Season 3 X 16 : Top Secret

Original Airdate: 3/27/2007
Written by: Thomas L. Moran
Directed by: Deran Serafian
Transcript by: Coby

[We see marines in a truck from the point of view one of the marines in the truck, Get down tonight is playing on the stereo and everyone is singing along.]

MARINE 1: Take it sarg, take it.

JOHN: Oh I'll take it! Baby babe [Marine 1 laughs, John grabs a torch and uses it as a microphone.] I'll meet you, same place, same time. Where we can, get together, and ease up, our mind. Do a little dance, make a... [Music stops.] Yo yo, turn that back on, turn it back on.

MARINE 1: [Pointing at the camera.] Don't look at me cause you know I didn't do it all right? Don't look at me.

JOHN: [To Marine 1.] Hey, you better have put fresh batteries in that like I told you to.

MARINE 1: I did sarg, all right? The ones you gave me, I did, I put them in.

JOHN: Well then hit it or something. Otherwise, [laughing] you're all going to have to listen to me sing! [Big explosion] Son of a bitch!

[Truck tips over. John pulls the marine whose point of view we are seeing out of the truck. He is getting dragged along the ground away from the truck. He has lost half of his right leg. He stops being dragged and John comes out in front of him holding a gun.]

JOHN: Here. [Hands him the gun.] Don't panic, and don't shoot us, don't die. [Ties off his leg.] Got it G? [Runs off.]

[Camera changes to aerial view of House as G, lying on his back, with the gun in his hands and half his right leg gone.]

[House is awoken from his dream by Cuddy banging on the door to his office. He is lying on that chair of his, holding his cane across his chest like he was holding the gun in the dream, his left leg out stretched on the foot rest, his right leg bent with his foot on the floor. This position makes him look a little like he is missing half his leg.]

CUDDY: Up and at em, you're supposed to be in clinic duty.

HOUSE: Yeah, like I could sleep down there with all the crying and coughing.

CUDDY: [Hands House a file.] Here. Ex-marine. Thinks he has gulf war syndrome.

HOUSE: [Rolls his eyes.] There's no such thing.

CUDDY: So he's been told, it hasn't stopped the unexplained fatigue, rashes and joint pain. And just so you know, he's the nephew of a benefactor I owe a favour, so you're going to take this case whether you like it or not.

HOUSE: Why wouldn't I want to take the case? [Starts opening the file.] The guy's tired and sore, it's going to be chapter one in my... [Stops mid sentence when he sees the photo of the patient and is shocked when it matches up exactly with the sergeant (John) in his dream.]

[Flash back to House's dream.]

JOHN: Don't panic, and don't shoot us, don't die.

[Back to House still staring at the picture.]

CUDDY: You know him?

HOUSE: Never met him before in my life.

CUDDY: Ok...Well you're about to. He's on his way here. Get your ass up and get your team together. You've got work to do. [Cuddy leaves. House continues to stare at the photo.]

[Opening credits.]

[House in the bathroom, at the urinal, camera shows the mirror on the wall behind him to reveal Wilson one urinal over.]

WILSON: That's amazing.

HOUSE: No it's not.

WILSON: It's not?

HOUSE: I can play the harmonica with my nose, make a penny come out of a child's ear, or any other orifice for that matter; under the right circumstances I could bring two women into simultaneous ecstasy.

WILSON: The right circumstance being their agreement to bill you on the same credit card.

HOUSE: What I absolutely cannot do is dream about someone I've never seen before.

WILSON: Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it can't happen.

HOUSE: True, it can't happen because it can't happen!

WILSON: [Flushes with his elbow.] Well maybe you didn't dream about this guy specifically.

HOUSE: Right, just some other guy who looks exactly like him.

WILSON: No, you imagined some generic marine then you placed his face in the dream after you saw the picture. [Starts to wash his hands.] Sort of a coincidence mixed with a little d�j� vu.

HOUSE: There's no record of him ever coming into the clinic so I must have seen him before somewhere else.

WILSON: Fine, you've known him since cub scouts. The more interesting question isn't what you dreamed but why? [House starts washing his hands as well.] I'm guessing you're longing for either a renewed relationship with your dad or a new relationship with one of the Village People.

HOUSE: He was in the Navy not the Marines.

WILSON: I thought your dad was in the marines?

HOUSE: The guy in the Village People.

WILSON: Actually he's only in the Navy when they sang, In The Navy. The rest of the time he's just in generic fatigues. [House stares at him.] What? You brought it up! [House starts to walk out.] You didn't flush.

HOUSE: I didn't pee.

[Cut to House dropping John's file on the table in the Diagnostics office.]

HOUSE: Male, 34, just got out of the Marines after 2 years in Iraq. Admitted complaining of chronic fatigue, joint pains, intermittent rashes and sore throats. Thinks he has gulf war syndrome.

CAMERON: Why is he here instead of the VA?

HOUSE: Because he has a rich uncle that Cuddy is trying to avoid fellating and doesn't buy the VA's diagnosis of Nothing's-wrong-atosis. [Pops a pill.]

FOREMAN: The VA is right, there's no such thing as Gulf War Syndrome especially in veterans who've never served in the Gulf War.

[House grabs a bottle of water from the fridge but puts it back]

CHASE: Different war, same place. Whatever was there in 1990 is still there.

FOREMAN: That can send you home in a pine box but it still can't get you sick 3 months after you've gotten home.

CHASE: What, so thousands of soldiers are lying about the symptoms?

FOREMAN: You send 700,000 people on a vacation to Hawaii some of them are going to come back sick, doesn't mean it was caused by snorkelling.

CAMERON: He's right. Studies all show the same pattern of symptoms in veterans that were sent to the Gulf and those who weren't.

[Chase concedes.]

FOREMAN: That's it? You believe her but not me?

HOUSE: Stick to your guns Chase. Just because there isn't a single unifying symptom doesn't mean there isn't something going on. Could just affect everyone differently.

CHASE: You think this guy has Gulf War Syndrome?

[Foreman gets up and gets a coffee]

HOUSE: Course not. He's depressed and he's looking for a disability check. Most likely because he's just realised that knowing how to barter for sex in six languages and open a beer bottle with your eye socket are not the most marketable skills.

FOREMAN: Why'd you take this case?

HOUSE: Because a good scientist continually questions his own theories and assumptions.

CAMERON: Cuddy's making him.

HOUSE: Now I'm making you. Do a full physical and recheck his blood for HIV, Hep C, Malaria, Schistosomiasis and T strain A. baumannii just to make sure the VA's dotted their I's and find out every hospital and clinic he's ever visited, every city he's ever lived in and... whether he's ever been on TV. [Starts to walk towards his office.]

CAMERON: TV?

HOUSE: [Turns around.] The problem could be neurological, everyone knows TV rots your brain. [Continues to his office.]

[Cut to the ducklings examining John.]

JOHN: It's usually the worst on my palms and the bottoms of my feet. I get these, black dots all over.

CAMERON: I don't see anything.

JOHN: It comes and goes.

FOREMAN: You sure it's not just scrapes and bruises?

JOHN: I know the difference between a rash and a bruise.

CAMERON: Sometimes it's harder than you realise to distinguish between the two. You obviously exercise.

JOHN: My problems aren't caused by my workouts.

FOREMAN: But you do work out, and by the look of you pretty strenuously. That's not usually the case with patients whose principle complaint is chronic fatigue and joint pain.

JOHN: I was in the Marines for 12 years. I'm used to doing PT every day. Just because I can push through the pain doesn't mean it's not there.

CHASE: We're not saying we don't believe you.

JOHN: The hell you aren't.

CHASE: We just need to be specific about what exactly the problems are.

JOHN: I sleep 10 hours at night, but I feel tired all the time. I constantly get coughs, rashes, sore throats. My knees and hips feel like someone poured sand in my joints. I get these weird tingling sensations in my leg, sometimes they're cold, other times it feels like my blood is boiling. Specific enough? Look I don't care what you guys call it, Gulf War Syndrome, Iraq fever or just crappy sickness X. I just want someone to figure out what it is so they can cure it.

[Cut to House leading the ducklings through double doors in the corridor, starting a walk and talk.]

CAMERON: Except for the supposed pain in his joints none of the other symptoms he's complaining about are currently evident.

FOREMAN: Besides low potassium, probably caused by him over hydrating after working out. His blood work's all normal.

CHASE: Low potassium could also probably be caused by the experimental vaccines and anti chemical warfare pills he was given before he deployed to Iraq. Not to mention the fact that whole country is littered with hundreds of tons of radioactive shrapnel from depleted uranium munitions.

FOREMAN: [Scoffs.] What did you go to medical school in France? There's no trace of uranium in his urine. He was given the vaccines and meds 2 years ago without any allergic or adverse reactions.

HOUSE: Has he ever done any modelling?

CHASE: We forgot to ask. We should send his urine to the University of Leicester there's a professor there who's developed a more advanced screening technique for uranium.

