiet, exhausting, the kind that makes you want to howl by the end, just to fill the silence hanging between them and hear any sound other than your own breathing.

Shane sat by the window, wearing large noise-canceling headphones. He hadn’t even turned on music. He just isolated the world. Created a cocoon around himself, an airlock, a vacuum where other people’s voices didn’t penetrate—only his own thoughts drumming on his skull.

Thoughts from which there was no escape:

You are an imposter. You took someone else’s place. This life isn’t yours. You stole it from another Shane—the one who walked toward it, fell, got up, believed, made mistakes. You are a copy. A ghost. A rough draft.

Scott Hunter. Eric Bennett.

In the bar, they seemed like myths, gods of the old hockey era, people who had passed through the storm and made it to shore—whole, open, happy. Eric had Kyle. Scott had Kip, the one with whom it all started.

And Shane? Shane looked at them and felt like a child placed on the edge of a skyscraper.

He was told: “You know how to fly. You have flown. Just remember.” But he didn’t. Didn’t remember. Didn’t know how.

Ilya sat next to him.

His book lay closed on his lap—he didn’t open it even for show. Ilya stared at the back of the seat in front, as if there were a screen playing a movie he couldn’t bring himself to rewind or turn off.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shane saw: Ilya’s fingers were tensed so hard his knuckles turned white.

He knew he was at fault. And that only made it hurt more.

The plane shook. Then again—harder. The “Fasten Seatbelts” sign lit up.

Shane didn’t flinch. He watched the wing shudder from the wind and thought that if the plane dove down right now, he wouldn’t even have time to get scared.

“Shane,” Ilya’s voice broke through the silence of the headphones.

Shane pretended not to hear.

“Shane, please. Take them off. We need to talk.”

He took off the headphones slowly. Demonstratively slowly—so Ilya understood: he was still angry. Turned. Ilya looked as if he himself had allowed the decisive goal five seconds before the siren.

“I screwed up,” he said. Directly. Honestly. Without habitual shields. “I admit it.”

“That was cruel,” Shane tossed quietly. “You have no idea how cruel.”

Ilya closed his eyes for a second—as if in pain.

“I didn’t want to be cruel. I just…” he took a breath. “I’ve lived in this reality for nine years, Shane. Nine years in which Scott and Eric are our friends. We visit each other, we celebrate holidays, we know everyone by name. I forgot that for you, Eric Bennett is a distant, unreachable ideal from a rival conference team. That Hunter is an opponent, not a person who once sent us Christmas cookies. I forgot to flip the switch. Forgot that you are different. That you need to walk the path I’ve already walked all over again.”

Shane looked at his hands—strong, confident, but now lost, guilty.

“You said,” he uttered slowly, “that Scott came out in 2017. After the Cup.”

“Yes.”

“So… we weren’t friends with him? Back then?”

“No.” Ilya shook his head. “We got close later. Not immediately. It was a journey. Long, strange, difficult in places. But a journey you walked yourself. With your own feet.”

Those words hit his chest. With your own feet. As if someone else had walked those roads. And he was sitting in someone else’s skin right now.

Ilya covered his hand with his own. Warm. Reliable. Human.

“I won’t do that again,” he said quietly. “No surprises, no ‘meetings with your future friends.’ Before we go anywhere—I’ll tell you everything. Everyone. Who’s with whom, when, why. So you don’t feel like an outsider. So you know the contexts. So you can breathe.”

“A dossier,” Shane squeezed out a crooked smile.

“Complete. With photos. Biographies. And relationship diagrams.”

Shane scoffed. The tension eased a little. Anger dissolved like ice in hot tea.

He leaned back, looking at the clouds.

The world he remembered was simple, harsh, binary—win/lose, strong/broken, hide/look neutral. The world Ilya brought him back to was complex, multi-layered, scary in places, but… real. Alive.

If Hunter could do it. If Bennett could do it. If they could be themselves—despite everything…

Then maybe he could too, once. And could again.

“Ilya?” he asked quietly, not taking his eyes off the gray cloud cover.

“Yeah?”

“We’re not going to them for Christmas. I’m not ready to smile at Scott’s husband whom I don’t remember.”

“We’re not going,” Ilya agreed instantly. “Just like I told Eric. Just us and Anya. No guests. No tests. No memory checks.”

Warmth spread through his chest. Relief. Finally.

“Deal.”

The plane shook again, but Ilya’s hand squeezed his palm tighter—held him, grounded him, didn’t let him fall into his own thoughts.

