Disclaimer: Oh come on, people. If I were the inimitable L.M. Montgomery or the illustrious Colleen McCullough I'd be raking in the dough and not writing fanfiction for free. Sheesh.

V.A.D. HOSPITAL, ENGLAND

JUNE 1918

"De Bricassart, over here--now."

Ralph turned from the pile of soldiers' letters he was sorting when he heard the familiar, imperious, feminine voice. It was that Canadian nurse, Faith Meredith, and she was speaking to him in the slightly contemptuous manner she always used towards him.

He went and stood in front of her, looking down at her with his usual kindly, but aloof, expression.

"Where are the 22 gauge one inch needles I instructed you to stock?" She demanded. That aloof air of his never failed to annoy her.

"I put a little box on the left hand side of the bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet, but the big box is in the store room above the rolled bandages."

"Nothing is supposed to go above the rolled bandages but suture needles and catgut. You've been told already."

"I beg your pardon," he said mildly, "but the sutures and catgut had already been moved to the shelf across the room where the bath blankets used be. Unfortunately the only available space was above the rolled bandages."

"Where are the bath blankets now?" She asked testily.

"In the laundry. They will be washed and returned to us as soon as possible. At least, that's what the laundresses told me."

"Then where will we put...? Never mind. DeBricassart, clear some space in the store room for the blankets when they come back."

Nodding, Ralph turned and went to the storeroom as he was told. Faith watched him go with mounting irritation. There was never enough space, never enough time. She felt stretched thin as she tried to give good care to all the poor wounded soldiers and the Red Cross saw fit to send him as an assistant.

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Ralph went into the storeroom to clear the space as he had been instructed and started to move boxes to the side, trying to rearrange the shelves to make room for everything the unit needed.

Faith's attitude towards him was not unexpected, nor did it cause him any dismay. Outside of Ireland, to be a healthy man in civilian clothing was to be an object of scorn, and Ralph had suffered his share of rude jibes. He was forbidden to take up arms against his fellow man, but he refused to explain the reason why to anybody. He merely did his job and allowed others to think what they wanted and dislike him or not, according to their own inclination. It was good practice in patience. He would need to cultivate patience if he were to advance in his chosen vocation.

He grinned a little ruefully as he moved the heavy, bulky boxes. On the other hand, he did have an advantage that some of the other civilian men didn't have--he was considered to be extraordinarily handsome. He especially saw how it gave him an advantage in his interactions with the nurses. Some of them were obviously torn between wanting to despise him for not enlisting and at the same time finding him beguiling on the other hand. But Ralph did nothing to encourage conflicted, lovesick nurses. In the line of work he'd chosen, patience was a requirement, but romance had no part.

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After watching Ralph to make sure he went to the storeroom, Faith turned back to her work. There was always plenty of work to do--wound care, treatments, medications. But when those bath blankets came back from the laundry, there had better be a place to put them, or she would personally put Ralph on report.

Actually, she reflected, she couldn't fault his work or his attitude. In the week since he first arrived, he reported to the unit earlier than all the other volunteers, did whatever he was told and usually went above and beyond the call of duty, not leaving until after all the other volunteers did. He listened carefully to the instructions of the nurses and was a fast learner. Faith rarely had to tell him anything twice. The soldiers seemed to like him, too. When he would sit at the bedside of a wounded man listening patiently and kindly to his fears and hopes, inevitably the soldier would become visibly calmer and less agitated. Time after time the soldiers told tell Faith how much good it did them to talk to that volunteer Ralph.

And for some reason Faith couldn't fathom, they didn't seem to see him in the same light she did or share her resentment. But she hated any healthy man not in uniform. She supposed it was wrong to hate, but she couldn't help it. Her father always preached charity from the pulpit, but then again, her father didn't have to work with Ralph de Bricassart on a daily basis, either...