FOREMAN: If the levels are too low for us to detect they're way too low to cause any damage. [House continues walking right past the office.] Where you going?

HOUSE: [Turns around.] This way. Did you find out about any television or other media exposure?

CAMERON: Do you really care or are you just trying to waste hospital resources to get back at Cuddy for making you take the case?

HOUSE: Of course I care, what a horrible thing to say. Do a Lexis-Nexis search and get a copy of his credit report.

FOREMAN: Before or after we tell him to eat a banana and discharge him with a psych referral?

HOUSE: I say before. And I say in between give him a polysomnogram. Sleep apnea could cause chronic fatigue and paranoia. Find out where he went to summer camp. [Foreman shakes his head, House turns around to start walking off but stops, Cameron moves forward.]

CAMERON: Are you ok?

HOUSE: Yea just a little too much coffee this morning.

CAMERON: Were we... walking you to the bathroom?

HOUSE: [Sighs.] I wish. [Cameron gives him a weird look.] Wilson was just in there. These guys know what I'm talking about. [House walks off while Cameron looks confused. Chase and Foreman look at each other and then walk off in the opposite direction to House.]

CAMERON: That's his third REM cycle and his breathing is completely normal, there's obviously nothing wrong with his sleep pattern.

CHASE: It's not uranium it's got to be some other sort of toxin.

CAMERON: Or nothing at all. Do you really think there's something wrong, or do you just want Foreman to be wrong?

CHASE: Both.

CAMERON: Well, it's not his sleep pattern. If you really think it's a toxin you can do a liver biopsy in the morning. [Gets up to leave.]

CHASE: We can't leave, if we don't monitor the whole test House wont accept the results, he'll just make us do it over.

CAMERON: It doesn't take two doctors to monitor what's clearly going to be a normal polysomnogram.

CHASE: Oh so you want me to stay?

CAMERON: You're the one that thought there was something wrong.

CHASE: I never said it was a sleep disorder.

CAMERON: You want to flip for it?

CHASE: [Scoffs.] Just... go.

CAMERON: Oh c'mon, don't be a baby. Fine, I'll stay. [Sits back down.] You know what we could do... [Gestures towards an empty room with a bed in it.]

CHASE: Here?

CAMERON: Why not? We're surrounded by empty rooms with beds in them.

CHASE: Yea and video cameras too.

CAMERON: So we turn them off.

CHASE: Yeah that's all I need is House or Foreman walking in on us.

CAMERON: We have the keys.

CHASE: [Thinks about it.] No, what if he wakes up?

CAMERON: Alright. [Puts her feet on the desk and leans back in the chair.] Suit yourself. [Looks at the screens, Chase looks contemplative.]

[Cut to Chase and Cameron coming through the door to the empty room kissing and taking each other clothes off, they stop as they get in front of the video camera. Chase looks at the camera and then walks out of view, presumably to lock the door. Cameron takes off her shirt and covers the camera with it.]

[Cut to House standing in front of his toilet at home, trying to pee.]

HOUSE: [Hits the wall.] Damn it. [Sighs and chucks the ice pack he was holding into the sink and pulls up his pants, hobbles slowly over to the mirror and grabs a pill bottle. He shakes it and stares at himself in the mirror for a few seconds before popping a pill.]

[Cut to Foreman walking into the sleep lab and seeing two empty chairs in front of the monitors, he walks back out, looks right, then left down the corridor, sees no one so walks back in.]

JOHN: Hello? Is anybody out there? I think there's a problem in here.

[Foreman walks into his room.]

FOREMAN: What's wrong?

JOHN: What do you mean what's wrong? You don't smell that?

FOREMAN: Nothing smells John.

JOHN: Are you kidding me? It's disgusting!

FOREMAN: How long have you thought... Wait. [Gets out his torch and bends down to look in John's mouth.] Open your mouth [Camera zooms in on John's tongue and we see all the little bacteria growing there, camera goes back to Foreman.] The smells not in the room, its in your mouth. [Chase followed by Cameron walk in.]

CHASE: What's going on?

FOREMAN: Good question.

[Cut to House in the bath wearing glasses and reading a magazine called Chronicling which has a smiling marine on the cover, House looks up to the wall in front of him where the first page of John's file, with his picture on it, is taped. Then goes back to the magazine, flicks through it then puts it on the ground and grabs another one. He grabs the bottle of Vicodin that is sitting on the side of the bath, only one pill left in the bottle, House pops that, then chucks the empty bottle away. Phone rings, House uses his cane to pull the table, with his clothes on it, over to the bath and takes the phone out of his pocket and answers it.]

HOUSE: What?

CHASE: You were wrong about the nothings-wrong-atosis, you can fake fatigue and joint pain but you can't fake bacterial vaginosis in your mouth.

HOUSE: Where's his mouth been?

CAMERON: Says he hasn't performed oral sex on anyone for over a year.

HOUSE: Selfish bastard.

FOREMAN: Because he hasn't been with anyone since his last girlfriend dumped him after he deployed to Iraq the second time.

HOUSE: Selfish bitch. [Cameron rolls her eyes.]

CHASE: We've ruled out HIV, Diabetes and any other endocrine abnormality.

CAMERON: Could be auto immune, Sjogren's decreases salivary flow creates a hospitable home of for bacteria.

CHASE: No his eyes and tear ducts are fine.

HOUSE: Who was his last girlfriend?

FOREMAN: [Sarcastic.] Yea we'll get right on that. Chronic fatigue, joint pain and opportunistic infection spells cancer, probably lymphoma, we should biopsy his tonsillar and submandibular lymph nodes

HOUSE: Right about cancer wrong about lymphoma. Unless your simply hiding the fact that his lymph nodes are swollen. Get Wilson to biopsy his salivary glands he's got parotid cancer, and see if you can get to the truth about who he's been dating, there's no way a marine goes a year without getting some blood on his bayonet.

CHASE: It's not an STD you just said...

HOUSE: Just do it. [Hangs up the phone, goes back to the magazine.]

[Cut to Wilson in John's room.]

WILSON: The antibiotics should at least relieve the infection, which will reduce the odour and taste in your mouth.

JOHN: Not soon enough.

[Nurse hands Wilson a needle.]

WILSON: All right, you're going to feel a little burn. [Sticks the needle into John's face.]

JOHN: You know I never even dipped. Chewing tobacco. Practically everyone in my unit did, but me. I was so paranoid about cancer.

WILSON: Well if it's parotid cancer it's very treatable if diagnosed early. [Stops poking John's face and puts the needle down.]

JOHN: My Mum had cancer, which is why I know that diagnosing cancer early means before there's any serious symptoms. [Spits a large amount of what looks like pus into a bowl.] Certainly tastes like a pretty serious symptom you know?

WILSON: We'll no more after the test. [Grabs a much bigger needle.]

[Cut to the ducklings in diagnostics room reading through lots of paper.]

CAMERON: If he was just trying to mess with Cuddy for wasting his time this would have stopped as soon as the patient started exhibiting actual symptoms.

CHASE: So the question is why is he wasting our time?

CAMERON: Or is he wasting our time?

CHASE: You think he's got a medical reason for asking for the guys credit report?

FOREMAN: I don't. Where were you two when the guy woke up?

CHASE: Uhhh... we just... stepped out for a second.

FOREMAN: To do what?

CHASE: To... get a coffee. We'd been up most of the night.

CAMERON: He's just pushing to make sure we get the complete history, obviously we're missing something or we'd have the answer. [Foreman looks suspiciously at Cameron.]

FOREMAN: You didn't have any coffee when you came back.

CAMERON: All right already, we confess. You caught us, we snuck into one of the sleep lab rooms to have sex, we shouldn't have done it while we were supposed to be working and we're sorry, now can we move on? [Chase looks shocked, Foreman starts laughing.]

FOREMAN: House would do Wilson before you'd do Chase.

CAMERON: No you would do House AND Wilson before I do Chase. Now can we get back to work?

CHASE: [Defensive] She did me once!

FOREMAN: She was stoned! [Continues laughing.]

[Cut to Wilson in the lab looking at something with the microscope. House walks in.]

WILSON: Biopsy's inconclusive. I'm going to do a sialogram while we wait for the results from the additional blood work.

HOUSE: No hurry. Probably nothing we can do at this point anyway.

WILSON: Well if the cancer hasn't spread.

HOUSE: He's spitting stink. You should focus on the living. I need a prescription.

WILSON: I just wrote you a prescription.

HOUSE: For Vicodin, I need alfuzosin.

WILSON: No you don't. You figured out where you met your marine?

HOUSE: What? Oh that, I haven't really thought about it. I can't pee.

WILSON: You can't remember him can you?

HOUSE: I can't pee.

WILSON: So stop taking the Vicodin.

HOUSE: I want to pee and not be in pain.

WILSON: Why don't you go to sleep?

HOUSE: I don't pee when I'm asleep.

