This is for Gaia, my welcome nudge!

Disclaimer: This is Huddy Yin-Yang sex, no hookers required. Obviously not connected with Shore.

"You can't."

House was still, watching and waiting.

Cuddy ran her hands along his chest. "It's impossible?"

"In theory you could try to chase the shadows," he answered. His voice was heavy and husky. "But it would only divert normal evolution and upset the entire balance of the ecosystem."

"It would stunt growth? Destroy the health of …"

"Your idea of sex talk is a real turn off," House interrupted with a bite in his tone. He moved beneath her, shifting her away from him. She held him tight. There was no way she would allow him to withdraw just because he was feeling uncomfortable.

"Don't," she said.

Cuddy cupped his jaw, drawing him back to her. She was actually encouraged by his reaction. He was feeling defensive, sensitive even, which could only mean the pieces were coming together in his mind and hitting a little too close to home. He was beginning to understand the metaphor and not sure what to do with it, where to go with it.

She captured his lips with hers, seeking and demanding a response. She was surprised he kissed her with such fervor, a deep, soulful and hungry kiss. She could feel the raw desire to lose himself in her, to meld so completely with her he'd lose that sense of helplessness that was nipping away at his confidence in what they shared. She could taste his need to hold on to her and regain the balance he believed was lost. Their tongues sparred. Hers battled for position; his sought to control.

His fingers ran through her hair and his hands cupped her head, holding her to him as his mouth became desperate and devouring. She could feel his urgency, the drive to dominate. It was in the thrust of his tongue and the pressure of his lips. It was there in his touch as his hands slid down her back and cupped her hips. There was an underlying aggression in his grip as if he were struggling to hang on to something while at the same time fighting his need for it. He was frustrated and angry, afraid of losing, terrified of being lost.

Cuddy wanted to soothe him, to reassure him. She wanted to provide the safety that was so often found within the strength of their embrace. But that wasn't what he needed. He couldn't keep hanging on to the past. He couldn't demand everything remain the same in a shifting universe. The old coping mechanisms weren't working in this new season. He was in a new place, a new emotional space. The shift had already happened when they committed to this relationship. He could try to remain still, to stop the natural movement, but it would only cause him pain and change nothing. There was a part of him that would exist in the frame of his own personal individual nature, a part of him that would not be moved or shifted with the passing of time, the seasons of life or the battles he faced. But the larger part of him would need to accept the constancy of change, the certainty of the unbroken circle of connected polarities. The only way to prevent the return of misery he felt pursuing him, the fear of pain and loss that was overtaking him, was to allow the transition, to find the balance in his own stillness within the state of movement. He could not resist the natural cycle.

Cuddy reluctantly broke free and leaned back slightly so she could reach between them and position him against her. He moved his jaw down her neck and to her collarbone until she slid him along her moist heat. He moaned and dropped his head against her.

"I've always been interested in yin-yang," she said, knowing she needed to set-up her point while she still had a few brain cells working.

"Cuddy," he warned, his body growing taut, his shoulders growing tense as he pulled away even as his hips pushed toward her seeking to be close.

She eased over him, taking in only the very tip of his cock.

"God!" He gasped as she stretched and contracted.

She agreed with that sentiment. He was slick and hard, and the sensation of him so gradually entering her was spine-tingling. There was something startlingly intense about experiencing the connection with such slow deliberation.

"Two parts of a whole," she whispered.

He tightened his hold on her thighs, urging her down. She resisted. He lifted his hips in an effort to fill her, but she braced herself at just the right level to prevent the movement. She could feel the walls at her core begin to convulse and ripple along the shallow penetration as she instinctively sought to pull him deeper. She fought the desperate need of her body to have the aching emptiness filled. Instead she rolled her hips, circling the tip of him in a smooth, fluid movement. His head fell back and an expression as tortured as ecstatic washed over him.

House tried to thrust again. She pushed up from her feet, pulling away from him again.

"Don't," he said between clenched teeth. His body trembled beneath her as he sought to maintain the connection that was just barely there between them. If they didn't stay perfectly in sync, they would lose the connection. If they didn't start moving toward each other in the natural rhythm and passion of their bodies, this intense pleasure would shift to pain.

Cuddy maintained her footing and remained as still as she could. Her body trembled from the pressure of withholding her own desires. She was growing weak and her thoughts were growing hazy. A thin layer of sweat covered his brow and the flush down his neck was deepening. They hovered in the space beyond desire, but far from completion. It was impossible to maintain her balance on this precipice. She was barely breathing from the exertion it was taking. She grabbed his shoulders and looked down at him.

