Summary:

“I don’t want to smell that place again,” he says. “I don’t want to hear that language around me like that. I don’t want to be small again.” His chest tightens. His breathing gets shallow. He hates this part. The moment when the past stops being something he remembers and starts being something he feels. “I can’t,” he repeats. “I really can’t.” There’s a long pause. Then Ilya exhales shakily and adds, quieter now, almost breaking, “But I can’t leave her alone.” or; when ilya's niece loses her mother and reaches out to him in secret, he returns to russia with shane to get her out of an unsafe home.