WILSON: Maybe you'll dream about him again and maybe he'll give you an address.

HOUSE: I haven't peed in three days.

WILSON: I read that REM sleep is the brains way of working out problems.

HOUSE: Very useful, did you hear what I just said?

WILSON: Yea you lied because you want to avoid talking about your obsession.

HOUSE: I'm not obsessing.

WILSON: Why don't you just ask him?

HOUSE: [Yelling.] I haven't peed in three days!

WILSON: You'd be dead.

HOUSE: I'm not counting intermittent drips.

WILSON: You'd be in agony.

HOUSE: I passed agony yesterday around 4. [Pops a pill.]

[Wilson sighs and starts to write a prescription.]

[Aerial shot of PPTH.]

[Cut to ducklings still in diagnostics office.]

FOREMAN: [Hangs up his phone.] His mother, brother, uncle and best friend all confirm he hasn't had a date in over a year, which means it's not an STD. If you come up with something medically relevant, page me. [Gets up and leaves.]

[Chase stares at Cameron.]

CAMERON: What did you want me to tell him? The truth?

CHASE: No. You didn't have to be so convincing.

CAMERON: [Smiles.] Don't worry. I'll make it up to you.

CHASE: This is getting out of control.

CAMERON: Don't pout.

CHASE: Our patient woke up with an infection while we were getting our rocks off.

CAMERON: [Leans in closer to Chase.] Do you want to stop?

CHASE: No. But I don't want to get caught either.

CAMERON: You think I do?

CHASE: You certainly didn't go out of your way to keep the volume down while we were in the sleep lab.

CAMERON: [Smiles.] I couldn't help that... Why would I want to get caught?

CHASE: Maybe you want to give House a reason to be jealous?

CAMERON: I'm over House. All this is, is uncomplicated sex, don't try to make it more than that.

CHASE: We're not doing it at work anymore.

CAMERON: Fine. [Leans back, puts her glasses back on and starts reading one of the sheets of paper on the table. Chase sighs. Cameron looks back at Chase.] Want to go grab some lunch?

[Cut to House in the clinic.]

WOMAN: [Takes a drink of water from her bottle and starts tipping it from side to side, making a swishing noise, much to House's dismay.] I think the pill is the way to go, we haven't had a condom break yet thank god, but its bound to happen. Especially the way we've been doing it.

HOUSE: On a bed of nails?

WOMAN: No he's not kinky. He's just insatiable. I can barely make it to any of my morning classes.

HOUSE: [Takes a deep breath.] You smoke?

WOMAN: No way.

HOUSE: [Yelling.] Stop it! [Woman jumps and stops moving the bottle.]

WOMAN: [Quietly.] Sorry.

HOUSE: Any history of hypertension? Blood clots? Strokes?

WOMAN: Nope. Besides my OCD I'm fit as a fiddle. [Takes a drink of water.]

HOUSE: You have OCD.

WOMAN: Duh. Can't you tell?

HOUSE: Any other compulsions besides drinking massive amounts of water?

WOMAN: No. That's it thank god. My therapist says it could be a lot worse.

HOUSE: You get up in the middle of the night to drink?

WOMAN: Yeah, every couple of hours.

HOUSE: Then your therapist is an idiot. Unconscious people don't have OCD. They can however have diabetes insipidus.

WOMAN: That's impossible. I eat candy all the time.

HOUSE: Different kind of diabetes. This kind is cause by a banged up pituitary. You're obviously more of a lover than a fighter I'm guessing either a car accident or... you cracked your skull on the balance beam.

WOMAN: [Amazed.] How'd you know?

HOUSE: Easy, nice ass, no boobs, you got palms like a long shore man. Wait here, you need a CAT scan.

WOMAN: Oh my god.

HOUSE: Don't worry, just means you'll be taking two hormone supplements instead of one.

[House leaves, Woman drinks more water.]

[Cut to Wilson performing the sialogram on John, Music is playing quietly in the room.]

WILSON: Ok, this time you're going to feel a little pressure, I'm inserting the contrast material.

JOHN: Could you turn up the music?

WILSON: Sure. [Nods to the nurse who turns it up.] Looks pretty good so far.

JOHN: Still can't hear it that well.

[Wilson nods to the nurse who turns it up again.]

WILSON: Can you hear it now? John? [Starts to yell.] John? John can you hear me? [Gets no reaction.]

[Cut to House sitting on the chair in his office, Wilson walks in.]

WILSON: Still no... relief?

HOUSE: I got relief. I just got no pee. [Pops a pill.]

WILSON: If the pills didn't work you may need a catheter.

HOUSE: You didn't come here to talk to me about my pee, what's going on?

WILSON: [Pulls out the CT scan and puts it on the light board.] He's got cancer all right, but it's not in his salivary glands, it's in his brain. [House gets up and walks over to look at the scans.] And it's bad, at least 6 tumours, maybe more. He lost his hearing, his sight's probably next.

HOUSE: Death is probably next.

[Cut to House, Wilson and Foreman in radiology looking at John's scans.]

HOUSE: No way he could've grown all these in a week.

FOREMAN: Any older, VA couldn't have missed all these.

WILSON: Maybe they didn't miss them, just mixed them up. Switched his films with another patients by mistake.

HOUSE: Maybe, but it means some poor sap's getting his melon sliced in the VA for no reason.

WILSON: This poor sergeant is going to be dead by the end of the week.

[Cameron and Chase walk in.]

HOUSE: Where have you two been?

CAMERON: Lunch. Why, what happened?

HOUSE: Wilson's found some fast growing, illusive, or magic brain tumours. What did you find?

CAMERON: Nothing, he's telling the truth.

WILSON: About what?

CHASE: About everything. Where he's lived, who he's dated, besides forgetting to mention his dad's shin splints, his granddad's nosebleeds and to return a few rented DVD's, everything he's told us has checked out.

WILSON: [Loudly.] You have them researching your dream?

HOUSE: Nope. I have them researching my patient.

CAMERON: You had a dream about a patient?

WILSON: This poor guys brain is riddled with tumours and you're checking his credit report? [To the ducklings.] C'mon, I need you guys. [Starts to walk out, ducklings follow.]

HOUSE: Where you going?

WILSON: To do my job.

HOUSE: He's not your patient.

WILSON: He is now. Go home and go to sleep, maybe you'll dream the cure to late stage brain cancer.

[Cut to House watching John being prepped for surgery from the observation deck.]

[Cuddy walks in.]

CUDDY: How is he?

HOUSE: He's dead.

CUDDY: [Shocked.] Oh god.

HOUSE: Least he will be in a few days. Question is why? The only explanation is that the VA hospital screwed up.

CUDDY: There was definitely no mix up I had them recheck.

HOUSE: Yes, why would a government agency lie to cover up a mistake? Might've caused the death of a guy they've been trying to kill for the last two years anyway.

CUDDY: They didn't lie [House pops a pill and then a second.] Did you just take two Vicodin?

HOUSE: No, it was an antidepressant, I was told to take two every time you walked into the room.

CUDDY: [Sighs and hands House a scan.] The VA scan of his brain. No tumours.

HOUSE: Yes this has proved positive that someone didn't have tumours in his brain.

CUDDY: You see that bright spot below his left orbit. That is the titanium pin your patient had inserted 20 years ago. Unless you think the VA happened to mix up his scans with someone who had the exact same pin, they didn't screw up.

[Cut to House going through urine samples in the lab. Cameron and Chase walk in.]

CAMERON: You paged us?

HOUSE: Why didn't you send his urine to Leicester like I told you?

CHASE: Because you told me not to.

HOUSE: Why did you choose that moment to listen to me?

CHASE: You think depleted uranium might have something to do with his tumours?

HOUSE: Radiation's the only thing that will make tumours grow that fast.

CAMERON: High doses of radiation. Even if he ate depleted uranium bullets for breakfast he still would have been exposed to less radiation than we've given him in the last two days.

HOUSE: Do it anyway. [Chase goes to grab the right urine sample.] [To Cameron.] And you, call his uncle back, find out if he ever brought his nephew to any hospital parties or fundraisers.

CAMERON: No. Not until you give me a reason.

HOUSE: Because... I'm your boss.

CAMERON: A rational reason. Or at least admit that you don't have one.

HOUSE: I've got a full bladder and I'm not afraid to use it.

CAMERON: But you are apparently afraid of discovering something that you can't rationally explain...

HOUSE: [Cuts her off.] SHUT UP! Do what you're told. Cuddy and Wilson may not have to listen to me but you do. [Leaves.]

CAMERON: What the hell was that all about?

CHASE: I don't care. Which is why I didn't feel the need to ask him 8 personal questions.

CAMERON: I'm over him.

CHASE: Just making an observation.

[Cut to Foreman about to drill into John's head, Wilson watching.]

WILSON: All right, ready whenever you are.

