Chapter Text
Nothing in Ilyas' life had ever turned out the way he expected it to.
He supposed that wasn’t entirely true.
He’d expected to go first in the draft.
He’d expected to have a successful hockey career.
But he’d never expected any of the rest.
If someone told a twelve year old Ilya Rosanov that in two decades time he would be living in Canada’s sixth largest city, be happily married ( to a man no less) as the captain of an NHL time that up until a handful of years before had been the laughing stock of the league, seeing a therapist regularly and be on a daily dose of an anti depressant he’d have told you to fuck off.
Number one, he certainly wouldn’t be leaving Russia to settle in some boring Canadian city. Toronto? Maybe. Vancouver? He could see that. But really, Ilya had imagined himself somewhere much more exciting, like New York or Los Angeles.
Married? No.
His father wielded his parents' marriage like a weapon.
“I am your husband! You will listen to me!” He’d used to spit at Irina across the dinner table when they had clashed heads over how best to raise their boys.
But married to a man?
At twelve, Ilya was only just starting to notice girls and with the way that his father raged on about the disgust of ‘unnatural pairings, ’ his subconscious was still keeping his same sex attraction locked tight in the back of his mind.
Plus a therapist? And anti-depressants? Russians did not do these things. Maybe if they did….well, maybe Ilya would had two parents while he became a man instead of just one.
So no, Ilya had not expected his life to unfold the way that it had. But he was so fucking grateful that it had.
Perhaps it was best that he should begin to expect the unexpected?
After all, no one had expected the Centaurs to win back-to-back cups, but that had happened.
Really, Illya should have expected that he and Shane starting a family together would not go as they thought it would.
It had been in Ilyas's mind for a while by the time that Shane brought it up.
Ilya loved kids.
The little shits were just so unapologetically themselves, no matter what that might mean.
He loved the summer hockey camps.
He loved the centaur barbecues at Boods when teammates with families brought their kids in tow.
Hell, he endured dinners with Hayden just because he loved getting to sit on the floor in the living room playing salon with Ruby and Jade, with Amber perched in his lap and little Arthur seated at his side with Chompy held tight to his chest.
It was after one much dinner that on the way home, Shane turned to his husband and said,
“Are we ready for kids? I mean, like, do you feel ready? I sorta feel like I might, like feel ready?”
Illya had reached over and squeezed his hand high up on his husband's thigh.
“Is this your way of asking me to take you home and try to put a baby in you? I’m not sure how effective it will be, but I am willing to try”
“Fuck off. You know what I mean.”
“Da, I do,” He admitted, leaving his hand perched on Shane's leg in a slightly less suggestive manner.
“I know it’s not as simple as like just deciding to have a baby. It’s going to be a long, complicated process no matter how we do it. It’ll probably still be years until we can actually bring a kid home, so I don’t know, maybe we should start looking into it now?”
“I think maybe this is good idea.”
Shane placed his hand on top of Ilyas.
“Which isn’t to say that I would hate for you to try to knock me up tonight.”
“Jesus Hollander, keep it in your pants, yes? We will be home in thirty minutes”.
They had talked about it more, in fits and starts. Musing more than anything else.
Ilya had made the mistake of getting slightly too drunk in front of Barrett after one game and spilling his heart out about how much he wanted to start a family with Shane.
Troy, bless him, tried to be supportive.
“Aren’t there any like Russian orphans you could adopt?” Troy asked as he and Ilya stripped off their practice gear after a scrimmage one day.
“Sometimes you are very stupid,” Ilya sighed as he pulled off his now sweat-slick underarmor.
“What did I say?” Troy bocked, plunking himself down on his bench and looking up at his captain.
“You realize I go back to Russia I can be arrested, yes? The Kremlin is not exactly clamouring to give same sex couples Russian children to raise up in the evil Western world.”
“Fuck. I sort of forgot the whole Russia being super homophobic thing.”
“Yes, no shit.”
“Well, what about a non-Russian orphan? Where did Angelia Jole get all her kids from?”
Ilya sighed once again. He was becoming too accustomed to making this sound. He loved Barret like a brother. Actually, Ilyas' brother was a bastard. He loved Barret more than a brother, but he needed him to stop talking about this sooner rather than later.
