So this tale is my gift to my Outlaw Queen Secret Santa on tumblr. I thought I would also share it here, so I do hope you enjoy it. I am envisioning this as a story in 4-5 parts, and I am posting Parts 1 and 2 simultaneously. Expect Part 3 sometime around the New Year. :)

I own neither Ouat or Return to Me, the movie to which this story pays homage. But I adore them both and hope you enjoy this excursion.

Feedback is most welcome. I love hearing from my readers!

Dear Family,

I am writing to thank you for the gift you gave me and my mom. Two years ago, you gave her a heart, and it saved her life. Her heart was barely working, and she was on oxygen and hooked up to machines. She would be dead now, and I would be an orphan if you didn't do what you did. I know somebody you loved had to die for her to get their heart, but it saved my mom's life. And she's all I have.

She is healthy now, and I still have a mom thanks to you. So I'm sorry you lost somebody you loved. But you saved my life because you saved my mom. And that heart is still alive and beating strong. One day, maybe I can thank you in person. But for now, I hope you get this letter. I hope it makes you feel better.

The letter shook in his hand, his eyes welling up until tears spilled over, wetting his cheeks, dampening his beard. This—even after he had read this letter countless times, even after another year had passed.

Two years—had it really been two years since he had lost her—his wife? His heart?

Would he ever be able to think about that night without feeling sick?

Yes, it had been Marian's heart that had been cut from her chest and given to another, a woman he had been told, a mother, the letter had informed him. But his heart had ceased to function properly the moment his wife's had stopped beating, and he sighed into the stillness, wondering if it would ever fully recover.

"It still hurts, Marian," he murmured, shaking his head yet again at his habit of talking to her when the pain became acute. "God, I wish you were here."

He turned to stare into the doorway, making certain Roland wasn't listening. The boy had caught him once, and since that moment he had taken to speaking with his mother sometimes, assuring his father that yes—she could hear them, and yes—she still cared. He could never reprimand his son for such notions, and there were moments he thought he felt her, a lightness, a glimmer of something that felt like his wife. But he usually felt alone, fractured and dark.

And it hurt like hell.

He refolded the note as he had many times before, wondering when and if he would ever share it with Roland, wondering how long it would be before he could read it without missing her so badly that his lungs would ache.

He swallowed down the bitterness in his mouth, his palms clammy and shaken, and he replaced the letter into the drawer of his nightstand, shutting it slowly, somehow smelling the scent of her hair.

I'll meet you at home she had stated cheerfully just before ending their call.

It was the last time he had heard her voice.

He shook himself mentally, rubbing his hand across his scalp, inhaling sharply as he stared around his bedroom. God, it was a mess. But his life was a mess, at least the parts that people couldn't readily see.

Had he done the right thing in donating her organs? He knew it was what she had wanted, and the note from the child, a child whose mother still lived, it affirmed his decision, it made him happy that this child had not lost both parents.

"Be well," he voiced aloud, looking at the drawer, thinking of the woman who now carried Marian's heart in her body. There was some comfort in knowing that it continued to pump life and nurture a child, even if his own would never know how much that heart had loved him. At least it was cherishing another little boy, or a little girl perhaps, and he knew how well suited her heart was for that task.

So his heart would have to love Roland enough for both of them. God, he suddenly felt so horribly inadequate and small.

"Dad! Are you coming?"

He looked over his shoulder, smiling at the one thing in his life that brought him joy. His son—his Roland—the only true remnant of a beautiful life cut short far too soon.

"Just a minute," he called back, rubbing his face to pull himself from this stupor.

"We're gonna be late," his son yelled, and he glanced at the clock, knowing the boy was right. "Uncle Frank…"

"Uncle Frank will have to wait," Robin interrupted, taking a final look around his bedroom, knowing he would have to deal with the pile of dirty clothes piling up in the corner within the next two days. "He can manage until we get there."

"But Nonno is making the cake tonight!"

Roland now stood in his doorway, looking up at him with eyes that reminded him too much of his mother.

"And your grandfather knows how much you love his Italian Cream Cake," Robin returned. "He'll save you piece. I promise."

"But he lets me help ice it sometimes," Roland pouted. "And Uncle August is supposed to bring me a present all the way from Australia."

"Austria," Robin corrected. "Not Australia. Those are two different places, remember."

"Whatever," Roland sighed, earning himself a look from his father. "Can we go now, Daddy? Please?"

He laughed as his son's lower lip stuck out further than lips were designed to do, and he moved forward, ruffling his dark curls affectionately. God, he loved his boy.

"Come on," he grinned, extending his hand, bracing himself for whatever lay ahead tonight. "Let's get to work, shall we?"

She stared at herself in the mirror, tracing the scar, the scar that would never go away, the one that had saved her life.

Two years. Had it really been two years since her surgery? Since she received the heart of another person who had not been as lucky as she had? Since she had written a good-bye letter to her son, had tried to count the number of freckles that dotted his face, had attempted to reach out to a mother with whom she hadn't spoken in years?

It had been. And she still wasn't sure how to feel about it.

Why had she of all people been spared? She wasn't exactly a nice person. Edgy—yes. Forthright—most assuredly. Unafraid of speaking her mind when something needed to be righted—without a doubt. But she had lost a part of herself on that operating table when her heart had been removed and replaced by another.

She had lost her confidence. And something else she couldn't quite put her finger on, try as she might.

Something that made her now feel like less of a woman.

"Stop whining," she reprimanded herself, trying to shake off a sense of drudgery that engulfed her like an oversized cloak. Her fingers reached up, tracing the swell of her breasts, the tips of her nipples through soft fabric before moving the scar that lay between them.

The scar that shouldn't define her. But it did. Shit.

She grabbed her favorite scarf, the cobalt one, relishing how the soft fabric felt against her skin and effectively covered what still made her feel self-conscious. It shouldn't—she knew that, but logic didn't come into play when it came to her scar. Just talking about her surgery made her uncomfortable, like admitting she had a transplant opened her up to probing questions and public scrutiny. Yes-she was grateful but far from ready to discuss the miracle she had been given. Her private life should remain just that—private. Shouldn't it? As if she had a private life these days that didn't include packing lunches and anything related to Marvel or Pokemon.

Why did she feel this way—God, she should be dead by all rights. She should be thrilled just to be breathing. But she wasn't. She was alive. She'd been given a second chance.

But she was living in the shadows, afraid of stepping into the light.

"What are you looking at?" she questioned, daring her image to talk back to her. But it didn't. It simply stared back with a look she couldn't stomach. Shit—even her own reflection was judging her these days.

"Mom," her son cried out from downstairs. "David and Mary-Margaret are here. Are you ready?"

"Just a minute," she answered, tucking the scarf securely into her neckline, liking the contrast of deep blue with her pale gray sweater. She put in earrings, simple sterling studs, and re-examined her appearance one last time, rubbing her lips together, wondering why she felt so on edge tonight.

They were celebrating, after all. Celebrating her life. She forced a smile on to her face.

"You look great, Mom," Henry stated, catching her by surprise in her doorway. "Now come on. We don't want to be late for our reservations."

"Reservations?" she questioned, straightening his collar. "Where are we going?"

"Some place David heard about," Henry answered as they walked down the stairs. "An Irish-Italian restaurant."

"Irish-Italian?" she echoed, shaking her head. "That's a new one on me."

"Well, it is Boston," Henry returned, and she ruffled his hair, saddened by the fact that he was now nearly as tall as she was.

"That it is," she sighed, bracing herself for a night she wished she could fast-forward to its conclusion.