Rose Walker - The Kindly Ones

In The Kindly Ones (Sandman #57-69) it is revealed that Rose, in her twenties, is living in an apartment beneath Lyta Hall in L.A. She is living off her Grandmother's inheritance and doing some writing about 50's TV shows. In her spare time she babysits Daniel Hall (though he is later kidnapped in her care) and looks after Zelda, the only living tenant of The Doll's House whom she maintains contact with.

Rose is affected by no longer having her 'heart' and often feels hollow and empty. She apparently never falls in love, or gets her heart broken, because she no longer possesses one in the spiritual sense. At one point she describes herself as "a cold bitch-on-wheels."

She doesn't age visibly. In The Doll's House we already see examples of her being taken for younger than her 21 years, and upon reaching 26 her youthful appearance is remarked on even more often.

However, her feelings of friendship towards others has not changed; she makes daily visits to the dying Zelda in the hospital, even paying for the medical costs; she refers to it mentally as 'A Vigil', because there is no-one else for the diseased woman. On one visit, Zelda gives Rose a message from her grandmother (suspected to be Unity, or possibly the amorphously-sexed Desire): if Rose will go to her she'll give Rose back her heart (which reinforces the idea that it was Unity - since she is the one who received Rose's heart, not Desire).

Intrigued, Rose travels once again to England, under the pretense of researching her grandmother's life. Here she is introduced to the Curator of Unity's Elderly Residents Home - none other than Paul McGuire, the lover of Alexander Burgess - and unwittingly makes contact with the Three Witches once more after searching for them in the broom closet where they had made their last encounter.

While in England, Rose apparently falls in love—for the first time as far as the reader knows—with Jack Holdaway, the nephew of her family's now-deceased British attorney (although she admits to herself that she only "really likes" him instead of being totally in love). Unfortunately, when she later gives him a surprise call, it turns out Holdaway is with someone else, whom he should have informed her about. (It is later implied that he killed himself when his lover, a man, discovered what he had done).

Depressed and agitated, Rose visits Paul, who resides in the house belonging to the comatose Alex Burgess. Exploring, she wanders into the basement room that contains the Glass Chamber where her Great-Uncle Morpheus had once been kept prisoner. Waiting for her there is her "grandparent": Desire of the Endless. Desire wishes to inform Rose of something, but before it can Rose interrupts, delivering a cryptic monologue that betrays her subconscious feelings about love. As Rose collapses to the floor in tears, Desire remarks that it preferred her when she was stoically complaining about not feeling anything.

Their encounter is interrupted by Paul, who strolls into the room as Desire disappears in a puff of smoke. Dazed, Rose recalls the incident as a dream...but it is revealed to be no dream, as Paul finds, on the floor, her heart, left by Desire in the form of a silver 'art deco' cigarette lighter.

Rose's story is a kind of rite-of-passage tale. Rose learns to open herself up, leaving her vulnerable to getting hurt, but also giving her the capacity to truly love and be loved.