New Sheriff in Town

Summary: Beth receives a heartfelt gift and a joyful reunion!

A/N: This chapter has the scene that inspired the story title! I hope you like it.

…

Chapter 8 – Join the Club

Daryl stood up and stretched his sore muscles. He glanced back once to see Beth smiling softly at him then pushed through the door.

She's gonna be alright. Maybe I should get some rest… but Daryl didn't feel like resting just yet.

He walked down the now-spotless hallway. From the sun in the windows, it must be early afternoon. Rick and most of the group were gathered in the cafeteria but Daryl wasn't hungry. Hospitals always gave him an uncomfortableness.

He found Carol in one of the patient rooms.

"How is she?" Carol looked up as he entered, asking about Beth.

"I think she's gonna be alright," Daryl answered, glad to see Carol sitting up in bed.

"How 'bout yourself?" he asked. He knew Carol hated that kind of attention, especially when she was hurt, but he had to ask. "What'd the doctor say?"

"Don't know," Carol thought about that for a bit, "Don't think I've actually talked to him…"

Daryl frowned. What kind of place was this?

"I don't think anything's broken, though. I would feel it if it was," Carol assured him, pulling a face, "Now, bruised, yeah. Everything aches…a lot."

I'm so tired of people getting hurt.

Before Daryl could go looking for him, Dr. Edwards knocked on the door and let himself in, followed by Noah, who was now his self-appointed assistant.

"How do you feel today?" he asked in an overly cheerful doctor voice.

Trying too hard. Daryl narrowed his eyes at the doctor. Even after saving Beth, Daryl wasn't sure how far he trusted the man.

"I feel like I was hit by a truck," Carol said bluntly.

That's not funny, Daryl thought.

"Actually," Noah spoke up, "it was a car."

"What?" Dr. Edwards seemed irked.

"It was a car, not a truck," Noah felt the need to specify, "She was hit by a police cruiser."

Dr. Edwards didn't have anything to say to that.

"Also, the day before, we were in a van…It fell off a bridge," Daryl added for emphasis.

The doctor visibly faltered, then seemed to recover his composure and launched himself into examining Carol for injuries, snapping orders to Noah.

…...

Carl peeked through the window. She's awake. He went inside and sat awkwardly by the bed.

"Hey, Beth," he said. It felt like it'd been a year since he saw her last.

"Hey, Carl," Beth greeted him.

After so long on the run, living in the woods, in the prison, in abandoned houses, it was strange to see someone in a hospital bed, wearing hospital clothes. It reminded him of when his dad was in the hospital, before all this started, and he came and visited him.

"Hey, you're like me now. We've both been shot," Carl said.

"Yeah, I guess we have," Beth answered, "Isn't that weird?"

Carl nodded.

She looked at Carl more closely, "Did you grow? It hasn't been that long, but it feels like ages, you know. I think you got taller."

Beth said it nicely, she was always genuinely nice, but Carl couldn't help wishing that she didn't still think of him as such a kid.

"Yeah, I guess," Carl shrugged.

They fell quiet for a bit but it was a comfortable quiet. It really was good to see someone, who he thought he might never see, again. First Judith, and now Beth.

"I'm glad we found you," he found himself telling Beth, "I think things will be better now, with everyone back together again."

"Well, almost everyone," he amended, feeling like a jerk. He could tell from her face that Beth must be thinking about the prison, the last time they had seen each other, the last time everyone had been together, with Hershel…

At first Carl thought they weren't going to talk about it, but then Beth asked, "You got out with your dad?"

"Yeah," he nodded.

Carl messed with a tear on his sleeve.

"I'm sorry about your dad," he said, looking a Beth directly. My dad almost died, too, that day. I was lucky. He wished he had something else to say, something nice, but that was all he could come up with.

"Thanks," Beth said softly.

Then Carl thought of something. He always wished he could do something big, important, help people like his dad always did and every so often he thought of something and knew that he had to do it.

Carl reached up and took off his beat-up old Sheriff's hat. He placed it on Beth's head and grinned.

"Since you're in the club now, you get to wear the hat. Didn't you know?"

…

What. A. Day. Edwards heard the satisfying click of his office door closing behind him. He walked around his messy desk and dropped gratefully into his chair. Quiet, blessed quiet.

