milliways_bar | (no subject)

Post-bullet removal, Roland hasn't quite gotten up the strength to go upstairs. He's lying on a couch in the corner, eyes closed.

When they open, he sees her.

Already pale face goes paler.

He can't move.

A dry, bare whisper: "Sue..."

Such a small sound, but somehow it carries to her. It might be a trick of the wind.

She turns at the sound of her name, and gray eyes widen in shock. At first, Susan thinks it's Desire again

(not him not him can't be him the world has moved on for him)

and she closes her eyes to clear her vision as she did before. When she opens them, however, he's still there-- older than when she first knew him, aye, but not much -- and not the age of the man she knows now.

"Roland...?"

"Oh, Sue."

He struggles to sit up. To stand. It takes a while.

And now he crosses to her, slowly -- not entirely sure that what he's seeing is real.

"My dear -- is it -- "

He doesn't know what he's asking. What he means to ask.

(bird and bear and hare and fish)

It's not fair, she thinks. Not fair, not this, not now -- and her voice is shaking when she speaks.

"Aye, Roland."

The same blue eyes, but darker then when she last saw them, more like when she first knew him. Hard, so hard to breathe, and she clasps her hands together in front of her heart helplessly, almost as though she is praying.

"We are met once more."

Roland isn't the imaginative type. Nor is he the kind to dwell on decisions, or things that can't be changed.

But once, just once, the night before his father died, he asked himself: What would you do if you could see her one last time?

And so now he does it.

He steps forward and sweeps her tightly into his arms.

She, too, is real.

And somehow -- somehow -- her hair -- it still smells of the sweet grass of the Drop, in Mejis.

She freezes for a moment, and how can she not? Susan knows, aye she knows, that something is wrong-- but it's Roland

(bird and bear and hare and fish -- oh Roland I love thee)

holding her, holding her close once more, and she had given up dreaming. If it is a dream, she will have this dream, then-- at least that much.

Her arms go around him in return, and tears fill her eyes as she rests her head on his chest for a moment.

"Oh, Roland--"

(my fondest wish)

And once more blue meets grey -- and he's lost in her eyes again, after ten years -- as he tilts her chin up, and he just looks, drinks her in, and when tears spill down his cheeks he doesn't notice.

She raises a trembling hand to brush away his tears, and

(like a wind like a cyclone it blows all apart)

says, "Don't -- thee mustn't -- don't cry, oh, Roland, oh my dear --"

Susan is heedless of the tears still in her own eyes as she gazes at him.

He catches her hand, brings it to his lips, rests his cheek against it.

"How can I not, Sue? How?"

An honest question, now: he's looking at her with love and grief mingled. He's been here long enough, and she hasn't changed --

She's dead, and he knows it.

"I don't know, Roland, say true."

Helplessly, she looks at him, shaking her head--

(ka comes like a wind like a cyclone and ye are helpless before it)

--but time moves on, even here, and although it comes near to tearing her apart, Susan draws a shaky breath and says what must be said.

"Thee are different from the boy -- and the man -- that I knew."

Slowly, never taking his eyes from hers, he nods.

"You knew him, then?"

"I know thee." A sad smile. "But thee were older when last we talked, Roland."

Questions to ask.

What has he told you?

and

What is he like?

and

Does it hurt you to see me, too?

He doesn't know what to say. What is safe to say.

So he just nods.

He hasn't let go of her hand, and Susan thinks that the world could end around her in truth before she'd pull away from him, oh aye. Gray eyes the color of fog search his.

"Are thee well? How... how did...?"

Loss of memory, mayhap-- like Jake, she wonders?-- but more as well, and she cannot explain it.

"There's a man named Joe. But he told me to call him Blondie. And -- he was in my head, and he came through a door."

A pause.

"I came from Jericho Hill. When Gilead fell. Through the door."

Quietly. "And the door -- pulled...him...me...out and away."

"Aye, I know sai Joe." Almost absently, in fact, as she takes the rest of it in and her eyes widen in alarm.

"But thee are here -- thee are not dead?"

(like me?)

