He didn't know how it happened, and he didn't want to know. He'd come back to the room and found it empty, and that was all.

No; not quite all. There had been a note, but he wasn't about to tell Tikhonov that. It wasn't his business anyway. The note was for Sergei alone. He didn't have the will to open it.

They'd been laughing only hours earlier; Sergei could still feel the giddiness bubbling inside him, the sharp tart taste of victory. They were happy, they were exhausted, were they in love? He'd almost thought so.

The room was empty, except for the note.

All the possibilities that had stretched so wide before are now closing in on him. It's hard to breathe, and it's not the hours of abuse he just put his body through, it's something much less transitory and much more fatal. It's the death of hope he didn't know he had, until it left his chest hollow and tight.

The room is empty. He unfolds the note.

(Sergei,
I'm in America. Forgive me my friend. I could not stay. Think of me. I will see you again. Love Pasha. Your friend,
Sasha.)

That was all it said.

Love Pasha. He felt bitter laughter uncurl in his stomach. He wanted to scream. He would love Pasha. Not as Sasha had loved him, but he would care for him. He was younger than them, he was--quiet. Sergei and Alex had never needed to be taken care of.

Pasha has none of Sergei's compunctions about keeping up appearances. When it is announced that Alexander has fled he bursts into tears. Sergei tries to comfort him and Tikhonov shouts threats, but Pasha will be neither cowed nor consoled. The other men look away; Sergei catches Slava's enraged stare before he can avert his gaze.

What he has waited five years for, Alexander has accomplished in a single night. He could almost congratulate him, if his little (fatal) act of rebellion hadn't made it that much worse for those left behind.

They'd won a bag skate for their hard work, a grueling 40-minute practice that sucked what energy remained after the game from Sergei's bones. Viktor shouted curses at them as they dragged their aching bodies across the ice, threatening them with wild punishments should any more of them be missing come morning.

Pasha's tears stopped somewhere around the tenth drill, and now he sits in stony silence on the bed, indifferent to the world around him. Sergei watches him for hours, the numbness cracking in his chest, replaced by growing concern and rage.

"You have to eat," Sergei says, handing him a thick slice of black bread. Pasha ignores it, and when Sergei tries to press it into his hand he pushes him away. Sergei's stinging slap across his face shocks him awake.

"Stop it," Sergei spits. "Just fucking stop. If you want to feel sorry for yourself, do it on your own time."

Pasha's eyes are round with amazement. "You have no idea--"

"Don't tell me what I do or don't know," Sergei says. "Get the fuck over yourself. Alex didn't just leave you. He left all of us."