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The Washington game wasn't going as well as Shane had hoped. They should've been winning—they were a better team than the Colonels—but for whatever reason, the Voyageurs simply weren't clicking properly today.

Shane would call Ilya later and bitch about it. Maybe. It would depend on Ilya's mood. He never said anything, but Shane knew it sometimes annoyed Ilya when he complained about the performance of his objectively better team.

Ilya should've been in good spirits, though. The Centaurs had gotten a big win against Carolina that afternoon. Shane would be back in his hotel room fairly early tonight. Maybe they could have one of their longer calls, if Ilya was up for it. They were still in a bit of a weird space after their argument on Boxing Day, but Shane missed him. They'd barely spoken since the phone call they'd had a few days later, and Shane wanted to talk. He knew that Ilya wanted to wait to have the conversation, and he respected that, but couldn't they just spend some time together?

Shane was on the bench and Montreal was two goals behind Washington when the clock was paused. There was no immediate explanation, and then they were informed that the league was giving an announcement. It was the middle of the third period. Shane knew something must have been very wrong. This hadn't ever really happened before. Not during Shane's eleven years in the NHL, anyway.

A league official stepped out to center ice with a microphone in his hand. It wasn't Crowell, but it was someone in the executive suite. It must have been the highest-level official who happened to be in attendance at this game. The VP of marketing, maybe? Shane didn't quite recognize him.

The game was being suspended, he said. That caught Shane's attention. Was there an integrity concern? Never before had a game he was playing been called off right in the middle of it.

On the other hand, they'd been losing. And Ilya had gotten a big win against Carolina that afternoon. If he won and Shane lost, Shane would definitely be getting teased for it later. Best to avoid that altogether.

The VP explained the suspension. There had been a tragedy. The Ottawa Centaurs' plane had crashed in northern Georgia, during the course of their flight from Carolina to Tampa. They didn't know much else yet. All NHL activities were suspended for the next seven days.

Wait, what?

Shane was dreaming. This was a mistake. He was going to wake up.

He wasn't dreaming. Everyone around him was slack jawed and wide-eyed, and Shane—

Shane covered his mouth with both of his hands, terrified he'd scream if he didn't. He felt his breath pick up, coming in rapid flutters through his nose. His chest burned.

The Centaurs plane had crashed. Ilya's plane had crashed. Ilya was on a plane, and it crashed. Surely it was a mistake? He just needed to call him. He would call him, and Ilya would pick up, and they'd laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing was.

Hayden was standing next to him, now. His expression was one of concern deeper than Shane had ever seen before. Even when he was convinced his wife had broken her ankle, he hadn't looked nearly so worried. He was saying something to Shane, hands fretting over his shoulders, trying to calm him down. Shane shook his head over and over. It's a mistake, Hayden. You'll see.

Where was his phone? He needed his phone. The locker room.

Shane took off, but he didn't make it all the way back, because his knees gave out on him. Someone was holding him up, maybe Hayden. Someone was telling him to breathe. He kept his mouth covered, shut his eyes, and tried not to think.

Once he was recovered, he pulled away from the person holding him and forced his way back in. There it was. His stall. There was his phone, tucked into a little cubby.

He pulled it out and powered it on. He spent what felt like an hour staring at the stupid Apple logo.

When the screen lit up, it took a moment for Shane's notifications to load. He saw he had some missed Instagram DMs from Ilya. There. They would explain what was going on.

The messages did explain.

The messages made one thing clear: this wasn't a mistake.

Shane threw his phone like it had burned him—it crashed loudly on the floor. He fell into a sitting position on the ground and made an animal noise, knotting his fingers into his own hair.

Ilya's plane had crashed.

Shane didn't remember how he ended up back in his hotel room, except he knew that he did. He must have showered and changed in the locker room, because he was laying on his bed in a suit and he was clean. He must have ridden the bus back, because he couldn't teleport.

Hayden was with him, sitting at the hotel room's desk. He was on the phone with someone, talking about Shane. He had no clue who, and he didn't care.

Shane was rereading the messages. He'd shattered his phone screen when he threw it, and little fragments of glass were embedding themselves in his thumb, but he hardly cared.

Shane, you are the best thing in my life.

And Ilya was the best thing in his. Always would be. More than his parents. More than hockey. Shane needed him.

I love you. Always. Maybe from the first time I saw you.

Shane couldn't remember the exact conversation they'd had outside that dingy rink in Regina. He remembered how bright Ilya's eyes had looked in the sunshine, a thousand flecks of green and gold. He remembered Ilya being quiet and standoffish. He remembered thinking Ilya was sort of a dick. He remembered the absolute, all-encompassing shock of learning that someone who was vying for NHL stardom smoked.

He remembered marveling at Ilya's height, and his build, and how masculine he looked, even though they were both so young. He remembered liking his accent. He hadn't known it at the time, but he was half in love from the first time he saw Ilya.

And Ilya had felt the same, apparently. Meant for each other, from first fucking glance. So how could it possibly be fucking fair to separate them?

I am thinking only about you right now. A million memories. Thank you for those.

Not a million, Shane thought. Not even close to a million. They hadn't had enough time. They spent too long hiding what they were feeling for each other, first from one another, and then from the world. Shane needed Ilya to live. He needed the chance to love him the way he deserved. What were they even hiding for? Shane knew it had been important to him at some point, but the panic he was feeling outweighed every other thought.

The panic, and his wild imagination. He could picture it so clearly—Ilya, terrified and panicked in his plane seat, sending off a last few messages to Shane before tucking his head into a brace position. Maybe he'd prayed. Shane hated that he could see it so well.

Whatever happens, I am with you. Safe in your heart. I believe it.

Shane couldn't feel him. Not in his heart, not anywhere else. Other than Hayden, he was alone. Did that mean that Ilya wasn't gone, or did it mean that he'd simply been wrong?

Shane bit his nails and reread the messages again.

Hayden was still in Shane's room. They hadn't actually spoken much in the last few hours, but he'd refused to leave Shane alone.

Shane had accepted it, in a detached way. Ilya was dead. There wasn't any official confirmation yet, of course—far too early for that, but Shane's body knew. It could feel that its other half was no longer here. He was surprised at his own reaction. Knowing himself, he'd have expected denial, but there was none. The knowledge had settled into his bones and splintered them.

His mother called at two in the morning. Shane picked up. He didn't remember the call very well, other than his mother was crying and apologizing, and he wasn't saying much at all.

She asked where he was, and he said his hotel room. She asked if he was keeping up with the news headlines, and he said no.

They haven't found anyone yet, she'd said. But they're still looking.

Shane wasn't sure why that was the thing that finally broke the dam inside him, but it did. Hours of repression and fear and detachment turned to an emotional flood he couldn't control. One moment, he was sitting on a hotel bed floating five miles in space. The next, he was very much present in his own body, sobbing and coughing with snot and tears all over his face, his best friend watching from the other end of the bed like he had no idea what to do.

Which, to be fair, he didn't. He brought Shane a towel and stayed nearby, but what was there possibly to be done in this situation?

Shane noticed he was coughing blood into the white towel. He didn't care. Maybe he would die, too.

Hayden went back to his own room at Shane's insistence. He needed sleep. Shane would come bother him immediately if he needed something. He promised.

Sometime past four in the morning, laying on his back in his hotel bed, Shane came to a sickening realization.

He and Ilya weren't married. As far as the government was concerned, they were nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. They were the co-owners of a tax-exempt charitable organization. That hardly gave Shane next of kin rights.

Shane wouldn't get control over the estate. He wouldn't get control over Ilya's body. He wasn't next of kin, Andrei was. Andrei would have him shipped back to Moscow, probably, and buried there. He'd get all the money, the only thing he'd ever spoken with Ilya for. Shane didn't want or need Ilya's money, but the thought of Andrei getting it made him feel sick.

God, they were so fucking stupid. Shane was so fucking stupid. They should've told the world to fuck off and gotten married years ago.

Shane would never see Ilya again. He would never get to say goodbye. The last time Shane touched Ilya's body would be when Ilya pressed him up against the wall in his house as they fought.

It had barely been a week and a half since, and it felt like eons. Ages.

Shane would get nothing. He wouldn't even be able to go into Ilya's house and take a few sentimental things. Maybe if he got back before news made its way to Andrei—he had a key, after all—but he'd have to leave first thing in the morning. He'd be banking on the fact that American authorities would have no idea how to get ahold of a random cop in Russia.

Shane wouldn't be able to say goodbye.

Would Ilya's body ever even be sent back to Canada? Or would it be routed straight from a fridge in Georgia to one in Moscow?

Shane rolled onto his stomach and started to cry again.

Around eight in the morning, there was a knock on Shane's door. He considered ignoring it, but decided that whoever it was and whatever they wanted, he'd rather just get it over with than wait for them to bother him over text message or the phone.

It was J.J., with two coffees from the hotel lobby's Starbucks. Shane hadn't slept so much as a minute over the course of the night. He'd alternated between crying, reading his old texts with Ilya, and attempting to delude himself into believing that this was all somehow some horrific dream.

He wasn't at his best state. That was certain.

When J.J. opened the door, he seemed openly surprised—he probably hadn't been expecting Shane's haggard appearance and red-rimmed eyes.

"Hi," Shane said, because it was the best he could do.

"Hello," J.J. replied in French, and oh god. They were talking in French. That always meant that J.J. wanted to talk about something deep. "Can I come in?"

Shane silently stepped aside to make room, and then his best friend was in his hotel room with him. There were tissues everywhere, the bedding was a total mess. Were it another day, Shane might've been embarrassed. Right now, he just couldn't bring himself to care.

"Are you…" J.J. set the coffees down on the desk and turned to face Shane.

"What?"

"I just wanted to ask if you were alright. I know you and Rozanov were friends."

Friends. "Oh, I'm just peachy fucking keen, thanks."

J.J. didn't even bristle. "Shane, I know you had this… thing for Rozanov."

What? J.J. had them figured out? How? Did Hayden tell him?

"Why do think I'm always trying to set you up? Having a crush on a straight guy isn't healthy, buddy."

A crush.

A crush.

Something hot flashed behind Shane's eyes. Had J.J. not been one of Shane's closest friends, had Shane not been completely convinced that J.J. had his best interests at heart in every situation, Shane might've wanted to hit him.

"You think…"

Shane couldn't even speak. He felt like he was going to choke on nothing. His voice was trembling terribly.

"You think I look like this right now because my fucking crush died?"

J.J. stared back blankly.

"I fucking love him," Shane finally admitted, aloud, to someone. He didn't want to hide this anymore. He didn't have the desire, he didn't have the energy. He wanted to scream Ilya from the rooftops, but it was too late.

"I know, but—"

"Shut up. Stop talking. Let me get this out. You don't know. I love him. He loves me back. We've been dating for three fucking years, in secret, for reasons that I'm sure you can figure out yourself. So, my apologies if I'm reacting a little bit too strongly to this, but I was supposed to fucking marry him."

J.J.'s mouth hung open. "You… what?"

"Do you need to see pictures or something?"

"No, I believe you, that's not what I mean. But you were dating Ilya Rozanov? For three years?"

"Yeah. And it was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, so if you're about to tell me that it's fucked up because he played for Ottawa or whatever, you can fucking leave."

J.J's eyes softened. "Shane. Of course not."

