A/N: I wrote another fic earlier in which I did a "morning after" the S6 finale (The Spread Eagle). But now I'm writing another one because my mood changed and I want to do something a little different.

This one starts pretty much immediately during/after the S6 finale.

Normally, my House one-shots are "character studies" – i.e. long rambling monsters with a nicer name. This is my attempt at something shorter. A little sweeter. Plus, I want to get some stuff about the pain/leg in there, because a) I almost never write about House's leg pain and I should because it's important to his character and b) I hardly think after the night House had that the love endorphins will take it away. They can definitely help, but let's be real please.

Quoted lyrics are property of Aqualung and their song "Brighter Than Sunshine."

Not giving away anymore; you need something to read on for. Please enjoy – and review.

The Rest of the Way
By: Zayz

I never saw it happening
I'd given up and given in
I just couldn't take the hurt again
What a feeling

What a feeling in my soul
Love burns brighter than sunshine
Brighter than sunshine
Let the rain fall, I don't care
I'm yours and suddenly you're mine
Suddenly you're mine
And it's brighter than sunshine

One kiss. Two, three. Then four, five, six. They blur into each other, hesitant, gentle, but so determinedly full of want. Her blood boils slow and it's almost too much to bear.

Seven, eight. Eight million. He doesn't know – lost count. His brain circuitry is fried, scorched wires sticking out with little sparks dancing weakly on the ends, electricity firing but going nowhere. He is so tired he doesn't know what to do with himself, and he's dimly aware that he's still in a lot of pain, but she's here.

She's here.

And even though time goes about its usual way, it seems to stop for him, because she's here and God, he needs her.

Logic is discarded. It's just haze and feel and kiss, hands and mouths and taste and wonder. Her hand in his. His mouth on hers. Her lips are sweet and familiar, despite being foreign, and he kisses her again, again, again, like a moth banging itself stubbornly against a door, again, again, again. He can feel her muscles tighten underneath the thin pink scrubs. The feel of it – so long hoped for, even yearned for – cools some of the horrible throbbing in his leg.

Her hand squeezes his and he kisses her deeper and it's ecstasy. It almost hurts to let go, take a moment to breathe, to look at the ecstasy unbridled in her exhausted face too.

Instinctively, he opens his mouth, because he feels like he needs to say something, but words fail him here. Even though they have made it clear that no, he is not hallucinating, he could swear he is. And he wouldn't care if that's the case because it's too good a hallucination. He works hard not to leap in and kiss her again.

She notices his restraint and smiles.

"You really do need to re-bandage your shoulder," she tells him wryly. "I left my bag on the table. I'll do it for you."

He nods. She raises a hand and touches him gently on his face, her fingers passing over his various bumps and scratches, as though she's not sure this is for real either. Then she takes his hand and leads him to the table. He almost buckles under the pressure of having to walk again. He was sitting on the cold bathroom tile for a long time. The leg pain increases almost exponentially and now his shoulder begins to hurt too.

But she's here now. She's here. And she supports his weight and helps him sit down at the table, where a large black bag does indeed sit, like a tumor in the darkness.

"Do you need water?" she asks.

"Cups are in the cupboard over the sink," he tells her.

She disappears into the kitchen at once to get it, her pink scrubs glowing like a beacon in the dark as he watches her progress, listens to her pick up a glass and fill it with water from the sink. She returns to the table and hands it to him. He hadn't realized how parched he was, after all the excitement of the night. He drinks most of it in one sip. She takes it from him and goes to refill it without being asked. While she's at it, she washes her dirt-streaked hands so she doesn't get bacteria into his wounds.

Even though it hurts to even be alive, he wants to kiss her again, watching her bustle around this place as though it were home. The single-minded want gives his brain something to focus on besides the fact that he's hurting. The smell of her is intoxicating – vaguely floral behind the sweat and dust. It's unreal, watching her open up the medical kit in the partial light. But it's a good kind of unreal.

With slightly quivering hands, she begins to slip off his jacket. The leather brushing against his tender shoulder is like fire. But she's quick, as though she knows this, can feel it in the way he tenses. The jacket comes off. She lays it over the chair beside him.

The anti-septic she uses next stings and he has to work hard not to cry out. The pain in his shoulder reminds his fried brain that his leg is also in severe pain. She is not enough to distract him this time. Pressure builds in his head as he tries not to think, tries not to focus on every flaming nerve cell causing him agony.

"You need morphine," he hears her say quietly, somewhere amid the din in his body. Then he feels a pinch in his arm and almost instantly, the pain mutes itself, more bearable now. His eyes slightly watering, he looks up at her, face open like a child's. The shame registers, of being so vulnerable when he has worked all his life not to be so. But it's not important.

She's here – for him, not for her top doctor or her colleague or her acquaintance – and he convinces himself that so long as that's true, he will be okay.

He lets his eyelids flutter shut, leaving his muscles slack as he lets her do her doctor thing. She is almost maddeningly gentle, moving slow enough to soothe him but fast enough to get the job done without causing extraneous pain. He focuses on the rhythmic sound of his settling heart, of her breath in his ear, and lets the haze take over.

And some nameless, shapeless amount of time later, he hears her tell him, "I'm done. You look better."

He opens his eyes and takes in her face, looming over his with such genuine concern. The rest of the scene materializes behind her.

"Thank you," he says.

She runs her hand through his graying hair, her fingers warm to his scalp. He lets her stroke any residual tension out of him, and then her hand drops to the back of his neck, where the fine little hairs stand at attention, as though waiting for her. He's tired enough to sleep soundly for the next fourteen hours, and he knows it, but he can't have enough of this feeling, of her hand on his skin, warm against his warmth. It's like a half-formed dream come to life and he wants the dream this time. Not the reality. Not now.

