Season 2 X 19 : House vs. God

Original Airdate: 4/25/2006
Written by: Doris Egan
Directed by: John F. Showalter
Transcript by: Kat_Aclysm

BEGINNING

[Episode opens with scene of the general city area at night. The camera pans across the road, and then heads towards the front of a place called "Church Of the Shining Light". Inside, people are singing "I've got Joy in My Heart" as the camera pans inside the building. The people applaud and cheer as they finish the song, and the camera focuses on the Patient of the Week, Boyd, who is a faith healer, and the head of the congregation.]

Boyd: Do you feel the spirit?

[The crowd cheers even louder, then are seated.]

Boyd: And in the 39th year of his reign, Aesa was diseased in his feet until the disease was exceedingly great. Yet, he didn't seek help from the Lord, but from the physicians. Now there is nothing wrong with seeing a doctor. But can a doctor heal for the power that Jesus gave his disciples? Men of science can walk through life with blindfolds knowing that you or I could not take a single step if we were not uplifted by God.

[Boyd moves to stand in front of a lady with a walking frame. He places his right hand over her forehead.]

Boyd: Agnes, thank you for letting me be an instrument of God's love for you. [moves his hand away from her, then slowly pulls her walking frame away from her, moving it off to one side.]

Boyd: [steps back away from Agnes] In faith, all things are possible. My friends, I want you to let Agnes feel the wave of faith in this church here today, lifting her into God's hands.

[The crowd applauds and cheers.]

Boyd: You can do it. Come on, sister. [holds his hands out towards her, then begins to clap]

Agnes: [takes a few small tentative steps forward]

Boyd: Praise Jesus! Thank you God! Thank you, Lord! Thank you, L-- [Boyd begins to seize up. He grasps at the air above him and begins to go red in the face. The camera pans in on his chest area, which then shows his muscles tightening up and constricting. Boyd hunches over in pain. The crowd becomes quieter.]

Person: Is he all right?

Boyd: [sinks to his knees] No! [curls up on the floor]

[Boyd's Father, Walter, rushes over to him] What's wrong?

Boyd: Dad. I think I need a doctor. [passes out on the floor]

[Black out.]

----

[Cue to House MD Opening Sequence with Theme Song "Teardrop" by Massive Attack]

----

[Camera focuses on Entry Door to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. House enters for the day, and removes his sunglasses. Wilson briskly walks over to him]

Wilson: Did you remember my DVD player?

House: Well if you wanted it, you shouldn't have left it behind when you moved out.

Wilson: No, I'll get it. It's a drag watching porn on VHS.

House: I'll call you as soon as I'm done with it. That's if you ever get a phone installed.

Wilson: Oh, forget it. I'll come by and get it myself, ah, after work, Thursday?

House: Won't be home Thursday.

Wilson: No problem. I still have a key, I can let myself in and out.

House: I guess maybe I could bring it in tomorrow. After all, how many times can you hit pause at the part where Lindsay Lohan plays the spelling bee? What is it about girls who can spell?

Wilson: It's a math contest.

House: What is it about girls who can count?

Wilson: It's poker night isn't it?

House: [glances away from him]

Wilson: You said weeks ago that I could play. Stop making excuses.

House: [walks into the elevator] Got to go - building full of sick people. If I can hurry, maybe I can avoid them.

----------------------

[Cue to patient's room.]

Foreman: The abdominal series showed no evidence of obstruction. What did you have to eat?

Boyd: Chicken sandwich. We travel. Lots of fast food.

Cameron: [inserts a needle into his arm]

Boyd: Thank you. I barely felt it.

Cameron: You're welcome.

Boyd: God told me you were kind.

Cameron: You talk to God?

Walter: God's presence often descends on Boyd, they help him guide others.

Foreman: This been going on long?

Walter: Since he was ten.

Foreman: [curtly nods]

Boyd: God told me I would meet a woman healer who was harboring vengeful thoughts about a man she works with.

[Cameron looks rather stunned and momentarily glances at Foreman, who raises his eyebrows in response.]

Boyd: That's God's job.

Cameron: I'll... keep that in mind. [picks up a sample jar] His urine is dilute.

Walter: Ah, what does that mean?

Cameron: It could mean that for some reason his kidneys aren't purifying in the way they should, which would let toxins accumulate in his body. I'll run the blood work, and see what it tells us.

Boyd: Thank you. I appreciate it.

------------------------------------

[Cue to House's Office area.]

House: God talks to him.

Chase: It's not psychosis, he's just religious. The only medical issue that showed up on the blood work is low sodium.

House: No - you talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you - you're psychotic.

Chase: A lot of people experience their religion as something more than symbolic. That doesn't mean that---

House: God ever talk to you when you were in the seminary?

Chase: [laughs]

House: [gives him a smug look]

Chase: No.

House: God's loss, our gain. He's either psychotic, or a scam artist.

Foreman: He was actually , uh, really impressive.

House: Well yeah, with the burning bush and all it's quite the show.

Cameron: He's intelligent, polite, dignified, he's not a typical 15 year old.

Foreman: And he told Cameron God wants her to stop being pissed at me over the article.

House: God knows you stole Cameron's article?

Foreman: He knows she's harboring vengeful thoughts.

Cameron: I'm over it.

House: Yeah. I can tell that from the Berlin wall of body language between you. I'm shocked that he picked up on it. Low sodium - check for Addison's?

Chase: No pigmentation and potassium levels were nominal.

House: Cirrhosis?

{Foreman: Liver feels fine. Trans and minasous were normal.}

House: [sighs] We should monitor his saline intake to correct the low sodium. No more than one MEQ per liter per hour. Let's push the patient history to see if there's any evidence of drugs or other delusions.

Chase: You're going to talk to a patient?

House: God talks to him. It would be arrogant of me to assume that I'm better than God.

--------------------

[Cue to Patient's room. House slides the door open.]

House: So. You're a faith healer. Or is that a pejorative? Do you prefer something like "divine health management"? I thought God might have mentioned I was coming.

Boyd: I'm OK with 'Faith Healer', Doctor House.

House: Oh... That's a nice one. You didn't even go with 'I see an H in a medical coat'.

Boyd: The nurses talk about you a lot.

House: Ah, don't believe them - I keep a sock in my pants. Faith - that's another word for ignorance, isn't it? I never understood how people could be so proud of believing in something they have no proof of at all. Like that's an achievement.

Boyd: God's asking for our trust. You can't love somebody and not trust them.

House: Trust has to be earned. You can't trust someone hiding in a closet.

Boyd: You don't trust anyone.

House: You seem elusive. There's no confusion, no lethargy. What drugs have you been taking?

Boyd: Nothing. Ah, Some aspirin, I... get focused on something, I forget to eat, next thing you know I've got a hunger headache.

House: So aspirin and hospitals are OK. That's an interesting attitude for someone who's keep any number of people from getting medical help.

Boyd: Just because I believe in prayer, doesn't mean I don't believe in germs and toxins.

[Walter re-enters the room and hands a bottle of water to Boyd.]

House: That bottle's been open before. You refilled it at the water cooler.

Walter: Yes.

House: How often do you do that?

Walter: A few times an hour, he likes to stay hydrated.

House: [looks rather intrigued]

Walter: You think germs have gotten in?

House: I think water might have gotten in.

-------------------------

[The camera pans across the sky in an aerial shot of the hospital. The camera cues to the inside of Wilson's office.]

Wilson: We can adjust your pain meds.

Grace: Again.

Wilson: Suppose we increase your oxycodone.

Grace: We both know the only reason I'm talking with this to you now, is because I did not take my full dose this morning.

Wilson: [Folds his arms]

Grace: You've done your best. And I've been a good soldier. It's time we accept it's over.

Wilson: What about the trip you were talking about taking. You've wanted to see Florence since you were a teenager, right?

Grace: Yeah, I'll go now all drugged up. It's not exactly the trip I've been dreaming of.

Wilson: Okay. But you're strong. You're dealing with this. And there is the right combination of pain meds out there. And we'll find it. Don't give up on us. And don't be startled by the sound you're about to hear.

House: [bashes on Wilson's glass door]

Wilson: Excuse me. I have a friend with boundary issues.

[Wilson gets to his feet, opens the door and goes outside to meet with House]

Wilson: Can this wait five minutes?

House: Is she dying?

Wilson: Yeah.

House: Before the end of this consult?

Wilson: They could build monuments to your self-centeredness.

House: Patient, 15 year old, faith healer. Hot line to God.

Wilson: What are his symptoms?

House: He is not a saint. He figures out what's going on in people's lives by watching, listening, deducing.

Wilson: And you're worried about trademark infringement?

House: Then he passes on advice from God so he can watch them jump. It's a power trip.

Wilson: Oh, and there the similarities end. Why is he here?

House: I fear for the human race. A teenager claims to be the voice of God and people with advanced degrees are listening.

Wilson: The majority of Americans believe in a personal God. What are his symptoms?

House: Massive cramps, low sodium. It turns out he's been drinking water non-stop, God told him to purify his body.

Wilson: Huge water intake would cause low sodium.

House: Which would cause the cramping, yeah, I get it.

Wilson: What, that's it? You solved it. You just brought me out here to rant because faith annoys you?

House: Mmm-hmm. He's all better. You know I get it, people are just looking for a way to fill the holes. But they want the holes, they want to live in the holes. And they go nuts when somebody else pours dirt in their holes. [yells out to nobody in particular] Climb out of your holes, people!

Wilson: [silently heads back into his office]

[The camera pans down and in on Boyd, who is fast asleep. He is expressionless as his eyes open.]

----------------

[Cue camera to Princeton Plainsboro hospital halls. Boyd slowly walks out of his room, singing. He heads down the hallway. The camera shows us that from his perspective, the image he sees is blurry. He continues to sing, becoming louder as he walks down the hallway, people pass by him. He moves to stand in front of an indoor water fountain and raises his hands up towards it, singing loudly now.]

Chase: [walks up to him] Boyd, you alright?

Boyd: [continues to loudly sing]

Chase: [places a hand on his left shoulder] Boyd.

Boyd: [stops singing and becomes silent]

Chase: Come on. [places his hand back on Boyd's shoulder and begins trying to lead him away] Let's go, can you tell me your name? Do you know where you are? Boyd?

Boyd: [from his perspective, the image he sees is blurry, except for Grace, whom is walking down the hallway]

Chase: Boyd?

Boyd: God doesn't want you to be afraid.

Grace: [stops walking and looks at him]

Boyd: He sent me here to heal you. You think he hasn't heard your prayers, but he heard all of them, even the ones you didn't say. [grasps onto her hands]

Chase: Sorry. Boyd, come on, let's get you back to your room.

Boyd: [to Grace] In faith, all things are possible.

Chase: Let's go.

Boyd: [places his right hand on Grace's forehead] Lord, I call on you to relieve the suffering of your daughter.

Wilson: [from the other end of the hallway] Grace?

Boyd: And make her whole again.

Wilson: Hey! Hey, what are you doing? What is this?

Chase: He's just had a complex partial seizure, he's disoriented, he doesn't know what he's doing.

Wilson: Well get him back to his room. Now.

[Chase leads Boyd away.]

Wilson: [to Grace] You OK?

Grace: [slowly nods]

-----------------------------

[Cue to House's Office area.]

Cameron: Are we even certain he had a seizure? Hymn singing and healing, he does it all the time, doesn't he?

House: Isn't it interesting that religious behavior is so close to being crazy we can't tell it apart.

Chase: The repetition, the lack of affect and awareness, it was a seizure.

Cameron: Infection?

Foreman: No fever.

Cameron: It could be Wilson's. Or maybe it's a glycogen storage disease.

Foreman: Or brain tumor.

Chase: Tubular sclerosis.

House: Hmm. How to settle this. We could ask our patient to ask God, or we could MRI his brain. Which way do you want to go? Because, I'm open to all---

Wilson: [yells] House! Why the hell did you let an unstable patient wander the hallways?!

House: His leash broke.

Wilson: The last thing a terminal cancer patient needs is to hear somebody taunt them with a cure, she was freaked, she was angry...

House: And now she's not freaked and angry and you are.

Wilson: She says she's feeling better. Maybe not singing and dancing, but she's feeling just a little happy for the first time in months.

House: A sudden drop in pain can create euphoria. You should let her have her vacation.

Wilson: Oh, that's great. And when vacation's over, when she crash lands from all this denial, she was dealing with her illness. Now her expectations are rising. And you're not the one that has to be there when all that false hope gets yanked out from under her.

[Wilson turns and walks out of the room. Foreman glances up at House, Cameron and Chase both look at him as well. House glances back at them]

House: Don't you guys have anything to do?

[Cameron and Chase, and Foreman exit.]

---------------------------

[Camera cuts to MRI Machine area.]

Chase: How long have you been healing people?

Boyd: You believe that's what I'm doing?

Chase: I'd like to.

Boyd: But you don't. [pauses] Why do you always do things you don't want to do?

Chase: [just watches him]

Boyd: It's OK, I don't expect a real answer.

[Chase nods in response, while Boyd lies down on the MRI sliding table. Chase presses a button on the console and the table slides into the machine.]

[The camera moves to the safe area behind the glass in the MRI room.]

Foreman: God would probably want you to take the stick out of your butt and get over this.

Cameron: If there is some higher order running the universe, it's probably so different from anything our species can conceive there's no point in our even thinking about it. But I doubt He gives a damn about my butt.

Foreman: You believe God might exist, but you don't think about it? It's the most important issue---

Cameron: I think penguins might as well speculate about nuclear physics, why are we having this conversation?

Foreman: What? I'm curious.

Cameron: You cannot tell someone they're a colleague and not a friend, then casually chat about the afterlife.

---------------------------

[Cue to House's Office area. House walks over to his whiteboard, carrying a cup of coffee. He stops in front of the whiteboard, and the camera reveals that he is keeping score. House has a column on one side of the board and currently one point, while God has a column on the other side, and two points.]

House: [grins in amusement at the board, then walks over to the sink]

Boyd: [enters House's office] You actually keep score?

House: [pours coffee] Your MRI results aren't done yet. Go back to your room. No singing.

Boyd: Well, you would get a point for figuring why the low sodium. What are my guy's points for?

House: Your trick about the spat between Dr Cameron and Dr Foreman apparently impressed someone.

Boyd: And the second point?

House: [ignores him and reaches to grab a stirring stick for his coffee]

Boyd: You think it could be because I healed Grace? She came back to see me. I like her.

House: You like messing with people. That's why you're here now. Now maybe you think that your batteries are powered by God, maybe you don't. Either way, you enjoy what you do.