Shane closed his eyes.

He had to get to know his own life anew.

Learn it.

Live it like an album gradually being filled.

But in this life full of blank pages, there was one thing he could be sure of: Ilya would always hold his hand as if he didn’t plan to let go.

When Ilya promised on the plane from New York to compile a “complete dossier on their social life,” Shane was sure it was a joke. Sarcasm. A way to smooth corners after that painful breakdown on the street and close the topic with a pretty promise.

In his imagination, it was supposed to look like this: evening, a bottle of wine, Ilya lazily scrolling through contacts on his phone and tossing short, cynical comments: “This one’s a bore,” “This one’s okay but drinks like an elephant, so watch your glass,” “Avoid this one if you’re allergic to idiots.”

And that’s it. A light, unburdening conversation, an attempt to get closer without pressure, where you can switch the topic to hockey at any moment.

Shane underestimated Ilya Grigorievich Rozanov. Monstrously so.

“Sit down,” Ilya said in the tone of a captain conducting an emergency debrief in the locker room before the third period.

Shane froze on the threshold of the living room, feeling his eyebrows crawl up on their own.

The room had been transformed. The curtains were drawn tightly, creating a cinema atmosphere. Snacks were already on the coffee table—not just chips from a bag, but a whole composition: several types of cheese, grapes, crackers, nuts, everything laid out with frightening geometric precision. Two glasses. A bottle of craft ginger ale for Shane and a can of diet Coke for Ilya.

Anya sat on the rug with an expression of “I’m here for emotional support and a possible piece of cheese.”

But the main thing—the TV. And Ilya’s laptop connected to the big screen via cable.

On the plasma screen, in white on black, in a strict sans-serif font, burned the headline: “SOCIAL TIES AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: A GUIDE FOR RETURNEES.”

Shane choked on air.

“Are you serious?” he squeezed out. “A presentation?”

Ilya stood next to the screen. He was wearing a black turtleneck and Shane’s thin-rimmed reading glasses. He looked like a professor who escaped from Harvard, seized power in the living room, and was now going to lecture on the quantum physics of relationships.

On his face was that very seriousness behind which Ilya usually hid something very personal and fragile.

Is this—tedium? No. It is care that is shy of its real name. It is love in the language of Ilya Rozanov: structuring chaos so Shane wouldn’t be scared.

“I’m a perfectionist, Shane,” Ilya said imperturbably, clicking the clicker remote (where did he even get a clicker at home?). “If you’re going to do something, do it right. I don’t want you running away from me in the middle of a street in New York again just because I forgot to mention we christened someone’s hamster or that we have a blood feud with the Philadelphia mascot.”

“We christened a hamster?” Shane walked into the room, still not believing his eyes.

“No. But we christened Bood’s youngest son. And believe me, that was harder. Slide seven. Sit.”

Shane surrendered. He sank onto the sofa, tucking a leg under himself. Anya immediately laid her heavy head on his knee, sighing heavily.

“I’m ready, Professor,” Shane said, accepting the glass of fizzing ale from Ilya’s hands. “Enlighten me.”

The next two hours became the most surreal, absurd, and simultaneously most touching experience since the day he woke up in the hospital.

Ilya approached the matter with frightening, maniacal thoroughness. It wasn’t a set of random photos. It was a system.

Every slide was formatted. Color coding. Brief bullet points. Conclusions.

Green marker – “Our people. Can trust with house keys, card PIN, and your life.”

Yellow marker – “Neutral but decent. Talk about weather, hockey, and exchange rate. Don’t tell them anything personal.”

Red marker – “Don’t turn your back. Smile, nod, and leave at the first opportunity.”

Purple marker – “Anya approves” (in this category, to Shane’s surprise, were only their vet, Shane’s mom, and Harris).

“So, back to the beginning. Scott Hunter and Eric Bennett,” Ilya clicked the remote. A photo of that same couple from the bar in New York appeared on the screen, only here they were in an informal setting, on some veranda, with a barbecue. “Category: Green. Access Level: High.”

Ilya paused, looking at the screen. His shoulders dropped slightly, the official tone fell away.

“Here’s the story. In 2016, you resembled a wild beast cornered: closed, paranoid, convinced that any careless step was a trap that would destroy your career. But you did something else. You wrote him a letter.”

Shane blinked in surprise, looking at his reflection in the dark glass of the coffee table.

A letter. Him.

“I wrote? What?”