He shakes his head. "Nay, Sue. Or so they tell me." A very small smile. "If I were dead, my wound wouldn't hurt. So I believe them."

"Yer wound? Ye are hurt?"

She looks much more closely at him now, noticing things she had missed in the shock of it all and remembering that he had struggled to rise.

"Thee should not be standing--," she says as she tugs at his hand, intending to pull him toward the couch where he was lying before.

He lets himself be pulled. "Cuthbert took the bullet out. Now 'tis just a matter of healing."

He sits -- and a deep sigh. He's tired.

"Is there aught I can do for thee, Roland?"

She sits beside him, looking worried and helpless.

"Ye have seen 'Bert, already--" And there are others, Susan suddenly realizes, who will need to be told.

"--and Joe; have ye talked to anyone else?"

"Meg. She was there last night. And this morning. And a solemn boy -- a friend of hers, I think. No others."

He shakes his head slowly. "Nothing I can think of, Sue."

For now it's just fine to be sitting here.

He raises a hesitant hand, threads fingers down through her hair, rests his hand on her shoulder.

"Will, mayhap. It sounds like him, do'ee ken?" She smiles up at him with a flash of mischief. "Will Stanton -- not Dearborn."

But oh, how strange and hurtful it is, saying these things again, new to him but not to her, and her smile fades into a wistful one. Susan grasps in that moment some of the pain the others must have felt with Jake. She knows, aye knows it very well indeed, that in days to come she will likely curse ka for its cruelty once more. But for now, she is sitting here with Roland,

(my fondest wish Roland I love thee)

his fingers tangled in her hair, and she does not turn away.

And that wistful smile -- he doesn't know quite why it's there, but he wants to make it go away.

Mayhap this isn't all bad.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows it's a bad idea, knows that his older self if faced with her would never do this -- but he does it anyway.

Slowly, he leans forward, and tilts his head, and kisses her gently.

It's been such a long time.

This, then, is what happens when a wind blows in your heart and through your soul. She has spent (they have spent) less than two months in Milliways being careful in each other's presence-- nearly half of the time they had together in Mejis, say true-- but even that does not change the heart of it, and it is the heart that is at the center of things now. And not her heart alone, either.

(Bird and bear and hare and fish-- thee were my fondest wish, Roland.)

(I love thee, Sue -- I always have. Always will.)

At first she just lets herself be kissed, but then she is kissing him back, as well. She slides her hands up to touch his face gently, and Susan Delgado of Mejis kisses Roland Deschain of Gilead in Milliways, that waystation at the end of the universe, somewhere before the clearing at the end of the path.

He's the one to break it.

Eventually.

It's still strange -- too strange for him. But there's a little bit of rightness to it, too. Enough to make him smile.

And then, softly, he says, "Sue, I'd not leave thee tonight -- but I must rest." A pause. "I'll see thee tomorrow, aye?"

I'd not leave thee tonight, he says, and she knows it's true. But he would have left before, even had she not died, and she knows that as well. Aye, she knows it very well-- for he was the one who told her.

(I was given a choice -- a life with you, or the chance to save the Tower. I chose the Tower.)

But Susan smiles at him, and even if her smile is sad, it is true. "Aye, Roland. Thee will see me, if thee wish to. I will be here."

The sadness in her smile hurts. But he's too close to exhaustion to tarry longer. It's been a long night.

Roland stands, and kisses her hand. "Good night, my dear."

She stands also, and curls her fingers around his for a moment before she draws away and lets her hand drop.

"And to thee, Roland. Rest and be well, and I'll see thee again soon, aye."

One last smile, and with stiff movements he makes his way upstairs.

As he turns away, she sits back down, the fingers of one hand pressed lightly to her lips, and waits until he is gone.

She waits a while longer, as well, before she moves. Somewhere inside she knows that there are any number of things she ought to do, people to tell--

(if they don't already know, mayhap, the thought rises unbidden, as they did about Walter)

-- but no. Not now. A few people know, Cuthbert and Joe among them, and she doesn't see any of the others; besides which Susan is not yet sure what she could say to them about this.

After enough time passes, deliberately without thinking, Susan slowly stands and finally goes upstairs.