Boyd: Yes. I like helping people. I get a rush when I see the look on their faces when they realize their burdens are gone.

House: Hmm, which makes sure you're in the next state by the time the endorphins wear off, and the arthritis comes back.

Boyd: That doesn't happen.

House: Oh, you do extensive follow up studies?

Boyd: God told me.

House: Hmm, I see. That's not fair. We were having fun! It's hard to keep sniping rationally when you throw a bomb like that in there.

Boyd: He spoke with me about you too.

House: Forgive my enemies, never date a tourist when Mercury is in retrograde. Yeah, I learned that one myself, the hard way.

Boyd: God says you look for excuses to be alone.

House: See, that is exactly the kind of brilliance that sounds deep, but you can say that about any person who doesn't pine for the social approval of everyone he meets, which you were cleverly able to deduce about me by not being a moron. Next time tell God to be more specific.

Boyd: God wants you to invite Dr Wilson to your poker game.

[House glances up at Boyd, who grins and leaves the room]

---------------------------------

[Cue to Cafeteria area. Wilson is at one of the tables, eating. House enters the area and walks across to him]

House: Don't talk to my patient.

Wilson: What are you talking about?

House: You get all huffy when my patient stumbles into yours in the hallway, but you've got no qualms about chatting my guy up.

Wilson: This is fun, it's like Password. Keep talking, I'll jump in when I get a clue what the hell you're talking about.

House: God knows about my poker game.

Wilson: You think I told him?

House: Either that or I start going to Church every Sunday. That would mess with my bowling league.

Wilson: House, aside from yelling at him to get back to his room, I've never spoken to your patient.

[House and Wilson exchange glances for a few moments, then House leaves once again]

---------------------------------

[Cue to the safe area in the MRI room.]

Chase: The MRI shows an abnormal area.

House: Tubular sclerosis.

Foreman: It's the right neighborhood.

Chase: Accounts for all the symptoms.

House: All of them.

Foreman: Bleeding cortical tumors identifiable. We can do the surgery.

House: Tell our patient congratulations. Soon his chats with God will be a thing of the past. [gives himself another point on the Whiteboard] That's how he goes to the mortal.

----------------------------

[Cue the hallways of Princeton Plainsboro Hospital. Grace is leaving Boyd's patient room. Wilson is standing in the foreground area, appearing to be waiting for her.]

Wilson: Did you know the Catholic Church keeps a doctor at Lordes? He hears the same thing every day. But out of the thousands of cases of people who have claimed to feel better, the Catholic Church has only recognized a handful as miracles.

Grace: But they do recognize a handful.

Wilson: Well, they're a church. It's what they do.

Grace: Look. For the past couple of years the world's been getting smaller. Eight months, six months. I watch a trailer for a movie and I think 'Am I going to be here when that comes out?' Maybe there still is a rise in hope there. You know, maybe, maybe I can make plans for a year from now. Two years. I like the view.

Wilson: The view is a lie, and if you believe it, you're going to crash so hard. [shakes his head] Let me take new images of your liver.

Grace: You can't accept that it could be true.

Wilson: Well if it is true, you shouldn't be afraid of proving it.

------------------------------

[Cue to Boyd's patient room.]

Foreman: Tubular sclerosis is a genetic disorder. It causes small benign tumors to grow in various parts of the body, in this case, the brain.

Walter: You said benign.

Foreman: They probably are but benign or not, they're not in a good location. We need to remove them.

Walter: You're talking brain surgery?

Chase: His symptoms are getting worse, which means the tumors are growing. The surgery will correct it all, the chemical imbalance, the seizures, the auditory hallucinations---

Walter: Hallucinations?

Foreman: Without the surgery, it's just going to get worse, it might even be fatal. With the surgery your son should be a normal 15 year old boy.

Boyd: I'm not normal.

------------------------------

[Cue to the Cafeteria area.]

House: [snatches Wilson's tub of yogurt] I need you to talk to my patient. I'll get this one.

Wilson: Why do I have the feeling you're plotting world domination?

House: Moses is refusing surgery. You have a gift. People thank you for telling them that they're going to die.

Wilson: If I can get him to agree to agree to surgery, I want in on the poker game.

House: You would let this kid die just to get into a stupid game?

Dr. Wilson: You'd let him die just to keep me out?

---------------------------

[Cue to Boyd's patient room. House and Wilson enter.]

Wilson: Hi. I'm Dr Wilson.

Boyd: I knew they'd send somebody else.

House: That God has a big mouth.

Wilson: House! [to Boyd] Can I ask why you don't want the tumors removed?

Boyd: God put them there for a reason.

House: You think God needs a telephone in your head to talk to you? Isn't he everywhere? It's not a long distance call, is it?

Boyd: This is the way God does things. The natural law, if he went around doing big flashy miracles all the time, nobody would need faith.

House: How come everyone else needs faith, but you just get the guy who's screaming his existence in your ear? [pauses] Your turn.

Wilson: Do you think God wants you to die?

Walter: This is the way the Lord often is with his chosen ones. He, he, gives the most trials to those that he loves the most.

House: Wow, sweet. You abdicate your authority. Avoid those tricky parental issues like whether to let him drive at sixteen, just let him die at fifteen.

Wilson: So you believe is, um, a saint. The way I understand it, one of the hallmarks of a saint is humility. Someone with true humility would consider the possibility that God hadn't chosen him for that kind of honor. He'd consider the possibility that he just had an illness.

------------------------------

[Cue to Princeton Plainsboro Hospital hallways. House and Wilson have left the patient's room and are now walking elsewhere.]

House: You have a gift for manipulation.

Wilson: I listen, I have an actual conversation with people. Which shockingly does raise the odds that they'll be co-operative.

House: That's what I'm saying. You read that kid, then manipulated the hell out of him.

Wilson: [sighs]

House: Bring pretzels.

-------------------------

[Cue to House's house. House is playing his piano.]

[a knocking sound can be heard at the front door]

House: I know that knock. Use your key, I'm not getting up.

[House continues to play the piano. Wilson unlocks the door and enters the house.]

House: The game's not until tomorrow night. And those aren't pretzels.

Wilson: I took some images of Grace Polmurin's cancer.

House: Yeah?

Wilson: The tumors shrunk.

House: [stops playing his piano] Don't tell my patient.

[Black out.]

-------------------------

[Cue to Princeton Plainsboro Hospital hallways. House is walking up to the administration desk, Chase is leaning against it.]

House: I want all the records on miracle woman. Every test, every treatment she's ever had, every question she's ever answered in this hospital. Anything except for previous doctors, go back to neonatal if you have to. [House glances into Boyd's patient room, noticing that Grace and Boyd are in there having a conversation] Which part of 'keep them away from each other' confused you?

Chase: They're friends. She thinks he saved her life.

House: Now we've obligingly offered medical proof that his delusions are true.

Cuddy: They've withdrawn permission for the surgery. I put the lawyers on it. Her tumor shrank?

House: I'm on it. [to Chase] Tell Jesus that we need another 24 hours to normalize the sodium level.

Chase: It's already normalized.

House: Actually, tell Joseph. [points his cane in the direction of Boyd's father] Jesus will know you're lying. And I want you and Foreman and Cameron to go over every line of every file on that woman.

Chase: Isn't he the one we're supposed to save?

House: The only way to save him is to prove that she is still dying.

-----------------------------

[Cue to House's Office area.]

Chase: MRI machine checks out.

Foreman: Maybe the radiologist mischarted which machine they used.

Chase: I checked both. This is insane, we're diagnosing a recovery.

Cameron: What about six months ago? Maybe there was a malfunction on her reform pictures, some shadow that made the tumor look bigger than it really was. I'll see what I can find out.

Foreman: Maybe it's a delayed effect from radiation. Sometimes it could take a while.

Chase: She hasn't had radiation for six months.

Foreman: Here!

Chase: Nowhere. Her records---

Foreman: There's about a dozen appliances in every home that gives off radiation.

Chase: Those machines wouldn't hurt a hamster if it was tied to the machine for a year.

Foreman: If the machine is operating properly.

Chase: Sometimes remissions just happen.

Foreman: [sighs] You think House will just shrug and say that if one of us doesn't check the home?

[Chase Exits.]

-----------------------------------

[Cut to MRI Safe room. Cameron inspects and goes over scans from Grace. Camera dissolves to reveal Chase, who is in Grace's House and scanning radioactive sensing equipment over appliances within the kitchen area. Shot dissolves to Foreman who is in House's office area and going through a large number of papers. Camera dissolves again to House, who is seated in front of his piano in his house. His poker game is in session and he and his friends are seated around a table with cards and poker chips.]

House: Kings on nines.

[Everybody folds. House collects his won chips. Wilson enters through the front door.]

House: Wilson! This is Dry Cleaner. Tax Accountant. Guy from the bus stop. This is Wilson.

Dry Cleaner: How come he gets a name?

House: Seniority.

Wilson: Hello.

[Cut back to Grace's home area. Chase is inspecting Grace's medicine bottles. The phone rings, and the camera cuts back to House.]

House: Find anything?

Chase: Do you have any idea how many electrical devices give off radiation?

House: All of them.

Chase: I'll be here all night.

House: Everybody's a whiner. Be a doer, not a me too'er. [to his poker group] Raise.

Bus Stop Guy: I'm out.

Chase: There's at least four different types of pain pills here, and an LED device.

Wilson: I'll raise your raise.

House: Keep looking. [closes the phone, hanging it up, then sits there thinking for a moment] Fold.

[His poker buddies laugh.]

Dry Cleaner: You were bluffing. He knew you were bluffing. Your luck's changing tonight.

Wilson: So did they find anything? Or are you going to have to accept the fact that every now and then, remissions happen?

[House silently leans back in his chair and folds his arms. Camera cuts back to Chase, who is now using the radiation monitoring equipment to scan the lights, the television, and then the closet. He discovers men's shirts and ties in there. Camera cues back to the poker game. House's phone rings. He picks up.]

House: [sighs] This call had better be worth my time.

Chase: This is what happens when it's not our patient. We don't know enough.

House: That's why you're there.

Chase: She's got a boyfriend.

House: Well, unless you think he's radioactive...

Chase: He could show up at any minute! The honor of working for you is not worth a felony charge.

House: Give me a minute. [throws more chips onto the table]

Bus Stop Guy: I'm saying the odds of you having a Straight Flush are pretty low. [places his own chips on the table]

[Camera cuts back to Grace's home. The shadow of a person appears nearby the front door, Chase notices them and quickly dashes into the next room to hide.]

Chase: House!

[The sound of keys clinking can be heard. The camera shifts back to the poker game, and focuses on House's cards, then on Wilson. The other occupants around the table watch him.]

Wilson: I'll fold.

Drycleaner: Fold.

Tax Accountant: Fold.

Bus Stop Guy: I'm screwed, aren't I?

[The camera shifts back to Grace's home. The shadow fumbles with keys for another moment, and then enters the apartment next door. The camera once again returns to the poker game as House flips over his last card, revealing that his hand was a Straight Flush. The occupants at the card table laugh.]

House: Nine bucks for a Straight Flush.

[House scoops up his poker chips. The occupants around the card table continue to chuckle.]

House: [picks up his phone again] He's not coming home. Relax. [shuts his phone again] There's nothing in this universe that can't be explained. Eventually. Take this game. Only two people knew that you wanted in on it. I didn't tell him.

Wilson: I told you, I didn't tell him.

House: Why would you? About the only he's person getting intimate and all conversational with is your cancer chick. How would she know? The subject of my poker game isn't likely to come up with in the course of a patient interview. No, that's the kind of thing that you mention to someone that you're used to sharing the details of your day with.

Wilson: Don't.

House: A Rabbi, guidance counselor, parent? She's not your mom, is she?

Wilson: I'm seriously saying, don't.

House: You've been having sex.

Wilson: This is so not the place.

House: With our miracle woman.

----------------------

[Cue to House's office area. Cameron and Foreman are seated at the table and going over notes.]

Walter: Excuse me, may I... may I talk to you?

Cameron: Of course.

Walter: Um... Boyd's getting dressed, he's ready to check out.

Cameron: He... can't check out without your permission.

Foreman: His sodium level still isn't normal.

Walter: I told him, he said that God said it was OK. He was fine. [pauses] Could you talk to him?

[Cut to House's home area.]

Wilson: Tell them my name isn't Wilson.

House: Most people in your situation just have their careers to worry about. You got that, and combined retribution.

Wilson: Tell them.

House: Tell them what happened, tell them whatever you want.

Wilson: She'd had a bad day, pain wise. Her ride didn't show up to take her home.

House: So you offered?

Wilson: Yeah. She didn't have any groceries. She was too sick to go out, and I figured I could afford to take a half hour and pick her up a few things, and...

House: Stay, and make sure she's OK.

Wilson: Yeah.

House: And never leave. You told me you got an apartment. But you moved in with her. You lied to me. [yells out to the next room] His name is not Wilson, and he's screwed up worse than I am.

Wilson: Okay, yes. I lied to you, I'm sorry.

House: Half the doctors who specialize in oncology turned into burned out cases, but you. You eat neediness.

Wilson: Lucky for you. [To the group in the next room as he walks through to the door] Thanks for the game guys, I don't think I'll be coming back.

House: [follows] You're a functional vampire. Sure you're heroic, useful to society, but only because it feeds you.

[Wilson slams the door.]

House: There's nothing worth stealing, so don't even look. [opens the front door and follows Wilson out onto the street] You don't just have a fetish for needy people, you marry them.

Wilson: [throws his hands into the air] Here we go.

House: You mean it! And then time passes and suddenly they're not so needy any more. Your fault. You've been there for them too much, they're getting healthy, independent. And that's just ugly. God, you must be pissed at God right now, making her all happy.

Wilson: Why are you doing this?

House: Because you're being stupid.

Wilson: [laughs]

House: You know what you're risking by sleeping with a patient.

Wilson: Oh, that's crap. You're not mad because I'm risking my job. You're not even mad because I lied to you. You're mad because I lied to you and you couldn't tell.

House: Yeah. You got me nailed.

Wilson: Yeah, that's why you didn't want me in your poker game. Because when it comes to being in control, Gregory House leaves our faith healer kid in the dust. And that's why religious belief annoys you. Because if the universe operates by abstract rules you can learn them, you can protect yourself. If a Supreme Being exists he can squash you any time he wants.

House: He knows where I am.

[The sound of a ringing cell phone is heard. Wilson and House check their pockets.]

Wilson: I think it's yours.

House: [finds his phone and opens it] Yeah. [slowly nods, quiet] I'll be right there. [pauses] Jesus is spiking a fever. He's delusional.