Without thinking, he takes the hand currently limp at her side and pulls her down towards his face. She obliges and again, he kisses her, and again, a flood of sweetness almost threatens to overwhelm him. But what gets him the most – besides the blissful sensation of her two lips on his two lips – is that he can feel her want, as cavernous and long-anticipated as his.

She breaks the kiss most unwillingly, her breathing shallow, unsteady. He can already see the arousal in her eyes, behind her face.

"Is it bad?" she asks.

"What?"

"The pain," she says. "Is it bad?"

"Why?"

"Because I need to know," she says, her tone careful. "Are you…okay?"

It finally dawns on him what she is so boorishly trying to squeeze out of him. For the first time tonight, he feels the beginnings of a real smile tugging at his lips.

"I'm okay," he says.

His shoulder and leg seem to complain at the lie, flaring up again, and it's almost too difficult to ignore, but he manages. And she doesn't look too closely because she wants it too, almost as he does. So in between kisses, she takes him to his room, and he falls back on his bed, and she follows him down, though she takes care not to let all her weight fall onto his fragile body.

Somewhere in that fried circuitry he calls his brain is the knowledge that she broke it off with Lucas; that she has a daughter to attend to, that he isn't sure if he has to go to work tomorrow because he is no longer aware what day it is. That these things are important and he probably needs details.

But he can't find it in him to ask. He wants the dream to continue, to take him out of the pain and the hurt and the misery and everything else. And as she doesn't seem too bothered at the moment, he figures they'll talk about it later. After all, word 'later' has newly acquired a definition encompassing days, weeks, months, maybe even years. It's become a beautiful concept.

Inspired, he eases the elastic out of her hair, letting it fall into a mass of wavy brown on her shoulders; her hands explore the expanse of his chest beneath his t-shirt; his mouth finds her neck and her back arches and her breath is so acute he can hear it. His hands and her hands pass each other in haste and clothes begin slipping, coming off. Anticipation rises like a surfer's tide as he begins to realize dimly, one layer at a time, that this is really going to happen tonight.

Taking care not to harm his shoulder, she settles her abdomen on his abdomen and begins unbuttoning his pants as he slides her shirt up over her head. Her white bra glows, almost preternatural, holding in breasts he has spent a good portion of his professional life leering at, remarking on, and dreaming of. His hands scramble for the hook.

His pants are open. Impatiently, she struggles out of hers, his fingers and hers fighting in a confused flurry to free themselves of their material coverings. Somehow, she is already out of hers and now all that are left are his. Only now does he slow down, hesitate. She feels it and slows down, hesitates too.

His pants are mostly off, pooling around his ankles. His legs are bare. Her bra, fluttering loose in the back, and their mutual desire pauses. He sits up and she backs off, sitting beside him. Both their eyes fall to his thigh.

The scars are visible, even if day hasn't fully risen, even if they didn't bother with the lamps. The pain manages to surge forward as they watch, as if offended by the sudden lack of privacy. It strikes her now that she has never been this close to his injury before. Seen it once, yes. But to have it right in front of her like this, it transforms them both.

Instinctively, their eyes flick upwards simultaneously and meet in the middle. In a way, this is the test. Intimacy is so close within their view – and if he can let her in, if he can let her see the saddest, most ruined part of his person, literally and metaphorically, she will have all of him. All he has to give.

Her breathing is still shallow and unsteady, his much the same. The seconds stretch themselves out, waiting. His eyes are as wide and clear and child-like as they were in the bathroom – giving her permission to move first, to decide the next juncture. It's like being under a spotlight.

Carefully, but deliberately, she withdraws her hand from his calf and raises it, raises it. It hovers over his thigh, dangling as though suspended by a gossamer wire.

And then she lowers it, almost experimentally, to the ruined skin.

The ridges of dead muscle create an uneven surface, just a little warmer than the rest of his body. She hears a sharp intake of breath within his throat, though from pleasure or agony she cannot say. But he doesn't push her away so she strokes him there, strokes him where it hurts the most.

In fact, the pain is so much he couldn't speak if he tried. She can see it in his face the moment she looks, and she is about to withdraw again from fright, but he resolutely traps her hand beneath his and stops her. He keeps it there a moment until he's sure she will stay and then lets go. Her hand remains. Only now does she realize how high her heart rate is and how quickly it got there.

She searches for his gaze again and finds it. It's complicated. The blue gives a lot and a little away. All she can do is stare.

Then, inexplicably, she knows.

She bends low over it, removing her hand and examining every detail of his wounded thigh, both as a doctor and as a human being. And then, so lightly she's barely there, she presses her lips to it in a kiss, right in the middle.

She resurfaces and he's there waiting for her. His gaze is even more complicated now. She tries to decipher it but he doesn't give her the time.

In a flash, his mouth is on her mouth, his good shoulder is on hers, his hand is on hers, still on his thigh, and even though there is a fierce edge to the way he kisses her, urgency slows, because they both know now:

She has gone the rest of the way into him. Now she's really here.

She is home.

Love will remain a mystery
But give me your hand and you will see
Your heart is keeping time with me

A/N: So, okay, maybe not that short. But definitely sweet. Kind of. Right?

I realize this was pretty ambitious character-wise. I mean, we know House is not a cuddly person. But I felt like it was an important scene to write. I mean, naked sex translates to experience with House's leg, right? And judging by the promos thus far, we're not going to get any acknowledgement of this fact. Thus I've acknowledged it with this fic.

OOC (out of character) is definitely a possibility here, but like I said, this was ambitious but necessary in my mind. I tried my best.

Please remember to review (kindly!) on your way out of the browser.