Jules and Wells, both the ripe old age of sixteen, returned to their respective homes, but both felt alone and empty, even if their mothers, brothers and sisters were there. For an important element had been removed from their lives…a father. What a vacuum to fill. For a father, a good father, is like a good hand, and only missed for what it truly fits once it is missing.

At that moment both Jules and Wells felt an emptiness that surpassed anything they’d ever experienced. While Wells was used to his father traveling and being gone for long periods of time, he had never been faced with his father being in actual danger, and now his father, just like Jules was at the front of the War. For in this war even the Ministers and Statesmen of countries were not forfeit from serving their duty to their respective nations. When a body was needed, a body must be provided, and to the vast war machine that was gobbling up soldiers like a child sucking up sugar, then even the famous and political are not safe for long.

Jules entered his home, his thoughts on three vastly different things. He was hatching, even unknown to himself, the framework for a way to deal with his grief, that would not be emotional, but practical. Actually deal with the cause of the problem.

Wells, in his stately mansion, felt the emptiness of it even more than usual. Even the Butlers were gone, called to duty. Only the Maids remained, and his father had said that some countries like America and Israel were enacting laws to allow women into the Forces. Momentous decisions that could over time affect the healthy balance of all societies. Till this point in time it had been unthinkable for women to be risked in such unclean violence, but because of the vast numbers of losses in the field, that reaction was being re-evaluated and considered lacking.

Jules went into the home’s small kitchen and began whipping up some light bread for his family, with the intent of making a larger bread to send off to his father for his meals, as the men would be bivouacked near the Fisherman’s Wharf and he could bring it to him there.His father had whispered that to him while he held him in that morning before marching off.

As Jules worked his sisters came in to watch, but said nothing. All were feeling his loss and sorry as well, and were afraid to speak that such an act might precipitate another tidal wave of anguish upon their souls, that of Jules and their beloved mother. His family was a very closely knit one, and almost could read each other’s minds, they were so one minded.