FOREMAN: I'm ready. [Starts the drill, looks up the screen and notices something, stops the drill.] Wait a minute. Zoom in. [Nurse zooms the scan in.] I don't see it. You sure you got the right coordinates?

WILSON: Yea she's in the right place. Go 10 millimetres above the ACPC line on the Z-axis.

NURSE: 10 mil above ACPC on Z.

FOREMAN: It's not there anymore.

WILSON: Are you sure you got the gantry angle right?

NURSE: Yeah I'm sure.

FOREMAN: It's not there. [Foreman and Wilson look at each other.]

[Cut to outside the OR. Foreman and Wilson are telling House and Cuddy.]

FOREMAN: It disappeared.

CUDDY: 6 tumours don't just disappear.

HOUSE: Unless they were never there to begin with.

CUDDY: The VA didn't screw up.

HOUSE: Maybe someone else did. Maybe it was Dr. Self-Righteous.

WILSON: I saw the tumours. There was no mix up.

CUDDY: Maybe there's something wrong with the portable imager in the OR.

FOREMAN: Something that would cause it to show brain tissue in perfect detail but completely miss neoplastic tissue?

HOUSE: Then they were never tumours to begin with.

WILSON: I told you I saw...

HOUSE: No you saw something that looked like tumours. We all did. We were all wrong. Well maybe he doesn't have cancer maybe he has a brain infection that's causing multiple abscesses.

CUDDY: That miraculously healed?

HOUSE: No, they were healed by the antibiotics we're giving him for the vaginosis in his mouth.

CUDDY: If it's an infection why didn't it show up in his blood work?

HOUSE: I don't know. Yet.

[Nurse comes out of the OR.]

NURSE: Dr. Wilson, we have a problem.

[Wilson goes into the OR, followed by Foreman. John is awake and panicking but still has his head clamped to the table.]

JOHN: What did you do? I can't feel my legs. I can't feel my legs! What did you guys do?

[House walks in.]

WILSON: John, John, calm down. We didn't even operate. [To the nurse.] Would this be a usual effect?

JOHN: I can't feel my legs!

NURSE: It's not the anaesthesia.

HOUSE: John, John! We're going to figure out what's wrong with you, but first we need to know one thing. Have you ever appeared in any pornos?

[Cut to Diagnostics office, House is going through the whiteboard full of symptoms.]

HOUSE: Chronic fatigue, sore throats, rashes, putrid discharge of the mouth, multiple abscesses in the brain, hearing loss and last but not least lower limb paralysis. He's certainly given us plenty of clues.

CAMERON: It's got to be some sort of infection.

HOUSE: That's miraculously improving in his brain but getting worse in his ears and legs?

WILSON: Could be an infection and cancer. Neoplastic syndrome could depress his immune system and cause the other symptoms.

HOUSE: Mm-hmm. You're basing this theory on the negative biopsy, the lymph nodes that aren't swollen or the tumours that were never there to begin with?

WILSON: And what are you going to base your theory on? His favourite restaurants?

[Chase walks in.]

CHASE: I was right. He's excreting depleted uranium in his urine. We should start him on an IV infusion of isotonic sodium bicarbonates.

HOUSE: It's not depleted uranium.

CHASE: You're the one...

HOUSE: Who asked for the test when we were thinking cancer, we no longer are.

CHASE: Depleted uranium doesn't just cause cells to mutate it can cause cell death as well.

HOUSE: Not spinal cord cells. At least not until the dose is high enough to kill all his other cells first.

FOREMAN: So you're saying the radioactive uranium in his urine is irrelevant?

HOUSE: [Sighs.] The sun is radioactive, the earth is radioactive, this hospital is filled with radiation. The issue is not where it is but how much there is, and what damage that amount could cause inside someone's spinal cord, as I've already stated quite clearly...

WILSON: Got it, we're all idiots, what's your theory?

HOUSE: Give me your keys.

WILSON: Why?

HOUSE: You ever tried riding a motorcycle with a distended bladder? [Wilson throws his keys to House.] Keep him on antibiotics, check his hearing and paralysis every hour. [Starts to leave.]

FOREMAN: So you basically want us to do nothing?

HOUSE: No... I basically want to do nothing. I want you to keep him on antibiotics and check his hearing and paralysis every hour. [Continues leaving.]

WILSON: Wait, you can't go home now.

HOUSE: Actually I have to go home now. It's two days passed my bedtime.

WILSON: House he needs your help.

HOUSE: And I need sleep. Hey it's the brains way of working out problems that the conscious mind can't solve during the day remember? [Leaves.]

[Aerial shot of PPTH at night.]

[Cut to Foreman sticking a pin in John's leg, while Cameron checks his IV and Chase writes 'NOW?' on a mini whiteboard.]

JOHN: [Shakes his head.] No, nothing. [Sighs.] I'm going to die, aren't I?

[Chase writes 'We're doing all we can' on the whiteboard but Foreman stops him from showing it to John.]

FOREMAN: No, we're not. We should start treatment for the uranium toxicity like you said.

CAMERON: But House...

FOREMAN: Isn't here.

[We see the ducklings talking silently from John's point of view, Foreman says something but neither we, nor John can hear it.]

CHASE: If House wanted to be involved in the case... [Again from John's point of view so we don't hear the end of the sentence.]

CAMERON: If he wanted us to start this treatment he would have told us to the last time you brought it up.

FOREMAN: You have a better idea?

CAMERON: No.

FOREMAN: Then we're going with Chase's. [Slaps Chase on the arm and walks out, Chase follows.]

[Cameron writes 'We have an idea' on the whiteboard and shows John.]

[Cut to House entering his house.]

[He throws his keys on his desk, puts a paper bag down on it and takes off his jacket, leaves his cane, grabs the bag and limps down the hallway.]

[Cut to House sitting on the toilet. He takes out the catheter from the box and drops the box on the floor, grabs a syringe and squeezes gel onto the end of the catheter tube. Drops the syringe on the floor and pops a Vicodin. He then proceeds to insert the catheter into himself. He then breathes a sigh of relief as urine starts to fill the bag.]

[Cut to House limping into his bedroom, catheter still in, he gets in bed and leaves the bag on the floor. Looks at the clock 8:22 pm.]

[Aerial of PPTH, still night.]

[Cut to Foreman fiddling with the IV bags.]

FOREMAN: Tell him not to get the lines tangled. The infusion is slow we cant have any kinks in the lines.

CHASE: [Taps Foreman on the shoulder and shows him the whiteboard on which Chase has already written 'Don't tangle the lines'.] I went to medical school too. [Shows John the board, John nods.]

FOREMAN: Keep your arms on your body, above your heart. [Puts his arms over his chest to show John what he means.]

JOHN: [Nods and copies, then starts feeling around his stomach.] I can't feel my stomach. [Foreman sticks a pin in John's stomach.] I don't feel that. [Starts to panic.] I don't feel anything.

FOREMAN: The paralysis is ascending, if it keeps going were going to need a respirator.

JOHN: What? What are you saying?

CHASE: Can you breathe? [Writes 'Trouble breathing?' on the whiteboard and shows John.]

JOHN: No. Not yet.

[Cut to House lying awake in bed, he looks at the clock, 12:31am. Shot of the clock ticking through the minutes, 12:38, 12:39, 12:40, 12:41, shot of House rolling around in bed awake. 1:17, 1:18, 1:19, another shot of House lying awake in bed, this time from the other side of the room. 2:50, 2:51, still awake, rubs his head and face. 4:08, 4:09, getting frustrated, tossing and turning, puts the covers on.]

[It's light. House is lying on his back, awake, has given up, and looks at the clock, 6:06am. Resigned to the fact that he has to go back to work, he gets up.]

[Aerial of PPTH, day.]

[Cut to Foreman and Chase sleeping on the couch in the staff lounge, camera pans around to reveal House standing there holding the TV remote. He turns on the TV, Chase and Foreman are jolted awake.]

HOUSE: So, where were we?

FOREMAN: You have a nice night?

HOUSE: No. [Gets rid of the remote and walks out.]

[Cut to Diagnostics office, the Ducklings are sitting at the table, which is covered in paper and files. House is pacing back and forth.]

CAMERON: The paralysis is ascending. Last check it was nearly to his diaphragm.

HOUSE: Tells us something.

FOREMAN: Means its getting worse.

HOUSE: Worse is something.

CHASE: Actually it tells us it's not the uranium.

HOUSE: Did we think it was?

FOREMAN: We started him on sodium bicarb to try and flush the uranium out of his system.

HOUSE: Great, now the fact that he's getting worse tells us nothing. Never thought it was uranium. For all we know uranium treatment is what's making him...

FOREMAN: Sodium bicarb infusion wouldn't have any effect on...

HOUSE: On what? Kind of hard to say what it would have an effect on if you have no idea what's there to affect.

FOREMAN: We had to do something.

HOUSE: Well next time, go with something that has a chance of working.

CAMERON: Like what? Did you come up with some brilliant idea while you were warm and cosy in your bed at home?