“I don’t know,” Ilya answered honestly. “Scott never showed it to me. He said it was between you two.”

Shane looked at the photo of smiling Scott. And thought: “That Shane was braver than I imagined. That Shane knew how to find words even when silent.”

“And now—the main thing,” Ilya’s voice changed. Pride sounded in it.

Click.

A stylized, beautiful letter “I” appeared on the screen with the caption “The Irina Foundation.”

And following it—a cascade of photos:

He and Ilya in paint-splattered jeans painting a wall in some building. Ilya dabbed Shane on the nose with a brush, Shane is laughing.

They are in strict tuxedos at a charity gala, holding glasses, but looking not at the camera, but at each other.

A huge cardboard check with their sprawling signatures.

Ilya’s face softened. Almost vulnerable. Glasses slid to the tip of his nose.

“The Irina Foundation. Named after my mom. We created it together.”

“Together?” Shane repeated, tasting the word. It was weighty.

“It became our main creation. And... our strategy,” Ilya chuckled, but the warmth in his eyes wasn’t hidden. “We were already together, but no one knew. Coming out and saying: ‘Surprise, we’re a couple,’ was impossible then. Too early. Too risky.”

He traced his finger along the edge of the check.

“The press was looking for drama, and we gave them a beautiful story about former enemies reconciling for a good cause. Journalists were delighted. But for us, it wasn’t just a cover. We put our souls into this foundation, Shane. It just coincided that this sincere cause also became our perfect shield. We could do something truly important and be close officially without raising suspicion.”

Slides changed quickly. Newspaper headlines: “Rozanov and Hollander Make the World Better,” “An Amazing Alliance,” “From Hatred to Partnership.”

Shane watched without looking away. And felt something warm rising inside, filling the void in his chest—a mix of bewilderment, tenderness, and huge gratitude.

“You worked there more than I did,” Ilya said quietly, looking at a photo where Shane is explaining something to a group of children. “You found investors, wrote the charter, came up with summer hockey camps for kids. Your mom squeezed budgets out of sponsors. This... this was our first joint venture. Before we bought this house. Before Anya. Before everything else. This is our child, Shane.”

The lump in his throat became painful.

This was his life. His real, adult life, which he didn’t remember, but which he was now studying via slides, like a new complex profession.

“I want to go there,” Shane said hoarsely. “To the foundation office.”

“We’ll go. Right after the holidays. I’ll show you your office. Your lucky stress ball you threw at the wall is still there.”

Click.

Ilya continued.

Shane learned that Aunt Martha gives them identical, hideously ugly reindeer sweaters every year, and they are obligated to wear them for a photo not to break her heart. That Ilya has an unfinished holy war with the Buffalo goalie over a card debt of 43 dollars (Shane couldn’t hold back and laughed for a long time. Just like that guy in the video by the lake laughed).

By the end of the presentation—yes, there were 42 slides, and Ilya didn’t skip a single one—Shane was sitting on the floor, leaning his back against the sofa. The can of ale was empty. The pain from the recent injury and fear of the unknown receded, dissolved in the flow of stories.

Ilya turned off the TV. The screen went dark, plunging the room into cozy semi-darkness. He took off his glasses, wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose, and looked at Shane.

“So there. Basic course completed. Exam—in spring.”

He spoke jokingly, but anxiety showed in his voice, in his slumped shoulders. “I did everything I could. Is it enough?”

Shane looked up at him.

In this soft light of garlands, Ilya seemed not only tired but also... open. He took off the armor.

“Thank you,” Shane said quietly, and his voice trembled treacherously. “You really went all out. I thought you’d just show a couple of pics.”

Ilya chuckled and descended to him on the rug, with the characteristic grace of a big cat.

“I promised. And…” he hesitated, looking at his hands. “I liked remembering. Sometimes it’s useful to look back to understand how much we shoveled through to sit here.”

“We.” A word Shane couldn’t fully fit into with memory yet. But with his heart—he was already there.

He allowed himself to lean over and laid his head on Ilya’s shoulder. The fabric of the turtleneck was soft and warm. Ilya didn’t move—only exhaled a bit deeper and pressed his cheek to the top of Shane’s head.

In that moment, Shane realized that now he knew the map of the minefield. And, what was far more important, he knew who he would be walking through it with.

Christmas arrived quietly.

It came not with the chiming of bells, but with thick, cinematic snow that began to fall outside the window, covering Ottawa with a white fluffy blanket.

