(no subject)

[lastgunslinger]

He dreams:

"Roland. Wake up."

He's slow to wake for some reason. He's getting old, he knows; his joints are stiff and painful in the mornings, though the dry twist affecting his knees and ankles has not worsened.

"Hey. Long Tall and Ugly. Sleeping Beauty. Time's a-wastin', and we don't have much."

Roland's eyes open at that – it's a familiar voice – and sees Eddie Dean standing over him.

He's out of the bed – vaguely he notes that he's fully clothed; say thankya for dream logic – and facing Eddie. He can't speak.

And Eddie Dean, laughing hazel eyes and dark hair, is grinning at him. "Hey."

Roland embraces him fiercely, throat tight. "You're dead," he says. Is all he can think of to say.

"Yeah," says Eddie, hugging him back, and oh how solid Eddie feels, how alive, how real. Then he pulls away, and his face is serious. "Yeah. I am. But we've got somewhere to go, Roland – will you come with me?"

Roland nods.

"Take my hand."

And Roland slips his diminished right hand into Eddie's, and they rise from the room – room 99 in the bar at the end of the universe, room 99 in a way-station on the side of the Dark Tower, can you say hallelujah, can you say amen – and go through the roof, through the stars, through space, through time. Roland doesn't know how far they go, or for how long. He tries calling to Eddie: Where are we going?

Eddie is smiling, Roland can tell, even though he can't see him. Home, Roland. You're going home.

Light grows on the dark, star-filled horizon. It grows bright, brighter, brightest – and then breaks –

Roland and Eddie are high in the sky. They sink through huge, puffy clouds without getting wet, and when they clear the last one Roland can't help but gasp, for he recognizes the landscape even though he's never seen it from this angle:

Roland of Gilead has returned home.

Gilead has still moved on, he can see that much – but bodies are gone; skeletons are gone; and tall grass has grown over those few rusted engines of war left in the great courtyard of the castle. And the walls are still there – stone takes a long time to wear down, and while the world has moved on, it has not moved on that much. The carrion-creatures have long since left, and so have the tribes of Slow Mutants. As he and Eddie descend lower, he can see rabbits darting in and out of the grass, and cats, and – miraculously – a small herd of horses running across what used to be the Back Courts, where the ladies played at Points, and near where Cort trained Roland to be a killing machine.

Horses. Roland's not aware that he's weeping. Threaded stock, even. Horses, running free there, where I hit Alain that time and laid him up for three days, a thousand years ago.

"Come on," says Eddie, and he's smiling. He steps out of thin air onto the castle wall. "You need to see all of this."

Roland follows him, just like he's going down the stairs – except one step is in the air, and the next one down is the castle wall. "Eddie – how – "

"Oh, it's still moved on," says Eddie – dead and not dead, grave and smiling. "Nobody's here, Roland. But it's not a dead world." And Eddie throws his arms out, and Roland sees the puffy clouds, the impossibly blue sky, the grass growing tall and green and strong. He feels the sun warm on his back and the wind gently ruffling his hair and he looks at Eddie and now he realizes that tears are rolling down his face.

Eddie looks at him, and his smile softens a bit, and he nods slowly. "Walk for a while, if you want. I'll be up here, waiting."

So Roland explores, relearning the pathways, remembering skipping every third flagstone when he was small, every sight a memory. There's where I met Aileen Ritter the night of the ball, and we went in together. There's where Bert and I met to follow Cort. There's where I saw my father and Alain's father talking in low voices, road-dusty, and they stopped and saw us and they smiled. And he realizes: when he turned his back on Gilead after all were dead, it had felt like blood and ruin. Now his home feels – young. Fresh. New. Gilead will never be as it was, no, but it is not dead.

Roland looks around, and a thought comes to him. There are different ways to move on. And ka – ka comes full circle. There is love again; there is light again; there is life again. Maybe not civilization, but life, and that's all Roland needs to feel safe, to feel happy. It's not all death, it's not all destruction, and that's enough. Say thankya, that's enough.

Roland goes up the steps to the castle wall; Eddie is sitting on the edge, whistling some song to himself.

"What's that tune?" Roland asks, and he's smiling.

Eddie turns to him and grins. "It's called ‘Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming'." And a wonderful thing: Eddie Dean throws his head back and laughs, and he sounds so much like Cuthbert Allgood at that moment it nearly makes Roland start weeping again. As is, he just joins in. He can't help it, and he's not sorry he can't help it, either.

Eddie points to a crevice in the wall. "Check it out, man."

There are wild roses growing.

Roland walks over, stretches out a hand, and – hesitates. He looks back at Eddie.

"Go on. Take it." Eddie's standing, arms folded.

Ever so carefully, Roland plucks a single rose and examines it. It's not blood-red, like the fields of roses at the foot of the Dark Tower, but white. And the smell – gods, what a smell. Hazy summer perfume. A white rose. A rose of the White.

Roland closes his eyes. He's smiling.

When he opens them, Eddie's standing next to him. "We've got to go back now, Roland – our time was short, and now it's coming to an end." And Eddie slips his hand into Roland's left – his right is holding the white rose – and again they rise over Gilead. He looks down, right before they clear the clouds. Goodbye, he thinks. Thank you. Goodbye. Fare well. For an instant, he sees Gilead as it was – a center of love and light and learning; a center of the White. And then all he sees is white as they go through the clouds –

– and through space again –

– and into Room 99.

Eddie's sitting in one of Roland's armchairs. "That's the end of our little field trip, Roland. Hope it did you fine."

"It did me just fine," says Roland, and he's holding the white rose. A lump rises in his throat. "And now you're leaving. Is it not so?"

"Aw, Roland," says Eddie…and he gets up. "Don't give me that look. You'll see me again. You know it."

Roland can barely get the words out, knows he's got to. "Cry your pardon, gunslinger."

Eddie's next to him in a flash. "Roland, don't start in with that shit. Please. I'm dead, all right? And I died well, and that's all anyone can ask. Ever." A pause. "I love you, man, all right? And it'll be all right. It'll all be all right." Eddie's fading before his eyes. Roland clutches the rose and watches him go. "Just…go back to sleep, Roland. Lie down and sleep. And no matter what happens – you went home. You saw what happened. Ka comes full circle. Don't forget that."

When he wakes, he wakes smiling, and his pillow is wet with tears.