HOUSE: We need more information.

FOREMAN: How much more information could you possible want? We have a medical history going all the way back to his great grand parents. A non-medical history going...

HOUSE: It's not enough.

CHASE: It's all we're going to get.

[All three ducklings beepers go off.]

HOUSE: Want to bet?

[Cut to Cuddy in John's room reading through his file, House walks in followed by the ducklings.]

CUDDY: Who approved a sodium bicarb infusion?

HOUSE: Don't look at me, I was home in bed.

CHASE: What's wrong?

CUDDY: He's unconscious, his skin has lost all colour and his BP and hematocrit are plunging.

FOREMAN: He was only on the sodium bicarb...

HOUSE: He's bleeding out.

CAMERON: He can't be bleeding out there's no blood in the bed.

HOUSE: Fine, he's bleeding in.

CHASE: There's no sign of bruising or internal haemorrhaging.

FOREMAN: The paralysis must have reached his diaphragm he's not able to oxygenate his blood.

HOUSE: He's not able to oxygenate his blood because he doesn't have any left. [Starts to put down Johns bed.]

CHASE: There's no evidence...

HOUSE: The only thing that would explain...

CAMERON: There's no reason for blood loss.

HOUSE: There has to be a reason, he needs a transfusion. Get me four units of O negative stat! Now lets elevate his feet. [Pulls John's pillow out from under his head.]

CUDDY: He doesn't need a transfusion.

HOUSE: Nobody asked you. [Puts the pillow under John's feet.] In fact why are you even here?

CUDDY: Because obviously you need my help.

HOUSE: Get out.

CHASE: House. [Starts to walk over to House's side of the bed.] His blood obviously didn't just vanish... [Slips over, and notices a yellow liquid on the floor, puts his fingers in it.] What the hell is this?

HOUSE: [Looks down.] Somebody must have spilled something. [Goes back to what he was doing.] Somebody else should be getting me four units of O negative stat.

CHASE: [Still on the ground, notices the liquid is coming from houses leg, lifts up House's jeans to reveal a catheter bag with a rip in it leaking large amounts of urine onto the floor.] What the hell is that?

HOUSE: It's a urine catheter collection bag with a rip in it, what hell's it look like?

[Chase stands up, the bag continues to leak urine all over the floor, everyone stares at House.]

HOUSE: What? [More and more urine pours out of the bag.] It's just urine. It's sterile. No ones getting me blood! [House's nose starts bleeding.] Why isn't anybody getting me blood?

FOREMAN: You're bleeding. [House wipes his nose.]

CUDDY: House are you all right?

HOUSE: Why are you even here?

[The view of cuddy gets wider and skinnier like she's walking in front of a fun house mirror and she sounds like she's miles away.]

CUDDY: I'm always here.

HOUSE: No you're not. There got to be a reason. There has to be. [House closes his eyes, there's a quick shot of each of the ducklings, then Cuddy who smiles, then John who opens his eyes and starts laughing manically.]

[Cut to House, waking up, still in his bed. He looks down to see that the catheter has come out and he's peed his bed. Then he lies back and smiles.]

[Aerial of PPTH. Day.]

[Cut to Foreman and Chase sleeping on the couch in the staff lounge, camera pans around to reveal house standing there holding the TV remote. He turns on the TV, Chase and Foreman are jolted awake.]

HOUSE: So, where were we?

FOREMAN: You have a nice night?

HOUSE: Yes I did thank you. I'm guessing better than our patient. Probably due to his BP and hematocrit plunging. [Throws the remote to Foreman.]

FOREMAN: How'd you know? [House walks out.]

[Cut to House looking into John's nose, camera zooms in so we can see the scarring.]

HOUSE: The answer was staring right at us the whole time, as plain as the nose on our faces, or the nose on his face.

JOHN: What's going on, what'd he say?

HOUSE: No hairs and cauterisation scars.

CHASE: [Confused.] Which means?

HOUSE: He had it cauterised.

CAMERON: How could you know that?

HOUSE: Because it makes sense, undoubtedly done to stop the same childhood nosebleeds that plagued his grandfather, undoubtedly because they were both born with Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia.

JOHN: What's he saying?

HOUSE: I'm saying you got a genetic disease that is destroying your capillaries.

CAMERON: That no one in his family has ever been diagnosed with before?

HOUSE: Not surprising, since the most common initial symptoms, skin rashes and nosebleeds, are often written off as the result of minor trauma or dry weather. But they can also be the result of his arteries and veins merging together. He obviously has AVM's. [Camera takes a trip through John's chest showing what House is explaining.] An AVM near his spine caused the paralysis. AVM in his lungs prevented his blood from being filtered. Dirty blood caused the joint pain, fatigue and the infections in his mouth and brain. Nothing that a few surgeries won't clear up. Get MR angiograms of the aforementioned. The Marines weren't hiding anything, he was, or at least he forgot to mention his bloody tissue issue. [House leaves.]

JOHN: What's going on, what'd he say?

[Cut to House at the urinal singing, Wilson walks in.]

WILSON: Oh, looks like solving the case, solved your other problem.

HOUSE: There is no medicine like happiness, except maybe laughter, or rubber tubes shoved up your urethra.

WILSON: You cathed yourself?

HOUSE: It's actually not that bad after the first... I don't know, 9 or 10 inches. Cath relieved the spasm. I'm as good as new.

WILSON: Of course, just a minor spasm in a muscle you've been using multiple times a day without any problem for the past 45 years. Not a major side effect caused by the overuse of a particular narcotic painkiller.

HOUSE: [Flushes.] Yeah that was my thought too. [Walks over to wash his hands.]

WILSON: [Flushes with his elbow.] So, no reason to think about cutting back on your use of that particular pill.

HOUSE: Thank god. Actually it was a triple dose of the good stuff that allowed me to finally get some sleep and solve the case. The pills made all my dreams come true.

WILSON: You really got the answer in your sleep?

HOUSE: I got one in my sleep, the other one I got in the shower. [Walks out.]

[Cut to Cuddy walking out of a patient's room, House is waiting for her.]

HOUSE: I've been thinking about you. You lied.

CUDDY: I didn't lie, I simply chose not to share completely irrelevant facts.

HOUSE: Like the fact that you lied. No wonder I couldn't place his face. You were practically swallowing it on the dance floor.

CUDDY: I was not.

HOUSE: Talk about the cool uncle, he donates the money while the nephew gets the write off. Of course by write off I mean he gets to put your ankles...

CUDDY: [Puts her hand on his chest to stop House talking.] This is exactly why I didn't mention our one date over two years ago.

HOUSE: Because of my t-shirt?

CUDDY: [Drags House away from the nurses station.] Because you are an obnoxious ass. Because you would've spent the whole time...

HOUSE: That's very smart, because this way I spent my whole time completely focused on the patient.

CUDDY: How did you even remember him? We were only at that party for like 10 minutes.

HOUSE: What is this some new health plan? You service the Dean of Medicine and you get free health care for a year? [Cuddy smiles.] Why are you smiling?

CUDDY: You remembered him because he made out with me.

HOUSE: I'm good with faces. So this plan, is it open to anyone? Is there a co-pay?

CUDDY: You're lousy with faces.

HOUSE: Don't make this about me, this is your humiliation. So how much for private room coverage?

CUDDY: [Still smiling.] Get over me. [Starts to walk away.]

HOUSE: Oh give me a break. You hired me...

CUDDY: Because you're a good doctor who couldn't get himself hired at a blood bank so I got you cheap.

HOUSE: You gave me everything I asked for because one night I gave you everything you...

CUDDY: Stop staring at my ass when you think I'm not looking, showing up at restaurants where I happen to be on a date and fantasising about me in the shower. That ship sailed long ago House. Get over it. [Walks away.]

HOUSE: If your still referring to you ass I think that super tanker sailed would be a more precise metaphor.

[Cuddy turns around laughs and then keeps walking out.]

[House smiles.]

[Cut to House wiping off the whiteboard. He looks at the table full of paper.]

[Cut to Cameron and Chase kissing and undressing each other in some closet, House opens the door, turns the light on and walks in.]

HOUSE: Sorry, looking for an extra large trash can. [Dumps the files and paper in the bin and walks out shutting the door behind him.]

CHASE: Since when does he clean anything up?

[Cut to House walking back to his office, he smiles as he opens the door and walks in.]

[Camera stays on the sign on the door that says Gregory House, MD. Department of Diagnostic Medicine.]

[End.]

Season 3 X 15 : Half-Wit

Original Airdate: 3/6/2007
Written by: Lawrence Kaplow
Directed by: Katie Jacobs
Transcript by: Rahul

FADE IN.

[Theatre, Backstage. In a dimly-lit dressing room, Patrick Obyedkov, musical savant, struggles to
button up his shirt. His father stands in front of him. They're both dressed in tuxedos.]

