SHELTER | DIXON

|15|

Her father was standing on the porch when they arrived back at the farm, looking the same as Madison remembered. His face was clean shaven, white hair combed back out of his face, and he wore the same kind of outfit he always did: a dress shirt and trousers, with overall straps hooked to the hem of them. Madison pulled her horse to a stop and quickly unmounted it, smiling as it tried to nudge its snout into her shoulder; Renegade had clearly missed her, but she would make time to visit him later. For now all she wanted was to see her father, who was staring at her from where he stood on the porch, his expression looking like he was staring at a ghost.

"Go ahead," Maggie said softly, taking Renegade's reigns from her as Lori and Rick had their own little reunion. The husband and wife hurried inside to see Carl, while Madison steeled herself and slowly walked up onto the porch.

"Hi, Daddy," she greeted quietly, tucking her thumbs into the loopholes of her jeans.

Hershel stared at her, unable to believe his eyes. After so long of becoming resigned to the belief that the epidemic had taken his eldest daughter and his stepson both away from him... after so long of believing his little girl was dead... there she was, standing right in front of him. She looked worse for wear, her skin dirty and sunkissed from how long she'd been spending travelling in the sun. There was a makeshift bandage covering a small portion of her upper arm, a little bit of dried blood seeping through―from what sort of wound, he wasn't sure. 

When he was certain that she was real, he finally moved toward her, tears welling up in his eyes. "Madi-girl?" He asked with a shaky voice, reaching for her. Madison nodded, tears in her own eyes as she moved into her father's embrace and hugged him tightly. "Good God, I... I'd given you up, Madi. I'd thought you― that you were..."

"I'm not," Madison assured him. "And I came home. I'm sorry it took me so long." They stood there for a few more moments, hugging each other, until the screen door swung open and Beth ran outside with a wide grin on her face, Patricia and Maggie not far behind her.

"Madi!" Beth shrieked happily, flinging herself onto her eldest sister as soon as Madison pulled away from their father. She laughed, hugging the blonde to her tightly, glad to be seeing her again after so long of thinking she never would.

The reunion was short-lived. Carl still laid upstairs in poor condition, and Madison was Rick and Lori's first choice when it came to who would be taking the utmost care of him. They knew Madison had worked with trauma before, having been an E.R. nurse, and they also trusted her more than anyone else seeing as they already knew her. Hershel helped his daughter as best he could, along with Patricia. 

"Otis was hunting a deer," Patricia was telling Madison as Hershel went downstairs to speak with Lori and Rick. Madison listened absentmindedly, focusing more on the soft thumping coming through her stethoscope as she checked Carl's blood pressure. "When he shot it, the bullet broke apart and went right through it... and the boy was hit. Otis didn't even see 'em 'til after the fact. He feels so horrible about it. Went with that other man down to the high school, hoping to find a respirator and things from where that FEMA camp had been set up."

Madison pulled the stethoscope out of her ears and hung it around her neck, leaving the blood pressure cuff around Carl's arm. She'd need to check it again soon, anyhow. "Hopefully they hurry. His BP's steadily dropping, and with the distension in his abdomen― there's gotta be internal bleeding," she said. "We need those things if we're gonna have any chance to save him."

"Your dad said the same thing," Patricia said with a soft smile. 

She nodded, taking a moment to brush some of the hair off of Carl's forehead gently before standing up. "You'll watch over him?" Madison asked, and Patricia nodded instantly. "I'm gonna go talk to the others."