Wilson: Tubular sclerosis doesn't cause a fever.

House: I know.

Wilson: I'll drive.

-----------------------------------

[Cut to House's office area. It is night time outside, the hospital is mostly dark for the night. House, Wilson and Foreman are in the area, discussing.]

House: Pick any random guy off the street, bring him in here, examine him exhaustibly and you will find at least three things wrong with him. This kid has tubular sclerosis, a mild case.

Cameron: But his tumors are growing.

House: We assumed that the tumors are growing because he's getting sicker. But he could have grown old and died and never known about them if he hadn't come here. We were looking for something that's more or less in the right part of the brain. It's like we found someone standing over a dead body holding a gun. We arrested them, didn't look any further. Well sometimes, people really do just stumble into a murder scene.

Foreman: His fever's 103 and rising. If we don't do anything, he's going to be chatting with God face to face real soon.

House: He would still come from a long term underlying condition. He's a garden variety religious nut who happens to have an infection. It's lumbar puncture time.

------------------------------------------

[Cut to Patient's room.]

Boyd: No. No, God told me no more of man's medicine. If we have faith in him, he'll make me well.

Cameron: It's just a test. We just want to find out what's wrong.

Boyd: God knows what's wrong, God will take care of it.

Foreman: [to Walter] He's delirious, and he's a minor. This is your decision, not his.

Boyd: [mumbling] The kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which when a man finds, he hides, and in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.

Foreman: Buy all the land you want, don't blow your brains out. [to Walter] You're watching your son kill himself! He's out of his mind with fever--

Boyd: Dad! If your faith is weak, I will fail. I need you.

Walter: [sighs] I'm sorry. You don't even know what's wrong with him. God knows the answer. And I would rather leave it in his hands than yours.

------------------------------------------

[Cut to the Hospital Hallways. House walks along the corridor and stops as he sees Wilson at the other end of a waiting room area, standing in front of a vending machine containing fruit.]

House: Wilson!

Wilson: [looks up at him from the vending machine]

House: I need you to do your thing.

[The camera cuts to them walking out of the elevator.]

Wilson: You do know that I don't actually have magical powers.

House: I have faith.

Wilson: You're better off trying to slip some antibiotics into a meal---

House: Which antibiotics? We don't know what infection he's got.

Wilson: Go as broad as you can.

House: Forget it. Our best hope is your silver tongue.

Wilson: What if it's not an infection?

House: Were you not paying attention when I was doing my murder scene metaphor?

Wilson: What if the tubular sclerosis is guilty? It had the gun in it's hand. It was standing---

House: Doesn't cause fever.

Wilson: It causes everything else. What if the fever is the innocent bystander? Fever could have been set off by something he picked up anywhere, maybe even a bug he got here.

House: Or a bug he gave here. [pauses] He gave it to your patient. That's why her tumor shrank, the virus went after the cancer first.

Wilson: Are you saying a virus attacked your tumor?

House: For two hundred years, there were reports of wild viruses that target tumors. Early 1900s an Italian medical journal wrote up a woman with cervical cancer who was injected with a weak strain of rabies, I've no idea why they did that, but her tumor shrank.

Wilson: You think he gave her rabies?

House: One of the virus types most prone to go after cancer cells is herpes.

Wilson: Herpes and cephalitis. It would fit. Seizure, low sodium, even the blurred vision. And it would mean if you're right, Grace's cancer is coming back. But you're not going to be able to convince them. They don't want any more tests, they don't wanna---

House: They can't argue with a market cane.

[Cut to patient's room]

Boyd: I'm not going to change my mind. No more tests. God knows the way.

House: [enters the room] Okay. Let's start with the shirt.

Boyd: What are you doing? [forces House away] What are you doing?

House: I'm on a mission from God. If you won't let me undress you, then strip.

Walter: What's he doing, what's going on?

House: That woman you helped, you gave her a virus.

Boyd: No, she's healed, I have a gift.

House: A gift is jewellery, socks. What you have is herpes and cephalitis. The only way you could have transmitted it is by scratching one of your own sores and touching another person.

Walter: Herpes, that's something you get from sex, right?

House: Either that, or cold sores. Your kid got it from the sex.

Boyd: No, no, no sores. No, my body's clean, they examined me when I came in, no sores. [struggles against House]

House: Herpes hides. When you have an outbreak it goes away, comes back, goes away, [pushes Boyd down] Strip. You didn't have a sore when you came in, but you've got one now.

Boyd: Dad, I've never, ever---

House: Did you ever wonder why a perfect child of God should feel so desperate to purify his body that he needed to scarf down a dozen gallons of water a day?

Walter: Boyd... is he right?

Boyd: Dad, no, he's crazy! Help me, I'm.. Doctor Wilson, help!

Wilson: God said no medicine, no procedures. Taking off your clothes doesn't count as either of those. [to Walter] This one's your call.

Walter: Son.

Boyd: Dad, we have to have faith in---

Walter: I have faith in the Lord. You, I trust... as much as you can trust a teenage boy. Take off your clothes.

[Boyd lies down on the bed and lifts up his shirt and pulls down his pants slightly, revealing a rather large red blotch mark on his back]

House: Relax. A few Hail Maries, a little cyclovir, you'll be picking up angels again in no time.

[House, Foreman and Wilson exit, leaving Walter in the room, with Boyd, who is face down on his bed, crying.]

----------------------------

[An aerial shot of Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital is shown. Camera cuts to House's office. Boyd knocks on the glass door. House looks up from his bookcase.]

House: Come in.

[Boyd opens the glass door and walks inside.]

Boyd: My father told me I have to apologize to you.

House: You're still hearing the voices?

Boyd: You're lucky. You go through life with the certainty that what you're doing is right. I know how comforting that is.

[House just watches him, saying nothing]

Boyd: Good luck.

[House subtly nods his head. Boyd leaves. The camera cuts to the whiteboard with the House / God scoreboard still on it.]

House: You're not going to give me my final point?

Chase: You knew it was me.

House: Who else?

Chase: [smirks, gets to his feet and gives House's side another point] House: You don't think God should get a point knocked off?

Chase: The tumor shrank.

House: Because of a virus.

Chase: Do you know what the odds are? She had to have the right type of cancer, he had to have the right type of virus, the exposure---

House: She won the lottery.

Chase: You say she won the lottery, he says, miracle.

House: Yeah, the hand of God reached into this kid's pants, made him have sex so he could scratch a rash, stick his fingers in some woman's face, give her a few extra months. Ah, he's just another liar and manipulator.

Wilson: Well nobody's as perfect as you are. It is possible to believe in something and still fail to live up to it.

[House and Wilson exchange glances. Wilson leaves the office, House follows. Camera focuses on the whiteboard for a moment, before cutting to House and Wilson whom are leaving the hospital for the day]

House: So, how's your girlfriend.

Wilson: She got a little extra time out of this. Not a lot.

House: She didn't crash.

Wilson: No. She says she's happier when she believes in something bigger than she is.

House: She still believes.

Wilson: Faith. She's going to Florence.

House: Moving out?

Wilson: Yeah.

House: Moving back in with me?

Wilson: I don't think that's a great idea.

House: [nods] But we're OK.

Wilson: [grins, amused] House, you are... [pauses] as God made you.

[Wilson and House exit.]


THE END

Season 2 X 18 : Sleeping Dogs Lie

Original Airdate: 4/18/2006
Written by: Sarah Hess
Directed by: Greg Yaitanes
Transcript by: Kat_Aclysm

BEGINNING

[Episode opens with sound of dripping tap. Camera pans in on the exceedingly vexed face of the Patient of the Week, Hannah. Camera pans up to reveal culprit dripping tap into sink. Camera whooshes out of kitchen, pans up the stairs of the house, moving all the way back into the teenager's bedroom. Sound of dripping tap magnifies.]

[Dramatic flash as the camera zooms back in on the vexed face of the teenager, and then there is a rapid transition of time on the clock beside the bed to signify the passing of many hours. Hannah is awake this entire time, and the camera focuses on her at short intervals, continuing to show her frustration at being awake.]

[Hannah sits up in bed, and all the noises in the house and the nearby area outside seem to magnify, intensifying her frustration. The dripping tap noise becomes faster, as does the hissing noise of the radiator, the ticking clock downstairs, and the noise of a passing car is heard outside, magnified greatly.]

Max: Hannah, you OK?

Hannah: [quietly panting]

Max: Still can't sleep?

Hannah: [very slightly shakes her head] I'm fine.

Max: [sighs] Can I do anything to help you?

Hannah: Just go back to sleep, I'm going to go get a glass of wine.

Max: I can keep you company.

Hannah: You have work in the morning.

Max: Are you sure? You don't want me to?

Hannah: I'll be right back. Just sleep.

[Hannah stands, exits the bedroom. The camera flicks in a mild psychotic fashion.]

---

[Camera focuses on the alarm clock, now showing that it is 8:00AM. Max wakens from sleep, discovers that Hannah is not beside her in bed. Max sits up and then walks down the stairs to investigate.]

Max: Hannah? [Pauses, reaches the bottom of the stairs, sees Hannah on the floor in the room adjacent to the one she moves into] Hannah?

[Max moves over to Hannah. Camera pans in on Hannah to reveal that she is slowly and repeatedly thumping her head against the wall. Max rushes over to her, crouches down in front of her. Max raises Hannah's chin up to inspect her. Notices empty pill bottle on the floor nearby, which camera quickly pans in to reveal the empty pill's label, "Sleeping Capsules". Max quickly picks up the bottle.]

Max: [desperate tone] What did you do?

Hannah: I just wanted to sleep.

Max: I'm calling an ambulance...

Hannah: [slowly tilts her face towards the camera, revealing blood on the wall, and a trickle of blood which is running down her left cheek.]

[Black out.]

----

[Cue to House MD Opening Sequence with Theme Song "Teardrop" by Massive Attack]

----

[Camera pans up in an aerial shot on House, to reveal that he is lying on an examination table in exam room one, a medical journal covering his face. He is fast asleep and snoring. Sound of the door opening. Then a 'click' as the light switch is turned on.]

Cuddy: [stands in the doorway for a brief moment, then loudly shuts the door.]

House: [jumps, startled from sleep, takes the Medical Journal off his face.]

Cuddy: You've seen one patient in the last two hours.

House: Complicated case. I'm a night owl - Wilson's an early bird. We're different species.

Cuddy: Move him into his own cage.

House: Who'll clean the droppings from mine? [Rolls over, turning his back to her]

Cuddy: [walks to the other side of the examination bed, hands him the file] Twenty-five year old female with sleep issues.

House: I'm guessing she's... what's the medical term? Upset. These 25-year-old females are usually completely rational. They're rocks. Really. [glances at the file momentarily] Eh... my theory seems to be supported by the fact that she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. Get her a shrink. And I need some shut-eye.

Cuddy: She's a little bit more than upset. She hasn't slept in ten days.

House: She's lying. Without REM sleep, your neurons stop regenerating - the brains shut down lobe by lobe. She'd be insane after five days - dead by ten.

Cuddy: Give me a little credit, I know what gets you off. She took the pills to sleep, not to kill herself.

House: Clever alibi.

Cuddy: They didn't work. She stayed awake, even though she downed the whole bottle.

House: [seems intrigued, takes the file from Cuddy]

Cuddy: And the longest anyone has ever survived without sleep is eleven days. Which gives you about 22 hours. [exits]

House: [sits up properly and reads the file]

-------

[Cue to House's office area.]

Cameron: [slaps a medical journal down on the table] You stole my article.

Foreman: I wouldn't do that.

Chase: [gives Foreman a wary glance]

Cameron: I wrote up the case where we induced hypothermic cardiac arrest in the terminal cancer girl.

Foreman: I wrote my own, I didn't steal yours.

Cameron: You knew I was writing one, you gave me notes!

House: Got a case. It can wait, you two finish. [To Chase] Five bucks says someone loses an eye.

Cameron: [snatches the file from House and begins reading through it]

House: Fine. You're only putting off the inevitable. Twenty five year old female, hasn't slept for ten days.

Cameron: I assume the ER tried giving her some sedatives, we should up the dosage.

Foreman: Sedation isn't the same as sleep.

Cameron: Thanks for your insight. For someone who hasn't slept in ten days, sedation is a great start.

Foreman: Sleep is an active process. Reboots the system, restores the brain, sedatives don't---

Cameron: [interrupts him] The brain is being stressed, we need to relieve that. [To House] You've had my article on your desk for the last four months!

House: I'm a very slow reader. No fever, no white count, means no infection.

Chase: Schizophrenia?

House: No delusions.

Cameron: You read his!

House: I signed it, I didn't read it. [pauses] Aside from the sleeping pills, tox-screen was clean. No cocaine, meth, amphetamines, or diet pills.

Chase: Any medications she'd had recently are steroids for poison ivy, and ibuprofen for a knee she hurt skiing.

Cameron: Nothing that would cause sleep disturbances. When did you get his article?

House: Ahh.. about three weeks ago. Let's go back to the beginning.

Chase: How far back?

House: Genesis. God said, let there be light.

Foreman: Sleep is initially controlled by external light cues.

Chase: And if the brain can't interpret those cues..

Cameron: Optic-nerve disease.

House: I'm sensing another article.

Cameron: I'll go run the tests.

--------

[Cue to examination area. Patient is seated on one side of the eye examination equipment, Cameron on the other.]

Cameron: I'm injecting a dye which will allow us to look at your retina and your optic nerve.

Hannah: Everything's kinda blurry.

Cameron: Normal because of the dye. It's going to be that way the next few hours.

[Foreman opens the door, enters]

Foreman: Need a hand?

Cameron: No.

Foreman: [amused sigh] We're never going to work together again?

Cameron: I just don't see the need to make you feel better by forgiving you.

Foreman: [sighs] I wasn't asking for forgiveness, I was asking if you needed help.

Cameron: It's unprofessional to be talking about this in front of a patient. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but...

Foreman: It doesn't matter. She's not listening.

Cameron: [glances at Hannah] She's asleep.

Foreman: Normal stage one brain waves.

Cameron: You mean she's... better?

Hannah: [opens her eyes again] It's still blurry.

Foreman: You.. fell asleep.

Hannah: No I didn't.

[Both Cameron and Foreman look rather stunned]

----------------------------

[Cue to hospital cafeteria area.]

House: [takes some vicodin out the pill bottle he had in his pocket and places it inside of a folded napkin]

Foreman: Negative for optic nerve disease.

House: But she sleeps.

Foreman: For like 10 seconds. Maximum, one minute. We also checked the ocular pressure. It's normal.