No parties. No guests. No “old friends” to lie to.

They video-called their parents. Then, synchronously, without agreeing, they turned off their phones.

Click. And the world ceased to exist.

Logs crackled in the fireplace—real, live fire that Ilya built with the look of a survival expert. Anya, fed a piece of festive turkey (a diet violation in honor of the holiday), slept by the fire, twitching a paw in her sleep.

They sat by the tree right on the rug. The lights of the garland reflected in Ilya’s glasses, breaking into hundreds of golden sparks.

“Gift time,” Ilya announced, breaking the cozy silence. And, to Shane’s surprise, his voice sounded a bit excited.

“I’ll start,” Shane said quickly, before nervousness seized him again.

He reached under a fluffy branch, pulled out a small but hefty box wrapped in dark blue paper. He felt his palms sweating. Choosing a gift for a person you love now, but don’t remember from “then”, is like trying to defuse a bomb in the dark. Instincts—the only thing he had left.

Ilya accepted the box. Weighed it in his hand.

“Heavy. Is it a brick? Decided to reinforce the foundation of our marriage literally?”

“Open it, moron.”

Ilya carefully picked at the tape, tore the paper. Opened the matte black lid.

And froze.

Silence became dense. Almost tangible.

On a velvet lining lay a collector’s model of a 1964 Aston Martin DB5. Scale 1:18. Color “Silver Birch.” The car. Classic. Legend. Impeccable detailing—right down to the dashboard.

Ilya took it out, weighing it in his hands with obvious pleasure. His eyes lit up with that same boyish excitement Shane loved so much.

“Silver…” he smiled, examining the miniature interior through the glass. “Shane, this is AutoArt. Gorgeous thing. I’ve been eyeing it for a long time, but never got around to it. Where did you get it?”

“Gotta know the places,” Shane answered evasively, deciding not to tell him how he spent three hours comparing reviews on collector forums to avoid accidentally buying a cheap replica. “I saw you rewatching Goldfinger when you’re sad. And saw you staring at these cars in magazines. Thought… you’d like it. Toy for a grown boy.”

Ilya looked up at him.

“It’s perfect. Just perfect. You… you memorized.”

He didn’t say “remembered.” He said “memorized.” He appreciated what Shane saw now.

Ilya carefully placed the model on the table, away from the edge, and reached for his gift.

“My turn.”

He handed Shane a flat square package.

Shane unwrapped the paper.

A photo album. Heavy, in expensive leather binding, smelling of paper and wood. There were no inscriptions on the cover.

Shane opened it—and his heart momentarily dropped into his stomach. It was empty. White, thick sheets of quality paper. Emptiness.

Shane turned a page. Another one.

Only on the very first page, in the center, a single photo was glued. A small square Polaroid shot.

Their selfie. Taken a couple of weeks ago, on that very day of “quarantine.”

They are shaggy, unshaven, in stretched-out home t-shirts. Ilya with a slice of pizza in his mouth and an expression of bliss. Shane in the background laughing—with wet hair, without protection, without masks. Happily.

Shane ran a finger over the glossy surface of the shot.

“I didn’t put old ones in,” Ilya said quietly, watching his reaction closely. “I thought about it. Gathering an archive, a chronicle… But then I realized: it would be unfair. And… too hard for you. Pressuring you with what you can’t bring back. Showing you happiness you don’t remember.”

He covered Shane’s hand lying on the page with his palm.

“Let’s fill it anew. From scratch. Only with what we live through together now. Volume Two.”

Shane felt a spasm tighten his throat. Eyes stung.

This empty album was more than a gift.

It was permission. Indulgence. A signal that he wasn’t obligated to be that past Shane whom he didn’t remember and, perhaps, would never remember. That he could be himself—today’s, broken, new—and that would be enough.

“I like it,” he whispered, barely holding his voice from breaking. “Very much.”

He closed the album, set it aside—and reached for Ilya.

It was a kiss of gratitude. Slow, deep, to the crackling of logs and blinking of lights. Ilya responded immediately, pulling him closer, his fingers confidently sliding to the back of Shane’s head—a familiar, native gesture.

“I don’t remember loving you in 2016,” Shane breathed out, touching his forehead to his. “Don’t remember our wedding. Don’t remember vows. But I know for sure: I love you now. This you. The one who makes presentations in PowerPoint, wears my reading glasses, and gets happy about toy cars.”

