Chapter Text
i.
Ilya hasn’t planned on meeting Shane’s parents after only three days at the cottage.
It goes better than expected. Shane stays tense through most of the conversation, but the moment Mrs. Hollander - Yuna - sets a plate of deliciously smelling home-cooked pasta in front of Ilya, he knows everything will be just fine. Food is a love language in Ilya’s book, and it simply doesn’t make sense to feed someone you plan to disown, punch, or kick out of the house.
Still, he can’t help feeling a small pang of sadness when David Hollander corrects his wife with a quiet “summer before.” His father’s reaction would have been very different in the same situation, but he pushes that thought away, refusing to let the old man’s shadow stain the moment.
Ilya holds Shane’s hand on their way back to the cottage, kissing the knuckles now and then. He almost wishes the drive could last forever. Everything feels too new, too raw, and too fragile, and he is trying to carve the feeling into his memory so he can hold onto it when they eventually return to their separate teams and lives.
He feels loved - not because he’s the best, or perfect, or has earned it in any way. He is simply loved, and he loves back, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.
A truck appears on the road seemingly out of nowhere and hits them head-on before he even has time to understand what’s happening.
It feels like he is burning from the inside out. Every breath is a struggle, and fear keeps him floating on the edge of consciousness. He tries calling for Shane, but his voice collapses into silence. He tries to move, but it seems he no longer knows how to control his body.
His thoughts scatter, time has lost all meaning, and he helplessly wonders if this is how it all ends. He can’t recall a single prayer, yet a silent plea takes shape - not with words, but with pure intent. Let this not be the end. Let Shane be okay.
When a woman’s voice finally breaks through the haze, he recognizes it instantly. Cool and gentle fingers brush his forehead and thread through his curls, and the familiarity of it confirms what his mind can barely process. He hasn’t heard that voice since he was twelve; he never expected to hear it again.
Mom.
He leans into the caress, and a thought flashes through his mind that maybe dying isn’t so scary after all.
ii.
He must have blacked out at some point. When awareness returns, he feels like a human again - and it’s not a good feeling. He is in a bed, his whole body hurting, skin clammy with sweat, and he can feel the rough, damp sheet beneath him all too clearly.
He opens his eyes, only for his head to explode with pain as he tries to blink away the tears. Everything is a blur, but someone is sitting beside his bed. He squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, trying to focus his sight, when something glinting in the dim light catches his attention.
No way. No fucking way. He’d recognize that cross anywhere. Before it was his, it belonged to-
An involuntary moan escapes him, and those cool hands are touching his face again.
“Oh, baby, you’re awake. You had us so worried, but the fever’s broken. The doctor says you’ll be just fine-”
He bursts into tears before she can finish the sentence. The next thing he knows, he is in his mother’s arms. She holds him tight, rocking gently, murmuring all sorts of soothing nothings into his hair.
He must have lost his mind. Either that, or he is in a coma, or dreaming, or dead. All of it feels more reasonable than waking up in his childhood home on another continent, with both of his dead parents alive and arguing over breakfast like it’s any other morning.
His body feels borrowed because, technically, it is. When he first drags himself to the mirror on unsteady feet, he simply doesn’t accept what he sees - that pale, scrawny kid with feverish eyes. He doubles over and vomits before he can take a single step toward the bathroom. Father shows no compassion whatsoever, forcing him to clean up the mess and paying no attention to his shaking hands or Mother’s quiet protests that he’s still too sick to be out of bed.
An ugly tear-off calendar in the kitchen reads January 2004, which apparently means he’s twelve again and about to relive the worst year of his life.
He is stuck sharing a room with his brother, who barely acknowledges him and is already picking up too many of Father’s bad habits.
If not for his mother, he’d be convinced this was some kind of purgatory his very religious grandma used to frighten him with when he was little. Mother is everything he remembers, and somehow nothing like his memories at all. He’s taken aback by how young she is - not much older than he’d been before he died. Her hands are gentle, and her smile is always warm for him, but what he took for sadness as a child is much more than that. She looks exhausted and is zoning out; her eyes are hollow, and despite spending hours in the kitchen, she barely eats anything.
She is so obviously not okay. No one but him seems to notice.
He isn’t arrogant enough to believe that the world ceased to exist the moment he died in that crash - assuming any of it was real in the first place.
He once heard that drivers instinctively yank the wheel to the left before a head-on collision to avoid the worst of the impact. He doesn’t know if that’s true, and the crash itself is a blur, but he wants to believe Shane has survived - that the passenger side took the hit. There isn’t a single reality, dream, or hallucination where he can accept the idea of Shane being dead.