PATRICK: I can't do this... button.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [encouraging] Well, you've almost got it. [goes to help him]

PATRICK: [repeating quietly] Almost got it.

[Dr. Obyedkov buttons up his shirt fully. Patrick listens to the sound of the audience and smiles.]

PATRICK: [excited] The sound... of the people talking.

DR. OBYEDKOV: Hmm?

[Patrick quietly hums a tune.]

PATRICK: That's A-flat, isn't it?

DR. OBYEDKOV: Wow, look how smart you are, hmm?

[Patrick stands up, all set.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Here we go.

PATRICK: [repeating] Here we go.

[Dr. Obyedkov pats his son on his shoulders.]


CUT TO:

[Theatre, Stage. The whole place is darkened, spotlights casting the only light around. A grand piano
is on the stage. The audience start to applaud as the Obyedkovs walk onstage, spotlights on them. As
they approach a microphone, the spectators start to rise, giving them a standing ovation. Patrick
looks at his dad in excitement. The applause dies down.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [addressing the audience ] Thank you. I am proud to introduce my son to you. Patrick
Obyedkov.

[Applause starts again.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Twenty-five years ago, Patrick was in the fourth grade. A good student, played little
league. And then there was the accident. [takes a moment] And here we are. Raising money for people
with similar neurological disabilities. I hope you enjoy the concert.

[Dr. Obyedkov leads Patrick to the grand piano. Patrick sits in front of it.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [leaning slowly on Patrick's shoulders, whispering] All set?

PATRICK: [whispering] All set.

[The audience waits for Patrick to start. The piece is Beethoven's "Waldstein Sonata" (No. 21 in C major, Op.
53, Allegro con brio). He starts off perfectly. About fifteen seconds into his performance, he starts to feel
a bit agitated, but plays correctly nonetheless. However, by the thirtieth second, he misses a couple of
notes. His father frowns in surprise.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [to the man standing next to him] He's never missed a note.

[Patrick's really uncomfortable now. He appears to be in pain, yet he continues to play.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Something's wrong.

[The recital now starts to get hurried and frantic as Patrick fingers almost seem to be out-of-control.
Dr. Obyedkov runs onto the stage to check up on his son. Patrick finally slams the keys in frustration
and sits back. His father approaches.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [concerned, whispering] Patrick, what is it?

PATRICK: [in pain] My hand. Hurts.

DR. OBYEDKOV: Let me see it.

[Dr. Obyedkov lifts Patrick's left hand to see that the fingers have all started to bend backwards.]

PATRICK: [crying in pain] Oh, papa!

[He starts to yell out in agony into his father's shoulder.]


CUT TO:

[QUICK CREDITS.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH, Diagnostics office. Late night/early morning. The room is dark. Cameron is the first to enter. There's
a paper bag sitting on the glass table. The bag has a Post-It on it, saying:
GOOD MORNING.
READ NOW.
XO
YO YO MAMA
Cameron sits at the table and yanks off the Post-It to read it. Looks like she's recently washed her
hair and bunned it up. Foreman enters.]

FOREMAN: [hardly enthused] What's the emergency?

CAMERON: Thirty-five-year-old savant, dystonia in his left hand.

FOREMAN: [annoyed] He page us at five in the morning for that? [scoffs] I'm going back to bed. [starts
to walk out.] Dystonia's not life-threatening. Clonazepam will take care of tha...

CAMERON: He's already on Clonazepam. Or seizures he has from a bus accident when he was ten.

FOREMAN: [re-entering] Then we treat with Benztropine.

[Chase enters. Looks like he's had a bath as well.]

CHASE: [drowsy] What's up?

CAMERON: Thirty-five-year-old savant, dystonia.

CHASE: [blows raspberry in disinterest] I'm going back to bed.

[He turns to leave and almost crashes into House and his coffee at the doorway.]

HOUSE: Where you going?

CHASE: [caught, sheepishly turns around] Bathroom. It can wait.

[House enters, while Chase goes to sit down next to Cameron.]

FOREMAN: There is no case, House. Even if dystonia was some big medical mystery, it's not this time.

HOUSE: You're not intrigued as to how a perfectly healthy ten-year-old boy, with no prior musical
training, gets into an accident on his way to school...

[Using his cane, he yanks away the bagged breakfast, just before Chase can get his hands on it.]

HOUSE: ...and suddenly starts playing piano?

CHASE: Do we have to start a twenty-five-year-old case before breakfast?

[House looks at Cameron and Chase.]

HOUSE: You two shower together?

CHASE: [simultaneously] [busted, yet denying it] No.

CAMERON: [simultaneously] [acting disgusted] No.

HOUSE: [to Foreman] Double negative. It's a yes.

FOREMAN: Savantism is just one of those things. It's... inexplicable.

HOUSE: [taking a donut out of the bag] Just because it's "inexplicted", doesn't mean it's inexplicable. I
want new labs. CBC with platelets, chem panel, thyroid and adrenal function tests. [bites donut]

CAMERON: For what?

HOUSE: [mouth full, shrugs] I don't know.


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. Patrick sits on the bed, swinging his legs. Foreman is examining him, while his father watches.]

FOREMAN: Raise your left hand.

[Patrick cheerfully raises his right arm.]

FOREMAN: [correcting] That's your right hand.

[Patrick raises his left arm. Foreman examines it.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: What're you looking for?

FOREMAN: Just wanna make sure whatever happened doesn't happen again. [to Patrick] Push up.

PATRICK: [repeating as he does so] Push up.

DR. OBYEDKOV: He repeats what people say. It's a compensation mechanism. He knows he's supposed to say something, so he repeats what he just heard.

FOREMAN: That's good. Shows he's engaged.

[Dr. Obyedkov smiles at Patrick.]

FOREMAN: [letting go of Patrick's arm] Spine's okay. Alright, stick out your tongue like this. Copy me.
[sticks out his tongue, curling it at the sides.]

PATRICK: [smiling] You have a big tongue. [laughs]

FOREMAN: [chuckles] I know it's funny, but copy me.

[He sticks out his tongue again. Patrick sticks out his tongue, but curls it downwards. Foreman, with a
grunt, motions for him to keep it straight and curl it at the sides, like he's doing. Patrick straightens it,
but points the tip upwards and lets out a quiet grunt.]


CUT TO:

[Clinic, Exam Room. House is examining a female patient. She sits on the table, bare-footed, while House sits
away pulling out a needle (with a rubber tube) and a piece of tape from a drawer.]

PATIENT: There was construction on Radcliffe, so I had to get out of the car and-and walk in high-heels for
over a mile.

HOUSE: Radcliffe? What was the cross street?

PATIENT: Does it matter?

HOUSE: I don't know. You're the one who brought it up. [holds out his left arm and puts a strap over it] Tie
this off.

[The patient looks confused.]

HOUSE: Nice and tight.

[She bends forward and ties the strap tightly around his arm, while he rolls up the sleeve.]

PATIENT: Does this have anything to do with my foot?

[House pushes the needle up his forearm and sticks it in place with the tape. He pumps his hand a couple of
times, allowing the blood to flow into a test tube at the other end of the rubber tube.]

HOUSE: You have a blister. You don't waste a doctor's time with a blister. Waste a doctor's time with more
important things like the sewer that's beng vented out of your mouth.

PATIENT: [putting her hand to her mouth] My breath?

HOUSE: [moving away as she speaks] If you could stop doing that, we'd all be grateful.

PATIENT: [giggles] I can't stop breathing.

HOUSE: Nope! But you can stop puking. [removes the strap from his arm and takes out the needle.]

PATIENT: [outraged] I don't...!

HOUSE: Your lips say no, your gnarly fingers say -- [makes a vomiting noise, like "Uwaah!"]

[The patient looks away in embarrassment. There's a knock on the door. Foreman enters. House pulls down his
left sleeve.]

FOREMAN: He's good to go.

HOUSE: [to the patient] It's a shame. You look cute that thin.

[She glares at him as he leaves.]


CUT TO:

[Clinic/Nurse's Station. House and Foreman emerge from the Examining Room and start walking towards the
Nurse's Station.]

FOREMAN: Motor cortex looks good. Everything checks out.

HOUSE: What tests did you run?

FOREMAN: [annoyed at being questioned like this] Full battery of neurological...

HOUSE: [to nurse at Nurse's Station] I need this blood checked for cholesterol and glucose levels.

[He puts the test-tube of his blood into a plastic bag. Foreman looks confused.]

FOREMAN: Patient had a foot problem.

HOUSE: Different patient.

FOREMAN: There's no one else in here.

HOUSE: [quickly changing the subject] You're using the wrong equipment.

[He limps off.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH Hallway/Patrick's room. House and Foreman push the hospital's piano into Patrick's room. Patrick looks
happy at the sight of the piano.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Dr. Foreman, I thought we were being discharged.

HOUSE: I'm Dr. House. On the off-chance that Dr. Foreman didn't mention it, I have something of a gift too.
[to Patrick, beckoning] C'mon.