“Is not so simple. It can be a um, what did Hollander call it? A morally grey area?”
“Isn’t adopting orphans always a moral decision? Like any kid in the world would be pumped to get picked up by a couple of filthy rich famous gays.”
“Is this how you tried to pitch adopting to Harris? If so, I am not shocked that he does not want to have baby with you.”
Troy punched the side of Ilyas' thigh.
“He doesn’t not want to have a baby with me. We’re both just focusing on our careers right now, thank you very much.”
“Is complicated,” Illya repeated, turning to head for the showers.
Saying it was complicated was an understatement.
International adoption was a whole thing.
Shane had gone down a rabbit hole of research and read about how children with living family members were being adopted by wealthy white westerners.
Then there was the entire white saviour complex to delve into.
They had talked about adopting within Canada. Someone on the team whose sister had an adopted child had advised that they start the process now.
“It’s like anything in Canada, there’s a lot of tape to cut through. Start now because it can be years.”
So they’d met with a social worker.
Her name was Gina, and Shane had been so nervous when she came to their house for a home visit that he’d accidentally knocked over a lamp, which had spooked Anya and sent her scurrying to hide as far under the sofa as she could fit.
They filled out forms and took parenting classes in what little spare time they had.
They weren’t a great candidate for placement as they were now.
Not when they were on the road for 41 games. More if they made the playoffs (which Ilya was sure they would be doing again).
But in the future….well, they’d have much more to talk about then.
They’d sat down with Gina and had a long conversation about the child welfare system in their province and broached the idea of fostering in the future.
Everyone wanted newborns to fold into their families, but there were many children out there who needed help, in many different situations.
Ilya had nodded and asked as many questions as he could manage in English. He had much to wonder about, but he couldn’t make the words come together in his mind as anything other than Russian.
Shane filled in the gaps where Ilyas' words failed, asking the questions that slipped through the cracks.
Ilya liked the idea that they could one day be a safe place for a child to stay, even for a few nights. Ilya had spent so much of his life searching for a feeling of safety and security, and if he could give a child even a slice of that, it would be worth it.
They’d done what they could for now.
They kept Gina’s contact and promised to call or email if they had questions, but that was it.
Until the phone rang one evening.
“I’m sorry to call out of the blue like this, but we have a rather unusual situation, and I’m at a loss as to what else to do, and then I thought of you.” Gina sounded a little frazzled on the other side of the phone.
“What is it? What is happening?”
Surely there was no baby for them yet. They had only been registered for a few months, and they’ve been told that they would likely wait years espically with the way they lived their lives now. Hell, they could wait forever and never be chosen. Ilya hadn’t been thinking much about it, placing it in the back of his mind to be examined another day. They still had years of good hockey left in them and years and decades after that to tend to a family.
“ I know that your timeline was for much further down the road, but we did touch on the idea of foster care in our meetings, and I do recall the two of you saying that it was something you might be open to in the future.”
“Da. In future, yes.”
Now was most certainly not the time for Shane and Ilya to be thinking about opening their home to a foster child. Between hockey commitments to work with their charity and what little social life they manage to scrape together, there wasn’t much room to provide a safe, steady home for a child in crisis.
“ I know that the timing isn't ideal, but I have a situation on my hands here. There are certain special circumstances, and I thought since the season was over... You might be able to help.”
“Help with that?” Ilya raised his hand and beckoned Shane towards him, pulling the phone away from his ear and placing it on speaker to hold between the two of them.
“ Shane is also here now.”
“ Oh, good!” Shane and the social worker exchanged a quick hello before Gina dove back into what she’d been saying.
“There’s a child that we have in custody, approximately three years old, who was discovered in an apartment that she shared with her mother when a neighbour called in a welfare check. It seems that the woman had been dead for a few days.”
Shane reached out and gripped Ilya's hand tightly.
“She’s in the hospital now, being treated for dehydration, but after that, she’ll need somewhere to go.”
“And you think she should come here?” he guessed, still not entirely following the social worker's train of thought.