God, if Shane is alive and conscious, he’s probably freaking out. At least his parents are good people, and as much as Ilya resents Pike - that boring excuse for a player - the guy seems to be a good friend to Shane. They won’t let Shane deal with all of that alone.
He can’t bear the thought that Shane might be dead. He can’t bear the thought that Shane might never have been real at all.
To be honest, he’s never considered himself particularly smart. It’s a miracle that he’s managed to master not one but three skills: sex, hockey, and pissing people off. Truly a man of many talents.
But whatever’s happening to him now is beyond good and evil. He gets tired too quickly, sleeps too much, can’t think straight, and can’t focus properly. He knows children’s brains work differently - but experiencing that firsthand is pretty damn miserable.
Biology, you heartless bitch.
Being twelve again sucks. Suddenly, nobody takes him seriously, and he has literally zero say in anything. The little things he used to take for granted are also gone - a decade of photos, his sex drive, the toothbrush he liked, the shirt he wore to death, the ability to look up something online or text Marleau or Svetlana (or Shane) whenever he felt like it. Everything familiar has been taken from him, and he ended up in this nightmare where he’s just a frightened kid under his father’s thumb.
He has to go to school again, where most people are stupid as fuck - and mind you, the worst of them aren’t even the kids. He has to use public transport to get around: loud, overcrowded Soviet‑era tin cans mistakenly called buses. Most of the cars and the tech look like they belong in a museum or on a movie set. Ironically, the only thing that hasn’t changed is the president.
His father’s cruelty toward his mother is unbearable to watch. Whatever she does, he meets it with criticism and disdain; nothing is ever good enough - the soup’s too thick, the mashed potatoes are too salty, there’s a smudge on the mirror, his shirt isn’t ironed right, and even Ilya failing a geography test (coal basins, seriously?) is somehow her fault too. Father calls her useless and lazy, and the second Ilya tries to stand up for her, he gets chewed out for interrupting the adults.
In his previous life, he’d done plenty of things he wasn’t proud of, and the league’s biggest asshole title didn’t come out of nowhere (no regrets there, if he’s honest). He’s almost ready to believe this is his punishment. Punishment for all of it - and for wanting Shane in his life so badly, so greedily, for believing they could have a happy ending when common sense, his own country, and even religion told him he’d burn for it.
But his mother certainly doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t try to save her.
He needs an ally - an adult ally - and he also needs to get his mother away from his father. That’s why he thinks of his grandma, a woman he remembers as loud, bossy, and deeply religious. Surely she should care about her daughter’s well‑being.
He waits until no one’s home, finds her number in the phonebook, and makes the call. He suffers through the small talk, then finally tells Grandma he’s worried about Mom.
“It’s adults’ business, Ilya,” she cuts him off.
He doesn’t expect dismissal. He definitely doesn’t expect irritation. He keeps talking anyway - about the bruises on Mom’s right wrist, about how tired she is, and how sad she looks. It doesn’t help.
Two days later, Mom asks him quietly why he told Grandma she’s lazy and a bad mother.
Ilya drops his forehead onto the kitchen table in exasperation.
The first time his father pulls off his belt and tries to punish him for “being disrespectful,” a wave of fury crashes over Ilya. Panic follows right behind it.
He knows - remembers - that it will hurt, that it will be humiliating; that’s the whole point. But the moment he sees the belt, he forgets he’s twelve now, forty kilos at best, and facing a man twice his size. He lashes out, kicking and biting, earning a slap for the effort. Once he realizes he can’t win, not this fight anyway, he starts crying from sheer helplessness.
“Pathetic” is the only thing his father bothers to say before the first strike.
“Fighting back only makes it worse, sweetheart. So does talking back.”
“Speaking from experience, huh?”
They fall silent as his mother tends to his split lip. Ilya notices her red‑rimmed eyes and the high collar of her sweater and can’t help thinking his father hadn’t suffered enough before he died in his previous life.
He doesn’t expect to return to the ice in his new (old) body and magically play like the MLH’s top (best) forward. What he truly doesn’t expect is to step on the ice and end up flat on his back the next second.
Laughter erupts behind him when he gets up and goes down literally after a few steps. He manages to crawl to the boards and get himself up, only to be shoved from behind and hit the ice with the elegance of a concussed crab.
His so‑called teammates keep laughing, and after yet another jab in the back something in him snaps. He’s on his feet and facing his tormentor before he can even think it through, as if moments ago he wasn’t struggling just to stay upright. He drops his gloves and punches the kid right square in the nose.
It’s nice to know he hasn’t lost all of his skills.