[They sit on the edge of the bed, in front of the piano. House plays a the opening bars of "I Don't Like
Mondays" (by The Boomtown Rats), with Patrick watching his every note carefully. Then he stops and looks at
Patrick.]

HOUSE: Your turn.

PATRICK: [repeating] My turn.

[Patrick plays the exact number, note for note. Foreman smiles. House even gives some accompanying claps.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Does this have anything to do with his hand?

HOUSE: [nods] It might. [to Patrick] Okay, Patrick. Close your eyes.

[Patrick does so.]

HOUSE: What's this? [hits a few keys at once.]

PATRICK: [eyes closed, concentrating] D, G-flat, A-flat, B...

HOUSE: [interrupting] Yeah, all right, all right.

FOREMAN: He's good. Can we let him go?

HOUSE: [looking at Patrick] He's great. He's staying.

[He starts to play a melancholy number, with Patrick joining in after a short while. House slowly moves his
fingers away and watches as Patrick continues to play. Finally, Patrick stops.]

HOUSE: [to Foreman] Call radiology. I need a Functional MRI of his brain.

FOREMAN: FMRI's not gonna show trauma.

HOUSE: I'm not looking for trauma. I wanna see the music.

PATRICK: [repeating] The music.


CUT TO:

[MRI Room. Classical music plays on the stereo as Patrick undergoes a FMRI, while House and Foreman look
on from the adjoining room. House sucks on a lollypop. They're looking at a 3D simulation of Patrick's
brain.]

HOUSE: Well, that's dull.

FOREMAN: Think FMRI's gonna show a big arrow pointing to a flashing sign saying "Savantism"?

HOUSE: Would be hugely helpful. Somehow he got rewired as a music specialist. I wanna know how that happens.

FOREMAN: He had access to parts of his brain that you don't.

HOUSE: His brains doing nothing. Looks like any jerk listening.

FOREMAN: He's not savant at listening. He's a savant at playing. Both listening and playing are different
neurological processes.

[House looks at Patrick, lying on the MRI table, docile.]

HOUSE: Turn off the music.

[Foreman puts off the music, while House leans into the microphone.]

HOUSE: [over radio] Patrick, I want you to pretend that your leg is a piano.

PATRICK: [over radio] But it's not a piano.

HOUSE: [gimme strength] I know. That's why I said "pretend". [shuts off the microphone, to Foreman] Kid's a
moron. [turns microphone back on] Keep your head still, use your fingers.

[Patrick slowly starts to move his fingers as if he were playing a piano. Everytime his finger comes down,
background music (not the stereo this time) plays the corresponding note of the imaginary piano. Soon he's
using both his hands.]

[In the adjoining room, a beep is heard. They look at the 3D brain. Many areas of the brain are lit up.]

FOREMAN: [disbelieving] Wha...?!

HOUSE: [calm] Cool, huh? His heart rate rose.

FOREMAN: Emotional response?

HOUSE: Then why is there no activity in the limbic system? Unless there's a problem in his heart. Do an echo
to confirm. And scrub up. He's gonna need surgery.

[They get up quickly.]


CUT TO:

[Outside Operation Room. Foreman is prepping for surgery and speaking to Cameron, who seems to have her mind
on something else.]

FOREMAN: [wiping his hands] Wasn't dystonia. He's got a heart condition that caused the arteries in his arm
to constrict.

CAMERON: Do you have any idea why House would wanna go to Boston?

FOREMAN: [shrugs and pouts] The chowder?

CAMERON: Plane tickets, this Friday. I opened his mail. I heard there's an opening at Harvard for division
chief, Infectious Disease.

FOREMAN: [putting on gloves] Ambition's not one of his more prominent traits.

[Cameron puts a vest on him.]

FOREMAN: Although...

CAMERON: What?

FOREMAN: He was testing blood in the clinic. Don't think it was the patient's blood.

CAMERON: Why? It was green?

FOREMAN: No, he was checking for routine stuff.

[Cameron puts a collar around his neck.]

FOREMAN: Makes sense if he's checking for basic medical clearance for employment.

[They look at each other.]


CUT TO:

[Outside someone's apartment. And it's time for our weekly break-in, although this one isn't House-approved,
considering Cameron and Chase are attempting to break into his place. Cameron checks under the doormat.
Chase, baseball cap on his head, leans against the door frame.]

CHASE: I'm going home.

CAMERON: [standing up] No, you're not.

CHASE: He could show up any minute.

[Cameron manages to find House's apartment key on the top of the door frame.]

CAMERON: [victoriously displaying the key] Not with a savant to obsess about.


CUT TO:

[House's apartment. They enter the dark apartment, putting on the light. Chase slams the door shut quickly.]

CAMERON: I'll take in here. Bedroom's down the hall.

CHASE: You've been here?

CAMERON: [uhhh] Where else would the bedroom be?

CHASE: [as he passes by her] Come with?

CAMERON: [amused] You're scared of him catching us breaking into his home, but you're not scared of him
catching us doing it in his bed?

CHASE: [making his way to his boss' bedroom] I'm gonna get fired anyway.


CUT TO:

[PPTH, Operating Room. Foreman is threading a catheter through Patrick's femoral artery toward the heart.]

FOREMAN: Almost at the heart. [looking at monitor] ____. Aaand... done.

[He pushes the catheter fully inside. Suddenly, Patrick starts to convulse. The monitors begin beeping.]

NURSE: Heart rate's one-sixty! It's accelerating. He's at two-ten!

FOREMAN: [urgently] Supraventricular tachycardia. Paddles!

[He motions for the paddles. The nurse preps them and hands them over.]

NURSE: Charging!

[Foreman quickly puts the paddles on Patrick's chest.]

FOREMAN: Clear!

[ZAP! Patrick jerks forward.]


CUT TO:

[House's apartment. Our intrepid "House"-breakers are hard at work.]

CHASE: [going through a magazine, calling out] We're wasting our time!

CAMERON: [holding a big book] His high-school yearbook.

CHASE: Unless you think he's going to Boston to attend a high-school reunion, put it back and let's get out
of here before he comes home.

CAMERON: [looking at the yearbook] He's not smiling.

[The picture shows a much-younger fully-shaven (or yet-to-grow-a-stubble) House, scowling.]

CHASE: I wonder if he has teeth.

[Cameron closes the book.]

CHASE: [looking at a phone bill] What's the area code for Boston?

CAMERON: Six-one-seven. Why?

[Chase doesn't answer. He dials a number on the cordless telephone. They get a ringing tone.]

VOICE: [over phone] Massachusetts General. May I help you?

[Chase and Cameron exchange looks.]


CUT TO:

[Cuddy's office. Obviously tipped off by Cameron and Chase, Cuddy angrily paces in her office, while speaking
to her counterpart in Mass General, on the speakerphone.]

CUDDY: Did you think you could steal Dr. House without a fight?

DR. MEDICK: [over phone] Steal him for what?

CUDDY: Quit jerking me around. I know he's coming out there.

DR. MEDICK: [over phone] We're not looking to hire him.

CUDDY: He's called you six times in the last month!

DR. MEDICK: [over phone] We're not looking to hire him.

CUDDY: You think if you keep repeating it, I'll start believing you?

DR. MEDICK: [over phone] Dr. Cuddy, there's nothing else I can say. I'm sorry.

[Cuddy nervously plays with a rubber band as she speaks.]

CUDDY: If he's not coming there for a job interview, he's either coming to your hospital for a social visit
or because he's a patient.

[She stops playing with the rubber band as she remembers that House is not really the social type. She looks
at the phone anxiously.]

CUDDY: [hoping against hope] Is it a social visit, Dr. Medick?

DR. MEDICK: [over phone, beat] I can't stand House. Neither can Dr. Kupersmith.

[Cuddy looks afraid.]


CUT TO:

[Wilson's office. Wilson's at his desk. Cuddy enters and walks over to his balcony window, ensuring that
House is nowhere in sight.]

WILSON: What's up?

CUDDY: D'you know Dr. Kupersmithin Boston?

WILSON: Yeah, he's an oncologist. What's up?

CUDDY: What's his sub-specialty?

WILSON: Brain cancer. [beat] What's going on?

[Cuddy looks at him, fear written all over her face.]


CUT TO:

[Diagnostics office. House and the Ducklings are going over Patrick's case. At least the Ducklings are. House
stands in front of the glass table, twirling his cane, tossing it in the air and catching it like any baton-
twirler with a medical licence.]

CUDDY: [voice over] He doesn't look sick. He should have symptoms. Blurred vision, headaches, confusion,
clumsiness...


CUT TO:

[Wilson's office. Cuddy is seated, while Wilson sombrely leans against his desk.]

WILSON: Depends on how far along the cancer is. What kind, how agressive? [shrugs slightly]

CUDDY: He didn't tell you?

[Wilson gives here a "what do you think?" look.]

