Chapter Text
Anna had a plan. Good one if you asked her, she was prepared for any eventuality. So there was the plan – she was going to fly with Ilya to the MHL drafts. She didn’t care what others think about it. She wasn’t going to stay back in Russia when something so important was happening in her big brother's life. How did that saying went – over her dead body – yeah, she could be very dramatic if she wanted to.
Anyway Annushka saved all of the money she could, she still wasn’t sure if it was enough, but it was worth a try. She was on her best behavior at school and practices, having the highest possible grades and working her butt off at the training. She was even helping Polina – The Evil Witch – cleaning the house, which she hated to her bones. She literally was going to play all her cards. So nobody could tall that she wasn’t trying hard enough to impress Papa and Polina. Especially her father.
Anna knew that her father didn’t like her. At best he was indifferent towards her. She didn’t remember the exactly moment when she realized that fact. But she was, in her own way, glad that that was the case. All her life she was watching the way he treated Alexei and Ilya, especially Ilyusha. And considering that she and Ilya were much the same in their attitudes, she was grateful that he mostly ignore her existence. That was probably why that late May evening was such a surprise. The worse surprise in her life.
It was normal day. She had have intense morning practice and after that school, so they cut her afternoon practice shorter. That was how she ended at home helping Polina doing the dishes. She was lost in her thought like always – thinking about the training, the things she needed to work harder on, reconstructing the failed jumps in her mind, the usual stuff – doing the dull manual of drying dishes. Somewhere in the background Polina was talking, probably another boring story about the church community meeting. She was ignoring her like always.
Maybe that – her thinking – was the reason why Anna didn’t hear the moment her father come back home. He was earlier than usually. He was preparing to retirement from his officer job. So he was more easily to irritated this days. Everyone in the house got out of his way if their could.
She didn’t know what make her drop one of the plates and squeak loudly. Maybe it was the loud slam of a closing door. Maybe it was the surprise of being suddenly break out of her thoughts. Maybe something entirely different. She really didn’t know.
In the blink of the eye the father was in front of her. He was furious. He screamed at her. He began to turn red in face. She was shocked, desperately trying to understand what he was shouting. Nothing was making sense to her.
Then she head her father angry voice asking “What do you think you are doing in my house?”
“I…” she started. “I don’t know, Papa. I didn’t… I didn’t want to…” she said barely audibly with a trembling voice.
She was trying hard to explain herself, to find her voice more stable to do so. She felt her hands started to tremble. Tears began to form in her eyes, which was clearly a mistake. But she never could prepare herself to what came next.
Father looked into her eyes and then slapped her, hard enough to make her head snap to the right side. She froze. She immediately felt the piercing tingling on her left cheek. She heard buzzing of her own heart beating in her ears. She barely kept herself from bursting into tears. She couldn’t even take the breath. She wanted to run away and hide at the same time. She didn’t know how and what just happened. It was such unimaginable situation for her that she didn’t know how to act to end it quickly.
It seemed that, somewhere in the background, Polina had finally decided to step in after all. She was saying something to calmed down furious father. Anna couldn’t even get what Polina was exactly saying. She felt like she was in and out of her own body the hole time. And now father was yelling out at Polina. She wanted to cover her ears like a little child, to not to hear it, but she couldn’t force any of her muscles to move.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She instinctively tried to pull away, but then she looked up and saw Ilya. She didn’t even know that he was already home. She immediately felt relief. Ilyusha was here. She was safe. Her big bother was there and he would make sure she’d be safe and sound.
***
Ilya knew that Annushka was up to something. And if he knew her as good as he thought that something was to fly to the MHL drafts with him. He was prepared to that, he saved enough money from the reward for winning the Hokey World Juniors to buy her plane tickets – maybe even the dress for the gala after the drafts. He checked if Anna’s passport was still valid. He even prechecked if he alone could be legally responsible for his little sister during the travel – he could because he would turn eighteen just before their leave.
However all of this – he loved his sister and really wanted to make her a surprise, but it wasn’t his main reason to do so – was just the side quest to make him more busy. Just to make him stop thinking about Hollander and his stupidly pretty freckles.
The tape he gifted Annushka ended up permanently in his bedroom. And he rewatched it more time than he wanted to admit. Only sometimes he caught himself to looking forward to the shots of camera close-up to the Shane Holander. It was always the coincidence, never his conscious choice. There was no proof of otherwise. He just couldn’t wait to see him at the drafts.
Other than that Ilya tried to spend the rest of his free times with Anna, doing theirs small things together. He knew that it was only little over a year before he would need to move to the other side of the globe. He was sure he would miss her terrible, so he wanted to spend as much time as possible with her before that, to make her happy. He didn’t regret his decision to join MHL instead of KHL, but he sill could be sad about its downside.