Ilya chuckled, his breath was warm:

“Keynote, Shane. Remember that. I don’t use PowerPoint. I have standards.”

Shane laughed—lightly, freely—and gently pushed him onto the rug.

It was the best Christmas of his life.

Even if he didn’t remember the ones they had already spent together.

Chapter End Notes

Aston Martin DB5 1964 - https://www.ebay.com/itm/197862106434

Chapter 23: Chapter 22

Chapter Notes

Hi everyone! I’ve received so many incredibly kind and supportive comments lately, and I just want to say thank you - to every single reader. Truly.
Thank you for this journey we’ve all taken together with this story. It means more to me than I can properly put into words.
We’re very close to the end now: there’s one epilogue left, and a bonus chapter, which after a lot of thought I’ve decided to post separately.
I’m also working on a part from Ilya’s POV, but at the moment I can’t promise an exact length or timeline for it - it’s something I want to do right, without rushing.
Thank you for your patience, your trust, and your love for these characters.

The interior of the black SUV smelled of expensive leather, air conditioning, and Shane’s cold, concentrated panic—the kind that doesn’t scream, but squeezes the chest from the inside like an iron hoop, preventing a full breath.

He sat in the passenger seat, gripping the dashboard as if they were coming in for a crash landing. His lips moved soundlessly. He was repeating information from the “dossier” like a student before a final exam on which his survival or expulsion from his own life depended.

“Zane Boodram. Wife—Cassie. They have the best deck in the neighborhood,” Shane muttered. “Evan Dykstra. Wife—Kaitlyn. Three kids. The youngest one I… I mean we gave a stroller to.”

“Correct,” Ilya nodded calmly, eyes on the road.

“Luka Haas, Wyatt Hayes with Lisa. Tanner Dillon… Mike Johnson, Alex Petrov…”

He exhaled and pressed cold palms to his temples.

“Ilya, this is insanity. This is just fucking insanity.”

He turned to his husband. Genuine horror stood in his eyes.

“I feel like a conman. Worse—a spy who blew his cover before even landing. I know their stats, I memorized their wives from photos in your presentation, but I don’t remember us. I don’t remember the dynamic. I don’t remember what we talked about last Christmas. If I ask someone ‘how’s your mom’ and she died a month ago—I’m dead. They’ll know. They’ll look at me and see that the shell of Shane Hollander is here, but inside—it’s empty.”

Ilya braked smoothly at a traffic light. He intercepted Shane’s hand, covered his knee with his large warm palm, and squeezed. Not gently. Tangibly. Fixing reality.

“Shane. You’ve been playing with them for four months. You are part of this team. They respect you.”

“They respect you,” Shane argued. “You’re their Captain. You lead them. And I… I’m just a trailer. A guy with amnesia pretending everything is fine.”

“You are not a trailer. You are Shane Hollander. You are my center. You are the brain of my team. And, on top of that, you are my husband.”

“I’m lying to my boys. I’m lying to the team I’m supposed to go into the playoffs with.”

“You are protecting the team, Shane. If the press finds out that one of the league’s top centers has a memory hole the size of a decade, club stocks will crash, panic will start in the locker room, and you’ll be dragged through league doctors and suspended until circumstances are clarified. You’re just sparing their nerves. And yours.”

The car turned into a wealthy suburban neighborhood. Manicured lawns, large houses, flags on porches.

“Can I stay in the car?” Shane asked hopefully. “We’ll say I have a migraine. It’s not even a lie. My skull is about to split from tension.”

“No. Bood will be mortally offended. And Cassie baked that lime pie. You have to be there. Just smile, eat pie, and if in doubt—look at me. I’ll be nearby. I’ve got your back.”

Shane sighed. Ilya was right. He wasn’t a coward. At least not on the ice. He won face-offs against the toughest guys in the league. He could handle a barbecue.

Zane Boodram’s backyard was the embodiment of spring idyll. A warm day, rare for April, had lured everyone outside. It smelled of smoke, grilled meat, and cut grass.

Shane got out of the car, adjusted his glasses, and pulled a mask onto his face. Smile No. 5: “Relaxed veteran on break.”

“Rosie!” Bood, a huge bearded defenseman, met them at the gate, waving grill tongs. “Cap, finally! Meat just went on! Shane, hi!”

Cassie, petite and smiling, immediately walked up to them and hugged Shane.

“Hi, stranger. Glad you made it out.”

Shane pulled on a polite smile.

“Hi, Cassie. Thanks for having us.”