"Well, that's why we didn't tell people. We knew most players wouldn't approve. Even the ones who were fine with the gay part."

"I mean, yeah, under different circumstances this would be weird, but that really all doesn't fucking matter right now. Three years. Three years, I—that changes everything. Holy shit, are you—"

"Don't ask me if I'm okay."

J.J. closed his mouth. As much as Shane loved him, he wasn't being super helpful right now, and Shane was also in a terrible mood. He was worried that if he stuck around, he'd say something to J.J. that he didn't really mean.

"Look, J.J., thanks for the coffee, but I haven't fucking slept today, and I have to be at the airport in two hours, so if it's the same to you, I think I just want to shower and get going."

With a confused expression, J.J. shook his head. "The team flight isn't until three."

"I know. I'm not flying with the team."

"You'll get in trouble."

Shane scoffed. "I don't fucking care, man."

The flight to Montreal wasn't remarkable.

Shane had thought maybe he'd be nervous about flying now, but he wasn't. What could happen? The plane would crash? He'd die?

Oh no. Anything but that.

Once he was home, he drove to Ottawa. He couldn't take everything from the house that he wanted, he knew that. He couldn't take Ilya's World Juniors medal that he'd won the same year he met Shane, or his Team Russia jacket from the 2014 Olympics. Those things would be noticed as missing when Andrei looked for memorabilia to auction.

Maybe Shane could buy it, if he really did put it up for sale. That was a thought. Or he could approach Andrei and ask to purchase it for the foundation's collection.

It was a problem for later.

Coming into the house was heavy. Every item felt like too much. There was the table they'd shared a hundred meals at. There were the stairs they'd run up together and made out at the top of.

He made his way into the kitchen. There was a single plate in the sink with a few breadcrumbs on it. Shane remembered Ilya telling him that he'd run late the morning the team left for their road trip. He must've scarfed down a breakfast and left the plate for when he got back.

Shane washed it and put it away.

The bedroom was in the same slight state of dishevelment as always. Mostly neat, but with a few dirty pieces of clothing on the floor and a couple random objects on the dresser.

Shane picked up a t-shirt off the floor, held it to his face, and inhaled. God. There Ilya was. Not the smell of his soap or his cologne, but him. And god fucking damn it, even though Shane was on the brink of a panic attack, even though he was currently living his absolute worst nightmare, a few breaths from one of Ilya's dirty t-shirts was enough to calm him down.

How long until that scent would fade entirely?

Shane had brought a duffle bag for this. He shoved almost all the worn clothing into it. He went into Ilya's closet and started picking things he wanted. Shane grabbed the pink top he'd worn to Fabian's concert, his cuddly gray sweatpants, and a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt Ilya sometimes wore as a joke when he had road trips to somewhere warm.

At the back of the closet was an old Boston Bears hoodie. It almost knocked Shane on his ass.

Sometimes, during the year that Shane was in Montreal and Ilya was in Boston, he'd give Shane that hoodie before the longer stretches where they wouldn't see each other. Shane always insisted that he was not going to wear his rival team's merch, and then he'd always ended up doing it anyway, because the hoodie smelled like Ilya and he missed him. Ilya had always thought it was hilarious when he'd FaceTime Shane randomly and find him wearing it.

Shane put the hoodie in the bag.

After that, it was random things. A few scrap notes in Russian cursive that Shane couldn't even read, but fuck, that was Ilya's handwriting. Ilya's five-hundredth NHL goal puck, which he hadn't yet gotten around to mounting. The little tub of styling cream he used for his hair.

Shane opened Ilya's top dresser drawer and found a pair of pink and purple children's heart rings.

Oh, fuck.

He'd somehow managed not to cry up until now, but those rings undid all his hard work. He remembered their "wedding" so well. How they'd both gotten far more emotional than the occasion should've allowed. How Ilya carried him over the threshold that night, despite his hurt knee.

It was the only wedding they'd ever have.

Shane needed a minute. He sat on the bed, put his head in his hands, and took sputtering, wheezing breaths.

Everything was pushing down on him. Ilya's bedroom felt impossibly small. Here he was, in the house of the man he loved, grabbing desperately at scraps because he knew it was all he'd ever get. Ilya was gone. Safe in your heart. Maybe Ilya believed it, but Shane didn't. From the moment he'd accepted that Ilya was dead, he'd ached, because he was alone. He was never meant to be, but he was.

Ilya was beautiful. Beautiful, kind, and loyal. Smart. Funny. Talented. They'd had a fucking future. They were being patient. They were doing things the right way. They had a plan, damn it.

All of Ilya's kindness, all of his beauty, all their planning—it hadn't bought him even a single extra second on Earth. The force of gravity took him anyway.

And now all Shane had were these stupid fucking plastic rings. Because he'd been dumb. Because he thought that he could live for the future, instead of today. He'd learned his lesson, now.

If only he hadn't learned it in the most brutal way possible.

They were supposed to get married, for real. They were supposed to have kids of their own.

That was the thought that finally broke him. He sobbed into his hands as he remembered Ilya gently painting the girls' nails, explaining to Arthur that boys can wear nail polish too, playing with the girls—really, any time he'd seen Ilya with kids, Ilya had been an absolute fucking natural. Whatever children they were supposed to raise would've had one hell of a father.

Their future was supposed to be sunshine at the cottage and retirement and children. And now, Shane was alone. He should've just left Ilya in Boston. Ilya wouldn't have been on that plane if he still played for Boston. He'd dragged Ilya hundreds of miles away to live in his hometown, and then he left him there, he abandoned him, he made him feel—

Breathe. Shane forced himself to breathe. This wasn't a helpful line of thought.

After a while, Shane managed to collect himself. Somewhat. He put the rings in his bag, made sure he left the house how he'd found it, and headed for the door.

The last walkthrough, he thought. He'd never step foot in this house again. It had been meant for both of them. Ilya had asked for Shane's opinion on all the houses he was considering, and Shane knew it wasn't coincidence that he'd picked the one Shane liked best. They'd both known at the time that when Shane was finished with Montreal, this place in Ottawa would belong to both of them. It had gone unsaid, but it didn't need to be explicitly acknowledged to be true.

This was where he was supposed to raise his children, and now it was fucking Andrei's.

Shane went through the door, locked it, and pocketed his key. Maybe he'd put it on a chain. He'd have to think about it.

The call came the next day. Shane had been napping in his underwear and Ilya's hoodie. The ringer woke him. Exhausted and not wanting whoever it was to call again, Shane picked up.

"What?" he said.

"Hello, is this Shane Hollander?"

"Yes, this is Shane." Maybe a crazy fan had gotten his number.

"Hello, Mr. Hollander. My name is Mark, I'm a paralegal from Silberman Legal Group. I'm calling in regard to the estate of Mr. Ilya Rozanov."

Shane recognized the firm—it was the one that Farah kept on retainer for both of them. But why the fuck would anyone be calling him about Ilya's estate? He had no legal bearing over it. Was this about the foundation?

"Uhm. Okay. What about it?"

"You're named the executor of the estate in Mr. Rozanov's will."

Excuse me?

Shane's entire understanding of his situation shifted.

"What? There's a will?"

There was some shuffling on the other end of the line. "Yes, there's a will. Mr. Rozanov filed it with us in… July of 2018."

That was their second summer together. That was when Ilya signed with the Cens.

Why hadn't Ilya told him?

Because it would be a hard conversation, Shane thought. Because he didn't want to worry you. Because he knew he could just tell his lawyer, and if it ever became necessary, this exact situation would play out.

"Were you not aware of the will?"

"No," Shane said. "I... he never told me."

"Interesting," the paralegal said. Shane had already forgotten his name. "Well, it's no matter. Mr. Rozanov has granted you sole inheritance and complete and sole discretion on the management and distribution of his assets. The only caveat listed is that his brother…"

There was a pause.

"Andrei?" Shane offered.

"Yes, thank you. Sorry, I couldn't find the name. Andrei Rozanov is disinherited. Ilya did not want any of his assets to end up with his brother."

Shane appreciated knowing that Ilya agreed with his attitude of don't give Andrei a fucking thing.

He supposed his mad dash back to Ottawa to take things from Ilya's house had been unnecessary after all. Ilya had taken care of things, completely unbeknownst to him.

When Shane got off the phone with the law firm, he packed up his car and drove back to Ilya's house. His own house now.

He was halfway through the drive when he realized what else this meant. He had control over Ilya's body. He could say goodbye. He could decide what would be done.

Under any other circumstances, that would've felt like hell, but right then? It brought bone-deep relief.

Donations poured in for the Irina Foundation. From a purely financial perspective, the week following the crash was the best week the foundation had ever had. Rozanov fans were doing what they could to show their support.

As the co-founder, Shane knew he needed to express his gratitude, but he couldn't be bothered to film a video or make an appearance. He asked Farah to write a statement for him and post it.

It was the best he could do.

For the week of the suspension, teams held services for their former players who had ended up on the Centaurs. The Bears had one for Ilya. Shane didn't want to watch it, but his mother told him about it afterwards.

It was nice, she'd said. Very respectful.

It fucking better be, Shane thought. Ilya had dragged that team up from nothing and led them to a Stanley Cup. He was the most incredible person to ever wear their jersey. They should've put up a gold fucking statue of him in their arena.

The captain of the team had announced that for the rest of the season, the Bears would be wearing "81" stickers on their helmets.

Shane didn't watch any of the memorials on TV, because he just couldn't. Because he knew he'd have to see Ilya's face, or his smile, or watch clips of him playing, and the sight would snag. It would rip, it would tear. It would catch on his organs like a fishhook pulled through his throat.

Ilya had been beloved. Regardless of being on the Bears or the Cens or anywhere else, Ilya was one of the greatest hockey players to ever live. He was charming, funny, and cocky. The press loved him. He'd been the captain of the team. Of course he would be getting extra attention.

There was a defenseman on the Centaurs who'd started his career with Montreal. Jake Thomas. He'd played with them for three seasons—he was sort of quiet, but Shane had liked him. He'd had a wife. She was pregnant. He was barely twenty-five. Shane knew that as captain, it would be expected of him to say something nice about Thomas. They were having a memorial for him later in the week, and Shane really should've gone.

The problem was that he couldn't. He was glued in place in Ilya's house.

Shane understood that Ilya was only one of many players who were killed in the crash. He didn't know much about Zane Boodram, but he knew that he was a better player than his career on the Centaurs would have you think, and he knew that he was one of Ilya's friends. Wyatt Hayes had been an average goalie when he played with Toronto, but he'd really come into his own on the Cens. Troy Barrett was an All-Star level player who'd been kicked off his own team for standing up for the right thing, and Shane respected that. Ilya had respected it, too. Barrett was an active player and he was gay, one of so few names in Shane and Ilya's little club. Ilya had trusted him enough to come out to him.

The names kept cycling through Shane's head. He stumbled when he remembered Luca Haas. God, he'd been a baby. Shane thought about all the stories Ilya had told, how Haas had idolized him, how he'd maybe had a crush on him. He couldn't even legally drink on road trips to the US yet.

Those were just players. There were coaches on the plane, too. Ilya told Shane that Wiebe was the best coach he'd ever had. The team doctor, who had always made Ilya feel so comfortable. Massage therapists and the nutritionist and personal trainers. Administrative staff. People who didn't get the star factor or the paycheck of the players, but were expected to put in just as many hours. Who spent just as much time away from their families.

