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Who: Anthony Janvier and OPEN on the 23rd; Harper Sutherland, Reilanin Bainbridge, and Angeline Strauss on the 23rd and 24th.
Where: Around Locke, rounding a park and ending at one grocery store on the 23rd; the library and Angeline's place of work on the 24th.
When: Backdated to Jan. 23rd to Jan. 24th; midday to evening.
What: The resident zombie is, courtesy of Master Nine-Lived Detective, perfectly alive again for a few days. What better way to spend them than outside a bit, running a few errands?

By the time he has split off from Alex, he's already out and well-out and underprepared for it. No tasks lined up, nothing on hand except for a bit of cash, but that's well and good - he hadn't known what to do with this time in the first place, and he's got another day, at least, in all likelihood - this is hitting the ground running.

And running, he can do! Heads quickly down a few blocks in a store-lined zone, remembering his way around and enjoying it - open space without any need for a hiding spot, not that he feels coming on. Occasional bump or near-bump on his blind side, but open, nonetheless, and the sun's no bother and he can properly feel the wind. Both facts are the winter weather aside.

Meanders into the park for maximum effect of outside-ness within a few hours. He flatly drops into a bench. Brings out the sheet of paper he's got pocketed to check up on the network, unfolds it. Proceeds with the checking to his left, in case - not even thinking to compensate for incomplete view of the right.

And with that similarly cursory check done with he can resolve to get at least one minor thing taken care of - he expects he's actually going to need to sleep today, after all.

Fetching what it surely was that at least some of the money he's got on hand was meant or implicitly encouraged to be used for, it is.

He's at the store picking backing ingredients off a shelf and of all things he's forgotten how to do this without actively thinking. He didn't take a basket on the way over here - and obviously whatever he's going to pick is going to be bagged, but then he's going to need to carry those bags by hand on the way home...

Has his arms a bit full scanning shelves for more manageable shapes, if not sizes, turning a bit - doesn't need to be everything at once, just what he'll need to fill in gaps in or re-supply anything there's an obvious shortage of. He can and should come up with a proper plan tomorrow.

-----

He does set out with a proper plan today. Doesn't leave too early, seeing as technically he should be in school now, and has a backpack on him, which may or may not allow him to stand out a little less in addition to serving its utilitarian purpose.

Firm note to drop by the library, which he does - pushes the door open and promptly slips off into an aisle at semi-random just in case by some chance anyone might be present who might recognize him, ask where on earth he's been or pass on word to certain parties to who might be interested.

Either the layout's a hint different, it's occurring to him, or he's misremembering - he supposes either the earthquake forced some reorganization thinking back to Ms. Bainbridge's network message or he's just a bit out of touch. Goes to wandering back around, peering around and into the aisles to at least clue himself into a quick re-mapping-out.

At the store by the time the sun's started going down, however, he knows just where to go. Has made a proper list, weaved in and out of and picked from the aisles, and is at the front. Makes it to the register, hands over cash, responds to a well-meant inquiry about the patch over his eye with a sheepishly-laughing "Oh - it's -- surgery," stuffs the change back into his pocket and takes the bags with a thanks and a duck of the head.

He slows down towards the door stalling on whether to set down his bags and try to fit the shopping bags into the backpack with the books before or after he walks through it.

Catches a glimpse, as he does so, of what looks rather like long blue hair with streaks back inside.

Does a double-take and freezes to the spot. Partly blocking the doorway. That does look rather like who he thinks it does.

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While dragging him through the aisle, Harper remembers something as she readjusts her grocery basket in her opposite arm. Her groceries. This silent account of her options slows her pace some as they emerge towards the front of the store, where the checkouts lanes were. On the one hand, she's a girl who doesn't take kindly to wasting time. On the other... she'd have wasted time anyway, if she just left her items there. And she is, if nothing else, terribly utilitarian about some things.

Stopping on a time, she turns on her quarry again, holding out her arm with the basket balanced on it.

"Put your things in here."

Balks, looks at her, down at the basket - and nods with another "uhm".

