Chapter Text
Awareness comes to him in fractured spirals.
It’s nothing dramatic. It feels, oddly, like waking in the middle of the night after a brutal practice. They’re all just brief moments of clarity before sleep drags him under again. Up and down. Sleep and awake, over and over.
The first time he truly wakes, it only lasts a second.
Everything is blurry. His body is too hot, slick with sweat beneath too many blankets. He tries to shove them away, but his arms feel heavy, like he’s pushing through mud. The effort costs more than it’s worth. Sleep claims him again almost immediately.
The second time he wakes-really wakes-he’s aware enough to notice someone holding his hand. A thumb moves in slow, comforting circles over the back of it. The touch is the only solid thing in the world. He can’t feel anything else besides that touch and heat.
He’s too hot again. His skin feels wrong and overheated. He wants to open his eyes, to move, to say something, but exhaustion pins him in place. It feels like heavy coins are stacked on his eyelids.
He learned in school once that the ancient Greeks buried their dead with coins- on their eyes or in their mouths- to pay the ferryman. Without them, the soul had to wait on the shores of the underworld for a hundred years. Shane really hopes that isn’t what’s happening to him.
He always thought the shore of a black-sand river would be unbearably lonely.
The third time he surfaces, the dizziness is so sharp he thinks he might puke.
He hates puking. Always has. Worse he always does it after a brutal practice or drill. He’ll spend twenty minutes dry-heaving into a bucket while a trainer claps him on the back and tells him it’s fine. That it means the drill is working. He hates that part most of all.
When he was eight, he got the stomach flu.
He couldn’t keep down water. He cried until his throat hurt, helpless and miserable. His mom had held him while he was sick, and when he got too weak to stand, she’d laid down beside him on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, right next to the toilet.
He kept begging her to make it better, because that was what she did. She kissed bruises. She put dinosaur bandages on scraped knees. She pressed ice packs to fevered foreheads.
But she couldn’t fix it.
Something cold and wet brushes his lips now. Small pieces of ice, maybe? It felt blissful against his dry mouth. He parts his lips without realizing it, chasing the relief.
Voices drift in and out above him. He can’t make out the words, only the tones. One voice is lighter than the other. They sound familiar.
The next time he wakes, he does it fully.
He’s staring at speckled white ceiling tiles. The pattern tugs at something old. It looks like his preschool classroom ceiling. He was never a good sleeper as a kid. During nap time, he’d lie awake, staring up at the tiles while everyone else slept.
There’s movement beside him.
It takes everything he has, but he manages to turn his head.
It’s his mom.
She’s wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. Her black hair is tied in a messy bun. He almost doesn’t recognize her like this. These days, she’s usually in designer clothes- things he bought her. After his first big paycheck, he’d taken her to the mall and tried to clear out every high-end store in her size. She’d refused, mortified, but it had made him so happy just to try. His parents had spent so much on him over the years. It felt like the least he could do.
She used to wear outfits like this when he was a kid.
He remembers the day after his rookie year, handing his parents a small envelope. Inside was proof he’d paid off their mortgage. His mom had cried. His dad had tried to refuse it. Shane hadn’t known what else to do with his first bonus- only that this mattered.
She’d been so happy.
Now she looks exhausted and worn down. Her eyes are rimmed with red. But the moment she realizes he’s awake, she’s on her feet.
“Honey,” she says softly. “Shane. Sweetheart. How are you feeling?”
He wants to answer. He wants to tell her he’s fine. But when he tries, his voice scrapes uselessly in his throat.
She doesn’t panic to her credit. She just reaches for a pink plastic cup and a straw. Carefully, she props him up a little and guides the straw to his lips.
It’s ice water, and it’s honestly the best thing he’s ever tasted.
She helps him ease back down against the pillows.
“Are you in any pain?” she asks, her brows knitting in a failed attempt not to look worried.
He takes stock of himself. There’s no sharp pain and there’s nothing screaming for attention. He just feels… strange. Like every muscle in his body has been pulled too tight. It’s like he ran a marathon he doesn’t remember.
“No,” he croaks. The sound of his own voice surprises him. God, he sounds rough.
“You’re in the hospital, Shane.”
“Picked up on that.”
Normally she’d give him a playful swat or at least roll her eyes, but instead she just looks relieved- like the fact that he’s being her annoying kid again is proof he’s really okay.
“Do you remember what happened?”
He frowns. Then it rushes back all at once.
Eva. Kip. The knife.
“Oh,” he says quietly, trying to not think about it. “Is Kip okay?”
His mom brushes some hair off his forehead. “He’s fine. Just a few stitches. You needed surgery, honey. It was a long one.”
That explains the heaviness and the way his body feels borrowed.
“Am I out for the season?”
She stares at him for a beat, then drags a hand through her hair. “Damn. I owe him twenty bucks. Five minutes awake, Shane. You couldn’t have waited ten before asking about hockey?”
“Dad?” Shane asks, confused.