“ I thought maybe just for a short-term placement, we're slightly desperate, the girl doesn’t seem to speak any English or even understand simple words.”
Something clicked in Ilyas's head.
“You are the only Russian-speaking household that I’ve been in contact with, and your home was cleared on our original intake, so I thought that maybe…”
Ilya looked at his husband as a moment of silence spread over the phone.
It was complicated.
The season had just ended, so technically it was the perfect time.
But they were meant to be headed to the cottage next month, then they had their camps, and soon enough, training would start up again…
But Shane was giving Ilya that look.
That look that said, I’ll go wherever you lead me to, as long as we’re together.
“Yes,” Illya decided, squeezing Shane’s hand.
“Yes, we can help.”
They were up half the night, turning their guest room into something even slightly suitable for a child.
Shane’s parents had shown up twenty minutes after he called them in a slight panic.
Shane had made the mistake of letting his father and Ilya go to the twenty-four-hour superstore to get essentials.
Why he had thought it was a good idea to send the two softest members of the family to the store with a list put together in a rush and a credit card with a much too high a limit was beyond him.
But Shane had needed his mother there with him to game plan logistics.
So Ilya and David had come back to the house with the contents of the list as well as more toys and clothes than any child could reasonably need, especially if they were only staying a short while.
“But look at the bunny!” Ilya had defended, holding up the floppy-eared plush as if it were a key piece of evidence to prove his innocence.
“How much was it?”
“I am very rich.”
“Ilya”
“Hollande,r come on. Feel how soft,” Ilya had shoved the rabbit against his husband's cheek and rubbed it up and down.
“It is very soft,” Shane conceded.
“Yes. Is why I got two.”
“Two?”
After much more bickering, furniture building and not a small amount of panic, the morning came, and so did a knock on the front door.
“Hello,” Gina smiled nervously at them from the doorstep.
“Where is baby?” Ilya asked, looking around as if a three-year-old were about to appear from behind one of the terracotta planters.
“Oh well, um, she’s in the car. We’ve been having a little trouble. She’s understandably upset, and with the language barrier,” Gina gave a nervous little laugh.
“We will see her now,” Ilya shoved his feet into his shoes and headed out to where a Honda sedan was parked next to his Mercedes.
Shane followed, Yuna and David hanging back so as not to overwhelm.
“What is her name?”
“Oh, right, it’s Katya.”
Ilya nodded and continued to the car, Shane catching up to his side, and Gina hurrying behind them.
The door to the backseat was open, and there was another social worker seated in the back seat next to a very small, very upset, blond toddler.
Ilya crouched down.
“Katya. This is Ilya and Shane.” Gina spoke very slowly and very loudly as if that would magically make the toddler understand English.
Katya was hiccuping between sobs, rubbing at her red, swollen eyes.
“Hello,” Ilya began softly in Russian.
“You are feeling upset?” He continued in the language they shared.
Katya continued to sob but gave a shaky nod.
“What would help?”
She hiccuped again and let out a shaky breath, but did not speak.
“Would water help?”
She nodded again, still rubbing at her eyes.
“Should I bring it here, or would you like to come into the house?”
She took a moment, tears still pouring down her face and then shook her head and pointed towards the house.
“Would you like to walk into the house or be carried?”
Katya leaned away from him, pressing her body more into her car seat's side.
“Of course, you would like to walk. You look like a very strong girl. I bet you could even run!”
She nearly smiled. Nearly.
“What is he saying to her?” Gina asked, looking to Shane helplessly.
“He’s just asking if she wants to walk inside to get some water.”
“Does she?”
“Yes,” Ilya answered, switching momentarily back to English before immediately returning to Russian.
“Should we walk or should we run?”
Her little chest was rising rapidly as she recovered from the sheer amount of energy she had expended crying.
Katya was struggling out of her car seat, the social worker having undone the buckle.
She wiggled out of the car and stood beside where Ilya was crocched.
Even then, he was still taller than her.
Ilya pointed to his husband.
“That is Shane, and I am Ilya. This is our house. Should we go inside for water?”
A moment of silence.
A nod.
A small child walking past the group of adults and towards the steps of the house.