His well‑aimed punch sets off a chain reaction that turns into a full-on brawl on the ice. He is outnumbered from the start, so, honestly, it could have been worse. He’s used to hatred from opponents; homegrown hate is definitely a new experience.
The black eye fades after exactly ten days.
The marks from his father’s belt buckle take much longer to disappear.
He’s stretched out on the couch with his head in his mother’s lap, her fingers gently drifting through his hair. Luckily, his father and brother aren’t home tonight, and there’s no one around to offer their usual family wisdom: “He’s a man, Ira, stop smothering him with affection” or “Look at that, the baby’s clinging to Mama’s skirts again.”
Without these rare moments of peace, this new life would be unbearable.
Ilya closes his eyes and almost purrs. For a moment, it feels like he’s not in a cramped Moscow apartment at all, but back in the cottage, and the fingers in his hair are…
“What’s been going on with you lately, sunshine?”
He flinches, the cottage in his mind vanishing in an instant.
“Shh, shh.” She caresses his cheek. “I worry about you, Ilyusha. I hope you know you can always talk to me and tell me anything.”
He buries his face in her lap because there are so many things he wants to ask her. Mom, do you believe in rebirth and second chances? Or: I’ve lost you once already, and now I’ve lost Shane, and I don’t know how to fix any of it. And: I never thought I’d get a chance to save you, and now I have no idea how to use it. I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and I’m literally dying not knowing what happened to Shane. I hope you would’ve loved him.
Of course, he says none of it. Instead, he rolls onto his back and looks up at her. She has those same unruly curls he knows from his own reflection - the ones he never quite learned to tame. And she’s so beautiful, even now, when she’s so endlessly sad. He takes her hand, brushing his thumb over the greenish bruises on her wrist she’s been trying to hide beneath the long sleeves of an oversized sweater.
“And you know you can always talk to me, Mom,” he says softly, noticing the surprise that flickers across her face. “You’re not alone, even if it feels that way.”
“When did you grow up so much, my boy?” she whispers after a long pause.
You have no idea, Mama.
They say the body remembers. You don’t just forget how to skate, take slapshots, or level especially smug assholes from the opposing team. Well, his body has nothing to remember - it’s hardly ever done any of that.
Also, he’s weak as a kitten, and his legs look like a pair of matchsticks. His skates are too heavy and are two sizes too big. His hockey stick doesn’t just have the wrong flex - it’s wooden and barely bends at all; the curve is wrong too. He won’t be playing his best hockey anytime soon, that’s for sure.
In his previous life, grief pushed him toward hockey. This time, it’s cold calculation. Sure, he loves the game, but it also means money and freedom in the future - not just for himself, but also for his mother.
He’s not being entirely honest about the whole cold calculation thing, though. The truth is, he really, really needs to be in Regina, Saskatchewan about five years from now.
He spends most of his free time at the school outdoor rink, running through every basic skating and stickhandling drill he can think of, over and over again. He’s still missing almost two decades of practices, games, and muscle. But he’s improving - improving so fast that even his chronically hungover coach has noticed. And he still has time.
His mom has always liked hockey. Sometimes it feels like it’s the only thing two such different people as his parents ever truly shared.
Shane would probably have called Ilya’s parents not compatible.
“Coach, why am I on the 4th line today?”
“Because we don’t have a 5th.”
“Shut up, Rozanov, I wasn’t talking to you.”
Surprising to no one, his teammates hate him more than ever these days.
He’s always hated the word “accident,” and even at twelve, he knew his mother’s death hadn’t been one.
Which makes it harder to face the fact that all his plans to save Mom treat it exactly like an accident - like something you can prevent and then live happily ever after.
The thing is, depression and suicidal thoughts aren’t an accident; they’re a long and exhausting struggle, and they won’t disappear if he hides the pills or stays at home that day.
He’s not fine, no, but he blames stupid hormones, stupid biology, and his stupid fucking body for being so emotional lately.
His father scolds him every time, lecturing him about discipline, self-control, and how real men don’t cry - and, judging by his father’s standards, they should also have an emotional range of a log. Not that Ilya would ever say the last part out loud.
The first time he cried in front of Shane, that night in Tampa, his instinct - drilled into him from an early age - was to hide his face and apologize. So it stunned him when he wasn’t mocked or pushed away - when he was kissed and pulled into an embrace instead. That was the moment he knew, with sudden clarity, that what he had with Shane was anything but simple or casual.
At the cottage, Shane wasn’t ashamed of being vulnerable or of his tears, and Ilya, almost against his own instincts, let himself go too. If his father had witnessed it, he would’ve had plenty to say, none of it pleasant and probably heavy on the familiar insults - weak, pathetic.