House: [begins loudly crushing the vicodin folded inside of the napkin with the back handle of his cane] And she doesn't know she sleeps.

Foreman: The brain is often unaware of stage one sleep. CT showed no tumors, no clots, no seizure disorders.

House: [unfolds the napkin and sprinkles the crushed vicodin over his food] So.. she sleeps, she just can't stay asleep.

Foreman: You're... going somewhere with this?

House: You know what keeps me awake at night? Monsters in the closet.

Foreman: [laughs] There's no monster in the closet, we looked.

House: Well, it's certainly not showing up on the scans. [pauses] Where's Cameron?

Foreman: She felt I could deliver the news on my own.

House: Oh, this is going to work out great.

Foreman: [silently smirks]

House: [wipes his hands off on the napkin] Come on.

[House and Foreman exit the cafeteria area]

-------------------------

[Cut to Princeton Plainsboro Hospital hallways]

House: If you two guys can't play nice together, I'm taking away your toys. I don't care whose fault this is.

Cameron: If YOU hadn't---

House: [interrupts her] I especially don't care if it's my fault. [pauses] Whatever this woman has, it's not showing up on our tests, which means she's sick... just not sick enough for us to see it.

Chase: [amused] You want us to make her sicker?

House: Yes. I want to stress her body. Specifically her brain. Keep her awake.

Cameron: But probably even with the few minutes of sleep she does have, its torture.

House: So is cutting people with knives. But you can totally get away with that if you have a doctor coat on.

Foreman: House, those few seconds of sleep are maybe the only reason she's still alive.

House: The more symptoms we can force out of her, the more tests we can do, the more tests we do, the more information we get, the quicker we make a diagnosis. [pauses] See how much more fun it is when you guys get along? [points to Cameron and Foreman] You two, take the first four hours.

[House exits into his office. Cameron, Chase, and Foreman walk in the opposite direction down the hall]

-----------------------

[Cut to Hannah's patient room]

Hannah: [is lying in her bed, her head leaning forward]

Foreman: Hannah?

[silence]

Foreman: [louder] Hannah.

Hannah: [jolts awake]

Foreman: You fell asleep.

Hannah: No I didn't.

Cameron: Your brain doesn't remember, it was just a few seconds.

Max: Is this really necessary?

Foreman: The sooner we find out what's wrong, the sooner she can get a real night's rest.

Cameron: Hannah? [pauses, lightly shakes her] Hannah? Hannah.

Foreman: [rolls his eyes, sighs, moves over, pokes Hannah's thumb with a needle]

Hannah: [jolts awake once more, wincing in pain] Ow... what did you do that for?

Foreman: You fell asleep again.

Hannah: No I didn't.

Cameron: We're sorry.

Foreman: We have to do this.

Cameron: [moves him away from the patient, then speaks in a lower voice] You don't have to be cruel.

Foreman: [amused sigh] You know what happens when you're nice. Nothing.

Cameron: That's how you define nice? Not stealing?

Max: [desperately] Doctors?

Hannah: [has her head relaxed and forward once again]

Foreman: She fall asleep again?

Max: [points to the area of the bed]

[Foreman and Cameron become intrigued. Camera is cued to the lower bed, where there is a large patch of blood on the sheets. The sheet is raised to reveal more bloodstain on the bed, coming from the underside area of Hannah's lower half]

-------------------------------

[Scene change to House's office. Area is completely dark, the lights are all off. House is seated at his desk, leaning back in his chair, his feet up on his table. He is asleep and snoring.]

[Sound of footsteps moving up the hallway. Cameron pushes the glass door open, turns on the lights. House wakes up, wincing at the light.]

Cameron: We've got rectal bleeding.

House: What, all of you? [moves his feet off the table and sits in his chair properly] So the monster is peeking out from under the bed. Which either means she has a clotting disorder, or she has a tumor in her colon.

Chase: We'll do a colonoscopy.

House: Who's keeping her awake now?

Foreman: I figured once we found another symptom, it really didn't matter.

Cameron: [sarcastically] Yeah, he's got all the ideas.

House: [stern] Who is with her?

Chase: Her partner is donating blood, so she's with the nurse.

House: Probably singing her lullabies. [pops open his vicodin bottle] I want her awake.

Chase: You have to sedate a patient to do a colonoscopy.

House: Why? Just because of the pain? [places the pill in his mouth] If you find a tumor in her colon, you can knock her out. If you don't - she stays awake.

[Foreman, Cameron and Chase look rather bothered at this, but exit]

-------------------

[Cut to examination room, colonoscopy equipment is in the room. Chase is positioned behind Hannah, whom is lying on her side with her back to him, Cameron is beside him. Hannah is flinching and making loud pained noises]

Hannah: [groans] It hurts!

Max: Can't you hurry?

Chase: Trust me, you don't want me to hurry.

Hannah: [groans louder] God, you're killing me!

Max: [smiles at her] Hold my hand.

Cameron: Keep breathing nice and steady. [pauses] How am I supposed to work with him?

Chase: Maybe.. we shouldn't be talking about this right now?

Cameron: You think I'm overreacting?

Chase: [sighs] Um.. I need you to relax your anus.

Hannah: [continues her moaning and groaning noises]

Max: We're not here. We're skiing. It's thanksgiving,

Hannah: You really want me to think about killing myself on a snowboard?

Max: Come on. You never fell.

Hannah: [buries her head in the blankets and makes a loud moan in torment]

Max: You were awesome.

Cameron: Is that what you told him - I'm hysterical and I need to relax my anus?

Chase: I told him... how many cases do we work up in a year? They're all weird, he could have written up any one of them.

[Cue camera to Hannah's face. A large amount of blood begins coming out of her nose]

Max: She's bleeding.

[Cameron immediately rushes to her side of the bed to help]

Hannah: I can't breathe, I can't breathe.

Chase: Hold on.

[Cameron pinches the bridge of Hannah's nose while Chase continues the colonoscopy.]

[Black out.]

--------------

[Cue to House's office area.]

Foreman: We prescribed coagulants to control the bleed, and started transfusing two units of whole blood.

Cameron: Pathology from the rectal bleed showed traces of nasal epithelium.

Foreman: So the blood bleed is just a nosebleed.

Cameron: That much blood is not a 'just a' anything.

House: When two people fight this much - you know what it means.

Foreman: It's gotta be a massive sinus hemorrhage, that was draining down her throat and out the back.

Cameron: The question isn't what, it's why.

House: Oh, get a room.

Foreman: Rat poison mixed with some sort of neurogenic toxin can cause bleeding and sleep disturbances.

Cameron: Do you have a specific type of neurogenic toxin in mind, or should we just start running a thousand different tox-screens?

House: Just pretend I'm not here. I'll be reading.

Foreman: It also could be some kind of coagulopathy.

Cameron: Or it could be us, do you have any idea what it feels like to have a six-foot long hose shoved into your large intestine?

House: No. But I now have a much greater respect for whichever basketball player you dated in college.

Cameron: [sighs] We've basically been torturing this girl for the last eight hours.

Foreman: We've been poking her foot, not punching her face.

Cameron: Extreme stress can cause high blood pressure, which can cause bleeding.

Foreman: Wouldn't keep her awake for ten days.

House: What if the poison ivy wasn't poison ivy. She got the rash that was diagnosed as poison ivy around the same time the insomnia started. Rash plus nosebleed, plus sleep disturbance equals Wegener's Granulomatosis. Start cortical steroid treatment.

Foreman: The poison ivy treatment was steroids.

{House: Much lower dosage. Get her back on the juice, triple the dose. Get a cianga, and an upper airway biopsy to confirm the wegener's.}

[Cameron and Foreman get up to leave the room. Foreman opens the door and motions for Cameron to go out before him. Cameron gives him a weird glance before exiting, Foreman then turns and shrugs back at House, who raises his eyebrows in response.]

----------------

[Cut to Exam room one. House enters.]

Mandarin Woman: [speaks in Mandarin to her daughter, whom is standing beside her.]

Daughter: She has a... menstrual problems. They're really bad, the pain keeps her in bed all day, plus, she's super depressed.

House: [pulls up a chair with his cane] She said 'super depressed'?

Mandarin Woman: [continues to speak in Mandarin]

Daughter: She heard that birth control pills can make her feel better.

House: [sighs] She wants birth control pills for her PMS.

Daughter: I guess.

House: Judging by the redness around your mom's nostrils and the tissue she's got conveniently stashed in her wrist, I'd say her problem is more likely a URI than PMS.

Daughter: URI?

House: Upper respiratory infection. A cold.

Daughter: I don't think so...

House: I also think she's got a problem with SAC.

Daughter: SAC?

House: [winks at her] Thanks for playing. Stupid American child. If you want the pill, all you have to do is walk into any health clinic in Jersey alone and ask for it.

Daughter: [sighs]

House: What exactly was your plan? [clicks his pen and begins writing a prescription] You were going to exchange the birth control pills for some over the counter decongestants in the hopes that your mom's cold lasts for another six years?

Daughter: No.

House: [pulls off the prescription paper and hands it over]

Daughter: That for a cold?

House: No. That's for your ovaries. I assume you haven't had a stroke, have you ever had a blood clot?

Daughter: No.

House: Super. In three months when you need a refill, take a bus to a free clinic. Don't wait around hoping for mom to get another sniffle. [stands upright once more, then leans closer to the Mandarin mother] Not the sharpest chopstick in the drawer, is she?

Mandarin Woman: [happily thanks him in Mandarin]

[House exits the exam room, Cameron is waiting outside the door for him.]

Cameron: Is this just one of your experiments? You just wanted to see how I'd react to being screwed over by Foreman?

House: [shuts the exam room door] Nice idea, but no. This was just good old-fashioned laziness. Gotta hand it to Foreman though, he knew that you were a suck up and I don't give a crap. He successfully exploited us both.

Cameron: Right. We're both victims. A simple heads up, that's all I needed. You know, between your incredibly witty remarks about anal sex and Cuddy's breasts, you could have tipped me off.

House: Then I'd have Foreman pissed at me. And as annoying as you can be, at least I know you're not going to pop a cap in my ass. Witty, huh?

Cameron: [sighs, starts to walk away]

House: You on the other hand, continue to be flabbergasted every time someone actually acts like a human being. Foreman did what he did because it worked out best that way for him. That's what everyone does.

Cameron: That is not the definition of being human. That's the definition of being an ass.

--------------

[Cut to patient's room.]

Chase: This will numb you up. [sprays an anesthetic spray at the back of Hannah's throat] And this will keep your tongue out of the way. [places a ] Don't worry, you shouldn't feel anything except for a slight plying.

Foreman: So you think I was out of line?

Chase: That article was going to sit on House's desk for the next six years.

Foreman: I could have told her.

Chase: You could have written it for her too. She knows House as well as any of us. She should have known she was waiting for him to do something he was never going to do.

Hannah: [her eyes begin rapidly moving left to right]

Foreman: [watches her] Chase?

Chase: [also turns his attention to the female] Hannah? Still with us?

Max: What's wrong with her eyes?

Foreman: Looks like REM.

Max: What's that?

Chase: Rapid Eye Movements. It's what your eyes do when you're sleeping.

Max: But she's awake.

Foreman: Hannah. [pause] Hannah can you hear me?

Hannah: [comes out of her daze] Yeah of course.

----------------------------------

[Cut to House's office area)

House: Was she sitting up or lying down?

Chase: Sitting up.

House: Then it wasn't REM.

Cameron: But Chase says her eyes are moving the exact way.

House: Did you start her on the steroids?

Chase: Not yet, we were still doing the---

House: Then she wasn't sleeping.

Chase: How do you know?

{House: Because we haven't done anything yet. She may be able to sleep with her eyes open, but unless you also discover that she's got two extra teats in the hooves of her feet, there's no way she'd be able to retain enough muscle tensity during REM sleep to sit upright. It's a movement disorder. Which rules out Wegener's. Where's Foreman?}

Chase: Keeping her awake.

House: Good.

Chase: Rabies could cause muscle spasms, malaise, anxiety, and wakefulness.

Cameron: I don't think she'd forget being bitten by a crazed animal.

Chase: She could have been exposed to an open wound.

House: Did she have a dog?

Cameron: For less than a week. She had an allergic reaction, so they had to give it away.

Chase: Allergies.

Cameron: Animal allergies seems unlikely, but its possible that---

House: When?

Cameron When what?

House: When did she get rid of the dog?

Cameron: About a month ago. Her girlfriend gave it to her for her birthday.

House: Well then it's not allergies. She's just leaving her girlfriend.

Cameron: You've... spoke to the dog?

House: If her birthday was a month ago, she would still be on steroids for the poison ivy. And those meds would have suppressed any reaction she might have had to the dog, which means she lied about being allergic. The dog's a commitment. You pretend to be allergic, because you don't want to tell your girlfriend that you're not planning on being around that long. So I think we can move onto options other than allergies.

Chase: We should still do a scratch test. If she's allergic to one thing---

House: She is not allergic.

Cameron: Okay. Well, we could either base the diagnosis on your admittedly keen understanding of lesbian relationships, or, we could do a scratch test.

House: Do a scratch test.

----------------------

[Cue to patient's room]

Cameron: You still feeling a lot of blood in your throat?

Hannah: No, it's actually getting a little better.

Cameron: Good. Maybe things are just starting to improve on their own. Just a few more. You want some water to wash out your mouth?

Hannah: No, it's OK.

Max: Come on, that can't taste good. I'm going to get you a soda. It's OK, isn't it?

Cameron: You and Max have got a very nice relationship.

Hannah: Yeah.

Cameron: She's very supportive.

Hannah: Uh-huh.

Cameron: When Max got you the dog, did you lie about having an allergic reaction?

Hannah: No. Why?

Cameron: If you have pre-existing conditions, it's important we know. But, if you don't, it's just as important. If I'm wasting my time doing---

Hannah: [speaks over the top of her] You're not going to tell her, are you?

Cameron: It's none of my business.

Hannah: She's a good person. We've just been together so long, I... [pauses] I'm tired of her. Sounds terrible, doesn't it?

Cameron: I guess it happens sometimes.

Hannah: My back hurts.

Cameron: Hannah, can you turn over?

Max: What's wrong?

Cameron: I'm not sure.

[Cameron pulls up Hannah's shirt to reveal a dark red patch of skin)

Hannah: Oh my god.

------------------------

[Cue to House's office.)

Cameron: She has massive internal bleeding.

Chase: Did she have access to aspirin?

Cameron: She'd have to take a hell of a lot.

Chase: Why not? Considering her current mental state.

House: What about her mental state?