Fifty-two passengers. A pilot, a co-pilot. Three flight attendants.

Shane knew he should've felt terrible for all of them, and he did. Truly. It was the worst thing that had ever happened in the NHL, no doubt, no question.

But God, he'd let them all die a thousand times over if it meant he could keep his Ilya.

Later in the week, the funeral home called. They told him that Ilya's body had been recovered, mostly whole. They told him that he should consider his options.

They told him it would be a little while, because the authorities in Georgia were conducting autopsies on all the victims of the crash.

Shane thanked them, hung up, and ignored the emptiness that was settling within him. It was growing by the day.

The last day of the suspension, the Centaurs held a memorial in their arena. Fans packed the stands in a way they almost never did for the actual games, from what Shane heard. People cried. People chanted players' names. The clips that had been put together for each member of the team were supposedly beautiful.

Shane purposefully slept through it.

He made the mistake of checking his phone after. A clip from Ilya's memorial video had gone somewhat viral. People thought it was funny.

It was short. So very short. Less than fifteen seconds.

It was from a Centaurs-Voyageurs game. Shane, shouldering Ilya as hard as he could into the glass during play, because Ilya had been pissing him off. Ilya, smiling like the sun in response, clearly enjoying what was meant to be a rebuke. Shane, rolling his eyes and skating away.

Ilya, watching him go. Gazing. Eyes soft as he peeled himself off of the glass.

Shane watched the clip on loop for almost half an hour. He ignored the way it made his chest ache.

A week later, Shane found himself sitting at Ilya's dining table, not really doing anything, when his phone rang. He didn't recognize the number, so he almost didn't pick up, but he decided to just get it over with, whatever it was.

"Hello, good afternoon. Is this Shane Hollander?"

Shane was surprised—the other end of the line was a real person, and they knew his name. This must have been actually important.

"Yes, I'm Shane."

"Good. Hi. My name is Nadia, I'm a mortuary assistant at Aguilar Funeral Cooperative. I think we've spoken before. I was calling to let you know that we just received Mr. Rozanov's remains from the medical examiner's office in Georgia. Our funeral director, Christina, wanted to know if you'd thought about cremation, burial… any of your options?"

It took a moment for Shane to process that. The autopsy was finished. Ilya's body had arrived from the United States.

Shane had no clue what sort of thing Ilya would've wanted. The will didn't mention it—it was a brief document that only said that Shane would inherit if anything happened to Ilya. They weren't even thirty, they didn't talk about these kinds of things. Neither of them truly believed they were going to die anytime soon. Not when the future still stretched out in front of them, endless and beautiful, like the lake and the summer sunset on the horizon in July.

The force of gravity didn't care that they'd had plans.

Shane had done research. He'd googled Russian funeral customs and found that they were far more religious than Ilya had ever been. He wondered if the websites were based on some old-fashioned form of religion that few modern Russians believed in. It didn't really matter. He didn't think Ilya would've liked them, and that was the end of it.

He'd considered looking into burial plots in Moscow. Maybe Ilya would want to be there, with his parents. With his mother, who he adored. He knew Ilya hadn't liked his father, but he must've felt some form of care or obligation towards him, at least, because he'd gone back to tend to his funeral, right?

Shane decided against that, too. Maybe it was selfish, but if they'd gotten the life they'd wanted, he doubted Ilya would've asked to be anywhere but at Shane's side. Shane wanted him near, and so he'd stay near.

Shane settled on cremation, after a while. Maybe he could spread the ashes at the cottage. Ilya would've liked that, he thought.

Not yet, though. Shane needed to see him, first. He needed to say goodbye. There was no relief for him, but at least Ilya's body had been found. At least Shane could tell him he loved him one last time.

"Uhm… yeah. We want to do cremation," he said. "But I need to see him first."

Shane heard papers shuffle on the other end of the line—perhaps Nadia was checking her notes. "I'm so sorry, but Christina has advised that there not be any viewings for him. I can put you in contact with her directly, if you'd like?"

Shane felt like he was going to vomit.

He couldn't accept the "no", even if he understood that the funeral director, ultimately, had his best interest in mind. He ended the call quickly after they gave their recommendation that he not come in, collapsed onto his stomach on the couch, and screamed into a pillow.

What the fuck did that mean, Ilya was unviewable? They said he was found strapped in his seat. Shane knew there would probably be something wrong—he was in a plane crash, for fuck's sake—but he stupidly thought that because Ilya was found in one piece, he'd be okay to see.

Oh god. How bad had it been? How much torture had Ilya suffered through?

Shane called back an hour later. He apologized for ending the call and asked to speak to the funeral director firsthand.

Christina handled it as delicately as she could without lying to Shane. There were some fractures. There were some lacerations, including a large one on the cheek. There was some burning. There was some discoloration.

It was Shane's choice, she emphasized. She told him that several times. But she'd been doing this a long time, and if she advised that a family not come see their loved one, it was for a reason.

Shane had been crying, then. Burns. Lacerations. Fractures. It must've hurt. It must've hurt so bad.

Ilya died terrified, and screaming, and in pain. And thinking of Shane.

Wetly, he asked if maybe there was a compromise. Something, anything. He needed to be with him. He couldn't have the last time he saw Ilya be that godawful fight on Boxing Day.

Christina told him there was something they could do in these situations. She explained that they'd cover most of his body with a sheet, but could at least let him be present. They'd leave a hand free, and Shane could hold it. She asked if that sounded comforting.

Shane immediately agreed. He would come in the next morning.

The funeral home was quiet. Shane supposed that made sense, it was a somber place, and besides, it was empty. Christina had assured him that she'd be the only person there.

His mother was holding his hand tightly when they came in. He hadn't asked her to, but he appreciated it. The pressure was grounding.

A little bell rang at the door when they came in, and a woman came through a nearby door. She met them at the entrance and extended her hand.

"Hi, I'm Christina Aguilar. I'm so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances."

"I am too," Shane said, and left it at that.

Christina was a tall woman who understood the weight of what she did and carried herself with appropriate seriousness. Still, she gave Shane a small smile as they shook hands. She gestured towards his parents.

"And these are…?"

"My mom and dad."

"Ah. Well, we have a lounge for families where you can sit and relax and have some private space, if you need to. I'll show you where he is. You can stay as long as you need to, there's no rush."

"He's not going anywhere," Shane said dryly. Christina, clearly unsure whether or not it was meant to be a joke, just nodded. Her heels clicked against the floor as she led them back, and the Hollanders followed. She continued to speak as they walked.

"I'm so sorry I had to recommend against a full viewing. I hope you're still able to find the closure you need," she said. "I have to tell you, there is some discoloration of the arm. Nothing too severe, but it can be… startling, if you're not used to seeing people after death. It's caused by blood settling within the body."

Shane took a deep breath. That was fine. He could deal with that. As long as it was Ilya's arm, he didn't care.

Christina stopped suddenly in the hallway, where she turned to face the three of them. "This door to your left is the lounge. Like I said, it's a quiet space where you can sit and relax and process, if you feel the need. There's a coffee machine, tea, snacks. Some people find it nice to gather their thoughts before and after the viewing there."

She gestured to the other door. "To the right is the preparation room. It's not as cold as our storage, but it's still rather frigid. Your coats should be more than enough to keep you warm, though. It is an active workspace, so we ask that you don't touch any of the equipment or anything like that."

Shane could hear her, but he wasn't really listening. His brain was only just now catching up to the fact that he was about to look at his dead boyfriend's body.

"It can be distressing for some people. If you have any difficulties with the viewing or need to take breaks, you can always head back into the lounge. That door we just passed—" she pointed "—is my office. That's where I'll be to give you some privacy, but if you need anything for any reason, just come let me know. I'll leave the door open. When you're finished, I have some personal effects to give you that were recovered from the scene."

Mom nodded, which was nice, because taking the lead on this was getting exhausting. Shane's mind stuttered over the words personal effects. What did that mean?

He'd have to figure it out later. Shane ignored the lounge door entirely and turned right. There was a sign next to the door. Preparation room two.

Mom had been holding on to his arm this entire time, but now she let go. "Do you want to go in alone?"

The thought terrified him. Please, no. I need help.

Shane turned to her. "I think I want you to come in with me. Both of you. If that's okay."

Mom nodded. "Of course." She wrapped her arms around him. Shane thought that maybe he could pull the strength out of her body, if he hugged her tightly enough.

Shane looked over his mother's shoulder as they hugged, gaze finding his father. His dad's expression was miserable—slumped and tired. They were in mourning too, Shane realized. They'd loved Ilya like he was their own.

Dad looked tired. Shane was tired, too.

Once Shane let go of his mother, there was no more stalling. He shut his eyes when he opened the door. He took one step into the room, then two. He heard his parents shuffle in behind him, then the door shut.

The room smelled like disinfectant, and the half-concealed beginnings of rot. It had been almost two weeks, after all.

He kept his eyes shut. Shane wasn't a brave man, and he knew that when he opened them, some last little bit of light inside him would finally die. The last of his innards would be scooped out, and he'd be nothing but skin and bone and ache.

Shane took a single long, shaky breath. His mother had a hand on the middle of his back.

"You don't have to do this," she said to him. "Not if you don't want to."

Shane's eyes stayed shut.

"I do want to. I want—I want to tell him goodbye. I'm just scared."

"It doesn't look bad," Mom said.

Slightly bolstered by his mother's reassurance, Shane let his eyes open halfway, so he was looking out from behind his eyelashes.

Ilya looked… fine, he supposed. Mostly covered, in a thick white cloth. Shane could've identified him just by his outline, though. There was the curve of his shoulder, where Shane had tucked his face more times than he could count. The flat plane of his chest, the thick curve of his thighs.

Below his left knee, the cloth dropped unnaturally. Shane tried not to think about that. He tried not to think about what was under the cloth at all.

He opened his eyes fully. The final piece of the puzzle slotted into place—the arm, the hand, was undeniably Ilya's. Shane could've recognized him just by his fingers, surprisingly long and delicate despite Ilya's solid frame. Shane could've recognized him by the whirls of skin over his knuckles, where he'd pressed his lips a thousand times. He could've recognized him by the shape of the muscles under his arms, the way they sat against his bones, even sunken as they were, now. That arm had held him, had wrapped around his waist, had made him feel safe on days when nothing else could.

Even had Shane been unable to recognize Ilya's arm, it was his left. He was face-to-face with the loon tattoo.

He'd thought of it as a brand, once. Mine. But what was the point of a brand that no one else could recognize? God, he wished he'd had the courage to love Ilya publicly. He wished it all the time. It was all he could think about. He'd had something this beautiful, completely his, and he'd kept it a dirty little secret for a decade.

Shane had been expecting to break when he saw Ilya's body, and maybe he would later, but in the moment he felt an unexpected surge of affection. That was his soulmate. The love of his fucking life. Dead or alive, he was all Shane wanted. Shane wasn't going to waste this last moment wallowing in self-pity. He was going to make sure that Ilya knew just how much he was loved before he sent him away.

Resolve solid, Shane took a step towards the table and noticed that a chair had been set out next to Ilya's hand. He sat in it and stared, almost too scared to touch.

The discoloration the funeral director had warned him about was present, but it wasn't as bad as she'd made it sound. Most of his skin was pale, almost gray. It faded into a blueish-purple in his hand. The tips of his fingers were nearly black.

