AN: Sorry it took a few days to get this one out, things here have been very busy with the hubby about to come home from a deployment Hope you like the new chapter!

Daryl

Daryl was so nasty he thought he could feel something crawling on his skin and he smelled so bad he made himself want to leave the room.

He was so grateful that Glen had figured out how to make a hot water heater of sorts out of a solar panel they had found on one of their runs. That combined with the fact that Carol had been such a little Hannah Homemaker in her previous life that she had fashioned a pretty decent bar of soap out of the fat from the deer he brought back and who-knew-what-else had him looking forward to a hot shower and sliding into his bunk for a long, safe nights sleep.

Being out in the woods for the last 4 days had him so bone tired that he didn't even notice that the sign hanging on the shower door was turned to "W". He had pulled his filthy shirt and boots off and was unbuttoning his jeans when he noticed the pile of clothes on the bench with the lace panties on top.

Lace? Who still has lace in this shit hole?

Before he could think that whoever owned those lace panties was probably in here, naked, he heard a gasp from behind him and spun around, his finely honed reflexes on high alert.

Instinct may have spun Daryl around but it was shock that kept him standing there, staring. Beth was in front of him, wrapped only in a towel, her wet hair falling over her shoulders.

His gaze traveled down, noticing that somewhere along the way she had developed a pretty damn nice pair of legs.

"Daryl?! What are you doing in here? I turned the sign!" Her voice snapped him out of his stare, but when he tried to answer her he had to swallow twice first, his mouth suddenly very dry.

"Sorry, didn't notice the sign. I'll wait out in the hall so you can get dressed" he mumbled on his way out the door.

As he stood outside waiting on her to clear the bathroom he smiled to himself as he thought that he had never seen anyone who could blush all over their entire body before.

He had spent a lot of the last 4 days thinking over what Rick had said in the tower and had decided that he needed to know if he was right. What he would do if Rick had been right was an answer he didn't have yet.

But now was as good a time as any to start working on that mystery. It had not escaped his notice that the way Beth had been looking at him in the bathroom didn't exactly look like fear.

She had let her gaze roam over him a little too. Before she realized he was doing that very same thing, anyway. Then she had blushed and stammered something about the sign on the door.

They had come up with the sign after Maggie, rushing for the toilet from her morning sickness, had busted in on Rick in the shower. Everyone had been too embarrassed to discuss that for days and the next thing they knew, Glen had hung the sign.

It was simple enough, "M" for men and "W" for women. Now he was beginning to wonder if maybe it shouldn't read "CI" for Come In and "SO" for Stay Out. What if 2 people were in there together?

He was just letting his mind wander to what it would be like to shower with a woman when the door opened and the subject of that thought came out, dressed but still dripping water from her hair.

"You should read the sign before you come in " she snapped at him, looking down at the floor.

"Don't get yer back up little one, no harm done. Didn't see nothing but a towel, anyways". He tried to keep the smile out of his voice but didn't do a very good job.

"Well you would have seen a lot more if you had come in a minute earlier!"

"Is that so? How much more could a little girl like you have to show?"

He knew it probably wasn't a good idea to tease her like that but if she was having those kinds of thoughts about him he thought he should point out the difference in their ages. He wasn't quite old enough to be her father but he was more than a decade older than her.

Her sharp intake of breath told him he had gone too far. Fury blazed in her eyes.

"Daryl Dixon, I am not a child!"

She turned to walk away, pausing for a short second when he called out to her.

"Hey, little one? Pink is a good color on you".

She gasped again and hurried out of the hallway, leaving Daryl laughing as he headed in to his shower.