Rinoa blushed. "I meant it'd be empty for me, without him," she allowed. "I can't say for you. I do know what I'd be missing, so you're right, it's different."

She closed the book on her lap, taking a moment to set it on the floor next to her.

"I've heard," she began, "that sometimes, if you don't have a family, you make your own. There are friends of his in the military that I've called 'Uncle.'"