The yard was noisy. Alex and Luka were trying to play badminton but were mostly goofing around, knocking shuttlecocks down with the wind and shoving each other. Wyatt’s wife, Lisa, laughed at them from a lounge chair. Tanner was arguing about something with Carter by the cooler. Evan Dykstra, the calmest man on the team, sat at a table with his wife Kaitlyn and Mike Johnson, discussing mortgage rates.

Ilya instantly dissolved into the crowd, yet filled the entire space with himself. This was his pack. Shane saw Ilya walk up to Alex Petrov, slap him on the shoulder, say something in Russian that made Alex guffaw across the whole yard. Ilya wasn’t just a player here. He was the Captain with a capital C. Father, brother, and leader. He checked the grill, gave cuffs (lovingly) to the rookies, joked with the wives.

Shane felt a prick of sharp, poisonous envy. He wanted to be there. He wanted to be part of this, not an observer.

But he knew: Ilya was holding the perimeter. Even while laughing with Bood, every thirty seconds he threw a short, scanning glance in Shane’s direction. You okay? Need saving?

Shane grabbed a can of ginger ale from the bucket of ice (the cold burned his fingers, sobering him) and found a spot slightly to the side—on a wide garden swing under a tree. It was convenient to observe from here without engaging in long dialogues.

No one looked at him askance. No one pestered him with questions. No one bothered him. They just nodded, smiled, waved a greeting hand.

He watched. There—Troy Barrett walked up to Harris, who kept slightly apart but looked relaxed. Troy put a hand on his lower back, whispered something, and Harris smiled. There—Ilya picked up a rugby ball and threw it to Wyatt, shouting a short command that the latter caught on the fly.

Shane looked at Ilya. At how the sun played in his hair. At how confidently he held himself. At how the team gravitated toward him. A warm, poignant wave rose inside Shane. He didn’t remember how they earned this authority. Didn’t remember how many times he covered Ilya’s back, how many times Ilya did the same for him. But his body remembered. His heart beat in the rhythm set by this man—confidently, calmly, without the right to doubt.

“Not a bad view, huh?”

Shane flinched, nearly dropping the can. Harris stood by the swing. He held a glass of water and looked in the same direction as Shane—at Ilya. Harris was one of three people in this yard (besides Ilya and Shane himself) who knew the whole truth. He knew about the amnesia. He constructed this lie for the press. He was the architect of silence.

“Hi, Harris,” Shane scooted over. “Yeah. Great view.”

Harris sat down next to him. The swing creaked under the weight of another person. He looked at Ilya, who was enthusiastically telling a story, waving a skewer.

“He came alive,” Harris said quietly, nodding at Ilya. “At the start of the season, when you… when everything happened, he was like a machine. Dragged the team on anger and discipline. Eyes were empty. And now… look at him. He’s alive again.”

Shane nodded. He didn’t need to pretend in front of Harris. With Harris, the mask could be lowered.

“I know. It was hard for him.”

Harris turned to Shane. And something warm appeared in his gaze. He saw how Shane looked at Ilya. There wasn’t that confusion and anxiety in that gaze that had been there in winter. There was no attempt to remember a stranger’s face. There was deep, calm love, rooted affection. The look of a man who knows he is home.

“It’s so great you’re back, Shane,” Harris said, smiling with the corners of his eyes. “Truly back. I see it. You look at him just like in 2021, when we took the Cup.”

Shane froze. His heart dropped somewhere down. Harris decided the memory had returned. He mistook this love for restored memories.

Shane needed to tell the truth. “No, Harris. I don’t remember 2021. I just love him now.” But he looked into Harris’s kind eyes. Looked at happy Ilya by the grill. And chickened out—for the first time in a long while allowing himself weakness not out of fear, but out of a desire to preserve warmth. He wanted to stay in this feeling of “normalcy” so badly. He didn’t want to ruin the moment.

Shane remained silent. The lie settled somewhere under his sternum—not as a weight, but as a light, sticky sensation, like a fingerprint on glass. He just lowered his eyes and gave a weak, guilty smile—that same indefinite smile that everyone interprets however they want.

Harris took it for a “yes.” He exhaled with relief he didn’t even hide. Encouragingly, firmly squeezed Shane’s shoulder.

“Won’t interrupt. Troy’s calling.”

Harris walked away. Shane remained sitting, feeling shame for the lie and strange warmth mixing inside.