Ilya had never looked so delicate. What if, when Shane took his hand, his fingers pushed right through the skin?

They wouldn't let me do this if he was in that poor of a state.

Shane remembered that his parents were in the room. His mother was standing next to him, her hand on Ilya's belly. She was crying. Shane remembered all the conversations he'd had with her—he remembered her asking for advice. How to be the maternal figure Ilya needed, while knowing that she would never be a replacement for his mother.

She'd loved him. Shane had known it somewhere in the back of his head, but the silent shake of her shoulders confirmed it. Dad was rubbing her back, trying to be soothing, but there was nothing to be done. His cheeks were wet, too.

Why wasn't Shane crying? This was his worst fucking nightmare, laid out on a table before him. Shouldn't he be screaming? Breaking down?

That wasn’t the emotion Shane was feeling. He was feeling… closure. That was Ilya. That was his other half, cold and lifeless, and it was real. This wasn’t some nightmare he’d made up, this wasn’t some strange hoax. The proof was right in front of him.

When Shane was a child, one of his close friends had two dogs. A bonded pair, she’d said. A male and a female. When one died, her family let the other one see its body, and sniff at it, so that the dog would understand that its friend was gone.

Ilya and Shane weren’t dogs, and they certainly weren’t friends, but they were a bonded pair. And just like that little dog, Shane needed to see Ilya like this to truly understand.

Shane swallowed and turned his focus back to Ilya. He gathered up the little courage he had and reached up. He wasn't brave enough to interlace their fingers yet, so instead he rested his palm on the back of Ilya's hand.

The cold was a shock. Shane had known dead bodies were cold, obviously, but Ilya felt like ice. His stomach turned when he remembered that Ilya had probably been taken out of refrigerated storage within the last hour.

A while passed like that. Shane's hand on top of Ilya's, Shane's parents standing next to him.

Shane looked up at his parents. His mother, no longer crying, eyes shut, leaning back into his father. His father, staring at Ilya with a look so vacant it nearly scared Shane.

"Mom?"

She didn't react. His voice was too quiet. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"Mom? Dad? Can I maybe be alone with him for a little while?"

Mom opened her eyes. "Of course. Let me just—"

She wiped her face with some tissues, tossed them in the small plastic bin by the door, and held it open for Shane's father.

He ran a hand through his son's hair. It made Shane feel like a small child again.

"We'll be right outside if you need us," Dad said. "Take however much time you need."

The door clicked shut, and then it was just the two of them. Shane looked at their hands.

"Hi," he said. It felt stupid to talk out loud, but what else was he meant to do? He wasn't sure he believed in an afterlife the way Ilya did, but if Ilya was somewhere listening to him, he needed to speak to be heard. "I missed you. It's been so long since I last saw you."

More than three weeks, Shane thought.

"And the last time I saw you, it was… I'm so sorry, Ilya. That fight was so fucking stupid. I can't believe what I said to you. I didn't mean it. I'm an ass."

There. That was one thing he wanted to say, said. Shane gathered his courage and finally picked up Ilya's hand, and the skin didn't break. It was heavy, though. Shane supposed he'd never picked it up as dead weight before.

He put Ilya's hand against his own cheek, ignoring the cold. The tears came, running against Ilya's fingers, and Shane ignored them, too.

"I guess I wanted to tell you some things. Before you go."

He turned his head up and pressed his lips to Ilya's fingertips. Over and over, on each finger, and then his palm. It felt so different from when Ilya was alive, because Ilya wasn't moving with him. He'd never before realized how much of a two-person activity it was to simply give affection.

"I love you." Kiss. "I love you so much. You are the best thing in my life, too, and you always will be. Always. You were the best years of my life. It doesn't even come close. I… god, you're incredible. What we have is—it's beyond my wildest dreams, Ilya. I never thought I'd experience a love like what you gave me. Thank you. Truly."

Shane wiped his eyes with his thumb. He set Ilya's hand down and interlaced their fingers.

"I feel so lucky to just be in your orbit, because you are the most incredible man I've ever known. You could've chosen anyone, and I was objectively the least reasonable option by every possible measurement, and you still chose me. You still loved me back. I don't know what made me so fucking lucky, but I know that it was worth it. Even knowing that it ends like this, even if I couldn't change it, I would choose you a thousand times over, because having you four summers is worth spending the rest of my life grieving, a thousand times over. You're everything."

Ilya wouldn't like him saying that he'd be grieving the rest of his life, but surely he'd know it was true. Ilya had first-hand experience with grief. He knew it didn't really go anywhere.

"You make me feel like I belong. You make me feel so loved, and s-so cherished, and so safe. I love you so much. God, and you love me. I know you can't say it right now, but know that I know it very well. You're such a sap. Those messages were so sweet."

His voice cracked on the last word. The crying was getting worse now—his breath coming in shudders, his sentences difficult to get out. Shane stopped trying to wipe his eyes.

"I know it doesn't matter now, but I wish we'd gotten married. I wish we'd just quit and hidden at the cottage together forever. Fuck, I'd even take being your WAG in Boston," Shane said. "I'd wear that ugly-ass jersey for you. A-anything, if it would let me—"

If it would let me have you back, Shane wanted to say, and couldn't get out.

"We should've gotten married. We should've had dogs and kids and a cat. I will go the rest of my life loving you. I promise you that. All I want to do is sleep, because when I'm asleep, this isn't real. When I'm asleep, you're still alive."

Shane let go of Ilya's hand and dug his palms into his eyes. He sniffled, a disgusting, wet sound. He was scared to touch him now, with his wet fingers. He didn't want to mess Ilya up.

When he uncovered his eyes, he noticed the box of tissues on the counter. He'd forgotten about it. He stood up and cleaned himself up a little, then sat back down. With a shaky hand, he reached out and ran his thumb over the loon tattoo.

"Sorry," Shane said softly. "I'm a mess. Don't blame me, you would be too."

After a while, Shane took his hand again. He rested his forehead against their interwoven fingers.

"I love you so much," he said. He kissed the back of Ilya's hand.

Shane repeated it in Russian. Then again. Then back to English, speaking it into Ilya's skin. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Shane wasn't sure how many times he repeated it, or how long he spent doing so. He had a lifetime's worth of adoration to express in such a short time.

He never reached a point where he felt like he'd said everything he needed to say. He had far too complex a maelstrom of internal emotions for that. He just reached a point where he felt… finished. Too emotionally exhausted to go on, and all his most important points said.

"I hope that wherever you are, it's really nice," Shane said. "I hope you're resting. I can't wait to see you again. I love you."

When Shane set Ilya's hand back on the table for the last time, it was just as cold as when he'd first picked it up. He stood up and made for the door.

On impulse, Shane turned around. He couldn't see Ilya's face, but he couldn't ignore him, either. He walked back and stood at the top edge of the table. He put his hands on Ilya's cheeks, bent down, and kissed Ilya's forehead through the cloth as gently as he could.

There. That was better. One kiss. One goodbye. Hopefully it would be enough to sustain Ilya until Shane joined him.

Shane emerged from the room feeling permanently changed. He went into the lounge and found his parents sitting together on the couch. They both rose and walked over when he came in, and they both began fretting over him, but Shane barely noticed. They were concerned, it was obvious, but there was nothing they could do.

Shane would never be quite right again.

The "personal effects" ended up being a single item. Ilya's clothing was destroyed, his bag unrecovered. There was exactly one object they could give Shane.

Shane wasn't religious at all, and the gold didn't look nearly as good against his skin as it had Ilya's, but the second the cross was placed into his hands, he put it on. His hands were shaking, so his mother had to help. She centered it on his chest when she was finished.

He'd never take it off again. Ilya had worn it to honor someone he loved. Shane would do the same.

Shane went back to his parents' house after the viewing. He was going to spend the night.

He wasn't sure how he ended up in the bathroom, or why he was staring at himself in the mirror. But he was, and his gaze kept catching on his hair.

He'd come to like it long, but initially, he only ever kept it there because Ilya liked it. The strands, barely brushing his shoulders, were a reminder of Ilya's affection. His devotion. How much he'd adored Shane. He was always touching Shane's hair, always running his fingers through it or playing with the ends.

Now, his fingertips were black. Now, he was on his back in cold storage. Soon enough, his body would be incinerated.

But Shane still had long hair.

A clattering noise echoed off the bathroom tile as Shane pulled open one of the bathroom counter's drawers—more accurately, he ripped it open. His mother kept a pair of hair shears there, to cut her own hair, and Shane's when he'd been a child.

This long hair had to go. Shane couldn't bear to see his own fucking reflection, to feel it against his shoulders. He grabbed a clump and chopped at it unevenly. The exacts didn't matter, he was cutting at weird angles and the lengths weren't quite the same, but it didn't fucking matter, because the hair was hitting the ground, and Ilya's fingertips had been black, and Shane hadn't even been able to look at his face.

The hair had to go. Shane couldn't get Ilya's devotion off of him, no matter how many times he showered, no matter how hard he scrubbed. He couldn't sand off his freckles.

But he could cut his hair.

It was only when he'd made it halfway around his head that he'd realized what he'd done. A wave of nausea rose in his throat.

"Fuck," Shane said, and it was a miserable noise. He repeated it, over and over. It was probably loud enough for his parents to hear, but he didn't care. He didn't care about much, nowadays. The scissors clattered against the floor. Shane ran his hands through his ruined hair—the cut was crooked, and jagged, and blunt. He hadn't been in his right mind when he'd cut it.

He still wasn't.

And god, it didn't even fucking work. There was nothing he could do to save himself. Every time he saw his own body, his own face, he'd be reminded how Ilya had loved him, once. Every time he looked in the mirror, he'd see a trail of Ilya's kisses along his neck. Cutting his hair didn't matter, and it didn't help. Ilya hadn't loved him for his hair or his freckles or anything else, Ilya had loved him for him.

Now he'd ruined it, and for what?

That was how his mother found him: leaning against the counter, crying into his hands, with half the job done.

"Oh, Shane," she said, and then he was wrapped up in his mother's arms, and that had once been enough to make any problem feel small, but now it felt absolutely helpless, a sheet of paper against a summer storm.

Shane felt a tickling sensation at the back of his neck. His mother was touching his hair, no doubt inspected it out of confusion. "Shane, honey, what did you do?"

He'd had his face, wet with tears, hidden behind his palms, but he finally risked peeking out from behind them.

"I don't know. I just… freaked out, I guess. I only kept it long because he liked it, and every time I see it it's like…"

Shane trailed off.

"That's okay," his mother said, her voice impossibly gentle. "That's alright." She bent down and grabbed the scissors. "Come sit with me in the living room, and I'll fix it for you, okay?"

Five minutes later, Shane was sitting in a dining chair in his childhood home, his mother about to cut his hair. He felt like he was ten again.

"How short do you want it?" Mom asked.

"The way it was, like, a year ago."

"Okay."

It was perfectly silent in the house, other than the occasional snipping of the scissors. His dad was picking up takeout for dinner, so it was just the two of them. The first moment the air hit his neck, he was almost startled. What a novel sensation. Shane didn't feel much of anything while his mother cut his hair. He didn't think about anything, either.

Shane didn't notice until she was done that his cheeks were wet again. She told him to go take a look, so he wiped his eyes and went back to the bathroom.