Cameron: [sighs] You... were right about her wanting to break up.

House: It just means I was right, doesn't mean she's suicidal.

Chase: A bottle of pills is what landed her here in the first place.

House: Sleeping pills. God knows why she'd want them. What else can cause sleep disorder, and internal bleeding?

Cameron: Drugs or alcohol can mess with the sleeping, and compromise the liver.

House: What are you doing here? Who's keeping her awake?

Foreman: It doesn't matter. Liver function tests are through the sky. The liver's not compromised, it's dead. She doesn't need a diagnosis, she needs a new liver.

House: She's not getting a new liver unless we can figure out what's wrong with her.

Foreman: Test for cirrhosis, twelve hours. Test for hepatitis, eight, she's not going to last another six.

House: So your advice is we just give up?

Foreman: My advice is that we narrow our focus to conditions that we can diagnose, treat and cure in less than six hours. And there's nothing on that list.

House: The girlfriend donated blood, right?

Chase: Yeah. So?

House: That means they're the same type.

Cameron: You can't ask the person she's about to dump to donate half her liver!

House: Does seem tacky, doesn't it.

--------------------------

[Cue to patient's room]

House: I'm Doctor House. I'm in charge of your case.

Max: What's going on? How come no one is keeping her awake any more?

House: You're in acute liver failure. We can continue the transfusions and the lactulose. But it's only a stopgap. There's really nothing we can do to stop the toxins from building up in your bloodstream. Which means that in a few hours you will lapse into a coma. And you won't wake up. I'm sorry.

Max: That's it? You're giving up? You're... not going to try to figure out what's doing this to her?

House: Well even with the right diagnosis, any treatment is going to take longer than the time she has left.

Max: If it's her liver, can't she get a transplant?

House: Wouldn't work without a diagnosis. Whatever killed the first liver will do the same to the second.

Max: But it... but it would give you move time to make the diagnosis, to get her better.

House: Well, it may give us an extra day or two, but, no procurement agency is going to let a liver go to a patient with an undiagnosed pre-existing---

Max: Hannah and I have the same blood type. Couldn't I be the donor?

House: It is medically possible for us to take a part of your---

Max: Please, I don't care about the risks!

House: [To Hannah] You're very lucky to have such a devoted partner.

---------------

[Cue to House's office area)

House: I just bought us 36 hours. Differential diagnosis - which monster eats your liver, screws up your sleep, and causes bleeding?

Cameron: Does Max know Hannah plans to leave her?

House: Didn't come up, so I guess, no.

Cameron: If she knew, there's no way she'd go through with this.

House: And if you didn't have a pathological need to create a close personal relationship with every dying person you meet, we would be blissfully ignorant of any ethical dilemmas and might actually be able to concentrate on the differential.

Chase: Scratch test was negative.

Foreman: It's rare, but any of the hepatitis viruses can cause sleep disturbances, and liver failure.

Chase: Nope, PCRs were normal.

Cameron: We have an ethical dilemma.

House: No we don't. Continue.

Chase: What about splenic cancer, or non-hotchkins lymphoma? She's the right age.

House: It would explain the bleeding. Maybe the liver failure.

Cameron: We're withholding information relevant to her decision to risk her life. How is that not an ethical dilemma?

House: It's not medical information.

Cameron: Who cares?

House: The AMA.

Foreman: Wilson's disease could explain the liver, and neurological symptoms. It also causes bleeding disorders.

Chase: No kaiser-fleischer rings in her eyes.

House: The rings don't have to be there if there's neurological symptoms.

Cameron: This is immoral.

House: Look, let's say you're right. We tell, she changes her mind, our patient dies. How is that moral? [pauses] What else?

Foreman: Poison mushrooms can cause liver failure, sleep disturbances, and internal bleeding.

Chase: She's not shrooming, she's a sports nut.

House: Right. Skiers never party.

Cameron: She's doing this out of love, and Max doesn't know---

House: It's only moral to save a person if they love you? That's kind of a selfish way of looking at life. [] I like Wilson's disease, like cancer, love mushrooms.

Foreman: Yeah, but we don't have the time to test for any of these. Before she can get the transplant, we need to do about 80 procedures.

{House: So do those tests, and my tests at the same time. Use the pantalope to look for cancer, and Wilson's while you endoscope her bile ducts and scrape her stomach for mushroom spores. One of you CT her liver, While the other two check protein CA125, and CA19.5. Oh yeah, if anyone says anything to Max, they're fired.}

Cameron: We have to.

House: We have to not. Because she's not our patient.

Cameron: She's getting surgery, she's someone's patient.

----------------------

[Cue to hospital hallways.]

House: Need a little help.

Cuddy: Inexplicable rash on a patient's scrotum you need me to look at?

House: 27 year old female wants to donate half her liver to her dying girlfriend.

Cuddy: That's very generous. This the sleepless girl? What's she got?

House: Liver failure.

Cuddy: I suppose I should have figured that out when you said she needed a new liver.

Cuddy: You don't have a diagnosis.

House: The transplant buys me time.

Cuddy: Let's just skip the part where I say this is insane.

House: It was her idea.

Cuddy: If she wants to be an idiot, it's her call. You don't need me. Have one of your team walk you through the process.

House: The donor and the donee sort of have opposing interests, right? Can't really advise them both.

Cuddy: You're concerned about the ethics of this? What's going on? What do you know?

House: Nothing medically relevant.

Cuddy: But you know something. And it is relevant.

House: If I can't tell her, I can't really tell you, can I? And if you're advising her.

Cuddy: I'm assuming this information is in the medical file.

House: My patient's confidential file.

Cuddy: This hospital's file.

House: You can either satisfy your curiousity, or remain ignorant, do nothing ethically wrong and my patient doesn't die in three hours.

---------------------

[Cue to examination area with Cuddy and Max]

Cuddy: These tests and the counseling normally happen over weeks, sometimes months.

Max: It's okay.

Cuddy: The most important part we're skipping is time. Time for you to change your mind.

Max: I don't want to change my mind.

Cuddy: Not now, but with time and perspective, maybe we learn things---

Max: We had the time when we take the time, but we don't. So can you get this over with?

Cuddy: Either I sign off on this, or it doesn't happen. So I need you to listen to me. Because there's a chance that you will die on that operating table.

Max: I just want me and Hannah to be able to lie in bed together. As old ladies. Compare scars.

Cuddy: I need you to lie on your side. And hold your knees.

------------------

[Cue to examination area with Cameron and Hannah)

Cameron: I'm going to check for vascular abnormalities that can prevent us from doing the transplant. At the same time, I'm also checking for mushroom spores to see if that's the underlying---

Hannah: I don't do mushrooms.

Cameron: If you lie about your love life, maybe you lie about drugs. Open.

[Cameron inserts the endoscopy equipment into Hannah's throat)

Cameron: Aren't you at all concerned about what Max is going through right now? Shoving a tube up her rectum. Then they're going to swab her stomach just like I'm doing. It's going to hurt just like this hurts, which is nothing at all like the risk she's taking on the table.

[Cameron removes the endoscopy equipment from Hannah's throat once again)

Cameron: You don't love her, do you.

Hannah: I'm not leaving her because I don't----

Cameron: I'm not talking about the leaving, I'm talking about this. If you care for her at all, you won't let her do this blind.

Hannah: You'd really tell?

Cameron: Yeah.

Hannah: You'd die?

--------------------------------------

[Cue to House's office area. The lights in the room are off. Wilson enters, and drops a medical journal onto the floor, next to House, whom is sleeping on the floor)

Wilson: I take it you've seen that?

House: Seen it, digested it, watched it blow up my entire department.

Wilson: You read Cameron's version?

House: I didn't read either.

Wilson: It was good.

House: Better than Foreman's?

Wilson: Maybe. He was more analytical about the diagnostic procedures. She concentrated more on the ethical dilemmas of informed consent. How any patient can really be informed without a medical degree.

House: The same old party lines.

Wilson: Foreman should have told her.

House: Ah, shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Wilson: If you allow this sort of thing in your department, you're basically saying it's OK.

House: No, I'm saying that I don't care what they do as long as my life isn't interrupted by pointless conversations like this one.

Wilson: They won't trust each other, and they won't trust you.

House: They shouldn't.

Wilson: Deception like this is just one step removed from actively sabotaging one other. Then what would you do?

House: I could be the kindest gentlest boss in the world, and Foreman still would have done what he did because that's who he is. We can only hope that Cameron has learned something.

Wilson: Right. Because you're all about the teaching.

House: Our children are the future.

--------------------------

[Cue to Hospital hallway]

Foreman: Hey! Cuddy cleared Max for surgery. She's OK to go.

House: How's our patient?

Foreman: She's also cleared.

House: I don't care about the prep, what about the diagnostic tests?

Foreman: It looks negative for Wilson's disease, we'll know for sure in an hour.

Chase: Blood proteins are normal, it's not---

House: Where's Cameron?

Chase: Taking a sample of the bile duct.

House: Surgery is supposed to start in about 15 minutes.

Chase: She had a chance to get one last---

House: Hannah and Max will be in the same room.

Foreman: You wanted us to do as much as we can before---

House: Both awake. With Cameron.

--------------------------

[Cue to Operating Theater area]

Cameron: Maybe we should give these two a minute before the surgery.

Max: You ready, honey?

Hannah: Max.

Max: It's okay. I'm right here.

Hannah: I need you to know something.

Max: I know. I love you too.

[House shoves the door open with a dramatic bang)

Hannah: How should I say this...

House: Good lord.

Max: You can tell me anything.

House: She hasn't slept in eleven days. Are you trying to torture her?

[House feeds anesthetic into Hannah's IV line which promptly makes her drift off to sleep)

House: Ding ding, let's go.

-----

House: I told you---

Cameron: I didn't say a word to Max.

House: This is exactly why you got screwed with Foreman. You're looking for people to do the right thing.

Cameron: She hasn't slept, her judgment is compromised due to inactivity in her pre-frontal cortex.

House: Oh, she could have the best pre-frontal cortex in the history of mankind, but given the choice of life versus death, those bad bad people are going to choose life.

Cameron: Then why did you sedate her? If she wasn't going to tell, if she was never going to do the right thing, why bother knocking her out? [pause] This isn't about them, if she talks, if she does the decent thing, then you don't get to solve your puzzle, your game's over, you lose.

House: Yeah. I want to save her. I'm morally bankrupt.

----------------

[Camera pans over both tables in the operating theater. The surgery is in progress. Camera pans up to observation room above the operating theater, where Cameron and Cuddy are watching.]

Cuddy: How's it going?

Cameron: They're about to remove Hannah's liver.

[Camera pans back down to the op-theater)

Surgeon#1: All right. I'm good to go. We can start removing Max's liver.

Cuddy: You want to let me in on the big secret between these two?

Cameron: Did you read Foreman's article?

Cuddy: It was good.

Cameron: He basically stole it from me.

Cuddy: So?

Cameron: You're on his side?

Cuddy: Sides? No, this isn't dodge ball.

Cameron: What am I supposed to do? Just sit back and take it?

Cuddy: No, write another article. Kick ass until you're sitting behind some big expensive desk and someone from Johns Hopkins's calls and says 'We're thinking about hiring Eric Foreman as our head of Neurology'. And you can say whatever you want.

Cameron: [scoffs] Lovely. Revenge as motive for success.

Cuddy: Ah, it doesn't have to be a motive. But it sure tastes good.

Surgeon#1: She's in VF, I've got no pulse.

Surgeon#2: She's arresting.

Surgeon#2: Paddles.

House: Oh! I am so relieved you two are here. Without you looking at me, they're playing foosball down there.

Cameron: Max's heart stopped.

House: Your patient is on the other side. Now get yourself upstairs and figure out what Hannah has or Max has risked her life for nothing.

Surgeon: Charging... clear. You're okay.

------------------

[Cue to House's office area.]

Chase: Max's cardiac arrest was caused by hypoxia from hypoventilation. They restarted her heart and the right lobe of her liver was successfully transplanted into Hannah.

House: Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted by the liver transplant?

Foreman: {Dopar dicarboxy was processed normally and the serola plasma and copper levels were normal so no Wilson's disease.}

Cameron: Gastric content was negative for spores, so no mushroom toxicity.

House: And the initial tests were negative for cancer.

Wilson: Which cancer were you looking for?

House: Any of them.

Cameron: We ran blood tests for ovarian, lung, and lymphomas.

Wilson: Not going to tell you much. Her blood was thick after she was given immuno-suppressants. They fight rejection, they also mess up our ability to get any clear readings.

House: Great battles kick up a lot of dirt. Obscure the battlefields so the generals can't see what's going on.

Wilson: So what are your orders, General House?

House: Sound the retreat.

-----------------------------------

[Cue to Post-op patient room area.]

Foreman: How are you feeling?

Hannah: [sighs] Is Max OK?

Foreman: She's still unconscious, but her vitals look good. [sighs] We need to stop all the immuno-suppressant drugs which are protecting your new liver.

Hannah: [shakes her head] But if you stop the drugs, I'll die.

Foreman: You're dead anyway if we don't figure out what caused all of this. By removing any outside influences, it will help us see what's really going on with your body.

Hannah: So you did this to buy me a couple of days, and now you're chucking them back? [pause] Will it hurt?

Foreman: As your body begins to go into acute organ rejection, your liver will begin to swell. It will pressure on-- [pauses] Yeah, it'll hurt. We can knock you out.

Hannah: Mmm. No. If Max wakes up, I want to talk to her.

Foreman: [silently nods his head.]

--------------------------------

[Cue to Exam room one. The Mandarin mother and the daughter have returned.)

House: [Opens the door and moves inside.)

Mandarin woman: [Speaks in Mandarin, using a flustered tone as House enters)

Daughter: She's been taking the decongestants, but she's not getting better, She.. also says...

House: What?

Mandarin woman: [grabs House's hand and places it on her chest.)

Daughter: Her boobs are bigger.

House: [Promptly yanks his hand away. Looks intrigued, then places it back where it was.] Wh... how could you get them mixed up? They come in a little wheel, they don't look anything like decongestants.

Daughter: Oh god, the cashier put them both in the same bag, I thought they gave her the right ones.

Mandarin woman: [Asks a question in Mandarin)

Daughter: [Slowly responds to her.)

House: No, you gave her the wrong pills.

Daughter: You speak Mandarin?

House: I can count to ten and ask to go to the bathroom and [pauses, speaks to the mother in Mandarin)

Mandarin woman: [Looks appalled)

Daughter: I'm not pregnant! We haven't even done it yet!