He heard the lady - deposits said things in the basket, and blinks back up at her. Awaiting approval and/or disapproval or further instructions.

"Thank you," she says, perhaps genuinely, or at least appreciative of the tidy way he takes orders. So it is thus, that Harper drags Anthony through the checkout lane and pays for his things as well as hers, not trusting that he won't bolt if she lets go of his wrist. It is also thus that she marches straight out the door afterwards and directs them a little ways down from the storefront, away from the general mill of the other patrons and public.

Finally, she lets go, if only to just whirl on him, fists balled and planted firmly on her hips.

"Well, what changed?"

A small voice in the lower back of his brain is muttering please don't do that, please don't as they go through the checkout line and he keeps it shut its place as not doing so even if it was let have its way would slow things down and if there was any room to slow things down surely she wouldn't be paying in the first place, she wouldn't have dragged him along and she wouldn't have not even spared a minute to let go of his wrist, that or not risked him falling behind, or running off (did she not trust he'd gave followed or told? Kept up, he might grant her).

Instead he takes a moment to tense and flinch as his items are rung up as part of the total she gets to paying, and leaves it jerked loose and behind as she leads him directly along out the door and off to the side.

He's not expecting her to let go when she does and inches a step forward on a superficial bit of momentum - and rebounds when she turns back around.

"What - what changed - ?" he asks, voice is tenuously not-quite-high and just above a whisper-volume - and then he realizes that's exactly what she just asked, herself and trips out bumbling "I mean uh what, what - what do you mean?"

Not remotely better! "Do you mean uhm - why. -- Why I'm umm - ?"

Vaguely gestures to himself and heavens this feels like blabbing classified information in public never mind that it'll not mean anything to anyone who doesn't know to begin with but hazards with a crack anyway - " - I'm alive -- ?"

"Yes, why you are alive," she repeats, intentionally making the last word bite. Which is extraordinarily tactless, on her part, but she's not exactly a paragon of subtly. Still, despite her sharpness and overall willingness to demonstrate it, she had, up until then, let him take his time in answering her question with a volley of his own. For her, it was direct, but she's caught on to the fact that she can't exactly force the point and hope to get anything useful out of it. She may be tactless, but she's not dense.

Brows knitting, she spends a long moment looking at him. "I thought you were the different one. Different from the other three! That this —" Harper gestures. "...wasn't possible!"

It's then that a slight high note manages to break though, something not unlike concern.

"It isn't - usually -- ...!" His hands lift, head shakes with a twitch. " -- Someone else helped, uhh. This is - this'll wear off - actually...!"

Held back and gaping for whether or not it would've been appropriate to sell that with any type of tone over another - would've said it lightheartedly - in fact, this is the opposite of the others, you're still right -

"Y - you're right - !" goes bumbled out.

When the words trickle out, she finds her posture loosening, and her heel scuffing back on the pavement. Hard lining her way through trying to figure out what the echo process did and didn't do was certainly having its drawbacks, and it flickers plainly in her expression. Just when she thought she'd had it down, something else came out of left field.

"It's temporary?"

"Uhm - yes," Loose nod.

Edges a fraction of a step back - to give her that much more of her space, just in case and without a particular idea in case of what.

Mild, neutral mutter - "It should uh -- last for - a couple of days... - "

Withholds a bumbling "why", he's still not in any place to be guiding the course of things to any extent where he figuratively stands.

"Oh," is her very eloquent reply. "So, the echoes can do that much, too. What next..."

On a dime, her demeanor shifts into a much more awkward stance. Mostly because she's aware she's jumped the gun, so to speak, and essentially dragged this boy right into the line of fire. It's not that she's apologetic, exactly — just conscious. Which really fell back more on that unspoken why that hangs there uncomfortably.

Concise, "oh" is, if not very telling from where Anthony is.

He watches her shift, and his brows roof and pinch - it's uncertain; he reads the stance but not into it, and he'd not help any case asking "What's wrong?"

