Making an AI for an NPC

I'm making a 2D RPG style game and was running into issues with making an NPC "companion" fallow behind the player. the idea i had was that the NPC would fallow a way point (that being the player) and animate itself as it fallows. The problem I have is that after the player animations stop, the companions animations stop. I need help making it so that the animations continues until it reaches the player. I used similar controls for the companion that i did for the player. Help would be much appreciated.

My Code:

using System.Collections; using System.Collections.Generic; using UnityEngine;

public class WayPointFallow : MonoBehaviour {

 private Animator anim;

 private bool companionMoving;
 private Vector2 lastMove;

 public GameObject wayPoint;
 //This is how often your waypoint's position will update to the player's position
 private float timer = 0.5f;

 public GameObject target;
 public List<Vector3> positions;
 public int distance_permitted;
 public float speed;
 private Vector3 lastLeaderPosition;

 void Start()
 {
     anim = GetComponent<Animator>();

     positions.Add(target.transform.position);
 }

 void Update()
 {

     companionMoving = false;

     if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") > 0.5f || Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") < -0.5f)
     {

         companionMoving = true;
         lastMove = new Vector2(Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"), 0f);
     }

     if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") > 0.5f || Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") < -0.5f)
     {

         companionMoving = true;
         lastMove = new Vector2(0f, Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical"));
     }
     anim.SetFloat("MoveX", Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"));
     anim.SetFloat("MoveY", Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical"));
     anim.SetBool("CompanionMoving", companionMoving);
     anim.SetFloat("LastMoveX", lastMove.x);
     anim.SetFloat("LastMoveY", lastMove.y);

     if (timer > 0)
     {
         timer -= Time.deltaTime;
     }
     if (timer <= 0)
     {
         //The position of the waypoint will update to the player's position
         UpdatePosition();
         timer = 0.5f;
     }

     if (lastLeaderPosition != positions[positions.Count - 1])
     {
         positions.Add(target.transform.position);
     }

     if (positions.Count >= distance_permitted)
     {
         if (gameObject.transform.position != positions[0])
         {

             transform.position = Vector3.MoveTowards(transform.position, positions[0], Time.deltaTime * speed);

         }
         else
         {
             positions.Remove(positions[0]);
             gameObject.GetComponent<Rigidbody2D>().velocity = new Vector2(0, 0);
             transform.position = Vector3.MoveTowards(transform.position, positions[0], Time.deltaTime * speed);
         }
     }
     lastLeaderPosition = target.transform.position;

 }

 void UpdatePosition()
 {
     //The wayPoint's position will now be the player's current position.
     wayPoint.transform.position = transform.position;
 }

}