“He tried to fly in from Ottawa, but the snowstorms grounded all the flights. He’ll be here as soon as he can,” she says, misunderstanding him completely.
Shane blinks. Had she and his dad really been betting on this? Or did she mean someone else?
“Everyone else is around here somewhere,” she continues. “We’ve been taking shifts, but the police are trying to round everyone up.”
“Police?” Shane asks, suddenly more awake than he’s been since opening his eyes.
His mom blinks. “Yes. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you soon-,”
“Mom.” Shane interrupts, his voice thin. “I’m not talking to the police.”
She stares at him. Really stares, like she’s waiting for him to smile and say he’s joking.
“I-what do you mean?”
“I’m not going to talk to the police,” he repeats. Just saying it drains him. His chest feels tight again, his limbs heavy against the bed. God he’s tired.
“Shane-”
“No.” He swallows, throat aching. “I don’t want to. I want to be left alone.”
“But-,”
“I’m sorry,” he adds helplessly, like an apology might soften her disappointment. He can’t talk to the police about this. He barely wants to talk to her about this.
Her expression shifts, something cautious and searching flickering across her face. “Is this because of Ilya?”
The room tilts.
“Ilya?” he manages, breath catching. “Why would-” He breaks off, dragging in air that doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. The monitor beside him starts to beep faster. His mom’s eyes widen.
“No, Shane,” she says quickly, reaching for him. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I promise. He was here earlier. He really cares about you.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Shane gasps, the words tumbling out too fast. He feels almost hysterical. His mom knows. She knows about Ilya. About him.
About them.
“Mom, I-”
The door opens.
They both freeze as a nurse steps in, slightly out of breath. Her eyes immediately flick to the monitor, then to Shane’s face.
“It’s alright,” his mom says quickly. “We were just talking.”
The nurse’s gaze lingers on her. “Maybe this conversation can wait. Mr. Hollander needs rest.”
“Yes. Of course,” his mom says at once.
The nurse adjusts something on the monitor, gives Shane a careful look and his mom a suspicious one, and leaves.
The door clicks shut.
Shane stares at the ceiling, heart still racing.
Holy shit.
His mom knows about him and Ilya.
“Mom,” Shane croaks, desperate. He needs to explain. He needs to apologize and to make it make sense somehow. He needs to tell her.
She doesn’t let him. Instead she climbs into the hospital bed with him and gathers him into her arms as carefully as she can, and suddenly he’s eight years old again, curled on the bathroom floor with the stomach flu, her body beside him.
“It’s okay, Shane,” she murmurs into his hair. “I promise you, it’s okay. Just rest. We’ll talk later. Just know that it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Don’t,” she says fiercely, pulling back just enough to look at him. “Do not apologize to me. You have nothing to be sorry for. Do you understand me? Nothing.” Her voice breaks anyway. “I love you. You are my child. My son. There is nothing on this planet that will ever change that. I swear to you.”
His vision blurs. Warm tears spill down his temples and into his hair.
“Mom,” he says, his chest aching. “I tried. I’m sorry. I really tried.”
“I know,” she says softly. “I know.” She strokes his sweaty, tangled hair. She’s crying too now. “It’s okay. We’re okay. I’m so sorry you were ever scared. I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell us.” Her forehead presses to his. “Your father and I love you so much. You are my entire world, Shane.”
“But-,”
“Shane,” she says again, firmer now. She cups his face so he has no choice but to look at her. “You could be a garbage man and I would still be just as proud of you. Do you hear me? Hockey doesn’t make you my son. Who you love doesn’t make you my son.”
He hiccups on a breath.
“'You and Ilya' doesn’t matter. 'You and Eva' doesn’t matter,” she continues, tripping over her words. “What matters is that you’re alive. That you’re here. That you’re you.”
His eyes burn. “I didn’t want to tell anyone,” he whispers, and he’s talking about not telling anyone about Eva. He thinks his Mom knows that’s what he means. “I didn’t want to mess everything up.”
“I know,” she says immediately. “You always carry things that aren’t yours to carry.” Her thumb brushes under his eye, catching a tear. “You don’t have to be brave with me. You don’t have to earn my love. You were born with it.”
Something inside his chest finally gives. A sound tears out of him, broken and raw, and even though he’s feeling weird and hazy and his stomach kinda hurts, he presses his face into her shoulder. She holds him like she used to. Like she could physically keep the world from touching him if she tried hard enough.
“I was so scared,” he admits, voice muffled. “I thought I’d lose everything.”
She tightens her arms around him. “You won’t lose us. Ever. Not for this. Not for anything.” She kisses the top of his head, lingering. “We’ll figure the rest out together. One step at a time.”
His breathing starts to slow, exhaustion pulling at him again now that the fear has loosened its grip. She feels it, of course, she always does, and eases him back against the pillows.
“Rest,” she whispers, brushing his hair back one more time. “I’m right here.”
Shane believes her.