Assuming "wrongness" is the right thing to attribute it to.

He leaves the why hanging.

Instead holds his tone up above a whisper volume-wise, quality-wise something clearer than that, a monotone and hesitant sort of mumble - "Um er - ...What do you mean what's next - ?"

With a break in the monotone to a drift upward at the end in case that helps the innocence of it, and at least in part he knew what she meant. He's asking more than anything as an attempt at distraction.

Well, she'd gone and done it now, meaning that she's stuck in this situation of her very own design. Pursing her lips, she straightens again, squaring her middle to try and boast a better sense of confidence than she's currently feeling.

"I mean — I still don't know how these echoes work! And here I thought..." Harper really looks as though she hates to say it, and has to work the words out, hating even more to be dishonest. "How terrible it had to have been for you, going through all of that! Not like the other three, who turned back to normal!"

In a nutshell: she was worried, and felt as though that rare sentiment was betrayed, but now she knows it's not, and wow, is that sure awkward.

He's taken aback. Effectively and, with another beat for him to run through it, physically-manifesting. Brow is again up and knitted.

Is that what she's saying?

Manages a "Well, it." He cuts it off there suspended. Can't finish that thought without assuming too much - worry could just as easily be over the effects of pulses in general. An obligatory "It isn't that bad" would do worse than nothing if that's it, not even worth assurance considering how unpredictable cases are - the one she'd just mentioned is a fine example; apparently some zombification self-cures...

He's left to do the same, then - make an admission.

"I, uh." Half of what's left of a shallow breath he's been unconsciously stalling on finishing. Thins and licks his lips. "Thought you were upset, over -- before - ..."

Either of the befores - another apology for the fiasco with the other three, a first one for the discouragingly-ended talk over the network.

"I was!" Is her too-quick answer, fired back as soon as he's formed the thought and given it voice. "Don't you think that I wasn't!"

For Harper, it was just as important to come back swinging at anything of the discouraging sort. It was the only way to come out on top, even though it could do the adverse and land her in hot water, as she'd just so colorfully found out. Regardless, she's a bad liar, and an even worse sugar-coater. Ironic as that was, with all those sweet baking supplies still hanging from the crook of her arm. So she leaves the word mincing to the more emotionally cunning.

"But," she tacks on, without an ounce of trepidation. "I was upset because I didn't know! That it couldn't have been your fault, the way you looked, or sounded. If I had known that, I wouldn't have been as afraid! So when I saw you looking like this..."

She'd snapped.

He flinches - of course she wasn't not...

And he blinks loose up from it when she continues.

Anthony stays put watching, holds a response ready behind his teeth... And when she doesn't finish that sentence, he lets it loose. First syllables strong as if delivered on the beat. The rest of them slipping and skewing as the pause catches up.

" -- I'd though it was - the... opposite...!" Fires a glance and another flinch one way up the nearest wall and back on her, and then down - " -- I-I mean that I thought - that -- " A hoarse edge slipping into his voice, swallows it clean. "Uhh, I -- said something I shouldn't've when I said that it was -- the -- pulses' fault..."

"What on Earth makes you think you shouldn't have?" Magically, it's that phrase she latches onto next, almost as if she's intent on defending him from himself, now.

"It was the truth, wasn't it?"

And he takes it a berating, and if he's getting it, it's a deserved one - he was reacting poorly, he is reacting poorly, and it's got to be unbecoming at best and grating at worst.

" -- I don't know - !"

Badly-placed - he defensively shrinks a little lower...

" -- I-I mean that I don't know - what -- I might have done wrong, but I could've -- ..."

Three seconds of pause. Wraps his mind thickly around an obvious thought.

" -- done something better, still!"

"No, you couldn't have! You were just being you! You answered everything I asked —"

In a matter of moments, she's turned this game of twenty questions right on its head, and looks as though she wouldn't hesitate to do the same to him, if he didn't get with the program. While she isn't directly apologizing, her posture does slack. She pulls her stance into itself, opting to cross her arms squarely.

"I misunderstood you."

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