Chapter 4: I Have, Something

Cuddy rushed into the hospital lobby. "How is she doing?" Cuddy asked as she approached Todd.

"I haven't heard anything new. I don't know if that's a good sign or not," Todd replied. He was casually standing there. For some reason, it did seem to calm Cuddy down a little bit.

"All that means is that nothing's changed, " Cuddy responded as she took a glance around the room. Ever since she had received the phone call while visiting with House, she had been a little anxious.

"She didn't get worse," Todd said trying to keep her calm. He could see it in her eyes from the moment that she walked in how scared she was. He understood though, it wasn't everyday that your baby girl was being hospitalized because of a spiked fever.

"True," Cuddy breathed out. After calming herself down a little bit more, they both started heading towards the chairs in the waiting room. "Thanks for watching her for a little bit today. I'm sorry it had to turn out like this though," Cuddy said.

"You just thanked me and apologized to me within the same line, " Todd laughed before taking a seat.

"I think you need to relax a little. Its a fever, they'll bring it down and she'll be fine," Todd said and then motioned to the seat next to him.

"I'm the doctor here," Cuddy clarified as she sat down.

"Then you should know this by now," Todd insisted.

"You're right," Cuddy sighed. Looking over, she saw him staring forward, as if he were bored almost. She could just imagine how calm he looked sitting next to her.

A silence fell between the two as Cuddy's thoughts wondered back to Rachel. She was worried about her, even though she knew that she would most likely be okay. She had seen little kids come in with bad fevers and infections and leave within a few days with nothing wrong.

She had to change the subject. Letting her mind wonder was a bad thing to do. "How did your interview go?" Cuddy asked as she turned to him.

"Good. As a matter of fact, I think I got the job," Todd responded with a smile.

"Congratulations," Cuddy said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

Todd could see that she was trying to keep the conversation on something other than Rachel, so he decided to help her out. "How was the mystery person that you went to see?" he implored. It was something that she didn't seem to want to talk about earlier, but it was definitely something that would keep her mind off of Rachel.

"His name is House, it wasn't a mystery. And he's fine," Cuddy quickly answered. For some odd reason, she was starting to feel guilty when she would bring up his name. It wasn't her fault that he went insane. She never told him to take all of those pills.

"Is that who called last night?" Todd questioned with a genuine interest.

Cuddy smirked to him. "Yes actually," she confirmed.

Todd returned the smile to her. "You have something with him?"

Cuddy shook her head, but then stopped and took a moment to think about it. There was something. There was a certain friendship. Not the typical kind, but there was something between them. "I have something, but I don't know what it is to be honest. We're not dating or anything, but there's always been something since back in college," she explained.

Todd noted how long it took her to actually the question. There had to be something. "You and the mystery man go far back," Todd nonchalantly commented.

"Yeah," Cuddy replied, but she knew where this was going and wanted to get off that track as soon as possible. "Now, as you know, he's in the mental institution so I felt that I should go see him," Cuddy added.

"You know, he's probably going to be fine too," Todd stated.

"What makes you think that?" Cuddy asked, giving him a look of skepticism.

"Its just a feeling on that one," Todd confessed right before sitting back in his chair with his head against the wall. \

"I think he'll be fine too. He was acting like himself today," Cuddy responded more to herself.

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House sat in the office of one of the psychiatrist working there. He was starting to get irritated with being there and wanted to get out. The more time that he spent there, the more that he was starting to get truly convinced that he was honestly insane. "You think I'll be able to get the hell out of here soon?" House asked as he leaned back in the chair with his feet propped up on the desk.

"I don't think you'll be here to much longer," Richards, the doctor, replied as he studied something on the chart that he held before him. House figured that they must have been notes that were taken in the last session.

"Good, I'm in a hurry to get back to exciting everyday life of working the hospital," House sarcastically stated.

"You worried about going back there?" Richards questioned, finally looking up from the paper before him.

House let out a sigh of annoyance and cupped his hands over the handle to his cane."I'm not worried about it. Dreading it. Cuddy's going to make sure that I stick to the simple things at first and looking over my shoulder at every move I make for the next few months." he responded in a matter of factly style.

"You ever consider that maybe she just cares about you?" Richards implored. After hearing about Cuddy in the last few sessions, he knew that this guy obviously thought about her a lot.

"What you call caring is what I call annoying" House replied as he started to drum his fingertips with impatience.

"Would you rather have her annoying you? Or completely ignoring you?" Richards inquired with a tiny smile.

"I think I would rather her just do her job and let me do mine," House said, noting the smug smile.

"I don't think you mean that," Richards argued.

House swung his legs off over the edge of the desk and sat up with his cane on the floor and his hands still resting on the handle. "I don't think you know me as well as you think I do. All you psychiatrists think there is some hidden meaning behind everything that everyone says. Trust me, I'm not that complicated. If I want to say something, I say something. I don't cover everything up in a secret code for you to crack."

"If you say so," Richards agreed to humor him.

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Cuddy kept her head down as she walked from the nurse over to join Todd. Once she stopped, she slowly looke dup and sighed. "Looks like I'm going to be spending the night here. Rachel's temp hasn't gone down yet," Cuddy announced.

"Okay," Todd responded.

"So I guess you have the house to yourself tonight," Cuddy stated. She then looked back down and started to massage her forehead.

"Are you sure that you don't want me to stay with you? Could get a tiny bit lonely in this place at night," Todd offered. He could see that she was trying to control her stress. It was working for now, but once she started getting sleep deprived, he wasn't sure how long it would last.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Cuddy answered as she looked back up and offered him a slight smile.

"All right. See you tomorrow then," Todd said.

"Bye," Cuddy called out as she watched him start to turn and walk away. There was something that she had to tell him though. One thing that she had to make sure that he heard. "Wait!"

Todd stopped and turned around to see her approaching him. "What?"

"Thank you," Cuddy smiled.

"For what?" Todd questioned. He knew that it had to do something with his helping out with Rachel, but he wanted to be sure.

"Just, being here," Cuddy answered and then kissed him on the cheek.

"You're welcome," he said.

The two stood there for what felt like eternity before Todd said good bye once more, and left Cuddy to stand there and watch him leave.