Once I started thinking about Guy and Eep's future family, I couldn't stop, so this collection will be a series of vignettes about their future life. Some will be centered on Guy and Eep, some will be almost entirely about the kids, but will still hopefully contain some thoughts/insights about their life after The End.

Chapters 1 & 2 from this collection are straight out of "I Dwell in Possibility," so if you've read them there, you can skip on to chapter 3, which is new. Sorry for the repost, but I just wanted to keep them all together here for future readers.

This collection is NOT a sequel to Impossible - in other words, Guy's parents never reappeared. When he refers to Mom and Dad, he's talking about Ugga and Grug. Also, for the purposes of this collection, Guy took Eep's family name as his own.

These stories are also not necessarily in chronological order, but I'll try to make a note at the beginning of each as to where it falls in context with the other stories.

So this is a little follow-up to "Only Natural." Proponents of the "show, don't tell" rule will hate this story, I'm afraid – I would almost call this a sketch rather than a story, just a little exploration of what Eep and Guy's family might eventually look like. Anyway, I enjoyed it and I hope you will too..

Family

Guy sat in the shade thrown by the little house he built in Crood Valley so many years ago. His mate lay next to him, her head pillowed on his leg, fast asleep in the heat of the afternoon. It meant he couldn't move, but Guy was content to enjoy the quiet, punctuated by the gentle rush of the valley's tiny waterfall. He would be stiff later, but for now, it was nice.

He smiled as his eldest son entered the valley, making his daily visit to check on them, faithful in his self-imposed duty as always. Little Guy grinned as he strolled towards the house. "Hi, Dad."

Everyone still called him Little Guy, though he was anything but. He stood head and shoulders taller than his father and he was quite a bit broader, with big hands and bigger muscles. Having been skinny and lean all his life, Guy took a secret pride in his son's strength, strength that came from his mother, tempered by a gentle and caring heart.

"Hello, son," Guy smiled back. He tipped his head to indicate his sleeping mate, and Little Guy nodded, lowering his voice.

"Need anything?"

"No, not really," Guy replied. "Come and sit for a while."

"In a minute," Little Guy's easygoing grin flashed again, as he began a familiar routine, checking to see what needed doing around the valley. As a child, he had been a gift, and had borne all the mistakes of his first-time parents with grace and enduring patience. He was also, in Guy's opinion, the best older brother that any sibling could ask for, a patient protector, keeper of secrets, healer of hurts, and a steadying influence on the four children who followed him into the world. Now, as an adult, he was still steadfastly loyal, visiting more often than any of the other children. He came up from the village often to help out, or to bring food, or just to sit and talk. Guy flexed his swollen hands restlessly. It frustrated him that there were things he could no longer do, but as Guy's joints began to stiffen and Eep's stamina to flag, Little Guy had quietly stepped in, making sure that nothing his parents needed went unattended to.

"Have you heard from your sister lately?" Guy asked. "She hasn't been home in a few days." Technically, Ember still lived in the valley, in one of the other huts Guy had built when their family began to need more room, but she disappeared frequently, often without warning. Guy had learned to live with it, though he worried for her constantly.

If Little Guy was the steadiest of their little stars, Ember was the brightest, so passionate and intense that Guy sometimes wondered if she mistook her name for a challenge. Her black hair was cropped as short as she could get it, sticking up in unruly spikes. She had a slightly softer version of her father's angular features, and her dark eyes, framed with heavy lashes, took the breath of everyone she met. She, too, was broader than Guy, though only a little taller, and he saw in her physique a longer, leaner version of her mother. She certainly had all Eep's speed and agility, as well as her strength of both body and character.

"No," Little Guy answered as he went about his usual routine of checking their tools, checking the house, making sure they had enough firewood. "I'm sure she's all right though. She said something last week about going to check on Aunt Sandy, that's probably where she is."

"Probably," Guy sighed, and Little Guy sent him a sympathetic glance.