There. Better. That was the version of himself he was used to.

"Shane?"

Mom had followed him. Shane met his mother's eyes in the mirror. His own were still red-rimmed and wet.

"It looks good," he said.

"Good." She put her hand on his shoulder, having to reach up to do so. "Do you think it might be time to talk to someone? A professional? Someone trained to help?"

Shane's mind immediately snapped back to when he'd asked Ilya almost the same thing.

"I'll think about it," Shane replied.

Shane stopped exercising.

He paced around the house, sometimes. He fidgeted and bounced his legs. He picked at his cuticles until they bled.

Actual exercise, though? No. Not a chance.

He knew, logically, that it used to be one of the driving rhythms of his life. That it would be a good thing to keep up. Since he was fourteen years old, he'd been starting his day with a ten kilometer run. He loved the way it felt as his heart pumped blood through his body, and the rush that came with it. He loved the burning in his legs and his lungs.

He loved competing with Ilya about it. Loved how they'd laugh and overtake each other as they sprinted down the running paths near the cottage. Hated how Ilya would win, even though he smoked.

He loved lifting weights with Ilya. Loved how his thighs looked when they did leg presses. Hated how Ilya always turned it into a sex game, but no, he actually loved that too.

Maybe it was the required effort, maybe it was the memories. Either way, it didn't matter. Shane had nothing to be in shape for anymore. He didn't need his body to be in working condition for hockey. He damn sure didn't need to look good for a partner.

Not that it would've mattered. Ilya would've treasured him regardless of how he looked. Ilya adored him.

Ilya had adored him.

The second call came less than a week after the viewing.

Ilya had been cremated. Shane could come pick up the ashes, but if it was too difficult, would he like to select someone else to collect them for him? He would just have to submit their name and phone number.

No. Shane would do this himself.

It was a smooth process. He signed some forms. He received the death certificate. Then he was brought a simple white cardboard box. He was told that if he ever wanted to put the ashes in a different container or separate them, he was more than welcome to bring them back and have it done for him. Some people found physically handling the remains to be traumatic.

It was heavier than Shane expected. He popped open the box and looked inside. There was another one inside—solid black plastic— and Shane assumed the bag of ashes inside that. He hadn't picked an urn, that felt far too final. That felt like something for ninety-year-olds. Besides, he was going to spread the ashes at the cottage.

Eventually.

On top of the black box, though, was a small blue drawstring bag. Shane suddenly remembered that he'd asked the funeral home to cut a little of Ilya's hair for him.

He couldn't quite bear the thought of looking at it yet, but it brought some peace to know it was there.

The box sat in the passenger seat of his Jeep Cherokee, buckled in. Just like Ilya himself used to. Shane found it morbidly funny.

When he got back to Ilya's house, he carried the box inside. He took the plastic container out and set it on Ilya's dining table.

Shane sat across from it, and he stared.

Six foot three. Two hundred thirty pounds. That wild mane of bronze hair, large hands, his skin always so hot. Soft red lips, that grin that Shane would spend the rest of his life aching for. Impossibly long legs, a narrow waist. Eyes that, when turned on Shane, made him feel like Ilya could see straight through him.

All of it, reduced to nothing. Reduced to one. Fucking. Box.

Shane bolted up, the chair screeching against the floor. He took the ashes and the bag and set them on a bookshelf in Ilya's living room. There. That would do.

For now.

There wasn't a funeral.

There wasn't a celebration of life, either, or a service, or anything else people would put together when their loved ones died. Ilya had no family, other than Shane and his parents. Ilya's friends were his teammates and their families, and Shane didn't want to drag those grieving wives and kids out for yet another memorial.

He couldn't have played his part, anyway. He wouldn't have been able to pretend that he and Ilya had a tenuous friendship. That he was taking care of these things because he was a good person, and because he was the closest connection a lonely man in a foreign country had. That Ilya wasn't everything to him.

The group services would have to do.

At the end of January, the Centaurs officially announced they'd be canceling the rest of their season.

It had been expected. The NHL had a disaster plan in place so teams in this situation could carry on, but the weight of the tragedy was too great. It would've been insensitive, repulsive even, to put another group of players in Cens jerseys before October.

Logistics were whispered about. Shane heard of it through J.J. and Hayden. Over the summer, a rehabilitation draft would take place. The Centaurs would draft fifteen players from other teams, then fill the rest of their roster with their AHL contracts. Each club got to protect ten skaters and one goalie, but otherwise, anyone was up for grabs.

Shane wondered if he'd make Montreal's protected list, or if they'd have finally cut him loose by then. If they'd have realized exactly how destroyed he was.

Shane made exactly one attempt to return to the Voyageurs.

It was one of the last days of January, or maybe the first days of February. He couldn't quite remember. After the league-wide suspension ended, Shane called Coach Theriault and informed him flatly that he needed more time.

Of course, Theriault had said. Shane had a friend on the Centaurs. He could take an extra few days.

Shane took an extra two weeks. Theriault was furious. Shane didn't care.

If Shane was honest with himself, hockey no longer held any appeal. The thought of it didn't spark the drive in him it once had, or even the excitement. It sounded just as bland as the rest of his existence.

That drive had been Shane's defining characteristic for as long as he could remember, and it had died with Ilya. The thought should've scared him, but he was too apathetic. More proof that Shane would never be himself again, he figured.

Still, he had a contract, and everything he read online said it was important to return to your normal activities. That was how healing began, apparently. Besides, Shane could use the distraction. Ilya had used hockey to escape the pain of his mother's death, and now the cycle continued. He couldn't fix his ruined life, but he could skate.

Irina, Ilya, me. The three of them, linked together in the worst possible chain of shared experience. Linked by the cross hanging from Shane's neck.

Shane made the drive from Ottawa instead of going back to Montreal the night before. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving Ilya's house. When he finally reported for practice, he barely noticed the strange, slightly disgusted looks he was getting from his teammates. He was mostly just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

Dressing in felt familiar. Instinctual. Maybe this would be good for him. Something to think about other than him.

Shane stepped on the ice for the first time in weeks, and it felt good. He couldn't remember the last time he'd taken such a long break away from hockey. It must've been years, he realized. Decades.

He picked up some speed as he curved around a corner for the tenth time, but didn't overdo it. It was just warm up laps, Shane reminded himself. Just skating.

Ilya had been such a graceful skater.

Ilya's blades would never cut a track again. Shane would never play against Ilya again. Ilya would never score another goal or showboat as he skated or give a post-game interview or smile on a Jumbotron. That was it. It was over for them.

He'd loved hockey just as much as Shane had. They'd been in lockstep their entire career—from the very moment they began, neither one of them was meant to sit alone at the top. It was always them. Always together. From before they were even drafted.

Was Shane really ready to be there alone? Was it even worth playing, if Ilya wasn't there to see it?

He thought he'd be able to do it. He was clearly wrong. His stomach dropped. He couldn't breathe. He wanted to go home.

When he turned around to go back into the locker room, he heard someone call behind him, but he ignored them. He sat on the bench and immediately started to dress out again.

Someone ended up being Hayden. Hayden, who stood over him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Shane, buddy, what's going on? I thought you wanted to try and come back."

"I did," Shane said. "But I can't. I can't do this." He took off his practice jersey.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

How the fuck did Hayden not get it?

"I mean I can't."

Hayden shifted, bracketing Shane against his locker. "Hey, I know it's hard, but—"

Shane's head snapped up. "Hard? Hard?!" His own anger surprised him. He sounded unhinged. "You're going home to your wife and kids when this practice is over. Don't you dare fucking talk to me about hard."

His voice was loud. Had someone else been anywhere nearby, they'd overhear, and the context would make that statement sound strange. Shane didn't care. Let everyone on the planet figure it out. At least then Ilya would get what he'd been asking for.

Hayden's eyes were wide. He backed off. "I'm sorry, man. I was just trying to…"

Hayden let the sentence trail away. Shane shut his eyes and sighed, running his hands over his face.

"I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to snap. But I really…"

Shane shook his head, unable to verbalize how he felt. "I'm going home."

"Back to your apartment?"

"Back to Ottawa," Shane said. Once he was in his street clothes, he grabbed his bag and left.

It took until mid-February for Shane to finally take his mother's advice and book an appointment with a therapist.

Clara was a kind looking woman, in her early fifties with an understanding smile, her hair coming in long braids down her back. Shane had been intimidated by her when she called to book their first appointment—god, how did Ilya do this?—but her voice had been so warm that Shane's fear melted.

Mostly, anyway.

Not at all, but he was trying to pretend it had.

The waiting room was simple and empty. Shane had been worried about being recognized when the previous patient left, so Clara had booked him a time slot immediately following her lunch break. When she came out to collect him, Shane followed. His chest was tight.

Clara's office was small. There was a window off to the left side of the room with heavy curtains pulled shut in front of it. On one side of the room was a dark blue couch, on the other was a red armchair and a hot pink beanbag. He remembered that Clara's website mentioned that teenagers were one of her specialties. He wondered if that was who the beanbag was meant for.

Shane turned to her.

"Uhm, where should I sit?"

"Wherever you'd like."

Shane picked the armchair. The couch seemed too… big. He didn't like it, and he didn't really want the temptation to lay down. He sat primly in the armchair, back straight and arms rigid. Clara, unphased, sat across from him on the couch.

Here he was. At his very first therapy session, with his brand-new therapist. The Psychology Today page he'd read told him that maybe he wouldn't click with the very first one. He hoped he didn't, because it would be an excuse to stop going.

Clara crossed her legs and set a notepad in her lap.

"Hi, Shane. How are you doing today?"

Shane had a question, one he'd been too nervous to ask on the phone. He blurted it out now.

"Do you already know who I am?"

Clara smiled at him, almost amused. Shane found it endearing. "I've heard of you before, yes. It's impossible to live in this town and not know of Shane Hollander. There's no preconceived notions coming into this session, though. I'm here to get to know you, Shane. Not whatever image has been created for you."

Shane didn't want to be known. Letting Ilya in had taken everything he'd had, and look where that ended up. He wasn't brave enough to do it twice.

He forced the issue. He reminded himself that he'd asked Ilya to do this when he was suffering with problems that were, frankly, much less severe than Shane's own. At least, Shane hoped that Ilya hadn't been in this much pain. If he was, Shane was shocked Ilya managed to survive as long as he had.

Shane reminded himself that Ilya would want him to at least try. Leaving therapy thirty seconds into the first session wasn't trying.

"What made you decide to book this appointment today?" she asked.

Shane's answer came quickly. "My boyfriend died in January."

Clara wrote something down, nodding slowly. "Okay. Your boyfriend died in January. That's extremely recent."

Shane huffed. "I know. A month. I feel like I've aged ten years."

"That's normal," Clara said. "Grief has a way of… eating away at the rest of your life. Becoming your single focus. Especially for the first few months. It's a very heavy weight to bear, even for a short time. It can feel like it's been going on for much longer or much shorter than it actually has."

Eating away at the rest of your life, Shane thought. What a funny phrase. There was no rest of his life—memory was all he was, now. He was the discarded half of a life that never came to be.

"Would you like to talk about your boyfriend? Or perhaps we can start by talking about how your grief is affecting you right now? Maybe something else entirely?"

Shane considered the options presented to him. The second one sounded easiest, because his days were more simple and boring than they'd ever been. He spent most of his time in bed or pattering around Ilya's house, too exhausted to move.