At the cottage, Ilya met Shane’s teary eyes and felt himself fall even harder for him, though just a day ago he hadn’t believed that was possible.
He coaxes the school psychologist into finding him a mental health helpline number. In the end, the apathetic woman is only too happy to give him something so he’ll finally leave her office.
He makes the call the same day, and the lady on the line clearly isn’t prepared to be speaking with a child. She hears him out and then, a bit unsure, suggests calling the cops or an ambulance if he thinks his mother might be in danger.
“It’s not an emergency. Not yet. And my father is a high‑ranking police officer,” he sighs.
“Oh. I see.”
The helpline lady tells him that nothing can be done unless his mother seeks help herself or becomes a danger to herself or others.
“Do you know about any shelters for women who are being abused?” Ilya asks instead. “In Moscow or around?”
She pauses, then says, “You… know about those? Ok, please stay on the line. I need to check and ask around.”
He waits, listening to the muffled voices in the background, until she comes back and says, “I’ve got a number for you, dear.”
He finds a pen and a scrap of paper and writes the number down. He thanks the lady and is about to hang up when she asks, “How old are you, kid?”
“Twelve.” There is no point in hiding it.
“Your mom is very lucky to have you.”
Of course she is, Ilya thinks. After all, he has never been known for false modesty.
He calls the shelter, and they sound less surprised to hear a child’s voice. But once he brings up his father’s job, their tone changes.
“No,” they say. “Sorry, but no. We have dozens of women and children here whom we can actually save. We can’t risk going up against the police. Or worse.”
He’s never hated Russia more than at that moment.
His mother won’t even listen when he mentions seeing a therapist.
“I’m perfectly fine, darling. I’m not crazy.”
He tries to tell her he meant nothing of the sort, that she isn’t fine, that she needs help, that there’s nothing shameful in admitting it-
She retreats to the bedroom, not saying a word, and doesn’t come out even for dinner, much to his father’s irritation. Ilya knows he’s hurt her, even though he meant quite the opposite.
He tries not to think about what will happen if he fails. Most likely, he’ll end up at one of the many high bridges Moscow has no shortage of, becoming just a number in the grim statistics of the said bridge.
That night he dreams of brown eyes, those silly freckles, and Shane telling his parents that he loves him and doesn’t hate him at all. Then the walls around him dissolve, and he’s suddenly standing over Shane’s motionless body - just like after Marleau’s hit, only this time no one is rushing to help. Ilya looks at Shane’s hands: no gloves, his fingers unnaturally pale. An empty pill bottle is lying nearby.
He wakes with a start and a choked sob. He bites down hard on the pillow, and for a while the only sound in the room is his dumb brother’s faint snoring.
He starts with small things. He makes syrniki for his mom in the morning, and then they clean up the kitchen together while she hums along to a catchy tune on the radio.
He invites her to his game, boasting he’ll score a hat-trick and dedicate every goal to her. He ends up scoring four. After each one, he salutes her, and she laughs and waves back like it’s their private ritual. His teammates snicker, but he doesn’t give a fuck.
He skips lunch at school for a week to buy her three roses. Leaves her little notes - like “have a good day,” “the weather is beautiful today (just like you),” or a simple “I love you” - slipping them into her cookbook or the drawer with laundry supplies where his father will never find them.
It’s not much, and it probably doesn’t change anything in the grand scheme of things, but he always regretted not doing it in his previous life.
It’s the least she deserves anyway.
It’s Saturday, and Father and Alexei are off on a “fishing trip” - a clever euphemism for drinking vodka with friends in the middle of nowhere.
Mom takes him to Gorky Park instead. It’s crowded and the cashier at the Ferris wheel is rude in that unmistakably Soviet way. The view from the top is gorgeous, Mom looks relaxed, and for once her smile looks real. After the Ferris wheel, they buy hot chocolate to warm up and a head of cabbage at the grocery store to feed the ducks at the pond.
For the first time in this new life, he feels like a child again, and it isn’t a bad thing. His mind is still in a weird place after all the nightmares and overthinking, which is probably why he asks:
“Mom? Have you ever imagined our life without Father?”
“Ilya-”
“No, really. Don’t you think we’d be better off without him? Today was perfect, all thanks to” - he waggles his fingers in air quotes - “fishing”.
“Ilya, sweetheart-”
“What if we run away? I’ve been thinking about it lately. Let’s take the bare minimum and find you a job somewhere far from Moscow. I’ve checked - there are jobs with housing. I can help, I can give skating lessons or something. It won’t be easy or pretty, but…"
He almost says, Boston’ll draft me in five years, and you’ll never have to work again.
