Ethan vaguely remembered Riley - she had been at Haven as long as he had, if not a little longer as she had been one of the few to receive him that faithful night. Wracking his brain, he remembered her now approaching the door to his car brandishing a pistol she clearly did not know how to use, along with four others. She had grown considerably in that time, Ethan admitted as he looked her up and down with probing eyes. Leaner, harder, more confident even if her words suggested otherwise.
Tom was already making his way up the stairs as Ethan turned about on the spot and meandered towards the door with Riley.
"Sure, food sounds good," he said in his Texan drawl, pushing the door open and letting in the dimmed noon sunlight. "You've been out of the town before, yeah?"
While his eyes were probing and seemed to study her, she didn't hold it against him, nor was she made uncomfortable by it. It must be a part of him. She was aware of his profession before the outbreaks. Ethan was trained to study other people. It was likely a habit he couldn't turn off. With Riley it was just because she loved watching people.
She followed Ethan and walked outside as he held the door open. His question caught her slightly off guard as she was embarrassed by the answer. For all her hard work within the camp and her outstanding physical shape, she had never been selected to go on supply runs.
"Uh.. Well, yes I've been outside before. Just never on supply runs." She admitted, not liking the words as they left her. "I won't slow you down, though." Riley quickly added, wanting to make that very clear.
"You're still alive. That's no accident." Ethan retorted. "You're not going to slow anyone down, not anymore."
The pair continued to walk from the town hall to the Cafe, Ethan and Riley walking more or less in tandem. The silence felt comfortable to Ethan - though, silence always felt more comfortable than unnecessary conversation. He knew what he needed to about the inhabitants of Haven. How reliable they were. How tough they were. Riley fell in his good graces, that's all he needed to know.
"I'm back," Ethan called, the closest to cheerful he could muster. "Riley's here, too."
Maggie stood up from her seat behind the counter of the old cafe, offering a toothy smile to the pair and waving them over.
"That'll be nothin' for you, boy," she chided to Ethan with just a touch of warmth. "What'll 'ya have sweety?"
The aged woman turned her attention to Riley, harsh brown eyes carrying with them a deep compassion and genuine care. Even Ethan felt disarmed as she watched the exchange.
The switch in Maggie's demeanor when she spoke to the two of them made the corner of her mouth tug slightly into a brief smile. Riley had always had a soft spot for Maggie. Haven was lucky to have her with them.
"Just whatever you have, Maggie." Riley said humbly, smiling at the old woman. "You know I'll always like your food."
That was more or less true. But it didn't have anything to do with Maggie's cooking. Sometimes all she had was just something Riley didn't care for very much. But you ate what was served.
"Sweet-talking won't get you a bigger plate." Maggie lifted a hand and wagged a finger at Riley, still with a great deal of kindness in her voice. They both smiled as the older woman turned.
Riley looked at Ethan and then gestured at a table in the corner of the Cafe. "Let's sit there?" It was part question, part statement. Next to the table hung a bulletin board with a map on it. Every building had a map of the area. Riley took it down as she walked over, and sat down. "Should we start with what we need for the trip?"
Ethan crossed his arms and began to reach for a cigarette tucked in his shirt pocket before deciding against it, casting Maggie a cautious glance. She hardly had any concern voicing her distaste of his habit, particularly when he had the nerve to do so indoors. The ex-cop shifted in his chair and nodded as if to acknowledge Riley's question.
"Right, so," Ethan began, pausing to collect his thoughts. "We'll want three days of canned food and some basic utensils. Bedspreads, too - as well as some tinder and matches for a fire if we need it. Handguns only for emergencies, crossbows otherwise. Bows aren't too useful at taking out the dead. I'll ask Markus for his kit - he's got a crowbar 'n some spare backpacks hiding around we can use if we can't find them in town hall. We'll each need melee weapons, fire axes if they aren't in-use since they're multipurpose."
He made a mental note of each item as he went along, talking more at the table than to Riley as he rambled off items. Maggie placed Riley's food at the table, offering the pair a brief smile before leaving them to their business.
"Anything else you can think of?" Ethan asked after a brief delaying, snapping his attention back to Riley. "Probably going to need a map, too, come to think of it."
She nodded as she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. In an effort to make the cafe seem genuine, the decor had been carefully set up like it had been before the outbreak. It was appreciated by most everyone in Haven. Quickly, while they were fresh in her mind, Riley wrote down what Ethan had said. The pen scribbled quickly across the paper, but her handwriting was surprisingly neat and very readable.
Taking a spoonful of her food, she nodded. Carrots and some beans and a stale slice of bread. Not the most interesting meal, but it was only meant as fuel and not a culinary experience.
"First aid kit." Riley said after swallowing her food. "But don't worry about that. I've got some. Maps too." She had her own backpack that she always had packed. It always contained the things she deemed valuable if she had to leave Haven quickly. Among those things were maps and first aid kits.
"Other than that I think I agree with you." She added first aid kit to her list, just for good measure. "So what area exactly are we talking about?" Riley turned the map so Ethan could see better and took another spoonful of her food.
"So if we look here..." Ethan pointed to the north side of Haven, where the gate stood marked out on the map alongside its walls before, and began to trace up the main road. "About twenty miles up this way should be what Tom was talking about."
Ethan's finger came to rest off a small town labeled "Coker Creek", shown nestled among a web of local roads. It was an area he knew well enough - he had driven through it to Haven, and frequently passed by it on the way to hunt in the woods just on its outer fringes. No one had dared enter it proper for fear of the dead. Well, that was until now.
"Town of this size, should be easy to spot a supermarket," he continued, tapping the spot on the map. "If I had to guess, it's closer to the north side because we don't head that way often, which explains why no one's ever seen it 'til now. Which means we can loop around and connect with the town on the other side, which might take another day to do properly, or we pass through and see if we can't set up shop in a safehouse before trying to head in."
She followed his finger as it traced around the map. Her agreement showed in the way she nodded, making a mental note of the map and the locations Ethan pointed out. That way, she would also have a rough idea in her head of where to go, should they somehow lose their maps. Riley had never been that far away from Haven in a long time. She had gone hunting and on a couple of lumber-runs, but twenty miles was further than she had ever been.
"Sounds good." Riley said and briefly looked up at Ethan before brushing a stray lock of her hair back behing her ear. She had finished her meal and appreciated the energy and warmth it brought. Though the food was not the most interesting constellation of ingredients, Maggie had a knack for making even the most bland of meals just a little bit interesting. A few moments went by in silence as Riley committed Coker Creek to memory. "So you knew where to get a crossbow? I take it you have access to handguns and rifles." Riley would not be surprised if he had one on him at the moment. She had never been good with guns. Knives and crossbows were her thing. "I can get knives, first aid kits, rations and maps. Do we still keep fire axes in Town Hall?"
She knew there was a room in Town Hall where they kept all their weapons. It was of course named the armory, but not everyone had access to the room. Ethan might, though. She was lucky with her partner.
"I can get us some crossbows," Ethan replied, nodding. "The armory in town hall is stocked with a lot of them that we scavenged about two years ago. Still have a lot of store-quality bolts, too. Handguns I have covered. Rifles won't be needed – if we get ourselves into trouble that a handgun magazine can't get us out of we're fucked anyway."
He stood up then, nodding at Riley. "You get those supplies, meet me at the gate just before dawn tomorrow. I'll see if I can sneak off with those fire axes and get those extras from Markus. Rations'll be in town hall, too."
As the two made for the door, Riley having left her dishes for Maggie to pick up, Ethan stopped.
"And hey," he said abruptly, the following words sounding a bit unnatural if intended sincerely. "Glad you're coming along."