Rose felt like she was on a never ending roller coaster, just slowly clicking further and further to the top for an inevitable endless drop. A drop that would never come. Instead, she was stuck perpetually going up and up and up, her anxiety and fear with it. Her nerves were shot and every sound made her jump. She wasn’t supposed to be here. Well she was, this was definitely where her papers had her, but it must have been a mistake.

When Rose had signed up for the war as a medic, her mother cried for seven days straight, but her father looked at her with a newfound respect, as if he was finally seeing her as more than his little girl. After watching her male counterparts at the hospital leave one by one, some drafted, most volunteering, Rose felt like she couldn’t stand by any longer. Plus, how much different could a military hospital be anyways. But this was no hospital. Rose was sent to Gascony, France just south of German-Occupied territory. She was going to the front lines. 

The sound of gunfire was constant at the camp. Rose kept waiting for it to let up, but silence never came. The sound of bombs being dropped broke up the rat-a-tat-tat of the bullets just enough to keep her on edge at all times. This was her personal hell.

“We got a GSW and a whole squad 3 clicks out all kinds of messed up making their way back in. Private Lehman you take over here while we set up.” 

Rose nodded at her orders, happy to be given something to do besides standing around in the mud. She sent to work cleaning up a man groaning on a gurney, cursing up a storm about his shoulder. No sooner had she pressed an alcohol soaked rag did he start to address his anger at her instead of “those dirty German dogs.” 

“You ever hear of fucking bedside manner? That fucking hurts more than the god-damn bullet in my shoulder. Why don’t you go play nurse elsewhere and get me a real fucking doctor,” he viciously spat. 

Rose fought the urge to yell back at the man, but pressed the rag a bit harder into his skin, taking some solace in the new cry of pain. “Well unless you want to be back here later tonight so I can saw off that arm, I suggest you suck it up and let me stitch you up.” Rose was already numbing his arm and starting to stitch up his shoulder by the time the first of the next squad came in. By the time they had finished for the night, Rose could barely feel her fingers. It was all she could manage to get herself relatively clean before collapsing in her bunk for the evening.

---
Swearing it had only been a second with her eyes closed, Rory cursed at the sound of her CO screaming at her to get up. New orders were coming in and she only had ten minutes before debriefing. Rose quickly tied up her blonde hair into a tight bun after forcing a brush through it quickly. She gave her face another quick wash after pulling on her already caked in mud uniform. Her smaller frame was hidden underneath pounds of equipment normally, but for a quick debriefing, she wouldn’t need her pack or rifle right away. Rose ran to the tent, joining the rest of her squad, thanking her lucky stars once again that at least she had boots that fit. 

“Hey squirt. Didn’t think you were going to make it on time. And heaven knows I would have kicked your scrawny ass if we had PT because of you,” joked her only friend in the squad, Samson with a friendly elbow to her side. Samson towered over her 5’4 frame at a hunkering 6’3, and massive build. The two had clicked quickly after being outcasts in the group- her for being the only woman, and him the only black. 

“Okay guys, round up. Here’s what’s going down…”