New Sheriff in Town

Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead

Looking down at the infant in his arms, Carl could hardly believe this was real. His sister was here, Judith was safe. He had already thanked Tyreese and Carol about a million times and he was sure he would do so a million more times. They had saved his little sister, brought her back to him and their dad.
He smiled at her as she drank steadily from her bottle, looking up at him with her large eyes. Judith had brought them all hope, and thinking she was gone forever… like their mom… Carl shook his head, banishing those thoughts.
"You like that Judith?" he said gently, "Does that taste good?" She finished her bottle and Carl set it aside, bringing his sister up to rest against his shoulder. He spoke quietly to her as he rubbed gentle circles on her back.
"I'm so glad you're okay," he said quietly, "I know you don't understand what was going on, but we were so worried about you. I thought for sure we had lost you too." He closed his eyes briefly, swallowing the lump in his throat. He settled Judith in the crook of his arm and she lay there watching him.
"Dad'll be back soon," Carl went on, "He took some of the others to find some food, but he'll be back soon. Until then me and Tyreese are here to look after you. He helped protect you and bring you back to us. Now you're here so I can protect you. I'm never gonna lose you again, I promise. I'm your big brother, which means it's my job to keep you safe and that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to protect you, no matter what." Judith giggled happily and Carl smiled at her.
"I wish mom was here," he said gently, "You would've loved her. She didn't always do good things, but she loved us. Both of us. She hadn't even met you yet and she already loved you. And dad loves you. He does some bad stuff too sometimes, but he has to. The world is different now and we have to survive. I hope it's different when you're old enough to understand, but if not you don't need to worry. You won't need to do bad stuff to survive cause me and dad'll be here to do it. I'll do whatever I gotta so you can be okay and you can be happy, okay Judith? Okay?" The baby made a contented noise and Carl leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. Judith reached towards his hat and Carl laughed, pulling it off his own and setting it gently on hers.
"There, now there's a new sheriff in town."

I wanted to try writing a different character from my other two fics and I think the dynamic between Carl and his sister is really adorable so I decided to give it a shot.

Thanks so much for reading and let me know what you think!

Thank you green angel01 for pointing out that I had misspelt Carl as Carol!