That was why he turned down his teammates offer to go out for some fun that day. He came back home straight after training. The first thing he heard after entering the house was his father's furious screaming – nothing new – but what surprised him was Polina's screaming back – the quiet, religious Polina hardly ever did that. Something was off. The hole commotion was coming from the kitchen, another odd thing because you would rarely have seen father there.
But nothing could have prepared him for the sight he saw. Father and Polania indeed was arguing, that wasn’t shocking, what shook him was Annushka in the middle of it all. She stood completely froze, the broken plate near her feet, the tears in her eyes and red hand mark on her left cheek.
‘No. No, no, no. That’s not going to happen again. Not to Annushka. Not when I’m still here’, Ilya thought.
He slowly approached Anna, as if approaching a terrified wild animal. He didn't know what her mental and physical condition was or how she would react to him in general, so he tried to be as gentle as possible. Just when she didn’t react or acknowledge to his presence in front of her he tried softly touch her shoulder. She flinched at the touch. Ilya felt heavy weight on his chest just because of this. She notice him when she tried to pull away. And the fear, terror and relief he saw in her big blue eyes when she look at him would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here” he said reassuringly to her, but she seemed not to hear him.
He all but wanted to take her out of room right now, to hide her in his or her bedroom and calm her down. But first he needed to deal with father and Polina, and not killed anyone.
He gave a significant look to Polina, who noticed him first. Father was still yelling, less coherent than before – mainly old Russian curses.
“I think you should take some peace and quiet at your cabinet,” Polina said to brake the argument. "With some Whisky, perhaps," she added.
“Don’t tell me what I can do in my own damn house, woman,” father grumbled. “And I will not be drinking fucking American alcohol.”
“Vodka than,” she said.
“That’s enough,” Ilya said in a firm voice, judging by his father's behavior, he was already drunk enough.
“Not in that tone, son. I will not take orders from little shit like you in…”
“My own house,” Ilya finished with only little irony in his voice. “Are you not ashamed right now?” he asked even if it was pointless.
“What?” he asked dumbly.
“Are you not ashamed to terrorized a nine-years old? Over what? A broken plate. Is that what satisfied you ego? Taking it out on a child. No wonder they're getting rid of you from the office. They don’t need such a loser like…”
He didn’t get to finish that sentence because father slapped him hard. Good. He need to redirect father’s anger to himself. That’s the only way he knew he could deal with all of this.
“I will not tolerate such behavior in this house. We will talk about it. Later.”
Father probably said that only because he just realized he was actually too drunk to deal with him at the moment.
“Then. Excuse us” he said.
He took Anna by the hand and they left the kitchen together. She still didn’t say a word. They went straight to her bedroom.
***
It took Ilya all that evening to calm Annushka down and he ended up spending night in her bedroom sharing bad, what they hadn’t done since Anna was five years old. Next morning he had a conversation with his father, during which he made it clear that what happened yesterday should not happen again, otherwise he – father – would not see even a single dollar from his MHL signing bonus. He had known it was stupid thing to said – it earned him another slap in the face – but it was the only thing he could think about that could be threating to his father. He would do a lot of things to keep his sister safe.
To be clear father didn’t say much during their talk, other than constantly reminding him to behave. He didn’t know what was his opinion on this situation when he was sober. But father agreed – to his surprise – to let Anna fly with them to America for the MHL drafts. The small victory.
***
The last few weeks have been the oddest one of her short life for Annushka. On the one hand, she was overjoyed at the idea of flying with Ilya to the drafts. On the other, she was constantly on tenterhooks whenever her father was somewhere around her.
For the first few days after she talked a lot with Ilyusha about what exactly happened that day in the kitchen, what she felt then. She didn’t even know she could talk and feel that much. But then one day she just stopped, like she wanted to forget it all. Ilya didn't press her about it.
She spent the last days before flight doing fun things with her brother and shopping for her dress – Ilya even invited Sveta to help them. They chose white dress with the black and red spots and bow at the waist. They also bought a red bolero jacket and red hair accessories – if it was only up to Svetlana, they would also buy matching nail polish. She felt like a princess in that dress and that was the most important thing.
***
In the end Anna’s first ever plane flight was pretty amazing. Before the flight she was just a little bit worried that she would get motion sickness, like on a long car ride, but everything was fine. The stewardesses were really nice. She was sitting next to Ilya. She even had a good sleep, something that Ilya said was rare on the first flight.
***
That day Los Angeles was the best place to be – for Rozanov’s siblings – in the world. Ilyusha was drafted first overall by the Boston Raiders. Anna didn’t know if it was good hokey team, but she knew that her brother was overjoyed. In some way he won, he was first after all.
She loved to watch the way he smiled happily to the photographs. Even if it teased the second draft – Shane Hollander – a little bit. She recognized him – Hollander – from her tape of Hokey World Juniors finals. He was Half Asian Canadian. Contrary to appearances and peoples opinions, Anna was able to recognize a good hockey player, even though she didn’t play herself and was not interested in the sport. And Shane was undoubtedly as good hockey player as Ilya.
