Disclaimer: Jericho does not belong to me.
Johnston Green was having a rather rough day. He needed something to occupy his time now that the official running of the town was in someone else's hands. He had also wanted to see for himself just how things outside of their immediate vicinity seemed to be shaking out now that everyone ought to be clear that this was their new normal. He had gotten his glimpse. He couldn't say that it was particularly pretty. He also couldn't say that it was particularly unexpected.
On the plus side, they were all still alive. On the other hand, he was going to have to have a sit down with Dale to make sure that the boy understood exactly what had almost happened. First, however, they needed to get moving. He couldn't figure out what it was that his son and Heather were saying to each other out there, but it seemed odd that they were lingering in that manner. They were already running enough risks traveling in the dark; there was no need to keeping pushing their luck. When the two of them went to move in for a hug, he knew he needed to intervene.
"Do we have some sort of a problem out here that I should be made aware of?" Johnston asked poking his head out of the car.
Jake just blinked at him as if he had forgotten that there was anyone behind him watching; Heather immediately started blushing. He had climbed out of his seat by the time she started talking.
"I'm going to leave with them," she spoke quickly with a glance over her shoulder as if worried that she was trying the patience of the men in the truck. "I'm going to work with the people at the factory to help recreate what we need." She finally made eye contact with him, and he watched as her shoulders straightened. "I can do this, Mr. Mayor," she declared.
"I am not the mayor any more dag nab it," he stated first out of habit before getting around to what he really wanted to say, "but you are still getting yourself in that car, young lady. Four people left town in that car this morning, and four people are going back to town in it." The expression on Heather's face was somewhere between shock and scolded child.
"But . . .," she started as her expression settled on a confused look that told him that she hadn't really expected there to be any real opposition to whatever this plan of hers was.
"What help are you going to be taking off without any more than the coat on your back to your name?" He asked her. She blinked at him, but she did not immediately reply.
"And you," he turned on Jake who was just standing there with his shoulders sunk in on themselves in a defensive posture that he recognized well from lectures during the boy's teen years. He didn't let the recollection distract him. "What are you thinking? You were about to let her climb into that truck. We'll be having words later - the two of us. Get in the car, the both of you. I'm going to make our farewells to the men in that truck over there. Then, we're getting back to Jericho before anyone else has any more harebrained ideas. I swear I'm the only person on this little jaunt that didn't leave my common sense somewhere back in that fairgrounds." Neither of them was moving. "Get in, I said," he insisted while opening the back door of the car and making a gesture in Heather's direction. "Un-uh," he told her when she opened her mouth. "No arguing. You get in that car."
He hoped she followed through on it. Strictly speaking, he could not, in fact, order her to do as he was saying, but he was hoping that she was still surprised enough at his insistence to do it anyway. He had no intention of sending someone off with nothing to unknown territory with no one to watch her back. It didn't set right with him. He might not be the mayor any longer, but that fact did not make him any less of a caretaker of people he perceived as under his charge. Besides, he was more than a little put out that everyone around him seemed to be conspiring to fit as many stupid moves as possible into one outing. He was too old to keep dealing with the shifting directions of the oncoming onslaughts.
He walked quickly over to the truck and explained the change in plans. The drop in tension in Russell's shoulders and the flickering way his eyes shifted to the side when he nodded in acknowledgement did not escape his attention. It just made him that much surer that his insistence had been the right call to make. He climbed back in the car and watched with the others as the truck pulled away.
He waited until Jake had turned to send them on their own way before he spoke.
"We're all cold and tired and a little hungry and have had a far more exciting day than any of us really wanted to be having," he started. "We will talk about this when we've slept and calmed down and gotten all of the adrenaline out of our systems." He paused. "Hopefully, it will be when we're a little warmer and a little less hungry as well. Are we clear?" He waited. Jake just stared intently at the road in front of him, and there was complete silence from Heather's side. The only sound to be heard was a poorly muffled one coming from the other side of the backseat.
"Don't think the two of them and their poorly thought out ideas have gotten you off the hook, Dale Turner," he chided. "Everybody in this car is due for a talk, so you can stop that snickering that I'm hearing from back there." Silence descended once again, and Johnston sighed.
"This is not the hobby that I had in mind."