The first was the wound that needed to be shredded open, though. Perhaps if he got that one done, he'd be brave enough to actually book a second session.

He made his choice. If he was going to do this, he was going to give it a proper try.

"We can talk about my boyfriend," Shane said. "He—uhm." Shane, stupidly, hadn't actually considered what to say for this part. Would he try to preserve their privacy? Would he just come right out with it? Shane didn't want to out Ilya.

A ridiculous sentiment. Ilya wanted to be out. He'd wanted to love Shane publicly. Besides, Ilya had told his therapist, and Shane was so tired of hiding.

"He was a hockey player, too," Shane said. He gathered a little courage before he continued. "Ilya Rozanov. He… he was the love of my life. He was funny, he was romantic, he was gorgeous, he was so fucking talented, and he was…"

Tears tore at Shane's eyes. He couldn't keep talking about all the things he loved Ilya for, it would rip him apart. He forced his voice to redirect.

"He died in the Centaurs plane crash."

What a stupid fucking thing to say, Shane thought. She knows. Everyone knows that.

"Your relationship wasn't public knowledge," Clara commented.

"Of course not," Shane said. He almost laughed at how ludicrous a statement it was. "We were a secret. For a lot of reasons, that all look really stupid in hindsight."

"Why do you say that?"

Shane's misery settled in a little further. He didn't want to choke these thoughts out. They only made him feel shame, nowadays.

"I… I was scared. I mean, we both were. For me, it was my career. It would've been over the second we got outed. The problems were bigger for him. His career also would've been over, but he's not a Canadian citizen, he's Russian, and he was afraid he'd somehow get sent back to Russia if he got outed. I wouldn't have let that happen, I would've just married him, but he was still worried about it. Russia's not great for openly gay people. Well, he's bisexual, but I don't think they would've cared about the difference."

"That doesn't sound like a bad reason to me," Clara said. "It sounds like you were both worried for your safety."

"It was a very bad reason," Shane said firmly. "We put up with everything because we thought we had a future, but we didn't. We had less than four years together, and we wasted them being in hiding and being apart all the time. I wasted them. He was practically begging me to meet him halfway. I made him miserable. I think he could've taken the distance if we were allowed to be a couple openly, or the secrecy if we spent more time together. Dealing with both was killing him inside, and—and I was such a bad boyfriend that I didn't even see it. Not until he spelled it out."

Shane swallowed down the lump in his throat.

"Do you think Ilya would call you a bad boyfriend?"

"No, but… he was biased," Shane said. "He should've stopped putting up with what I was putting him through a long time ago."

Shane didn't remember much of the rest of winter, or any of spring.

He knew he spent most of his time laying in Ilya's bed. He slept at all hours of day and night, because when he was asleep, it wasn't real. He could pretend it wasn't real. When he couldn't sleep, he would lay on his back or his side and stare at the wall or the ceiling.

Sometimes, he would go downstairs and wander into Ilya's living room. He would try not to think about their last interaction here. Instead, he'd remember every time Ilya had pinned him down on that couch and kissed him breathless.

Then he'd try not to think about that, either. The good memories cut sharper.

He filled the hours as much as he could. He would sit on Ilya's couch and watch TV, or play Ilya's video games. It wasn't fun anymore, but it made the time pass, and that was all he cared about now. He tried his best to read, but found that as soon as he set a book down, he'd forget the entirety of its contents.

Groceries were delivered, or full meals. Shane barely left the house, other than for his twice-weekly appointments with Clara. There was one exception. On sunny days, he'd sometimes go on walks through Ilya's neighborhood. He'd watch the rays of sunshine filter through the trees and reflect off the snow on the ground. He'd wonder if maybe this would've been their regular route, had they gotten that dog. Had Shane ever shared this home with him.

Some days, when he was feeling particularly masochistic, he'd look through his camera roll. His pictures were organized carefully. He'd always sorted things into albums almost immediately.

At the very bottom of the list, just before his "Recently Deleted" folder, was a locked photo album with a lily pad emoji for its title.

He didn't take as many pictures of Ilya as he should've. He knew Ilya had far more photos of Shane on his phone than vice versa, but it always made Shane nervous. He was always worried someone was somehow going to hack into their phones, find the pictures, and boom—the secret would be out. The thought of having no photos of Ilya felt equally unbearable, though, so they lived in this one album. Maybe thirty, total. Only his favorites.

Scrolling through the pictures always cut him up inside. He usually didn't make it too far. Often, he stopped at the very first one—Ilya taking a selfie on Shane's phone, Shane kissing his cheek, eyes shut. Ilya was smiling so big, his eyes crinkled up at the corners. His happiness came through the screen.

That smile. It stuck with Shane so completely, more than Ilya's hands or his hair or even his laugh. The millions of times he'd shot it at Shane from across a room or a rink, a discreet acknowledgment of what they were to each other. The way he played it up because he knew how much Shane loved it. How unguarded it became when they were safe together in the cottage.

That picture, first in the album, always ruined Shane. Ilya, overwhelmingly happy just to receive Shane's affection. He'd look at it, his eyes would burn, and he'd fall into another one of his sobbing spells.

Just another day, lately.

The press asked the management of the Voyageurs where Shane Hollander had gone. Why wasn't he playing anymore?

Hollander was on a sabbatical, they were told. Personal reasons.

Outside of a gas station on a slushy, snowy day, someone got a picture of Shane where Ilya's crucifix was clearly visible against his chest. It trended on Twitter.

The autopsy report came in March. The envelope was thin cardboard, U.S. Priority Mail, the return label clear as day—Augusta Medical College, Richmond County, Georgia. Shane knew what it was before he opened it, so he tossed it on the kitchen counter and ignored it.

His parents came over that day, as they often did, and his mother noticed. He saw her eyes linger on it on the counter. Mercifully, she didn't comment.

It took three days of purposeful avoidance before he was ready to read it. Three days of tiptoeing around the papers like they had wronged him, because in a way, their very existence had.

The day he decided he was finally going to open the envelope, he warmed himself up with two cans of Sleeman. He had a third on hand when he put on his glasses and sat at the island to do it.

If it had hurt, this report would tell him so.

Shane wished he didn't need to know. But not knowing was so much worse. He had never been very good at delusion; his mind ran in circles of worry and stress. Supposedly, when you were grieving, your brain would protect you from the worst of it. Shane didn't believe that for a second. He felt more neurotic than ever.

The glue felt rubbery under his fingertips as he peeled the edge of the envelope open. He slid the papers out—the report was thick, with a binder clip holding it together at the top left corner.

The first page wasn't so bad. A simple cover page, Ilya's biographical information, his height and weight. The contact information for the doctor who had conducted the autopsy. His manner of death (accident) and the incident causing the death (charter airline crash, passenger).

Shane moved to the next page and immediately regretted it. It was a drawing, a simple outline of a human body, with every injury Ilya had sustained in the crash represented on it. A line drawn across his cheek—one of the lacerations the funeral director must have mentioned. More across his stomach. His left leg below the knee was scratched out, crushed written next to it in neat handwriting.

He turned the page quickly. He skipped the next one, which showed damage on the back of Ilya's body, and the one after that, which focused on head trauma. If Shane lingered here, he wouldn't be able to stomach the rest. The next page summarized the chain of custody, how the body had been identified, and the doctor's qualifications, so Shane skipped that one, too.

There it was. Evidence of Injury. This would be the section that gave Shane the answers he wanted. They were in bullet points. Dry, cold, and clinical.

As Shane read, he tried to separate the man he loved from the words on the page.

Internal decapitation, fatal. Based on his injuries, Ilya had likely been in brace position, as instructed, when the plane crashed, but it hadn't prevented his spinal column detaching from his brain. Death was likely instant or near-instant.

Blunt trauma of the head, possibly contributing. Multiple lacerations of the face, multiple fractures of the skull.

Blunt trauma of the lower extremities, non-fatal. Multiple fractures in both femurs, extensive damage to the left leg below the knee. Traumatic near amputation of the left foot. Extensive vascular trauma. Ragged skin and exposed muscle.

Postmortem burns, extensive, on the right side of Ilya's body. Head, chest, shoulders, and abdomen. Shane wondered if the bear tattoo had survived.

When the bullet points finished, Shane skipped the full section. Yes, the point of this was to know, was to put his worried mind to rest. But he didn't need to know the length of every injury in centimeters. He didn't need to read descriptions of the exposure of Ilya's muscle, the way his skin tore from his flesh—every horrifying detail, verbally captured so that Shane could picture the ruined body of the love of his life with perfect accuracy.

He certainly didn't need to know the exact extent of the burns.

Shane skipped to the conclusion. There was no soot in Ilya's lungs. None of the wounds on his body had exhibited an inflammatory response. There was no indication that he'd survived past the initial impact of the plane hitting the ground.

It took a weight off of Shane's shoulders. Ilya had been terrified, no doubt. There was no getting around that, the messages made it clear. He'd known what was going to happen. But it hadn't hurt. He hadn't suffered. It had been quick.

There was other information in the report, too. Ilya's stomach was free of ulcers. Ilya had been drinking Coke shortly before his death. Ilya's kidneys were in good condition. Ilya's bronchioles were slightly narrowed, in a manner consistent with typical damage for chronic smokers. Ilya's heart weighed 300 grams.

300 grams, Shane thought. The smallest package of chicken at the grocery store was more than that. How had he fit so much devotion into so little space?

Shane put the paper back in the envelope, slipped it into a drawer in the kitchen, and did his best to never think about it again.

"I got the autopsy report in the mail", Shane told Clara at their next appointment.

"And?"

"It was… fine, I guess. Not as hard as I had been expecting. The coroner said it was instant, or near-instant. I think I would've reacted a lot worse had the report told me he..."

Shane didn't finish his thought. He didn't have to.

"How do you feel now?"

"Tired," Shane said.

April in Ontario was wet, ending the routine of Shane's walks. The NHL's regular season ended. Montreal had made the playoffs, although with their captain and star center seemingly unwilling to play, the organization and its fans weren't hopeful about their prospects.

Shane thought about Ilya. About rainy days at the cottage. About how they could've made such good use of the time spent indoors, away from prying cameras and eyes.

April passed.

Montreal lost the first series of the playoffs. Shane was called into a meeting with the team's manager in the middle of round two.

They were buying out his contract. He'd receive two-thirds of the rest of his salary over the next four years. He was no longer a Voyageur.

Shane couldn't fathom why they were bothering with such a thing. It was becoming increasingly obvious that Shane would not be upholding his responsibilities to the organization. Give him long enough and he'd have voided his own contract through his unwillingness to contribute.

Was it perhaps out of kindness? Loyalty? Shane had given them ten good years. Maybe they felt that even if he'd quit at the finish line, he deserved something for the career he'd already given them.

He called Rose that afternoon, told her about it, and she'd laughed. "Oh, wow. They really do want to wash their hands of you, huh?"

Shane's brow furrowed. "No. They—they're just mad I'm not doing my job, and they got sick of waiting on me, I guess. They're probably upset about the playoffs."

Rose's voice got gentle, in the way it often did when she gave him advice about fame or the public. "Shane, they wouldn't let you do your job right now if you were on your knees begging."

Shane scoffed. Montreal needed him. "Why do you say that?"