His eyes were a stormy cerulean blue, unguarded and intense. He could easily take command of the situation, push her back against the table and take her with the full force of the passion so evident in his stare. Instead, he waited and watched. He took in the full experience even though it was not what he wanted. He was restraining himself with a strength that pushed his entire body to the limit of endurance. It was an intriguing and curious response to say the least.

"You're killing me," he groaned.

She was killing herself and she wasn't even sure why.

"What do you want?" Her voice was husky, heavy from the pressure she was placing on her body.

"You."

"You have me," she whispered.

"I want to be inside you," he said.

Cuddy was breathing heavy. Her heart was pounding in her chest and ears.

"You are inside me," she ground out.

His nostrils flared and his expression grew wild. He drew in a deep breath and thrust again, but she was positioned too high up for him to gain further access from that angle.

"Stop resisting," he demanded.

And his eyes locked with hers.

The air around them was pressurized. She thought they would both hyperventilate.

She felt his hands move and waited, bracing herself for the impact when he would take charge and shift the weight of balance between them. Instead, he cupped her breasts and grazed her nipples with his thumbs.

His eyes roved over her, tracing the way the robe fell off her shoulders, hanging from her elbows and draping around her. He watched his hands move on her breasts and the pulse that beat at her neck. There was a certain irony in the way he became more intent and focused while her vision was becoming blurred.

Cuddy felt a surge shoot through her from the sensitive nerves of her nipples to the center of her being. He had such an understanding of her body, of how and where to touch her for maximum effect. He was relentless; drawing out her passion, ensuring every nerve in her body had a heightened awareness of him. His ability to coax her to the brink with a light touch and such an easy transition of movement…

"You a so beautiful," he said.

Cuddy tried to focus. The movement of his hands and the beat of their arousal were sending tremors along her spine, creating flutters at the junction of her thighs. It was driving her insane, forcing the need to writhe and seek her orgasm.

"House, please," she said, rising up and sliding down on him again.

He sucked in air through his lips and quickly grabbed her hips again. He held her so tight she was sure there would be bruising.

"Not yet."

She watched as he closed his eyes and ground his teeth, willing his body to hold on a little longer. But why? She was ready. He was ready.

"You're a part of me," he said, his voice soft and raspy.

Her muscles tightened around him as she began to pant. He groaned. She bit her lip trying to fight the sounds of pleasure and frustration that threatened to escape.

"You're a part of me" he said again, and pushed into her as deep as he could go. He was fully inside her and she fully encompassed him. They became one, sharing the same heartbeat, experiencing a unity of coordination in the melding together. In the stillness there was movement, and yet as they both began to slowly move – in and out, together and apart – there was a spiritual stillness that surrounded them.

"You're my seed of light in darkness," he whispered, as they maintained a steady, measured pace. If he were to thrust harder, he'd stake claim and possess her. If she increased the pressure and rode him harder, she would have command of him. As it were, they moved with equality in a natural ebb and flow. "Yin yang."

She ran her fingers through his hair and along his jaw, savoring the expression of peace and wonder.

"I get it," he said.

Cuddy leaned forward to kiss him again, deep and lingeringly. The movement of their lips and tongues moved with the same fluidity and connectivity as their hips.

He gently pressed his hand against her shoulder, easing her back so he could look at her again, so he could watch her.

"I get it too," she responded and leaned back even farther, bracing her arms against the table behind her as she continued to move with him.

His fingers moved over her and reached her clit.

"House," she gasped, knowing she would be unable to prevent the immediate onslaught of her orgasm.

"I'm with you," he said.

She couldn't say how long it took, minutes or seconds, but her movements began to quicken and his began to strengthen. He thrust hard and she pulled him in. They moved faster and harder and as she exploded into ribbons of color and light, she felt him spilling into her as he called out her name.

[H] [H] [H] [H] [H]

He was sitting on the back porch.

When she had reached out for him and found the bed empty, she'd immediately went to search for him. It was too early for him to be up. It was early for her. They should still be in bed, snuggled in each other's arms, especially since they hadn't been asleep for long. They had spent hours making love, not giving in to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

Cuddy smiled at the memory. She was exhausted. Her muscles were sore and stretched, her skin tender and raw from his beard, and she had no complaints at all. She'd take a night of marathon sex with House over just about anything right now.

"Hey," she said as she sat down beside him on the step to the porch.

"Hey," he answered, genuinely surprised to see her up.

She opened up the blanket she'd picked up once she realized he was outside. The air was a little brisk. Not cold, but certainly too chilly to be wearing only a t-shirt and pajama bottoms.

