It was the first time they'd found a house to stay in since they'd been run off the farm, and it came with a working gas stove to heat their canned food on, and a fireplace and a basket of dry firewood and kindling in the living room that they intended to make good use of that night. They'd been miserable in the cold outside during the past ten nights on the road, for even though the days had been warm enough, the heat they'd soaked up while the sun was out had never been enough to tide them over the nights.

She was keeping a guilty secret, though.

Before heating the maccaroni and cheese and setting everyone up in the living room with food and some musty blankets that she'd found in the basement, she'd made her way upstairs to explore the second floor and had discovered that the water in the shower was still running. She had decided right away not to tell anyone about this but had made sure that they'd all stay in the living room for a while before returning upstairs.

She found the master bedroom with its walk-in closet and was delighted to come across a stack of the fluffiest bathtowels that she'd ever seen in her life, let alone touched or used. She grabbed two of them and made her way back out into the master bedroom and from there into the hallway.

It was at this point that she heard the sound of running water, and disappointment seemed to fill every cell in her body. Someone had followed her, discovered the working shower, and decided to use it at once. Well, it would be better to be the second person to use the shower than not use it at all, she reckoned. But she at least wanted to know who had beaten her to it.

The door wasn't closed all the way, probably because the person using it was hoping, as she had, that everyone would be staying downstairs for food and warmth instead of exploring the upper story of the house. She slowed down as she walked past the door, hoping the angle would be right so she could sneak a peek.

The shower stall was made up of clear glass walls so she was treated to an unobstructed view.

Her breath caught in her throat.

His legs were muscular and somehow looked as if he had taken root in the ground even though he was moving about as he lathered himself up with shower gel or soap or whatever it was he'd found to clean himself and get the stink of sweat and dirt and blood and walker guts off himself. They were also surprisingly white in contrast to his face and arms because he always wore long pants.

His equally white butt was nicely shaped and had amazing cute dimples on the sides. If she looked at it long enough she guessed she'd see wiry muscles there as well because they were all losing weight and he was constantly on the move, but her eyes were drawn onward.

Just now, he was lowering his head and raising his hands from his sides, looking to his left, and she felt her insides clenching with worry and sorrow. He was removing the dressings from the entry and exit wounds left by his own bolt two weeks ago, inspecting the round scars and picking off what remained of the sutures.

His right hand went to his ribs and a strangled sound escaped him as if he were holding in any expression of pain even when he believed himself alone. Her eyes roamed across his shoulders and back, taking in the fading bruises from the two falls he had taken that day, and it struck her again how close he'd come to dying in that accident. How very close she had come to losing him.

He gently and carefully washed his left side, then, less carefully, the rest of himself and, finally, his hair. As he rinsed the lather off, she got another long look at his back, and suddenly it seemed as if there wasn't enough air for her to breathe. They were gnarled like tree roots, raised, discolored, some of them short, some long, and obviously deep. They crisscrossed in some places. They bore horrifying testimony to his childhood.

Putting his head back, allowing the water to hit his face, he started to turn around. Mortified, she became aware of the fact that she was secretly spying on the man who meant more to her than anyone else in the world and that if she stayed to watch beyond this point, she would lose whatever right she might still have to his respect and affection after what she had already done here.

But just as she was about to pull back and make her way to the stairs and to the first floor again, his voice penetrated the thrum of water on porcelain. "'s okay", he told her matter of factly as she blushed her deepest crimson, "'ve known you were there since ya dropped the towels."

She had been so enraptured, watching his sculpted body move slowly in the shower, that the dropped towels had completely escaped her notice. She was embarrassed enough at this point that it seemed her mind was considering an out of body experience by now. She was feeling lightheaded. No way would she be able to answer him.

She surprised herself by picking up the towels she had indeed dropped next to her feet and pushing the door open just a little bit. He was glistening with water, and his eyes met hers ever so briefly as he squinted over his shoulder before looking down at his feet again. His hand came up and he started gnawing on the ragged cuticle of his thumb even as he turned off the shower with his left hand.

"You'll need these", she said softly, placing the towels next to his heap of dirty, sweaty clothes on the floor. "I'll go look for a fresh shirt for you to wear. And, Daryl?" She paused for a moment. She needed to say this, but knew that it was really too little, too late, in view of what she'd done. "I'm so sorry for spying on you, that was wrong and I shouldn't have done that." Her face was flaming with shame.

For an eternity she thought that by standing there, hidden behind that door and looking at what he was hiding away from the world, she had lost his trust forever and he wouldn't answer her. Worse, she felt that was what she deserved. But then his gruff voice came back, soft and gentle. "'s okay. I'm good with you … seein'."

Even though he turned his face away at once, blushing, she was sure that he saw her hand flying to her mouth as tears welled in her eyes.

Quickly, she retreated to find a shirt for him in that walk-in closet. She made sure to firmly close the door behind her.