Guy loved all his children, but he could not help being awestruck by his brightest and most beautiful child, his first little girl and the biggest challenge of his life. After Little Guy's easygoing nature, Ember's willfulness and independence had left her parents rather staggered. One force of nature did not yield easily to another, and Guy and Little Guy both had occasionally been hard pressed to keep the peace between mother and daughter, but Guy knew Eep was proud of Ember's fierce, uncompromising ways all the same. Her quick mind made her impatient and sharp with most people, but she was a daddy's girl at heart and Guy loved her fiercely.

Wresting his thoughts from worries over his beloved but unpredictable wild child, Guy said, "Nan brought the baby by yesterday. Did you say something to her?"

Little Guy bit his lip, a blush coloring his dusky skin at being caught in a good deed. "I may have. She forgets how hard it is for you to come to them these days."

"It's not that hard," Guy defended automatically, but he appreciated Little Guy's thoughtfulness just the same. Guy was at a loss to explain how he and Eep could have raised two such completely different little girls in the same home one right after the other, but their third child turned out to be an easy-going, cheeky, garrulous girl, not easily offended by her sister's sharp tongue and absolutely adored by her big brother. Nan was a little piece of sunshine in human form, as addicted to hearth, home, and conversation as Ember was to wild places and solitude.

Unfortunately Nan was also as prone to fall in love as Ember was resistant to it, and Guy had been at his wits' end trying to hold her to some degree of common sense and caution when boys came courting – much to his father-in-law's amusement, while he had been alive. Nan was fairer than either Little Guy or Ember, with a rounded face, reddish-brown hair, a wide grin, and kind eyes that reminded Guy so much of Ugga that it almost hurt. Though she didn't have Ember's striking beauty, her sweetness, especially contrasted with her sister's coldness, made up for it, and many a man that came seeking Ember seemed to reconsider upon meeting Nan.

Though he felt she'd been a bit young, Guy had been more relieved than anything else when Nan had finally settled on a steady, reliable man as the sole object of her undying adoration. He thought her suitor rather ordinary and Eep thought him dull as dirt, but neither had objected when the young man stuttered out his intentions. Privately, Guy felt that Nan could have done better, but she was happy and that was what mattered to him. Just this winter she had delivered Guy's first grandchild, a chubby little boy who giggled almost as much as he drooled.

"I told Mac to come by too," Little Guy continued, "But one of his macawnivores is about to have a litter, and he didn't want to leave her until the kittens were born."

The least physically imposing of all the siblings, Mac had been an escape artist almost from birth, sneaking off into the jungle any chance he got. Mac owed all of his looks to his father, except his hazel eyes and the tint of red in his long mane of hair. He had the care of Chunky's descendants, and a continually growing menagerie of other animals that he befriended or found orphaned. Mac had left home even before Nan, because there wasn't enough room for all his pets in the valley.

"He said to say hello and he'll come by when he can," Little Guy continued, and then he grinned. "Also said to tell Grug no, he can't have one of the kittens."

"Why not?" whined an uneven voice from above them.

"There you are," Guy said, a touch of annoyance in his voice as he turned his eyes up as a pouting face appeared over the edge of the roof. "I was looking for you earlier."

Caught, the youth scowled, and flipped himself down onto the ground, shoving his hands in his pockets in a way that made Guy sorry he ever invented them. "You had chores to do," Guy reminded him, fixing his youngest with his sternest look.

Grug hunched his shoulders and ignored his father, turning to his oldest brother. "Why can't I have one?" he demanded.

"Well," Little Guy said genially, continuing his work, "First of all, a macawnivore's kind of big for a first pet. Second, you need to prove you're responsible enough to take care of one. You know how protective Mac is of all his animals." He grinned at his younger brother. "Doing your chores might be a step in the right direction."

"Mac's stupid," Grug muttered. "It's just a dumb animal."

"Say that where he can hear you and he'll never let you have one," Little Guy advised, arching an eyebrow.