"Because half the country knows that you were in love with him," she said plainly. "Your reaction, the crucifix, the fact you won't play… all completely normal things that you are absolutely entitled to. But you're not hiding it."

Shane's stomach turned.

Is that what it was? Now that it was something like public knowledge that Shane had loved someone on that plane, he had to be struck from the books?

Shane didn't care. He'd never had any intention of returning to hockey. But the thought that Shane was being punished for the greatest thing he'd ever had—

Whatever. Throw it on the pile. It would've enraged him six months ago, but he didn't care about petty things anymore.

Ilya's death had really put things in perspective.

"Fuck them," Shane said.

"Fuck them," Rose agreed.

Shane didn't go to the cottage that summer.

He never even considered it. He couldn't. Not when it had been their sanctuary. Not when that bed was the closest thing he and Ilya would ever have to a marital bed. Not when Ilya had whispered "I love you" in Russian there, before Shane had any hope of translating it. Not when they'd spent their mornings together on the dock in blissful silence, sipping coffee with their feet in the lake, Shane's head on Ilya's shoulder.

Mom and Dad offered to go check on the place and make sure it was ready to stay uninhabited, and Shane let them. He appreciated the gesture, but part of him didn't want them to. Part of him wanted it to stay permanently untouched, a museum to a future that hadn't come to pass.

Part of him wanted to burn it down. He could mix Ilya's ashes with those of the only home they'd ever shared.

Shane couldn't go. He would spend summer at Ilya's. Better to be haunted by memories of his boyfriend than by memories of them.

January's sorrow overflowed into June. Despite the warm Ontario sunshine and the lush growth of the wildflowers, Shane felt just as cold and dead as he had in the winter.

Shane wasn't suicidal. He knew he wasn't because he had no intention of hurting himself. But he could very clearly see the path that would take someone there, hypothetically. He hadn't really comprehended it before. He knew that it wasn't about wanting to die, it was about wanting to escape pain, but he still didn't fully understand how someone's misery could be so great that giving up on life altogether seemed the better option.

What, exactly, did Shane have to live for? Every plan he'd had was wrapped up in Ilya. Everything he'd been looking forward to. Retirement, marriage, kids. It all went up in flames in northern Georgia.

Shane had fifty years of being alone to look forward to. That was the life the universe had seen fit to grant him. Four years of the most perfect, beautiful thing he'd ever experienced, and then fifty of having it ripped away until he would finally die.

Yeah. Shane understood why people sometimes wanted to speed up the process.

It would be so easy, he thought. His existence would end entirely or he'd see Ilya again, and either way, it would be so much better than the current hell his life had become.

He moved up his next appointment with Clara.

Hayden and Jackie visited in the second week of June. They hadn't brought the kids, and Shane knew that must've meant they really did care—it took a lot for them to terrorize a babysitter.

Shane wanted to stay home, but Jackie insisted that they take him out for lunch, and so he went. They asked him for recommendations, but he said they could choose, so she picked a little sandwich shop around the corner from Ilya's neighborhood.

Shane didn't think about how he and Ilya had gotten takeout from this restaurant before, or their conversation about how lunch dates were going to be so nice once they were out. He didn't think about how Ilya had gotten the Reuben with extra dressing, and Shane had teased him, because of course he wanted extra Russian dressing, and Ilya had rolled his eyes and poked Shane on the cheek in retaliation, assuring him that there was nothing Russian about the dressing at all.

If it was Russian, it would be based in sour cream, Ilya had joked.

Isn't that a stereotype?

Stereotypes are sometimes a little bit true. Like polite Canadians.

The food was fine. Shane didn't remember what he'd ordered or how much of it he ate, but he assumed it was enough. Hayden and Jackie didn't seem overtly concerned for his wellbeing, so.

He was in a remarkably okay mood when they left. Not good, that was too high a bar to clear. But okay. He was glad they'd come. Once they got back, they sat on Ilya's porch for three hours, drank beer, and talked. About hockey, about the kids, about the news and the weather. About anything other than the man whose house they were sitting in.

Shane tried to enjoy it. He really did. Were it six months ago, quality time with the two of them would've been the highlight of his week, other than seeing Ilya. Now it was making him sick.

It wasn't anything they'd said or done.

It wasn't even the usual cloud that hung over him, the one that sucked any happiness or enjoyment out of every activity and replaced it with melancholic reminiscing.

No, it was simply the two of them existing. It was the way Jackie put her head on Hayden's shoulder as he rocked Ilya's porch swing for the two of them. It was Hayden's hand on Jackie's knee, reassuring and gentle and present, for a simple, everyday moment.

He'd had that for himself, once.

Shane thanked them for coming, sent them home, and went back inside. He stared at Ilya's ashes on the bookshelf.

Between New Year's Eve and the Pikes' visit, Shane lost over twenty pounds.

He knew it wasn't healthy. He barely ate nowadays—the thought of cooking, like the thought of doing anything else, put a stone weight on his chest. He lived off of takeout and frozen shit, or anything that could be eaten with almost no preparation: plain bread with butter, apples straight from the bag, microwaved rice. Except most of the time, he couldn't be bothered with that, either, so he didn't eat at all.

Food tasted gritty and bland, regardless of what it was or who cooked it. Even when he could force himself to put in the effort to eat, it made him feel physically ill. More than once, he'd managed to choke down a full meal only to puke it back up. He hoped Ilya couldn't see him. He'd be so worried.

Shane couldn't distinctly remember the last time he'd been so lean. It was probably when he was seventeen, he thought. When he and Ilya met. When he'd already grown to his full height, but hadn't yet developed the muscle necessary to fill out his frame.

Muscle that was withering away, now, along with the rest of him. An empty shell of what had once been a man.

The day Ilya would've turned thirty, Shane hid in bed. His parents had asked if he'd like to come over, if he'd like them to come instead, and Shane said no.

He looked at the lily pad pictures on his phone. He thought about Ilya's last birthday, which had been mostly spent alternating between making out on the dock and riding jet skis in the lake.

He whispered into his pillow and hoped Ilya could hear it, somewhere.

"Happy birthday, Ilya. I hope you're having a good party," he said. "I hope your mom is there. I hope it's so much fun."

Shane paused. His tears were hot on his cheeks, and he didn't want his voice to crack. This was supposed to be celebratory, damn it.

"I love you. I love you so much. I'm so sorry. I wish I could come. I wanted to get you a really nice cake this year."

He sniffled and shut his eyes. He had to stop now, he decided. If he didn't, he would break down entirely, and Ilya would hate to see it.

Late summer was a haze.

Shane bounced around the walls of Ilya's house. He wasted time. His mom came over often, or maybe she just moved in, too. She cooked for him a lot, and he'd force himself to eat to keep the tears out of her eyes. She talked to him about the foundation, and he'd try to endure it.

Sometimes, on his bad days, when he'd fall into fitful sleep on the couch in a desperate attempt to fast-forward through his anguish, he'd half-wake up to his mother stroking his hair. Sometimes, for just a moment, he'd mistake her for Ilya, instead.

He went to his weekly appointments with Clara, who said he wasn't engaging with life. Shane told her that he was just fine that way, thank you. Everything that made Shane feel alive and vital was gone, or ruined, or in a box on a shelf. Whatever body was left on this planet, it didn't contain the Shane Hollander that had existed before January.

The new Centaurs got a good start to their season. Their roster was solid. They spent plenty of time learning to operate as a single team. They won their home opener.

The team didn't name anyone to the captaincy, but they did pick two alternates. One was a defenseman from Nashville that Shane hadn't ever really heard of, and the other was a center from Edmonton that Shane had met a few times. He'd always been nice. He didn't have the natural charisma or tendency towards leadership that Ilya had always displayed, but that was hardly a fair standard to hold anyone to. Maybe he'd grow into it. Maybe he'd become captain, eventually.

Shane wished them the best. He hated them for existing, hated the thought of the "C" on any jersey but his boyfriend's, and he wished them the best.

Appointments with Clara became his primary form of social interaction.

"I'm dreading the holidays," Shane said.

Clara wrote in her notepad. "Why?"

"I just… I never imagined spending Christmas without him again, I guess. He didn't even really celebrate before he got with me. Russian Christmas is in January, and it's not as important as Easter. But he liked spending time with us. And…"

Shane had to summon up some bravery before he continued.

"You know how I told you were in a fight when he died? That the last time I saw him, he kicked me out of his house?"

Clara nodded. It had been explored and discussed heavily during the first few months Shane spent with her. It took him a long time to let go of the guilt from that. It still came back sometimes. They'd been in a rough patch, yes, but they still loved each other. They still cared. The problems didn't erase the good.

"I don't think I mentioned it, but that fight was on Boxing Day. We got in a bunch of bitchy, petty little arguments on Christmas, too. We weren't at our best," he said. His voice wavered. He looked at the ceiling as he spoke. "And at the time, I thought that it would be okay, because we'd have fifty more together and they'd be better, but now I have to accept that I spent my last Christmas with the man I love swapping jabs about fucking eggnog."

"Eggnog?"

"Yeah, I—" Shane sighed. The exhale came in flutters. "It's a long story. I was on a really strict diet at the time, and we got into little arguments about it from time to time. I don't think either of us really cared about the food. I think it was just easier than talking about our actual problems."

"What makes you think that? Did you and Ilya often struggle with communication?"

Shane shut his eyes and processed what she'd said. It took him a long moment to acknowledge that he could answer this question without spitting in the face of their relationship. They'd been near-perfect together, yes. They'd understood each other in a way no one else would ever be able to.

But they were still human.

"Yes, we did," Shane admitted, eyes still shut. "Sometimes."

It felt like confessing to a crime.

When his mother called him to plan out Christmas, Shane really only had one major concern.

"Can you not make thumbprints this year?"

Thumbprints had been Ilya's favorite. He loved jam, especially raspberry. Shane had watched him eat three or four, back to back, several times. For the last two years, Mom had made an extra dozen just for him.

Shane assumed the extra dozen had already been canceled, but he didn't want to see that fucking cookie at all.

His mother's voice was soft on the other end of the line. "Of course. How about some extra sugar cookies instead?"

"Yeah," Shane said. "Sounds good."

Shane was dreaming. He wasn't usually the type to dream lucidly, but he was now. He didn't care that he knew he was dreaming, though, because the dream itself was so nice.

It was Christmas, or maybe Boxing Day. He wasn't quite sure. He was in Ilya's house, except it wasn't Ilya's, it was theirs. Shane didn't know how, but he was somehow aware in this universe that he and Ilya were married. He looked at his left hand. Sure enough, he had a plain gold band on his finger.

Ilya himself was nowhere to be seen. He was getting Shane's Christmas present. He'd be back soon.

Their living room was well-decorated; he was sitting on the couch. They had little stockings over Ilya's fireplace and a beautiful tree in one corner. There was a medium-sized, fluffy dog sitting in a dog bed nearby. Shane called to Ilya in the other room, to ask what was taking so long. Ilya told him it would just be a moment. The little dog ran over and jumped into Shane's lap. Shane pet her, but he didn't let her lick his face. Ilya always let her lick his, and it taught her bad habits.

It was perfect serenity. A picture of the life Shane had always believed they'd one day share. Shane didn't care that he knew it was fake, he was going to enjoy it anyways.