By his silence, he allowed Harris to believe in a miracle that hadn’t happened. Now Harris would tell Wiebe. Wiebe would exhale. The tension around him would drop. Everyone would be happy, believing the old Shane was back.

Everyone except him.

He felt like even more of an imposter than five minutes ago.

A minute later, Ilya walked up to him. He was flushed, cheerful, smelling of campfire smoke. The Captain who had checked all his soldiers and finally came to his main person. He crouched in front of the swing, looking into Shane’s face.

“How are you?” Ilya asked, and there was so much care in his voice that Shane’s throat tightened. “Not tired? Want to go home?”

Shane looked at him. Shame receded. Only truth remained.

“I love you,” Shane said. Not remembering. Choosing. Again.

Ilya froze for a second. His smile became softer, more intimate, just for the two of them. He reached out and adjusted the glasses on Shane’s nose, but didn’t pull away, letting his warm fingers linger on his cheekbone.

“I love you too,” he answered simply. His voice was low, confident, piercing right through. “Always have. And always will, even if you forget me tomorrow.”

The words knocked the wind out of Shane, but this time—not from panic. It was the sensation of a foundation snapping into place under his feet. A concrete slab on which a skyscraper could be built. The feeling that he was no longer a thief. He was the rightful owner of this happiness.

Ilya straightened up, extended a hand to Shane.

“Let’s go. Cassie is cutting the pie. You won’t forgive yourself if you miss it. And I need someone to save me from Alex, he’s trying to get me drunk on vodka again.”

Shane put his palm into his large, hot hand.

“Let’s go, Captain.”

He hadn’t returned completely. But he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

And, perhaps, for now, that was enough.

Chapter 24: Epilogue

Chapter Notes

I want to thank every single person who was here with me throughout this story - who read it, left comments, shared their thoughts, theories, and emotions, and kept coming back. This fic became what it is because of you.
It still doesn’t quite feel real that this story is finished. Part of me wants to hold onto it a little longer, but I know it’s time to let it go.
Thank you for walking this path with me, for your patience, your kindness, and your incredible support. I’ll carry this experience with me for a long time.

May 10, 2026

Morning began with silence—not the kind that rings with emptiness, but thick, enveloping, like warm milk. And with a brazen sunbeam that stubbornly beat straight into closed eyelids, shining through capillaries with orange gold.

Shane opened his eyes and habitually reached to the right. His hand touched a cool sheet. Empty.

He propped himself up on an elbow, scanning the bedroom. Ilya was gone. Judging by the cooled bed, he had left long ago, deciding not to wake him. Shane was left alone with this day.

His thirty-fifth birthday.

He leaned back onto the pillow, watching dust motes dancing in the sunlight. Strange. Usually, the first seconds after waking were the hardest: the brain spun feverishly, trying to load context, remember what year it was and why the ceiling looked exactly like that.

But today there was no panic. It was just… calm.

It was as if in a room where there had been a draft for months, someone suddenly closed the window tight. The noise in his head became quieter. The tension in the back of his neck eased.

Colors became slightly more saturated. Shadows—softer. Space—more correct.

A bark sounded from downstairs. Dull, angry, demanding.

Woof-woof.

Shane blinked. The bark wasn’t just familiar—it was native. That was Anya, who hates it when her owners sleep past nine because she has a schedule and urgent business in the garden.

He sat up in bed.

His head was clear—frighteningly, crystal clear, like ice after a resurfacing. The fog that had held for six months had dissipated, leaving behind a clean horizon. The extra weight in his chest had vanished.

He stood up. Feet met the cool parquet and found slippers. His body moved without that internal glancing-back that had haunted him after the injury. His hand, with a mindless automatic movement, reached for the nightstand and found his glasses on the first try.

He went downstairs. The steps didn’t creak—or he just knew where to step.

The door to the terrace was flung wide open, letting warm May air smelling of lilac, freshly cut grass, and wet earth into the house. This early heat was almost a miracle for Ottawa.

Shane walked out into the garden.

And saw him.

Ilya sat in a deep wicker chair, legs stretched out, as if he had shed the entire weight of a grueling season and the first round of playoffs. Gray sweatpants, an old tank top, sun on his skin, eyes closed. He looked like he had finally allowed himself to exhale.

In his hands was a battered rubber bone. Anya sat opposite, tense as a coiled spring, shifting her paws and whining quietly with impatience.

Ilya lazily threw the bone without even opening his eyes, and the dog dashed after it, tearing up chunks of lawn with her claws.

