The clatter of boots echoed through the field hospital as the day wore on. The air was heavy with the smell of antiseptic and sweat, a reminder of the battles fought beyond the hill. You were on the edge of a cot, wrapping a bandage around John Shelby's arm.

"Thank you, mother," John murmured, in a voice barely more than a whisper.

It was the youngest of the Shelby brothers who first called you that and without knowing it, he and Arthur were the ones who made it a habit that spread among the troopes. As time passed, you couldn't help but hear the silent murmurs. You heard the name over and over again for every soldier that ended up in your hands. Mother.

You'd been in this field hospital for months, mending broken bones and torn skin, hearing the same stories of nostalgia, fear, and camaraderie. These soldiers were just young ones like you. Far from home, far from their families, torn from their lives to serve their country. And you had become their little safe heaven, you and what you stood for. Safety. Consolation. Someone who cared.

Arthur and John Shelby, they had been the only Shelbys to end up in your hands over and over again, so it was a surprise when at the end of the war it was Thomas who you found on the stretcher, gritted teeth and tired eyes, with a wound on his thigh that spewed thick blood at a worrying speed. You got down to work and taking some tweezers you took out the bullet with meticulous speed to be able to press the gauze.

"Mother," Thomas winced as you applied pressure.

You paused for a moment, looking at Thomas under your hands. His eyes were shut, trusting you completely and depending on you like his brothers did many times before. The wound was deep and a wrong move could cause Thomas to be left with after-effects, you had heard that he would be decorated, he had already done his part in the war so now it was your turn to restore a sense of normalcy to his life by making him have nothing else to remind him of all this hell.

Mother is here, my Dear.