Mandarin woman: [begins speaking to her daughter in a flustered tone)

Daughter: [quickly argues back to her mother in Mandarin)

House: Okay, I'm going to leave you two alone now. I'm sure you've got a lot to talk about.

[House picks up his book and leaves Exam Room one, leaving the mother and the daughter to argue and bicker with each other.]

-------------------------

[Cue to House's office area.]

Cameron: Fever is 106, she's in full rejection mode.

House: Is that supposed to surprise me?

Cameron: Her white count is normal.

House: Normal is not normal. She's been on steroids, transplant team gave her a cocktail of immuno-suppressants, she hasn't slept in over a week. Her white count should be in the tank.

Foreman: Looks like the problem is some sort of infection. Probably causing hypotension, shock the liver.

Chase: We should start broad spectrum antibiotics.

House: Yeah, you might want to add some chicken soup. It's just as useless, but it's got chicken. We need to know exactly what kind of infection we're dealing with, what kind of infection causes sleep disturbance, bleeding, movement disorder, organ failure, and abnormally normal white count.

Chase: What about tularemia?

Cameron: Chest was clear. Tularemia doesn't cause movement disorders.

Foreman: It would if she developed meningitis.

Cameron: There is no ulcerations on the skin. [sighs] The bleeding, it looks more like leptospirosis.

House: Without conjunctivitis and elevated creatinine?

Forman: What about typhoid, or some kind of relapsing fever?

Cameron: Makes sense if we were in the Sudan.

House: You sure she hasn't been out of the country?

Cameron: She hasn't even been out of the state in at least a year and neither has Max.

Foreman: Maybe she lied. You talked to her friends? Neighbors?

Cameron: You don't know? Come on, if you don't stay up to date on my notes, where's your next article going to come from? House: You talked to the dog?

Cameron: We're not as up on foreign languages as you are.

House: [scoffs] Has the dog been traveling?

Cameron: It came from a breeder.

House: Where?

Cameron: I don't know. A place called Blue Barrel Kennels. They only the thing for like, two days.

House: Blue barrel is a kind of cactus. Do you see many cacti in Jersey?

---------------------

[Cue to post-op patient's room. House slides the door open and walks inside.]

House: Wanna see a magic trick? [moves his hand in and pinches Hannah's nose, pretending to steal her nose. He then shakes out his hand, feigning surprise as her 'nose' disappears] Oh no, where'd it go, where'd it go? [Raises Hannah's left arm up] Is it here? [searches it momentarily, then places it down again] How about here? [raises her right arm and pulls up her sleeve, revealing a large pustule wound] There it is. Oh, it doesn't look anything like a nose.

Cameron: That wasn't there this morning.

[House pulls up Hannah's sleeve completely and nods to Cameron, who turns away to take a syringe out of a drawer. House then inserts the needle into the pustule and withdraws completely solid-black fluid from it)

House: Give that to the lab, and call the CDC.

Chase: And tell them what?

House: That we have a patient with the plague.

Chase: The... black plague?

House: [nods] Looks that way.

Cameron: The plague is carried by rodents, not dogs.

House: Where there's dogs, there's fleas. If they hail from the southwest, then those fleas can't tell the difference between prairie dogs and puppy dogs. A small percentage of plague cases present with sleep disturbance. Imagine, an idyllic river of bacteria. Okay, it's not idyllic for her, but it serves my purposes. The steroids and the immuno-suppressants acted like a big hunk of dam across the river. Physics 101, put a dam up in front of a raging river, the river rises. By stopping the immuno-suppressants, we blew up the dam, and a hundred foot wall of bacteria flooded her lymph nodes.

Foreman: We better find out where that dog is now.

House: After you restart the immuno-suppressants, then fill her up to the eyeballs with streptomycin, sulfate gentamycin, and tetracycline. Use a garden hose if you've got one. Get yourselves some prophylactic treatments as well.

Hannah: I've got the plague?

House: Don't worry, it's treatable. Being a bitch though, nothing we can do about that.

[Hannah glares at him. House simply exits.]

--------------------

[Cue to hospital hallway, outside of Hannah's post-op room area.]

Cameron: You weren't in your room.

Max: The surgeon said I'd heal faster if I walk. Got this far, needed a rest.

Cameron: What you did was crazy, but it was pretty amazing too.

Max: Yeah. I'm a hero. [watches Hannah through the glass from her place across the hallway] She's been planning to leave me.

Cameron: Really?

Max: [nods] She told a friend. The friend let it slip.

Cameron: You knew, and - you gave up half your liver anyway?

Max: She can't leave me now.

Cameron: You really want her to stay out of guilt - that's not going to make any of you happy.

Max: You don't know that. I love her. I just want her to stay.

---------------------------------

[Cue to House's office area. The lights are dimmed, Foreman is sitting in a chair and reading. Cameron slowly approaches him]

Cameron: I don't own House's cases. You had just as much right as I did to write it up. You should have told me, but, I should have handled it better too.

Foreman: [settles back in his chair]

Cameron: If we want this not to get in the way of our friendship, I think we both have to apologies and put it behind us.

Foreman: I like you. Really. We have a good time working together. But ten years from now, we're not going to be hanging out and having dinners. Maybe we'll exchange Christmas cards, say hi, give a hug if we're at the same convention. [sighs] We're not friends. We're colleagues. And I don't have anything to apologize for.

[Cameron looks rather shocked as the camera pans out of the office area. The camera shifts into the next room and focuses on House, whom is fast asleep in his chair.]


THE END

Season 2 X 17 : All In

Original Airdate: 4/11/2006
Written by: David Foster
Directed by: Fred Gerber
Transcript by: Jenna

BEGINNING

(Scene opens on some kind of science museum with a model of a large heart that people can walk in to. There is a recorded voice talking about the heart as a group of young kids and their teacher walk pass)

Voice: The human heart is a giant muscle, squeezing or contracting over 60 times each minute. That's 3000-- [fades out]

Teacher: At this point, your blood is a deep purple because it's just finished dropping off oxygen for all the parts of your body. Come on, follow me. [The kids excitedly jump around looking at the lights projecting blood cells on to the walls. They finally stop at a largish chamber, a boy raises his hand] Ian.

Ian: I have a question, and I need to go to the bathroom.

Teacher: Which would you like to do first?

Ian: The question.

Teacher: Ok.

Ian: Where's the bathroom?

Teacher: [gives Ian a look] Who knows where the bathroom is?

Mike: I do.

Teacher: Go with Ian to the bathroom.

Mike: I don't have to go.

Teacher: We're not at school, nobody goes anywhere by themselves.

Mike: Why?

Teacher: In case you get lost.

Ian: Or in case somebody kidnaps us.

Mike: If somebody kidnaps Ian, he'll kidnap me too. I want to stay with the class.

Teacher: Michael, go with Ian-- [she gasps and clutches at her belly. She's heavily pregnant]

Ian: Do you need help?

Teacher: I need you to find a grownup.

Ian: Is the baby coming? [teacher screams in pain] Who should I take with me?

Teacher: Go to the front desk or find a security guard.

Ian: I really have to pee.

[The teacher looks at Ian's white shoes, there's blood trickling down from his pants over his shoes and were pooling on the floor]

Teacher: Oh god!

Ian: Is the baby coming? I don't know how to do this.

Teacher: Are you ok, Ian?

Ian: Yeah, sure. [he kneels down next to her]

Teacher: I don't think you are. [she sees some blood on his pants, dabs her fingers in it and shines her torch on her fingers to check that it's definitely bright red blood] You're bleeding.

[Ian gets up and turns around, the whole back of his pants is saturated in blood]

Teacher: Heeelp!!

[OPENING CREDITS]

(Scene opens at the front of the hospital at night. There are red carpets going in and a sign saying "Oncology Benefit" with a black tie event picture basically painted on it as well. There's nice lively piano music playing as the camera goes on ahead to the hospital lobby which has become a little minibar. Camera zooms in to a table in the centre where Cuddy, Wilson and House are playing poker with a few other people. They are all dressed up VERY nicely)

[House has an unlit cigar at his lips and he and Wilson exchange a look]

Wilson: 20.

Cuddy: Call.

House: You'll call anything.

Cuddy: My stack's bigger than your stack. [House checks his cards again] You in or out?

House: You know that relative to their size, gorillas have smaller testicles than humans.

Cuddy: Well then you'd probably have an edge over a gorilla, but not over me.

House: Reason is, primate teste size inversely corresponds to the fidelity of our females.

Wilson: Do you think there might be a better time to annoy me about my wife?

House: I'm talking about poker.

Wilson: Right.

Cuddy: Women are evil, you're right to drive them away. Call fold or raise, storytime can wait!

House: We're smaller and better than chimps, bigger and worse than gorillas. For all our rationality, our supposed trust and fealty to a higher power, our ability to create a system of rules and laws; our baser drives are more powerful than any of that. We want to control our emotions, but we can't. [Wilson looks tolerably annoyed] If we're happy, things don't annoy us. If on the other hand, we're sitting on crappy hold cards, little tiny things annoy us a whole lot more. [he puts the cigar back in his mouth and wags it up and down almost right in front of Wilson's face. Wilson seems to have a poker face on] I raise.

Wilson: So are you going to tell me an annoying story everytime I raise?

House: God that would be annoying.

[Wilson angrily slams his cards down]

Cuddy: I call.

Dr Wells: Dr Cuddy, got one of your patients in the ER. Ian Alston, 6-yrs-old?

Cuddy: Err, oh, I know him, what's the problem? [to House] I'm all in. [she shoves all her chips to the centre of the table]

Dr Wells: Bloody diarrhoea. Haemodynamically stable but he's been developing some co-ordination problems.

Cuddy: That sounds like gastroenteritis and dehydration. Order fluids and I'll take it on my service. It's to you, House.

House: They scan his head?

Dr Wells: No, why would they scan--

Cuddy: Don't play games. You gonna call?

House: How's the heart rate?

Dr Wells: Stable.

Cuddy: I'm sorry, House, it's gastroenteritis. I'm not going anywhere. [to Wells] Put the order in, and have someone tell Alan that I'll be up when I'm done. [to House] Are you in or out?

House: [after a pause] I'm out. [he gets up to leave]

Cuddy: Oh! [she puts down her cards face up] Stone cold bluff! You might want to spend a little more time paying attention to your cards, and a little less time staring at my breasts.

House: They don't match either. I'm going to take some air.

[Cuddy self-consciously looks down at her breasts. Wilson turns over House's cards that he left behind to reveal two Aces - a guaranteed win if he had stayed]

(Scene cuts to House sweeping back the curtains in the ER? to find Ian and his parents)

[House seats himself on the bed in front of Ian who is behind held by his mother, House puts his finger on Ian's chin to steady his head then moves another finger left and right]

House: Follow my finger with your eyes. [Ian's eyes seem to follow the finger just fine]

Sarah: [the mother] How much longer will doctor Cuddy be?

House: Given the number of mojitos she's knocking back at the party, I'd say it's going to be at least 3 hours before she's even conscious.

Sarah: Weren't you at the same party?

House: [pops a vicodin] I don't drink. I want you to reach out and grab my cane. [Ian's hand reaches out way to the right of the cane and grabs thin air. He gradually corrects himself and grabs on to the cane after a couple more tries]

[It's worth pointing out at this point that House has a new cane made of dark wood - looks black, but the handle is encased in a silverish metal. Fandom has labelled it his pimp cane ;) ]

Alan: [the father] What's wrong?

House: Your son's brain is losing control of his muscles.

Sarah: Dr Cuddy's message said it was just dehydration from diarrhoea.

House: She's wrong. [he gets up to leave]

Alan: Is he going to be all right?

House: I don't know.

(Scene cuts to House walking into his darkened office)

[He takes out his keys and kneels down to open a locked drawer. He digs around and finds an old case file labelled "Doyle, Ester"]

(Scene cuts to Chase all in black talking to an interested woman)

Woman: So were you in one of those cages?

Chase: No! No. No no no, those are for tourists.

Woman: You were in the water with the Great White?

Chase: Sure. It's no big deal, you just have to keep an eye on them. If they get too close, punch them in the nose, send them on their way. [the woman looks skeptical but shocked, Chase starts laughing] Had you going.

Woman: You are mean.

House: [suddenly interrupts] Hey! How's that anal fissure? Did it heal yet or is it still draining? [looks at the woman] Oh, I'm sorry, didn't realise you'd come back for seconds. I figured that after the girl on the stairwell you'd be done for the night.

Chase: He's joking.

House: No Adam's apple, small hands. No surprises this time. [he smiles and nods in amusement]

Woman: [looks very uncomfortable] I'll er... see you later. [House winks at her as she leaves]

House: Got a case.

Chase: Well you could have just said that, you didn't have to screw with me.

House: Yeah if I didn't screw with you, you'd spend the whole night thinking you might get laid, which means you'd be useless. Better to extinguish all hope. Get Foreman and Cameron and meet me upstairs, stat.

(Scene cuts back to House writing on the whiteboard and taking a glance at his watch in the conference room)

[The Ducklings walk in]

Chase: What's so urgent?

House: Two cases, same symptoms. What does 6-yr-olds and 70-yr-olds have in common?

Cameron: Their immune systems don't work as well, could be lystiria.

House: I already checked for that.

Foreman: Leukaemia has a higher prevalence in both young and old.

Cameron: So does asthma.

House: No no no.

Cameron: Could both be diabetes. [she and Foreman pick up the case files on the table]

House: No! The nearly dead and the newly bred have more in common with each other than with people in the middle. What's weird is the kind of circle of life thing.

Foreman: This kid doesn't have kidney failure.

House: He will.

Foreman: Based on this file, the kid just ate some bad food. Was the old man--

House: They were nowhere near each other in any of the four dimensions.

Cameron: This case is 12 years old.

House: Yep.

Foreman: And this case is Cuddy's.

House: She assigned it to me.

Chase: She agrees with you that this is something more than gastroenteritis?

House: She wouldn't have assigned it to me if she didn't, would she?

[He turns around and sees Cameron for the first time at this point, in her chest-hugging fushcia evening dress, and he stares at her with a drawn out out "ohhhh". She looks a little self-conscious though she smiles a little before House purses his lips and blinks]

House: What were we talking about?

Chase: Two patients with two symptoms in common. And 5 symptoms not in common.

House: While you were all wearing your 'Frankie says Relax' T-shirts, I was treating a 73-yr-old woman who went through this progression of symptoms, the last of which was... [he leans down and writes DEATH at the bottom of all her symptoms] Incase any of you missed that class in med school, that one's untreatable. Kid's got the first two. Took Esther an hour and 20 mins to go from two to three. And less than a day to make it all the way to the rear exit.