Edwards took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Since the chaos began, there had hardly been a moment to think. Everything is different now, for better or for worse…

Damn you, Dawn.

Now, for the first time, certainly the first time since the world had moved on, and maybe even the first time in his life, Edwards worked with only one goal. He did his job with the singular purpose of helping his patients, to the best of his ability. No more maneuvering to ensure his position, playing politics with who lived or died, always watching his back…no more competing for that next promotion, or the top grade, or any of it.

Now all that mattered was healing people. And if he faltered, then the scary man with the beard would slit his throat. Apparently, he used to be a cop. Why always a cop? Or the man who was always glaring, he was probably a Hell's Angel or something, walking around with angel wings on his leather vest. Or Carol, the woman who survived being hit with a car and supposedly also driving off a bridge.

He didn't doubt that any one of them would do it, either. Stone cold killers, all of them. Edwards shivered, then decided that it was best to turn his thoughts towards something productive, like reviewing his list of patients.

It was a list that had lengthened dramatically in the past day.

First and foremost was a young woman with a gunshot wound to the stomach. If she dies, I die.

Then a scary grey-haired woman with several bruised ribs, a possibly fractured collarbone, and minor internal bleeding.

A man sporting a mullet, of all things, suffering from a serious concussion. He was apparently punched in the face and the back of his head hit a fire truck.

An Army Ranger with lacerations on his right hand, most likely from punching somebody in the face.

A preacher with a puncture wound on his left foot, probably needs a tetanus shot.

Also, Noah has a sprained ankle. Injury due to jumping down an elevator shaft onto a pile of rotting corpses.

If Dr. Edwards' luck continued in the same manner it had been, the list would probably only grow tomorrow.

…

After Carl visited and left her with his beloved hat, Beth spent most of the day sleeping.

I've been shot, was the recurring statement that first floated in her mind each time she woke up. Sometimes it scared her, thinking about how close she'd come to dying and how badly she wanted to live.

But, as the days stretched one into another and her strength slowly returned, the I've been shot knowledge wasn't that scary at all. It was simply something that had happened. It wasn't as bad as she'd first thought it would be.

Gunshot wound. It's not that bad. Just sleep it off.

That's what everyone kept telling her anyway, 'Get some rest,' or 'Beth, don't push yourself. You should rest' or 'Don't worry about anything, just rest'. For the most part she didn't mind, because she still felt very weak most of the time.

After so much time running and fighting and keeping her guard up, it was a small shock to spend days on end doing nothing but lying in bed, waiting to get better.

Beth sat in bed, propped up by a prodigious amount of pillows, reading a book when someone pushed her door open.

"Are you feeling up for visitors?" Daryl asked.

"Huh?" Beth looked up from her book, curious why Daryl suddenly felt the need to ask if he could visit.

Then Beth saw what Daryl was holding in his arms; more specifically, who he was holding.

"Oh!" Beth cried, reaching her arms out.

"Oh, Judith!" Beth felt a hot rush of joy as Daryl carefully placed the little girl on the bed next to Beth.

"Look how big she's gotten!" Beth exclaimed, "Oh, sweetie! Look at you!"

Beth wrapped her arms around the disoriented toddler, trying not to move much because it hurt to twist her body too far. She felt tears of joy spill over.

"Judith, honey, do you remember me?" Beth asked in a sweet voice, even though she was sure Judith was much too young to remember her.

For her part, Judith cooed something in her baby language and patted Beth on the face, which made Beth laugh. The little girl loved being the center of attention.

She'd known that Judith was alive. Carol told her so after waking up, but Beth had stored that information away, maybe subconsciously not getting her hopes up too soon. It was different being told something was true and then seeing it for herself.

I thought you were lost! Beth thought as she looked down at Judith tucked in close beside her. I missed you so much!

When she looked up again, Beth caught Daryl smiling, as much as Daryl ever smiled. Beth wiped a hand across her face and then reached over to squeeze Daryl's hand, at a loss for words.

I'm so happy!

…..

A/N: What do you think, should I continue this story? I might update periodically. I figured we need a happy scene where we can get one, all things considered.