Chapter 1: Todd Harrison

Cuddy sat in her office and blankly stared. House had been gone for about two weeks now. It was all starting to sink in how far he would go, how far gone he would let himself get. She had seen him over do just about every drug that he can get his hands on, and every time he did, she was the one who got hurt. Every pill he took, every hallucination he had, every pain he felt, it hurt her. Now he was away and in a mental hospital.

She just sighed as she grabbed her things and left. It was time to go home to Rachel and get ready to welcome one of her old friends from her childhood, Todd Harrison. They grew up down the street from each other, and eventually dated in high school. He now needed a place to stay while he was in New Jersey for a job interview as a professor at Princeton University.

She stepped out of her office, no one to stop her and make demeaning comments about her body, no one to tease her in some childishly annoy way, no one to banter back and forth with, just a simple walk through the lobby and out to the car. Most people would find something like that nice, but as hard as it was for her to admit, it made her feel like she was missing something. It was hard, and only getting harder to walk in there and not see him. It was almost as if part of her had died.

There were many times that she had considered going to see him, but she didn't know if she could handle it. She had never told House, but there were more reasons behind why his drug addiction had bothered her, her uncle had problems with them. It was a subject often left in the dark, but it never quite left her. On certain occasions, she could clearly remember him going into random mental hospitals to detox, but it was never anything permanent.

Once she finally got home, she let her nanny go and then sat down with Rachel. Spending time with Rachel was one of the only things that she truly enjoyed anymore. Every night she came home and walked Rachel around, sang to her, played peek a boo, anything that she felt like doing, and it usually brought that tiny little smile that she loved so much, across her face. The only that would have made those moments better, would have been some one to share those moments with.

"Okay Rachel, you have to come with Mommy so that she can pick up Mr. Harrison at the airport," she said as she put a small pink bow in the little amount of hair that she had. She took her daughter and got her out to the car and into her car seat.

Everything pretty much went as planned until Cuddy put Rachel to bed. She walked out and saw Todd sitting at the kitchen table with his hand around a cup of coffee. His smile was what caught her eyes, his same old smile that he had had his entire life. The same smile that convinced her to go out with him. "You were awful quiet tonight," she commented as she grabbed herself a cup of coffee and joined him.

"I know," he softly laughed. "Only because you wouldn't stop talking."

Cuddy shrugged. "Nows your chance," she stated. Normally, she would have been offended by a comment like that, but this was some one that had been telling her the same thing since the eighth grade.

"Well," he started as he played with the handle on the cup. He looked up and smiled at her with the stray brown hairs falling in front of his eyes. He causally wiped them back and leaned forward. "I have obviously gotten my degree in teaching, the one that I was working on the last time that I had seen you," he stated.

Cuddy listened as he went on to tell her how he graduated and how he worked his way up from teaching middle school to college. She hadn't realized it, but she had been smiling contently as she ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup, the way that she did when ever she would try to convince him to take her out. It was true that old habits were hard to break, but she hadn't realize that she might still have feelings for him. Of course, he was the one to break up with her during their junior year.

Todd laughed as he looked down towards the table. "You want me to buy you dinner?" he asked obviously noticing what she was doing. He never knew why, but when she did that, he was turned on. He was also trying to figure out how she had known. It had been forever since he had seen her do that, but he was glad that she had been flirting with him, at least, that was how he took it.

"Why?" she asked. She wanted badly to cover up what she had been doing. There was no way that she wanted to start anything right now. Even if they were some how still friends, he broke up with her. It was years ago, but he still hurt her. She also was not in the best position to start dating. She was missing House and had a baby to take care of, how could she have time to date and actually enjoy it when she did?

Todd could see that he was mistaken and quickly backed off. "Oh, nothing. I was just wondering, since you were nice enough to let me stay here rent free. You know, some way of paying you back," he lied through his teeth.

Cuddy knew exactly what he was doing, but went along with it anyways. "Maybe sometime next week," she said. "But only if you really want to. I don't want to make you feel like you have to pay me back."

"Okay," he said and then stood up. "I think I'm gonna go get some sleep. I've had a long day." There was an awkwardness in the room and he just had to get out some how.

"Good night," she said. After he had left the room, she started to wonder what it was that made her do that stuff. The little things that she could do to ruin a date. Not that this was a date, but with the way that he had to escape, it might as well have been. "And House thought that he had to mess up my time with men. It would have been just as easy to sit at home and wait for for me to walk in the next day at work."

I know that this chapter is short and doesn't have House in it, but the next one will include him and will be longer. Please let me know what you think and I hope you enjoyed it so far :)