Chase: This is all because a child has some blood in his diarrhoea. He's got a tummy ache, if there was any reason to think it was anything worse, Cuddy would be all over it.

House: Great. Do a colonoscopy.

Cameron: On a 6-yr-old kid who probably has nothing worse than food poisoning?

House: If you happen to find any purple papules, do me a favour and grab a slice. I want to check for Erdheim-Chester.

Chase: A disease that there have been what, maybe 200 reported cases of, ever?

House: If Esther's family had let me to an autopsy, there'd be 201.

(Scene cuts to House and Foreman doing the colonoscopy on a sedated Ian)

Foreman: See anything?

Chase: No, and I don't expect to.

Foreman: House usually avoids cases. If he's actually stealing a case from Cuddy, there's gotta be a reason.

Chase: That's not the first time I've seen this file. About a month before Cameron was hired, some trucker came in here with these symptoms. House decided he was dying. Two days and a spinal tap, bone marrow extraction, and three colonoscopy's later, we send the guy home with a bunch of painkillers and a diagnosis of a bad cheese sandwich. One of the guys who worked here before me said House tried to cure Esther at least 3 other times. You know how people see the Virgin Mary in danishes and stuff? Someone died 12 years ago and House doesn't know why. House sees that case now and... paint peeling and clouds and now this poor kid.

(Scene cuts to Cameron talking the parents)

Cameron: Erdhem-Chester is an abnormal growth of some of the cells that fight infection.

Sarah: Is that cancer? He seems ok now.

Alan: Yeah the other doctor kind of scared us about that.

Cameron: He shouldn't have. We're just testing, it'll probably be negative.

Alan: I don't understand. You don't think that's what it is but you want to do this thing to him anyway?

Cameron: We need to be sure.

Sarah: Isn't there any other way?

Cameron: It shouldn't take long.

Alan: All right.

(Scene cuts back to Foreman and Chase)

Foreman: Those ridges look a lot like purple papules.

Chase: Not purple, they're red. Probably just blood blisters.

Foreman: Give me the biopsy needle.

(Scene cuts to the Ducklings in the lab testing the sample taken)

Chase: How long is this going to take?

Cameron: Forget it Chase, your punching the shark story is good but she's not waiting for you. [Foreman laughs]

House: [walks in] So?

Foreman: We couldn't confirm the source of the bleeding but we did biopsy some--

Chase: Blood blisters.

House: You mean papules. Come on Cameron, who's right? [she's looking into the microscope]

Cameron: Chase is. Negative for Erdheim-Chester.

House: Let me see. [he checks] If it's not Erdheim-Chester...

Chase: It's exactly what we said before, garden variety viral gastroenteritis, can we go back to the party?

House: [taking off his bowtie] Do a kidney biopsy. Esther's shut down in exactly-- [he checks his watch]

Chase: This kid is not Esther. You screwed up, she died, I'm sorry but that does not mean this kid is dying as well.

House: Geez. You get testy when you don't get any fuzz. Come on.

(Scene cuts to Chase and House walking into Ian's room)

Sarah: What'd the test say?

Chase: Colonoscopy was clean. And the biopsy was negative for Erdheim-Chester.

Alan: So he's going to be all right? It was just some sort of virus?

[House picks up the little bag that contains Ian's urine, Chase looks concerned]

Sarah: What's that?

House: Urine.

Alan: But it's brown.

Chase: Means his kidneys are shutting down.

House: Still think it's not the same case?

(Scene cuts to House and the Ducklings in the conference room)

House: So, what can cause bloody diarrhoea, ataxia and kidney failure?

Chase: I'll go and do a biopsy.

House: Forget it. That battle's over. His rising creatinine is his kidney's way of saying go on without me. What explains everything?

Chase: E. coli H0157 causes bloody diarrhoea, and leads to hemolytic uremic syndrome. Toxins from the bacteria causes his kidneys to shut down, we should start him on plasmapheresis.

House: Clear, concise, and completely plausible. And exactly what I did last time, didn't work. What else?

Cameron: Goodpasture's syndrome. Circulating antibodies cause kidney failure and bleeding.

House: But not the purple papules.

Foreman: If you throw in Esther's next symptom - brain, makes me think heavy metal toxicity.

Cameron: His hematocrit would have to be low, it's at 44 and Esther's never dropped below...

House: 42.

Foreman: You have the file memorised?

House: It's my lucky number.

Cameron: What about lymphoma? Causes kidney failure, GI bleed and can infiltrate the base of the brain.

Foreman: You check Esther for that?

House: She never showed any signs of... if he has lymphoma this far advanced, we should be able to see it in his blood and brain. Chase, run a blood smear and immuno-chemistries. Foreman get an MRI.

Cameron: I'll page Cuddy.

House: No you won't.

Cameron: She thinks the kid has a stomach ache.

House: She'll come right up here and do one of two things - if she agrees with me, I don't need her, if she disagrees I don't want her.

Foreman: You can't handle people disagreeing with you? She might have a different take on this.

House: Subordinates can disagree with me all they want, it's healthy. People who can shut me down on the other hand... forget Cuddy, I'll have Wilson keep her busy.

(Scene cuts to House calling Wilson's mobile at the poker table)

[Wilson picks up his phone]

House: [puts his phone on to speakerphone] Keep your answers short and discrete. Is Cuddy still playing?

Wilson: The chicken is still in Picadilly Square.

House: Brilliant. She'll never suspect that Normandy is her target.

Cuddy: Is that House? Tell him that the blinds just went to 2040 and he's running out of chips.

House: How's she doing?

Wilson: Well what's going on? The way you took off, something's obviously--

House: Love to chat but got a game to play. How's she doing?

Wilson: The patient is on life support, we're about to pull the plug.

Cuddy: Are you talking about me?

House: And what have you got?

Wilson: Hmm... does sound like high dose cardio meds.

House: [while on the phone, performs a trick to make a chip disappear, what a magician he is] Two hearts. You got the flush?

Wilson: Still waiting on the final labs.

House: She drinking her seltzer?

Wilson: No, hydration is not a problem.

House: Means she's bluffing. Push her all in. [Wilson does so]

Cuddy: Call. [flips her cards] Two pair. Show me your hearts.

Wilson: [flips his cards but only ends up having one pair] Seven of clubs. [Cuddy cackles]

House: Oh dear, sounds like I messed up. You're going to be stuck with her for a while. Talk to you soon. [puts down the phone]

Cuddy: Ohoho! Yes! [sweeps all the chips she's won in]

(Scene cuts to Foreman doing the MRI on Ian, Cameron is outside talking to the parents)

Sarah: Why are you taking a picture of his head?

Cameron: We're looking for lymphoma but--

Sarah: Wait, so it's not Erdheim something and it's not his kidneys but his kidneys are failing? Where's Dr Cuddy?

Alan: Erm Dr House mentioned another case, is there another patient with the same thing that Ian has?

Cameron: Not exactly.

Alan: What does that mean?

Cameron: Dr House had a patient a while back who exhibited the same symptoms as your son--

Sarah: Then you know what's wrong?

Cameron: No.

Sarah: So what do you know?

Cameron: We know the likely course the disease will take.

Alan: Which is?

Cameron: She had multiple system failures--

Sarah: What happened to her?

Cameron: She... died 24 hours after her admission.

[the parents take a moment to absorb this in shock]

Foreman: Mr and Mrs Alston, would you mind giving me a hand? He's having trouble sitting still and it's impossible to get the detail we need. So I figure he might feel more comfortable hearing your voices. [he turns on the mic]

Sarah: Ian honey, just sit still, they'll be done in a moment, we're here with you.

Ian: I'm scared.

Sarah: It's ok, honey. It's... it's only a big camera. It's going to take a picture of your head. You love it when I take your picture at home, don't you?

Ian: Yeah.

Sarah: And you have to hold still for that too, right?

Ian: But this isn't like that.

Sarah: I know it's scary, Ian, but you can do it. You're getting to be so grown up. So just hold perfectly still, just for a little bit.

Ian: Mommy are you crying?

Sarah: No, no honey, I'm just tired.

Ian: Okay, I'll try.

[Sarah turns off the mic and starts crying silently as she holds on to her husband. The MRI starts]

(Scene cuts to House in the conference room)

[He checks the empty coffee pot. The coffee machine says "Good Coffee, Cheaper than prozac!" on it. He also checks the packet of coffee beans which is empty too. He crumples it up and throws it as Foreman and Cameron enter]

Cameron: The base of his brain has been infiltrated by a small mass. We think--

House: Pituitary?

Cameron: Looks that way.

Foreman: Explains the low blood pressure.

House: [walks to the board and starts writing, Chase enters] Pretty much confirms the lymphoma. Should have started Esther on prednisone.

Chase: Err... did anyone see the lymphoma?

Cameron: No, we saw a mass. The location's consistent with--

Chase: Didn't see any in the blood either. White blood cells show no spindling, or abnormal nuclei, nothing on immuno-chemistries either. It's not lymphoma.

House: [hopes shot down again, he takes his cane and wanders out of the room with the Ducklings in tow]

[He gets to the centre where one can get a drink, but there's a metal gate closed by a lock in front of it. House uses the metal handle of his cane to whack away at the lock in the hopes of springing it. The Ducklings obviously think he's gone nuts]

Foreman: House!

House: It's a train. Don't know what kind of train--

Foreman: Woah [grabs House's cane]

House: I'm thirsty.

Foreman: It's closed!

House: [yanks his cane back and starts whacking the lock again until it does open and the gate rolls up out of the way] It's not now. We've got one advantage. We know where the tracks are going.

Chase: The fact that the end of the line is death... is an advantage?

House: The fact that we know is an advantage. [he turns on the coffee machine and gets himself a cup] Which means we can get ahead of it. Next station is the liver. We've got about 90 minutes before it gets there. Maybe we can cut down a tree across the line just outside of town.

Chase: I'll do an ultrasound.

House: No, treatment will tell us more faster.

Cameron: How can we start treatment if we have no idea what we're treating for?

House: [angrily knocks back some stuff on the counter with a crash] Treat him for everything! Give him acetylcysteine and interferon and silymarine and whatever else you can think of to protect the liver.

(Scene cuts to Wilson's phone ringing again, he picks up)

Wilson: What's going on?

House: Oh just catching up on some TV. How're you doing?

Wilson: Well thanks to your last consult, the patient has improved dramatically.

Cuddy: Tell House the patient is about to kill the doctor.

Wilson: She says the patient--

House: I heard. What've you got?

Wilson: Well Cuddy just raised and err...

House: You're paired.

Wilson: What?

House: Nines?

Wilson: [momentary shock, he looks around to check whether House is standing behind him or something] How do you know?

House: Anything lower, you wouldn't sound so excited. Jacks are higher, your voice sounds like Debbie from accounting is sitting in your lap. Ask Cuddy if she can beat a pair of threes.

Wilson: Wait, wha... what's going on? If you're going to mess with me, wouldn't it be more fun to do it in person?

House: Yes, it would.

Wilson: [to Cuddy] Erm... can you beat a pair of threes?

[Cuddy gives a scornful look and starts drinking her seltzer from two stars at the same time]

House: What did she do?

Wilson: I left orders for fluids, doctor.

House: Enough with the codes, she obviously knows it's me.

Wilson: She's drinking her seltzer. [Cuddy looks surprised and stops]

House: Did she stop?

Wilson: Yes.

House: Go all in.

Wilson: Umm... but...

House: Just do it.

Wilson: You couldn't care less about this charity event, you claim not to be messing with me, obviously you're either trying to keep me--

House: Shut up! Look, last time I wanted the game to go on. I still do. Means that this time you get to win.

Wilson: Hold on. [he shoves his meagre bunch of chips forwards. Cuddy looks wary, Wilson gazes at her challengingly]

Cuddy: I fold.

Wilson: [picks up the phone again] Ohohoho! [House is staring at the whiteboard] House, are you sure you're ok? [House puts down the phone on Wilson suddenly]

(Scene cuts to Foreman and Chase giving treatment to Ian, House stands outside the room observing. Chase walks out to talk to him)

Chase: Meds seem to be working. Liver's holding its own.

House: Good.

Chase: But the platelets are dropping.

House: Even better.

Chase: Why? It means he's getting sicker.

House: It's new. New is good. Because old ended in death.

[Meanwhile in the room...]

Ian: I can't breathe. [he starts choking, alarms start beeping]

Foreman: Chase! [Chase rushes back in]

Sarah: What? What's happening? Ian come on now, honey, just relax! Ian, breathe, come on honey! Please! Please, honey!

[They proceed to intubate him]

(Scene shifts back to the conference room)

[House is writing "Resp. distress" on the board under Ian's column. On Esther's corresponding side, it says "Resp. failure". He also draws an arrow pointing from Pituitary fail. down to Resp. distress. The arrow noticeably shows how Ian skipped Esther's Liver fail. and Splenic Intact? to get to the respiratory problems. House morosely uses his cane to shove the whiteboard down on to the floor, breaking the lamp behind it in the process. He simple stares at what he's done]

(Scene changes to House and the Ducklings in the conference room)

[Chase helps House to put the whiteboard back up again]

Foreman: We had to put him on a ventilator.

House: He's back on Esther's path. We managed to make the train skip a few stations which means that instead of 12 hours, he's probably got less than two. Which begs the question why. What did we do?

Chase: Acetylcysteine could mess with the lungs.

House: Mess with them, not shut them down in 20 minutes.

Cameron: Interferon modulates the immune system. It could affect a cancer of the blood like one of the leukaemias.

Foreman: Doesn't speed them up it slows them down.

Cameron: Slows down all five hundred of them? [Foreman concedes her point]

House: Anybody know where we can find an oncologist at this hour?

(Scene cuts to House on the phone with Wilson again)

House: What effects would interferon have on leukaemia?

Wilson: Depends on what type. Could make it better, could make it worse.

House: 4 year fellowships learn that.

Cuddy: Tell House if he wants to play cards he can get his ass back down here and play.

House: You hear that? She wants me off the phone, means she's vulnerable. Go all in.

Wilson: But um... the party's over in less than 3 hours. Cuddy: It's over in less than 2 hours. Which means you either have 3 of a kind or just 3's. I'm guessing 3's. I bet five hundred.

House: Go all in.

Wilson: You obviously want to bust me . Why would you--

House: Either you go all in or I tell everybody in the building that you're wearing toenail polish.

Wilson: I'm all in. [he shoves his pile of chips into the centre]

Cuddy: I'll... call. I'm betting you have a pair of threes, but even if you have three, it's not going to beat Trip nines.