Mom stays silent for a long time as they watch two ducks fight over the same leaf of cabbage.
“Do you think I haven’t tried?” she says at last, her eyes fixed straight ahead, as if she isn’t talking to him at all.
Oh.
“What happened?” he asks quietly, like he isn’t sure he wants to know.
“He always finds me, always brings me back. It’s… personal."
Ilya squeezes his eyes shut to fight back tears. Ducks keep quacking in the background, and even though they resemble loons, they don’t sound like them at all.
It’s an accident that gives him hope. A real accident this time.
Mom’s away for a week to visit Grandma, and Ilya decides it’s the perfect chance to skip classes. School is boring and pointless, and besides, he’s been losing his mind from having zero alone time for the past month - a shock after years in that absurdly large and empty Boston house of his. Funny how you don’t appreciate things until they’re gone, personal space included.
He enjoys the silence, but it’s not even noon when he hears keys turning in the front door. No one should be home this early. If it’s his idiot brother - well, that would mean he’s skipping school too, and then they’re even…
It’s not Alexei. Ilya darts back to his room and slips under the bed - hardly a brilliant plan, but instinct wins the moment he hears his father’s booming voice in the hallway. Discipline is his father’s second religion, and getting caught ditching school will not end well for him.
He lies perfectly still, trying to steady his breathing. His father is on the phone, and judging by the noises, he is rummaging for something in the kitchen or in the living room.
“Ah, found it. I was rereading that cursed report last night and must’ve forgotten to put it back in the briefcase,” his father says, sounding relieved. “Tell Nikita Petrovich it’ll be on his desk in an hour.”
Fuck, that was close, but looks like he won’t be caught after all, if his father is heading back to work.
“I’ll make it up to you tonight, Polina, don’t be mad. Maybe not just tonight - we’ve got the whole week ahead.”
Wait. What?
Ilya is lying on the couch, his eyes fixed on the whitewashed ceiling.
He keeps replaying the overheard words in his head, and they always lead him to the same conclusion: his father is having an affair at work. An affair with someone named Polina. Not the most unique name, but it’s not super common either.
His ex‑future‑stepmother was named Polina. In his previous life, his father remarried pretty quickly after the “accident,” but Ilya had been too angry, too betrayed, and too scared to ask where Polina had come from. He always assumed they’d met after Mom died, not before. Apparently, that might be very far from the truth.
In the evening, Alexei - who is trying (and spectacularly failing) to boil pelmeni for the two of them - mentions offhand that Father has called to say he is busy at work and will be home late.
Busy, my ass, Ilya thinks bitterly, leaning over the pot to check if their dinner is beyond rescue.
It takes him a while to get into his father’s cell phone. Father is hardly home these days, and the whole situation makes Ilya want to smash something heavy against the wall.
When the opportunity finally appears - Father is in the shower, Alexei is at judo practice - Ilya grabs the phone off the table and opens the call log. He is lucky it’s 2004, and the damn thing is basically a brick with no password, no lock, nothing. His father is a control freak, and his contacts are all labeled very formally. Ilya scrolls to the time of the overheard call, and there she is. Polina, the secretary, saved under her full government name. A name he knows too well.
His holier‑than‑thou father, the man who ruined his wife’s life in not one but two timelines, is cheating with a girl half his age. Ilya feels disgusted. Ilya feels betrayed.
And he finally has a plan.
Tracking Polina down requires a few questionable methods and even more skipped classes.
She’s sitting in a small cafe near Father’s office, probably waiting for her lunch to be served. Ilya watches from a distance, studying her.
She looks younger than he remembers, hardly older than twenty‑five. In his previous life, she disappeared the moment Father started to need constant care and stopped recognizing her. He’s fairly sure she showed up at the funeral, but he’d been too tangled in his own complicated feelings to be certain. She still inherited a generous chunk of that Moscow apartment - Father didn’t revise the will, and Ilya had no interest in contesting it. Maybe Alexei did; who knows…
Ilya forces his mind back to the present moment. He’s on a mission and doesn’t have time for a trip down memory lane.
He slips into the seat across from her and introduces himself as Grigori Rozanov’s son before she can say a word. He’s never thought highly of her, but he’s never taken her for a fool. Greedy, calculating, vulgar - for sure. But not stupid.
“I have a feeling, Polina,” he says, trying to sound older not just in voice but in the words he chooses, “that our interests happen to align.”
She narrows her eyes, suspicion written all over her face, but she doesn’t interrupt or tell him to leave.
Well. That’s something he can work with.