Shane stopped behind him. Soundlessly. Barefoot on the warm wood of the terrace.

And just… watched.

At the broad shoulders. At the mole on his neck. At how his chest rose softly.

And suddenly—a wave.

Warm, enormous, relentless, like the ocean at high tide. It rose inside—not as a painful flash, but as quiet, deep, absolute knowledge.

Here. This is his. This is the place where the running stopped.

Shane leaned down and hugged Ilya around the shoulders from behind. Slowly, not to startle, but firmly. Clasped his hands on his chest, pressed his whole body against the back of the chair. Buried his nose in his neck, in that spot behind the ear where the skin was always hot.

Inhaled.

The smell of cedar, Ilya’s cologne, sun, and a little bit of salt. The smell that had always been his north. His home.

Ilya didn’t even flinch. He recognized that touch. He covered Shane’s hands with his palms, running his thumb over the gold rim of the ring, as if stroking time itself.

“Happy birthday,” Ilya mumbled in the lazy, contented voice of a man confident in his morning. “Presents later.”

Shane smiled right into his hot skin. The words came on their own. Without searching in a dictionary. Without fear. Without effort. From that part of the brain that kept the most intimate things.

“Почему ты оставил меня одного?” Shane asked.

In Russian.

Clearly. Cleanly. Almost without an accent. With that same soft, grumpy, intimate intonation he used to use only at night, only under the blanket, only with him.

Ilya’s brain, relaxed by the sun, worked on reflex.

“Ты так сладко спал, я не хотел тебя буд.....” Ilya began in Russian.

And cut himself off mid-word. Ilya’s body under his hands turned to stone instantly. Relaxation vanished, muscles tensed like steel cables. His fingers on Shane’s hands froze.

The garden fell silent. Birds quieted down. The air became brittle and ringing, like crystal. Even Anya froze with the bone in her teeth, sensing the change.

Shane spoke Russian. Shane, who for a month wandered in his own house like a tourist and didn’t know where the forks were kept. Shane, who didn’t remember learning this language.

Ilya turned his head very slowly, as if afraid that a too sudden movement would shatter this hallucination into smithereens.

Shane didn’t loosen his embrace. He looked down at him.

There was no more fear or bewilderment in his eyes. There was depth.

“Shane?..” Ilya breathed out. His voice broke, turning into a whisper. “You…”

Shane leaned down and kissed him on the temple. Warmly. Casually. Like returning from a long business trip.

“I remember, Ilya,” he whispered, switching to English, but his voice trembled. “I remember everything. I remember that flight. Your messages. I thought I would lose you and no one would know what exactly you meant to me. I remember…”

Ilya spun around in the chair sharply, clutching Shane’s shoulders, peering into his face, scanning every millimeter. The sound that escaped Ilya was something between a laugh and a sob. He pulled Shane toward himself, hard, demandingly, and Shane, not resisting, tumbled over the armrest and collapsed onto his lap.

Ilya hugged him so tightly it seemed he wanted to press him into himself, break ribs, just to never let go again. The world narrowed to two bodies and one ragged breath for two.

“You came back,” Ilya breathed out, hiding his wet face in the curve of his neck. “God, you came back.”

Shane buried his fingers in the overgrown curly hair, pressing his cheek to the top of his head.

“I’m home,” he answered. “I’m home, Ilya.”

And in that moment, two streams of time merged into one.

Shane realized that memory had returned his past, but these last difficult months had given him something no less important. Knowledge.

Knowledge that even with a blank slate, without history, without context and old jokes, he would have chosen Ilya anyway. He felt an inexorable attraction to him back in June 2009, when he was gasping for air on the gym floor. He fell in love with him in 2017, furiously and hopelessly. And he fell in love with him again, here and now, in 2025—with this grown, caring, complex man.

His heart chose the same person. Twice.

The sun continued to flood the garden with indifferent gold. Anya, deciding that the humans were busy with something boring, started gnawing on her bone again. The Centaurs were preparing for the second round of the Cup.

And Shane Hollander—for the first time in many months—became whole.

And now he knew for sure: nothing in this world—neither injuries, nor time, nor darkness—could erase what was written in the heart.

The End.

Chapter End Notes

I decided to leave a few brief lines in Russian - transliteration never quite works for me. Here’s the translation for clarity:
Почему ты оставил меня одного? - Why did you leave me alone?
Ты так сладко спал, я не хотел тебя буд.. - You were sleeping so sweetly, I didn’t want to wake y...