Wilson: [fakes a rather anguished face before turning over one card, and then the other rather enthusiastically] Oh, oh, oh no, oh no! Ohhhh that's gotta hurt. [The glee on Cuddy's face turns to horror]

House: What happened?

Wilson: I just killed two birds with one straight. Goodbye.

House: Fine, keep playing, but I need you to recommend a good Oncologist because if I don't get one up here in the next few minutes, I got a dead 6-yr-old. [Wilson puts down the phone]

(Next scene, Wilson's in the labs with House and the Ducklings looking in the microscope)

Wilson: If you need help, ask. These games are insane.

House: Games have a higher success rate.

Wilson: Well, I don't see anything that looks like leukaemia. You do a bone marrow biopsy?

House: No time.

Wilson: Even if there is an occult blood cancer, you wouldn't expect interferon to make it worse. Certainly not this fast.

House: What would move this fast?

Cameron: Auto-immune diseases. His body's own defenses are attacking him and beefing them up is just going to put fuel on the fire.

Foreman: Sarcoidosis could be in his brain and lungs.

Cameron: No, no enlarged hilar lymph nodes on his chest x-ray.

Chase: The systemic nature suggests juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Wilson: Or Kawasaki's disease.

Foreman: Can't be Kawasaki's. That doesn't affect the elderly.

Wilson: Err the... this is a kid's x-ray.

Cameron: House had another patient.

Wilson: Who may or may not have had Kawasaki's. This kid on the other hand, he makes antibodies that are eating the inside of his arteries, choking off blood to his major organs one by one. First the GI tract, then the kidneys, then the brain, now the lungs.

House: Can anyone think of a reason why Kawasaki's can't affect the elderly? Other than it doesn't. [no reply] Nice.

Foreman: We can confirm with bloodwork. We need an ANA, sed rate--

Cameron: Labs will take 2 hours.

Chase: What was the old lady's sed rate?

House: Elevated. 98.

Wilson: You can't use another patient's labs to diagnose Kawasaki's disease!

House: Is that like a dare or something?

Wilson: You don't have time to be wrong.

House: Fine. We'll look for Kawasaki where he lives, Ian's coronary arteries.

[Exit Ducklings]

Wilson: This other patient... the old lady... Esther?

[House nods, Wilson has a "not again" look on his face, they both walk out into the corridors]

Wilson: Have you read Moby Dick?

House: It was a book?

Wilson: It was 10 years ago.

House: 12.

Wilson: Obsession is dangerous.

House: Only if you're on a wooden ship and your obsession is a whale. I think I'm in the clear.

Wilson: You do realise it's a metaphor?

House: You do realise that the point of metaphors is to scare people from doing things by telling them that something much scarier is going to happen than what will really happen? God I wish I had a metaphor to explain that better. Go back to the game. Don't worry, I'm not going to get even by riches. [he gets into the elevator and leaves Wilson standing alone]

(Cut to Chase and Cameron checking Ian's heart with an ultrasound)

Chase: Coronary arteries clear. No aneurysms.

Cameron: Flip the mode, let's see the flow.

(Cut to Foreman talking to the mother)

Sarah: How did that other woman die?

Foreman: She went into respiratory distress. Her heart and liver were already--

Sarah: No. Did she suffer? Was she in pain?

Foreman: I don't know.

(Cut back to Chase and Cameron)

Chase: No blood clots, no ragged edges.

Cameron: Damn. Shut it down, we're just wasting time.

[Chase flips it back to see the heart and he stares at something curiously]

Chase: Look at the right atrium.

Cameron: That's not Kawasaki's.

Chase: No.

(Cut to Ducklings and House looking at the computer in House's office)

Chase: It's small, but it's there.

Foreman: Esther didn't have a mass in her heart.

House: Ian's younger. He can take more of a pounding. Esther died before the disease reached her heart. The disease made a mass and made it fast.

Cameron: Could be bacteria.

Foreman: Or muscle.

Chase: Connective tissue?

House: Kid can't take any more theories. Only thing we know is that whatever that mass is, that's what he's got. We need a piece of it. I'm doing a biopsy.

(Cut to House and Chase in Ian's room trying to do a heart biopsy, the blinds are open and the parents are watching from outside)

Chase: I'll shut the blinds.

House: Oh let them watch, I do my best work on the big stage. Passing through the superior vena cava.

Chase: You're in the atrium. Pull back. You've hit the wall of the heart.

House: These procedures would be so much simpler if you could do them on healthy people. And out again. [as he's pulling the biopsy needle out, alarms start beeping] V fib!

Chase: Cardiac arrest! Call the code.

House: [takes off Ian's robe] Come on, paddles! Come on.

Nurse: Charged.

House: Clear! [he shocks Ian, no effect]

[outside in the nurse's station]

Over the announcement system: Code blue, Iso room. Code blue, Iso room. [nurses run to the alert]

[Meanwhile back in Ian's room]

House: And again. [shocks Ian, Chase checks for a pulse]

Chase: Nothing.

House: Again. [shock, check for pulse]

[Time passes as the nurses and the two doctors scurry to restart Ian's heart]

House: Got a clock on this?

Chase: How much longer are you going to keep doing this?

House: Clear. [shock, check for pulse]

Chase: Wait! I've got something.

House: He's back. [he starts to finish taking out the biopsy needle which is still stuck where it was before Ian went into cardiac arrest]

Chase: What are you doing?

House: Doing what we came here to do.

Chase: It almost killed him.

House: I know, I was right here. Give me a vacutainer.

Chase: His brain's been oxygen-deprived for over 8 minutes. There might be nothing left, he might--

House: Tell the parents. Where the hell is that vacutainer? [a nurse hands him one]

(Scene cuts to House and Ducklings in the conference room)

House: So, what's he got?

Foreman: Brain damage.

House: Good chance. I was talking about before that.

Cameron: You're not worried about--

House: Things I can't do anything about, I try not to.

Foreman: Huh, yeah, things just roll off you like water off a duck.

Chase: Histiocytosis.

Foreman: Very unlikely in a 73-yr-old.

House: Whatever this is is very unlikely. Come on, more ideas, let's go people.

Cameron: Genetic disorders could cause masses everywhere. Tuberous sclerosis.

Foreman: If it's genetic he's had it all his life, why now?

House: I don't know, it sure fits nice enough.

Chase: We haven't ruled out leukaemia yet.

Cameron: Or sarcoma. He could have multiple soft tissue tumours.

Foreman: Or sarcoidosis.

Cameron: Multiple neurofibromatosis.

Foreman: Chondrocytomas.

[Cuddy enters]

House: How's it going? You win?

Cuddy: I got called away. By the angry parents of a patient. There are THREE of you here, none of you had the sense to stop him, to pick up a phone and call me.

House: I told them you'd signed off. The parents are mad because their kid is dying, that's understandable. But if he doesn't die, they won't be mad anymore.

Cuddy: Well if he's brain-damaged, they might still be a little ticked.

House: I had to do it to save him.

Cuddy: You had to do it to diagnose Esther. You may have killed a 6-yr-old because you're obsessed with a woman who's been dead for 12 years. Sometimes you lose, House. You're not God!

House: He's not dead yet.

Cuddy: No, but you're done with him, it's my case now. Go home, go ride your motorcycle, go brood in a dark room, just don't go near Ian again. [she storms off]

House: So, anything else or is it just these seven?

Foreman: Drop it House, she's right.

House: No she's not. You know she's not.

Chase: I should have called her.

House: I'm surprised you didn't.

Cameron: You're going to have to find a way to let this go. We can't go near Ian.

House: We don't need to go near him, we have his tumour. Cuddy may be right that we screwed up the protocol, she may be right about my screwed up obsession, but I'm right about the medicine. [he takes the tumour slice out of the fridge in a container and puts it in front of Cameron] How many tests can we do with that? [Cameron sighs] Look, we cure the kid we solve everybody's problems. How many?

Cameron: Maybe two good pieces.

House: How many okay pieces?

Cameron: Three would be pushing it.

House: [turns around to look back at the whiteboard] Three tests, seven choices. Okay, what's first?

Chase: Sarcoidosis seems most likely.

House: Yeah, so likely that Cuddy's going to think of that all on her own. She's got the kid's whole body to play with. Let her do that test. What's next?

Foreman: It's moving too fast to be spreading. It has to be growing from something that's already--

Cameron: Genetic disorder - tuberous sclerosis.

Chase: Or it's his immune system, histiocytosis.

House: Well there are more documented cases of histio amongst older people than tuberous sclerosis, let's start with that. [he circles it on the board, Ducklings exit]

(Cut to Ducklings in the labs, Chase is about to cut a piece of the tumour)

Chase: Wing or drumstick?

Foreman: Going to need a little more than that.

Cameron: A little more is more than a third.

Foreman: If we have to repeat this test because you didn't cut us enough...

[Chase carefully cuts off a third, puts it on a slice and puts it under the microscope]

Chase: Adding one micro litre of the immunoperoxidase.

Foreman: Make it two. I don't want House biting off our heads because we weren't sure if it turned red or not.

Cameron: [looks into the microscope] That's definitely not red.

(Cut back to the conference room)

Chase: The problem could still be an abnormal cell growth but a different cell line.

Foreman: Sarcoma? Muscles cells throughout his body? Would explain the geography.

Cameron: Genetic disorder's far more likely in a 6-yr-old. Tuberous sclerosis.

Chase: Pretty unlikely to cause a GI bleed.

Foreman: Time course fits.

House: So Foreman, you agree with both of them? Thanks for playing.

Foreman: If we have enough tissue for two tests, why not do both?

House: Then we don't have to think as hard. Taking the pressure off the choice makes us less likely to think critically.

Foreman: Sarcoma is more likely to hit a 6 and 70 yr old.

House: Tuberous sclerosis it is.

Foreman: You think sarcoma's less likely?

House: It's more likely, the test for it on the other hand, is less reliable.

(Scene cuts back to Ducklings doing the test)

[The results come in one at a time]

Cameron: Nestin's negative.

Foreman: Oh that's ok, if the tumour cells haven't matured, the KR67 protein wouldn't have turned off. What happens if we don't solve this?

Cameron: Kid dies.

Foreman: I mean for the next 12 years.

Chase: KR67's negative. And PCH antigen is negative.

(Cut back to the conference room)

[House is shaking his bottle of vicodin]

House: Mighty Casey is down to his last strike.

Foreman: Mighty Casey struck out.

House: Thanks a lot, didn't read that this weekend. [pops a vicodin]

Cameron: Chondrocytoma. Connective tissue has been in all the places that we've been looking.

Foreman: The kid is too sick for that, we're better off testing for sarcoma.

Cameron: We would have seen signs of that when we tested for tuberous sclerosis.

Foreman: The tumour cells looked like muscle under the microscope.

Cameron: No, they didn't. They looked like fat.

Chase: I vote for neurofibromatosis.

House: Why?

Chase: Because the other choices suck worse.

[House takes his pimp cane and walks out]

House: Give me a minute.

(Scene cuts to House sitting on Ian's bedside and simply watching him)

[Cuddy enters]

House: You want me out of here?

Cuddy: You come up with anything?

House: No.

[he walks out] (Scene cuts to House morosely staring out at the sunrise from his balcony)

[Wilson joins him on the balcony]

Wilson: Hey.

House: Can we talk about it tomorrow?

Wilson: [he starts walking back to his office, then turns around again to address House] I erm... I won the poker tournament. [House is immediately interested] I totally played this guy Burman from Business Affairs. I got great cards, but I don't bet. Just call, no raises. Burman pairs his king on the flop, I keep calling, the river turns, I check. He can't stand it. He goes all in, he's sure he's won. [Wilson dramatically makes hand gestures about flipping the cards] I call. I flip 'em. Oh! [he looks victorious]

House: Pocket aces.

Wilson: I nailed his ass!

House: [smiles indulgently, then suddenly realises something] The aces were hiding all along.

(Cut to House walking in on the Ducklings at the drink station)

House: Test him for Erdheim-Chester disease.

Foreman: Erdheim-Chester? That's not even on the list!

Chase: Because we already did it. He tested negative.

Cameron: So did Esther.

House: Disease lied.

Cameron: Yeah, the tumour's got it in for you. Diseases don't lie.

House: Fine, it didn't lie, it slow played us. We biopsied the colon, it hadn't reached the GI tract yet. It's there now. It's in his liver, his lungs--

Chase: You want it to be there. Because then you didn't screw up 12 years ago.

Foreman: We can't waste our one test on the one disease we know it's not.

House: Run the test. [The ducklings look disappointed but do it anyway]

(Cut to House and Ducklings in the labs)

[Chase puts the last piece of the tumour on to the glass]

Chase: Sure about this?

House: Wait, let me think about that. Don't pressure me. Just run the damn test.

[Cameron puts on her glasses and looks into the microscope]

Cameron: Cells look (what word is that?)

House: That's a good start.

[They add the reagent on to the tumour]

House: [walks away and stares at the wall] Take your time and say it loud.

[Under the microscope, the tumour turns red]

Foreman: CD 68 positive [he smiles]

[House lets out his emotions by banging his hand hard against the wall. The Ducklings are startled and jump. House collapses on to a chair and the Ducklings look at him warily]

House: Start the treatment. [Ducklings exit]

(Music montage starts - House is playing the piano to the song "Hymn to Freedom". Scenes of Ian's treatment going well, of Cuddy extubating him, of House playing the piano and the parents looking happy flip by)

[Wilson walks through the lobby. He has taken off his bowtie and like House, now just has his coat on top of his white shirt. The boys spot each other and smile and House stops playing the piano. As things from the lobby from the party the night before are being cleared out, House and Wilson are seated at the same old poker table, just the two of them, playing poker. House starts to deal the cards after he lights up his old cigar]

Wilson: So Esther can rest peaceful now huh?

House: Yeah.

Wilson: [peeks at his cards] Forty. [they are betting with real money this time] You got lucky. You going to call?

House: What I do, is not just based on the flip of a card.

Wilson: You guessed. You got lucky.

House: It fit.

Wilson: It could just as easily have been sarcoma or tuberous sclerosis.

House: No, not just as easily.

Wilson: Maybe not. But it wasn't impossible. Are you going to call?

House: [the piano music starts up again in the background, House smokes his cigar] You know, relative to it's size, the barnacle has the largest penis of any animal [said with a poker face]

[Wilson tries to keep a straight face but bursts out laughing, House follows suit. The camera pans out on the boys as they continue playing their game and happily joking and laughing with each other (and I mean really nice free laughter from House, pretty much like the end scene in 1.05 Damned If You Do) proving once again that House doesn't really laugh unless he's with Wilson ;)]


THE END