"You okay?" she asked, wrapping the blanket around them both as she curled up beside him.

His arms encircled her, drawing her into the warmth of his body.

"I can't remember the last time I've seen a sunrise," he said.

Cuddy looked out into the distance. The orange hue was only just breaking the night sky, revealing only the outline of the surrounding landscape.

She couldn't remember when she'd last appreciated a sunrise. She was up for them quite frequently, but she was always focused on her morning, on the task at hand. As they sat quietly together, the minutes ticking by, the night transformed to day. The stars seemed to vanish as orange pushed away the dark blue, as pink outlined the clouds yellow filtered in a spectrum across the sky. The outline of the trees and city scape became detailed images beneath the light of the morning.

"It really is beautiful," she said.

His hand idly caressed her arm as they continued to stare into the horizon.

"I don't know how to be happy," he said.

Cuddy thought it came out of the blue, but then quickly realized he was thinking about their conversation from last night. He was watching the sunrise, looking to nature for the answers to his soul questions.

"Does anybody?"

"They seem to," he said. "You seem to."

"Not always," she admitted. "I have been known to mistake pleasure for happiness."

"I am that good," he arrogantly quipped. Cuddy chuckled.

"So you believe in the bullshit of happiness coming from within?"

She shook her head at the underlying belittlement in his question and then answered. "It comes from shoes."

He grinned. "Those do-me pumps do something for me too. Especially when they're all you are wearing."

Cuddy grinned and took his hand in hers, weaving their fingers together.

"Hear me out before you mock me," she said, and felt him nod as he moved his chin down to rest on her shoulder.

"I think I do believe happiness comes from within," she admitted. "I think we find pleasure in tastes and experiences, in objects and all kinds of external stimuli. And because it feels good, we believe we're happy. But then when the pleasure disappears we're miserable again. I think the happiness we really seek is constant. It doesn't depend on pleasure, but on an internal awareness. I think happiness is actually the kind of peace and contentment that will remain even when there's no pleasure…even when there's pain."

"You can't be at peace when you're in pain," he argued.

Cuddy couldn't disagree with him. After experiencing the level of pain she had in the hospital, she understood how it became all-encompassing, blinding.

"I think that's where hope comes into play."

"Hope is for sissies."

She rolled her eyes and looked at him over her shoulder. "Only if you're using it as an excuse not to live in the now, if you use it as a reason not to move as you wait for hope to become real," she said. "It's like that African tribe that can't be imprisoned or they die. They can't see beyond the present. It's all there is so they believe that's how it will always be and they can't accept it so they die. But if they had hope for a future, hope of a difference, they'd live."

"Live imprisoned."

Cuddy shook her head, feigning extreme patience and tolerance, but she was amused at his commitment to pessimism. She turned to look at him.

"You're a hypocrite," she said.

His eyes widened in shock, and he sputtered "What?"

"You say you don't believe in hope but if you didn't you would have given up a long time ago," she said. "You would have given in to pain, you wouldn't have given us a chance and you wouldn't be sitting here watching a sunrise searching for the answers to happiness."

She poked him in the chest. "You have pessimistic vision with optimistic actions," she said. "Even worse, you speak misery, but move with faith."

He scowled at her. "You are truly delusional."

She smiled and turned to settle back in against him.

"You can't be serious!" He was truly appalled at her theory. "It's like you don't know me at all."

"I know you, House," she assured him. "You're an ass."

She grabbed his wrist and wrapped his arm around her and pulled the blanket over them again with her other hand.

"You think you're better than me because you've become a cliché," his words were biting, but he was grumbling, almost pouting. "You had your near death experience and decided to live every day like you're dying. You're a bad country song."

She smiled and curled into him.

"I love you."

He grunted.

"You're going to stop and smell the roses, and say you don't sweat the small stuff," he said. "But you'll be worrying in your office and wallowing in your guilt sooner than you think. Life will suck the joy right out of you."

"But I'll come home to the love of my life," she dramatically replied. "Brooding and pouting, angry at the world and frustratingly sexy. You'll challenge and support me, mock me for being weak and tease me for trying to buy happiness with my cleavage. You'll make me laugh and give me multiple orgasms… I'll be happy."

House was quiet and still; Cuddy was determined not to turn to see if he was okay. She was not going to worry if she'd gone too far, if he was angry or upset. She was going to let him figure it out for himself, just like she was doing.

"Cuddy?" He finally asked. "I don't regret choosing you."

She smiled.

"But you're a pain in the yin yang."

"