“Follow the leader,” Ilya switched to English as he got to his feet.
Gina hurried after Katya, her co-worker at her heels.
Shane grabbed Ilyas' arm on his way past.
He pressed his mouth hard against his husband's.
“I really fucking love you,” he murmured before taking Ilyas's hand and heading for the house.
Gina and her colleague Marcie started to explain paperwork and logistics to Shane as Ilya filled a plastic glass with water and brought it to where Katya was standing, still at the front door.
As she wrapped both her hands around the cup, she spoke for the first time, murmuring a quiet thank you.
“You are very welcome, and very polite,” Ilya complimented, crouched down at her side once again.
“My mama taught me,” she murmured again, drinking the water down with large swallows.
Her Mama.
Who was now dead.
Who this tiny little human had likely found, cold on the floor, just the same way Ilya had found his own mother.
His heart ached.
It ached with love and longing and sorrow.
He had no word for it in English.
Or in Russian, for that matter.
It just existed within him.
…
The social workers were gone.
David and Yuna had quietly slipped away, leaving Ilya and Shane with their tiny house guest.
Katya had moved away from the door at least, now on the sofa, dwarfed by all the pillows and fast asleep.
Gina had said she’d been crying since waking up at the hospital that morning. It sounded exhausting to Ilya as a full-grown adult.
He couldn’t imagine how exhausted it must have made a toddler.
Katya had come with nothing.
The apartment she shared with her mother was considered a crime scene until the coroner's report came back, so she had nothing of her own.
Ilya felt very vindicated in his purchases for just that reason.
When Katya had first moved awkwardly to the sofa and hoisted herself up, Ilya had grabbed one of the stuffed rabbits he had purchased and approached with caution.
“May I sit?” He asked, keeping his Russian words soft and quiet.
Katya nodded, her cheeks still wet with tears.
He’d really had no idea what he was meant to say and was working on instinct, hoping that he didn’t fuck it up too badly.
“It can be very scary to be in a new place.”
Katya chewed on the sleeve of the long-sleeved shirt that she was wearing, not meeting Ilya's eye.
“I have something for you here. Maybe they will help you.”
Katya looked up at him cautiously, and Ilya presented her with the soft grey bunny.
“A new friend for you, maybe?” Katya took the rabbit and held it to her chest, pressing her tear-stained cheeks to the rabbit's head.
“I would like to be your friend. If you want. So would Shane. He’s a very nice man.”
Katya snuffled into the rabbit's fur.
“Would you like to know something?”
Katya glanced at him through her eyelashes, damp with tears.
If there was one thing that Ilya had learned from hanging out with the Pike kids and visiting hospitals and youth centers was that kids were obsessed with relationship status.
“Shane and I, we are married.”
Katya looked up at him with her wide, tired eyes.
“Yes?”
“Yes. For years now.”
She nodded, keeping the bunny held tight against herself.
“I have another very important question for you.”
She blinked at him, the only sign that she may have heard him.
“Do you like dogs?”
Her eyes, that had been teary and tired all morning, lit up.
“Shane,” Illya called over his shoulder.
“Will you go over to the Coopers and pick up Anya? Katya would like to meet her.”
…
A few hours later, Katya was curled up on the sofa, her cheek resting against Anya’s back, both of them fast asleep.
“They left a child with us,” Shane stated, staring at where the little girl was folded into the couch.
“They did,” Ilya agreed.
“You were really good with her.”
“You will be too.”
Shane gave a small shake of his head.
“I don’t know if my Russian is strong enough.”
Ilya scowled.
“You can speak to toddler. Your Russian is good enough to speak to at least six year old. Or maybe a very stupid seven-year-old. Unless we are talking about sexy words. Those you are fluent in”
“Fuck off,” Shane pushed against his chest.
“Ah ah, not in front of the baby!”
Shane gave a shaky laugh.
“Are we going to need a swear jar like the Pikes?”
“We are nothing like the Pikes. Maybe a little like Jacki. Or Ruby. Or Aurthr. Maybe Jade. Definitely Amber”
“So you’re saying you’re nothing like Hayden?”
“Yes. Definitely nothing like Hayden.”