Suddenly, the peace was undercut by a loud blaring noise. The dream began to fade away. Shane's alarm was going off. No, wait, please—

Shane woke up before Ilya brought him his present. He checked the time—it was eight in the morning. It was Christmas Eve. He needed to head to his parents' house. He promised he'd be over in time to do brunch.

Shane wanted to finish his dream. He rolled over in bed, shut his eyes, and tried to fall back asleep, but it was too late.

The dream was gone.

There had been twenty-five Christmases before Ilya, and exactly four with him.

Ilya didn't even like the stupid fucking holiday. He liked the warm, familial energy. He liked the cookies, and the food. He liked the excuse to spend a few days doting on Shane and joking with his parents. But Christmas itself? He'd never really given a damn.

It stood to reason, then, that the holiday shouldn't have been ruined. Shane loved his parents. He genuinely enjoyed their company, which was something a lot of people couldn't say about their families. Christmas had been just Shane and his parents for a long, long time. There was no reason why Ilya not being there needed to ruin it.

And yet, it did. Unequivocally, inarguably.

All three Hollanders were in a strange dance on Christmas Day. All three Hollanders were clearly going through the motions, and clearly trying to hide it. Ilya was not to be mentioned under any circumstances. Yuna tried to make Shane laugh with old family stories, but Shane noticed her wiping at her eyes more than once. David helped Shane set up the fire in the fireplace, but Shane caught him staring at a framed picture of Ilya they'd put up in the hallway a few weeks after the accident.

Shane, understandably, was the least coordinated—he tried his best to be gracious to his parents for their kindness, to eat the plate his mother served him and enjoy the movie his dad put on, but his misery was obvious. He knew it was, he didn't need to be told. It was in the vacant stare of his eyes, the lack of warmth in his smile, the heaviness in his limbs. Ever since the crash, just existing was exhausting. Shane was so goddamn tired.

A family of three had become four. The Hollanders had gained a second son. And how, exactly, were any of them supposed to enjoy the fucking holidays with an empty seat at the table?

Shane had never been one to party on New Year's Eve. He'd stay up till midnight, of course, sip a single glass of champagne with his family or teammates or whoever he happened to be with, and then he'd tuck in and be asleep before one.

He and Ilya had once talked about throwing a New Year's party together, once they were retired. Finally being together for the holiday, someday. Together and out. Sharing that iconic midnight kiss.

Shane had never been kissed on New Year's, before. Ilya was his first in most things, first in the ways that counted, anyway. That would've been another.

That year, Shane didn't even bother to stay up. At least, not intentionally. While his friends rang in 2022, Shane laid on his back in Ilya's bed and stared at the texture on the ceiling.

The moment New Years' passed, Shane started to dread the next important date. The important date.

The day of the one-year anniversary of the plane crash, Shane texted his parents in the morning. He told them he loved them, and that he wanted space today, and he'd come over tomorrow.

He had a plan of what to do. He'd worked it out with Clara.

Shane started his day with an actual, real run. Not a run, run. More of a jog. Just a casual one, around the neighborhood. He still didn't care about his physical health or condition, but Clara said that one day he might, and if he did get to that point, he'd be glad that past Shane had put even a tiny bit of effort in.

Also, running was basically free endorphins, and lately, Shane would take what he could get when it came to feeling good.

After his run, he showered, then put on a pair of shorts and Ilya's old Boston hoodie. He wasn't really hungry, but he forced himself to cook a couple eggs and choke them down, anyway.

There. He'd taken bare-minimum care of himself. He washed his dishes, then filled a soup bowl with water, which he left on the kitchen counter.

This next bit—this was what he'd discussed with Clara. The semblance of a morning routine came because Shane was genuinely trying to do better, but also because he wouldn't have felt like he'd "earned" what he was about to do if he hadn't taken care of himself. At least to the point that Ilya wouldn't have been overtly concerned about him.

With steady hands, Shane grabbed the black box and the blue drawstring bag from the bookshelf. They were heavier than he remembered. He’d read online that the amount of ash depended on the size of the skeleton—Ilya had been tall, with the high bone density of a young professional athlete. It made sense that there was a lot.

Shane sat on the armchair, crossed his legs, and tucked the box into the space between his thighs and calves. He wanted to make sure it was safe—he'd be heartbroken if he dropped it and anything spilled.

The drawstring bag came first. Shane had never opened it. Anxiety rose up in him, heavy in his chest and hot on the back of his neck. He thought that might happen, so he paused. The bag stayed in his hands, but he didn't need to open it right away. He could take a moment to settle down.

It wasn't getting better. His chest felt tight, his stomach rolled. Well, he'd tried. Shane was just going to have to press on, regardless. He opened the bag—

One single, perfect ringlet. The spiral was tight, and Shane knew just by looking that the curl had come from the nape of Ilya's neck. That was where his hair was darkest, where the pattern was most defined.

Shane was afraid to touch it. He didn't want to misalign the individual strands of hair and ruin the twist. He reached into the bag with careful fingers and pulled the strand out, then set it in the palm of his hand.

He couldn't believe it had been more than a year since he'd laid eyes on this lovely, light brown hair. With a slight twist of his wrist, the sunlight from the window hit the curl better, illuminating all the bright undertones.

Like spun gold.

So many things about Ilya had left a hole in Shane’s chest. He missed their conversations, he missed holding him, he missed the way Ilya made him laugh. He missed Ilya’s touch, the way he moved inside him, the way Ilya’s lips felt against his neck.

One of the many, many things Shane missed was Ilya’s messy mop of curls. He’d loved to play with Ilya’s hair, any chance he got. It was so much softer than it looked, like a liquid between his fingers, and if he tugged any individual ringlet straight, it would bounce back into place so easily. Ilya pretended like it annoyed him, because Shane’s attentions always made his hair frizz up a bit, but Shane knew Ilya loved it, in reality.

There wasn’t a full head of hair, anymore. There was a single tress.

Shane's cheeks were wet, and he didn't move to wipe them. That was fine. That was part of the process, Clara said. This would be healthy for him. He was remembering the lost love of his life—of course he would cry. That was okay.

He reminded himself of it a few more times as he tucked the curl back into its bag, then pulled the string shut.

The second part would be more difficult, but it was more important. Shane had been terrified to open this box, to see the ash, and so he never had. It felt like a finality. He’d seen Ilya in the spring of his youth, he’d loved Ilya as a man, and he’d touched Ilya’s lifeless body. This was the last turn, the only way that Shane didn’t know him.

There was a small plastic edge that Shane had to push on to open it. He placed his thumb there, took a deep breath, and applied pressure. The box popped open. Inside was a plastic bag, and inside that: simple gray ash, finely ground. It was lighter than Shane had been expecting, closer to heather than charcoal.

Shane blinked once. That was Ilya. What was left of him, anyway. For a brief, hysterical moment, Shane had the urge to kiss the ash, to cover himself with it, to eat it. Something, anything, to bring them together again. The way they’d always been.

His entire life, Shane had believed that he was meant to be mostly alone. That he was one of the people whose existence wasn’t centered around a relationship, but a goal, an achievement, a lifestyle. Ilya had come into his world, proved him wrong, and then died. Not only that, he’d also completely destroyed Shane’s ability to enjoy his other love.

Ilya had shown Shane that he wasn’t okay being alone. That he was, in fact, one of two. It felt liked cursed knowledge, the understanding that had ruined him. If only they’d never met. If only Shane had just been a hockey player.

He chastised himself for the thought. What a useless fucking existence that would’ve been.

Shane’s lungs strained as he attempted a deep breath, but unlike with the curl, he wasn't anxious, this time. He felt ready for this. He'd taken his fucking time, yes, but he could do it now.

The bag pulled apart easily—it had a resealable top, like a Ziploc.

A wave of unease grew. There was the anxiety. He wasn't sure what he was scared of. That it would be gross? That it would feel like he was dishonoring Ilya, somehow? Ilya had certainly always enjoyed being touched by him before.

Unceremoniously, Shane ignored the rising nervousness and pushed his right hand into the ash, up to the first knuckle. The first thing he noticed was how coarse it was. He'd been expecting it to have a texture similar to bonfire ash—soft, fluffy. Like flour. But it felt like sand. Dusty sand, that clung to his fingertips.

Shane supposed that made sense. It wasn't really ash, it was finely-ground bone.

It was weirdly grounding. Shane picked up a little bit of the ash, then let it run back through his fingers, all without taking his hand out of the bag. He still wasn't ready to scatter anything. He still needed Ilya close to him. But this…

He felt close to him, right then. They were touching. Like old times. He was definitely crying full-on, now, and he didn't care. Shane swiveled his fingers through what was left of the man he would've married, and he cried, and he thought about how it had been the longest fucking year of his life. It seemed like ten.

When he took his hand out of the bag, his fingers were tinted gray, covered in the dust, and it was the first time Ilya had left a mark on him in so, so long.

Shane had prepared for this moment. He knew he wouldn't want to simply wash his hands after. It would feel disrespectful, to just send him down the drain.With his clean left hand, he pressed the bag shut again, closed the lid of the box, and set it on the coffee table. Shane went into the kitchen. He dipped his fingers into the bowl of water, carefully rinsing off all of the ash, and then tipped it into a houseplant he'd brought here from his apartment in Montreal.

It was a fern. It had been a gift from Ilya, a million years ago.

He repeated the process one more time—filling the bowl, dipping his hand into it, watering the fern—and then he washed his hands normally. There. None of the ash went down the drain. It was a part of the plant, now.

When Shane went back into the living room, he was still crying. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and put the box and the bag back on the shelf.

Ilya, tucked away for safekeeping. Ilya, who loved him. Ilya, who gave him worn hoodies when they were apart for too long, who bought him plants because Shane offhandedly mentioned wanting one, who adored Shane like he breathed simply to make Shane smile.

Maybe that last one was true. Ilya wasn't breathing, and Shane never smiled.

Ilya had adored him. Ilya had adored him. Ilya lived to make Shane happy, devoted his entire fucking existence to it. Moved to a new country and a new team and started a new life, because it was what they’d both wanted. Now it was all a waste, all that effort, all those hours Ilya had spent making Shane feel joyful and cherished and safe, because Shane was fucking miserable. Alone, and miserable.

Whatever Ilya would've wanted for him, whatever life he would've imagined, it wouldn't have been this. It wouldn't have been rotting away from the inside in this gigantic, empty fucking house.

Shane loved Ilya. All he did was love Ilya. And he'd always tried to be a good partner to him. Maybe this wasn't being a good boyfriend. If Ilya could see how ruined Shane was, now, he'd probably have wished they'd never met, because then Shane would still be somewhat happy. Shane hated that thought. Shane could never regret the journey, despite its destination. He'd put up with this pain a million times over, if it meant he got to share the time with Ilya he'd had.

Ilya had given everything to Shane. Maybe it was Shane’s responsibility to try and make something of it. Dying for Ilya would've been easy. Wasting his life for him would be, too.

Living for Ilya would prove much harder.

Shane had no idea where to start. Honestly, he wasn't even sure he'd be able to. This weight was so goddamn heavy, and Shane was so, so tired. For the first time in a year, though, he was starting to consider that maybe he should at least make an attempt. He didn't care for his own happiness, he didn't care about himself in general, but—maybe he owed it to Ilya to try to glean some enjoyment out of whatever years he had left.

If there was an afterlife, and if Shane got to see Ilya again, he'd want to be able to tell him that he'd tried.