After the photos of all three draft, there was time for the quick family photos of the chosen players. They got to take two. The first one of all of them – father, Ilya and Anna – all serious faces. And the second, only her and Ilyusha, all happy, smiley and goofy. She liked the second best.
The gala part of the MHL draft was more boring than she expected. The ladies were all in the nice dresses, the gentlemen in suits, and classical music was playing in the background, but it was all just boring. She had to stand next to Ilya, while their father was talking with some important hokey people. And while Ilyusha could say something sometimes, she couldn’t. She couldn’t even understand what they were talking about, because she didn’t know English. Due to some turmoil with the teacher at school she could only learn French. She was learning some English with Ilya – she knew she would need to know the language if she wanted to become a world-famous figure skater – but she wasn’t at the level when she could participated in the conversation. To be honest she wasn’t at that level at Franch ether. So she bored her mind out.
The only advantage of this situation was her watching other guests from the balcony they were on. That was when she noticed that every now and then Shane Hollander was looking at them. And that was fascinated. It gave her good idea.
“Hey. Psst, Ilya,” she whispered, pulling him by the arm. “Can I go downstairs to the bar for a Coke?” she asked.
“Get me some too” he said with laugh, she sent him grinning smile too.
Sneaking out from under her father's watchful eye was easier than she expected. After a few minutes she was already at the bar. Now all that remained was to somehow communicate with the man behind the bar. It was the hardest thing so far. She had already repeated the previously prepared formula (Can have two Coke, please) three times, with each more time getting more and more irritated, which made her accent become stronger and stronger. She even tried to repeat the same thing, only with more syntax, in French. Either bartender was incredibly stupid or he really didn't want to understand her.
When she was about to give up, an older gentleman approached her saying something to the bartender that sounded suspicious like asking for a bottle of Coke. The man behind the bar – the traitor – smiled at the gentleman and give him two bottles of Coke. She made a sound of true irritation, ready to argue further with the bartender, but the gentleman turned to her and spoke to her in funny-sounding French.
“Here. For you, young lady,” he said, handing her the bottles.
“Oh. Merci beaucoup,” she thanked.
Now she could take a closer look at the gentleman. He was older man, but not as old like her father, with kind light blue eyes, wrinkles around them, dark hair sprinkled with gray and nice smile. She had seen him somewhere before.
She wrinkled her nose in thoughts. This man was standing with Hollander before.
“Excuse me. Are you Shane Hollander’s father?” she asked in French.
What was the harm in asking, at most she would come across as a strange child. The man looked at her carefully.
“Yes, I am,” he answered her, so she was right. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I want to congratulate him,” she said, proud that she had managed to say it clearly. “For second draft,” she added in English.
“I'll pass yours congratulation to him. Are you the fan?” he seemed confused.
“No, no, no,” she shook her head to emphasize that. “I watched…” she stopped to switched from Franch to English again. “Hokey World Juniors finals. He is good. Good hockey player.”
At that moment she noticed clearly concerned Ilya behind Hollander's father back.
“I have to go. Goodbye,” she said
She left the man – Hollander – and disappeared into the crowd of guests to return back to Ilya.
“I was worried. What took you so long? Was he bothering you?” were the first things he asked her when they finally were within theirs earshot.
“No. I’m fine. He had just helped me with the order,” she said, and seeing his confusion, she added. “The stupid guy behind the bar pretended he didn’t understand my English or Franch for the matter.”
Ilya had the nerve to laugh at this. He got a well-deserved punch in the side for that form her.
“Stop laughing. I’m better at Franch than at English. Better than you for sure.”
“Of course. Mademoiselle,” he said in purposedly terrible accent.
“That was the worst Franch I’ve ever heard.”
He took one of the Coke bottles from her and started laughing again. She rolled her eyes at this. The older brothers were always such a pain in the butt.
***
It was the best day in his life, even better than winning the Hokey World Juniors. He could get away with all the staring at the Hollander during the gala. Although he could have done without his father's biting remarks while talking with Raiders’ General Manager. But Annushka managed to cheer him up with her incredible self-confidence. She could be even cute when he wanted to.
He shared his hotel room with Annushka. who had fallen asleep almost immediately after returning from the gala. He, in turn, couldn’t sleep. That why he had ended up in the hotel gym, just to run into Shane Hollander. He wouldn’t be able to forget their shared tense moment of connection for the next months. God, he should have just kiss him right there.
As if to confirm how stupid was this idea, Anna started talking in her sleep something about dumb Americans.
‘Yeah,’ he thought. ‘Dumb Americans and stupid Canadians. Doe eyes, freckled Canadians.’
Oh, he was so doomed.