Grug growled and spun on his heel, pelting towards the valley entrance – presumably to go irritate his animal-mad brother. All legs and arms, Grug was shooting up like a weed and only just now beginning to fill out in the shoulders, though he was already beefier than Mac. Once a sweet little boy, though more intense than any of the rest of the children besides Ember, he now wore a perpetual scowl on his face, and Guy lived in fear that he would shoot off his mouth at the wrong person and get a pounding. Little Guy wasn't easily goaded, but Eep had had to step in more than once to keep Ember from pummeling the boy. Neither were sure how many times Mac and Grug had come to blows; Mac was more easygoing than Ember but he had his limits, and he was too smart to fight where he would be caught. Guy had asked Little Guy about it once, concerned, but his eldest just grinned and told him not to worry about it. "Grug's bigger," Little Guy had said, "But Mac fights dirty. Just let them work it out."

Guy sighed. "Teenagers. I'm thankful he's the last one."

"Every time I talk to him I feel like I should come to you and apologize for my past misdeeds," Little Guy grinned.

Guy smiled. "The hope that he may turn out as well as you in the end is all that keeps me from strangling him in his sleep."

Little Guy blushed, keeping his eyes on his task.

"I'm very proud of you, son," Guy said quietly.

"Thanks, Dad," Little Guy mumbled, embarrassed as always at the praise.

"How's it going with Neen?" Guy asked, his smile widening.

Little Guy blushed again, a deep red this time. "It's going. I'm almost there. A few more trips out in the boat and I should have enough."

"I hope she's worth it," Guy said, watching him. "You've put a lot of work into this. I hope—I hope she loves you the way you deserve to be loved." He threaded his fingers lovingly through Eep's hair.

"I think she does," Little Guy said shyly. "And I know I love her. It's just her father, is all. She's his baby. I think setting the terms so high was just his way of keeping her around a little longer."

Guy smiled. "I know how that goes. I would just hate for you to go through all this and then find out in the end that she wasn't what you wanted." He hesitates. "Do you want me to go and talk to her father?"

"No. I want to do this myself," Little Guy said, his eyebrows lowering in determination. "I wish he would let us spend more time together, but—" His hand drifted up to touch a beaded feather hanging around his neck, one Guy didn't remember seeing before. It looked like one of the hair ornaments favored by the women in the village. Nan had one like it. "I think she cares," Little Guy said, with a small smile, still looking at the ground.

Guy sat back, satisfied. "I'm glad. You deserve to be happy. You've waited long enough."

"If all I wanted was a mate, I could have found one years ago," Little Guy said seriously and without any hint of ego. "But that's not enough. I want what you and Mom have. That's not easy to find. I think it'll be worth it in the end, though."

Guy looked down at his sleeping mate. "Definitely," he said softly, stroking her hair again.

Eep stirred under his hand and stretched, pushing herself up. Green eyes blinked sleepily at him, and Guy touched her cheek with a smile. "Welcome back."

"Ugh, my neck," she grumbled, rubbing it.

"Hey, Mom," Little Guy said, coming over to sit with them. He put his big hands on his mother's shoulders and kneaded gently. Guy felt a twinge of jealousy, stretching his sore fingers again.

"Mm. You're my favorite, have I told you that?" Eep sighed.

"Not today," Little Guy grinned.

"What about me?" Guy pouted.

Eep reached for him and wrapped her small hand around his, swollen knuckles and all. "I could never love anybody more than I love you," she said, and Guy smiled.

Nomad. Cavewoman. Those terms had long since ceased to mean anything for them. They had created something new here together, something beautiful, and while it hadn't been easy, while they had hurt and been hurt, while there had been blood and loss and tears, Guy couldn't find fault with the life that led him here, or the family he and Eep had raised.

Since someone will probably ask, I didn't have specific ages in mind when I wrote this, but I would say Little Guy's probably mid-twenties, Ember's 20ish, Nan's 18ish, Mac 17ish, and Grug about 14 or 15. Eep and Guy are probably somewhere in their late 40's, early 50's, somewhere in there. I don't want to imply they're invalids or anything, but their lifestyle has to have been fairly tough on their bodies and they're certainly feeling their ages.