CUDDY: House is House.

WILSON: He's no different than anyone else with cancer. Once you tell, then every conversation is about that.


CUT TO:

[Diagnostics office. House reads a file away from the glass table, around which the Ducklings are huddled
over Patrick's case.]

FOREMAN: Cardiac arrest means we were wrong.

CHASE: It was a heart problem.

FOREMAN: But no vasoconstriction. The heart problem couldn't have caused the hand problem.

HOUSE: [looking up from the file] Unless the bleed happened suddenly. Less blood to the brain explains
dystonia. Less blood to the heart explains the heart attack. Scope him both above and below. If that doesn't
work, [tosses file on the table] gut him.


CUT TO:

[Endoscopy Room. Chase is performing the endoscopy. Dr. Obyedkov hovers around, at his wit's end.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Can't sedate him?

CHASE: There's a risk his throat could collapse.

PATRICK: You look mad, papa.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [gently] Nooo. No, I'm not mad, I promise you. It's just that uh, the doctor has to do
something to you and it's gonna hurt.

PATRICK: Hurt me? Why hurt me?

DR. OBYEDKOV: Make you better.

PATRICK: What's wrong with me?

DR. OBYEDKOV: What, they don't know.

[Patrick looks from his father to Chase and the other doctor, who has the scary-looking scope in his hand.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Patrick, don't you worry. Everything is gonna be great.

CHASE: [coming over Patrick] All right, here we go, Patrick. [brings an instrument near Patrick's face.]

PATRICK: [squirming nervously] You won't hurt me?

CHASE: Okay, open. Like this. [opens his mouth to show Patrick.]

[Instead, Patrick clamps his hands over his mouth. Chase tries to remove them.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: You just look at me. Everything is gonna be okay.

[With the help of the other doctor, Chase manages to get Patrick's mouth uncovered and starts inserting a
scope. Patrick is frightened and squirming, while his father tries to comfort him.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: Look at me. It's okay. It's okay.

[Patrick gags as the scope enters his throat.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH Parking Lot. Wilson morosely walks to his car. Cameron emerges behind him.]

CAMERON: Dr. Wilson.

[He ignores her and keeps walking.]

CAMERON: Wilson! [runs upto Wilson] Just spoke to Cuddy. She can't confirm whether House is applying for a
job at Boston.

WILSON: Yeah. I-I'm late for a...

CAMERON: If I have to look for work, I have a right to know.

[Wilson stops walking and sighs, closing his eyes.]


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. Patrick's undergoing the endoscopy, so he's not here. House sits in front of the piano,
playing the same tune he had played and Patrick had continued. Wilson enters.]

WILSON: [re: the song] Pretty.

HOUSE: I wrote this when I was in junior high school. Could never figure out what came next. And Dimwit came
up with this. [plays Patrick's rendition]

WILSON: [impatient] It's good.

HOUSE: It's perfect.

WILSON: I could set up a tower on the roof during a lightning storm. Help you switch brains with your
patient. Then you would be the brilliant pianist and he would be the doctor hiding brain cancer from his
friend.

[House stops playing.]

HOUSE: It's nothing. [takes his cane from above the piano.]

WILSON: You need to talk about it.

HOUSE: You need to talk about it.

WILSON: At least, let me look at your medical file.

HOUSE: You're making a big deal out of nothing. Who else knows?

WILSON: [quickly] No one. And cancer isn't nothing.

HOUSE: Sorry, didn't mean to offend your specialty.

WILSON: [unhappily] Why didn't you come to me?

HOUSE: Stein's good.

WILSON: Stein's in Africa for the next six months.

HOUSE: He's given me at least six months. Go to Boston, get the treatment. [sighs] Everything will be fine.
No need to talk about it.

[Chase enters, holding a printout.]

CHASE: [controlled voice] You're right. Surgeon found a bleed behind the kidney and the retroperitoneal
cavity, but no reason for it. [sighs] No cancer, no ruptured arteries.

[House looks up suspiciously at Chase.]

CHASE: [walking up to House] So bleeding explains the symptoms, but we've got no explanation for the
bleeding.

[House narrows his eyes, watching Chase's expressions.]

CHASE: And while they were closing him up, Patrick had a grand mal seizure... which makes no sense, since
he's on an anti-convulsive medication.

[House looks from Chase to Wilson.]

HOUSE: [accusingly] You told him.

WILSON: No, I didn't.

[Chase drops his shoulders and the "stay-professional" act. House looks again at Wilson.]

WILSON: [giving in] I... only told Cameron.

[House throws his head up in exasperation. He grabs the printout from Chase's hand and walks out.]


CUT TO:

[House's office. Foreman and Cameron are talking. House busts in, followed by Chase.]

HOUSE: [pissed] Hey! Okay. You guys have cleverly deduced that I have cancer. You have no right to know. You
have no business knowing.

FOREMAN: We'd like to run some blood tests...

HOUSE: As soon as you work up our patient, who is not me.

CAMERON: Just wanna make sure you weren't misdiagnosed.

HOUSE: I wasn't. Let's move on.

CHASE: We're just asking for a couple of vials.

HOUSE: [loud] No!

CAMERON: Why not?

HOUSE: Okay, we're going to proceed as if I'm perfectly healthy.

CHASE: How can we do that if we know you're not?

HOUSE: You don't know anything! Except, hopefully, our patient on anti-convulsive medication has a seizure.

FOREMAN: [giving up] Anti-seizure meds don't prevent seizures, they just make them manageable.

HOUSE: [perusing the printout] According to the surgeon's report, this one wasn't even close to manageable.

CAMERON: Means the question isn't why is he having seizures, it's why are his seizures getting worse?

HOUSE: What's changed?

FOREMAN: His brain, it's gotten worse.

HOUSE: Why don't we make it even worser?

[The Ducklings look confused.]

HOUSE: [explaining] We take him off anti-convulsive medication.

CAMERON: He'll seize even more. Multiple seizures can seriously damage a brain.

HOUSE: Dude can't button a shirt. How much more damage are we really talking about?

CHASE: Strongest seizures will light up different parts of the brain, which will indicate response to damage.

HOUSE: Once he gets worse, do a PET scan.


CUT TO:

[House's office. He's at his desk, wearing prescription glasses, carefully taking apart some mechanical
contraption (videocamera?). The door opens and he looks up.]

HOUSE: [removing the glasses] PET scan done?

[It's Cameron, holding a paper.]

CAMERON: No.

HOUSE: You come for my feelings?

[Cameron is about to say something.]

HOUSE: 'Cause I left them in my other pants.

CAMERON: [opening up the paper] This is a letter of recommendation. I'm applying for a job at Penn.

[She drops it on his table. He looks at her, then briefly glances at it.]

HOUSE: Thank you for writing your own. Sure my thoughts are beautifully phrased. [signs it]

CAMERON: Thank you for signing it. Saves me from having to fake your signature.

[He hands it back to her and leans back in his chair. She puts it in an envelope.]

HOUSE: Stay away from Weiss. He cries with his patients. Holds their hands as they die. He won't like you.

[Cameron gives a look, asking why.]

HOUSE: Your new-found nonchalance in the face of cancer.

[A beat.]

CAMERON: I thought you'd find it appealing.

HOUSE: Twenty seconds. Pretty good.

CAMERON: For what?

HOUSE: Time it took you to go from hard-ass to human being.

[He gets up from his chair and limps over slowly to face her.]

HOUSE: You really wanna leave?

CAMERON: If you're not here, there's not much point of staying.

HOUSE: I'm not dead yet.

[She looks at him and slowly advances.]

HOUSE: What're you doing?

[She moves closer to him, not a lot of air separating them.]

HOUSE: I know this must be a turn-on for you.

[She tenderly puts her hands on his cheeks, slowly moving upwards to reach his lips. He almost looks
resigned. And that's it!! Fans, take note - House and Cameron are actually kissing! His eyes stay open for a
while, but then they close and he starts to kiss back in earnest. Her left hand slowly moves from his
side into her labcoat pocket. House feels the movement and jerks open his eye. He grabs her hand, just as it
emerges from the pocket. He breaks the kiss simultaneously. He brings up her hand to see what she's holding.
It's a syringe.]

HOUSE: A little whorish to kiss and stab.

CAMERON: [caught] You kissed back.

HOUSE: I didn't want you to die without knowing the feeling. [yanks the syringe from her hand] Actually, no
woman should die without knowing the feeling.

CAMERON: All I need is a few drops of your blood.

HOUSE: Foreman and Chase's lips are not gonna get to close, [holding up the syringe] now that I know your
plan.

CAMERON: [appealing] There's a nurse downstairs about to risk his job to steal the blood you drew from
yourself yesterday.

HOUSE: [has had enough] I'm Patient Number Oh-Two-Oh-Four-Oh-Six, in the Record Room, under the name Luke N.
Laura! There's a whole file of blood there, along with CT scans, MRIs, CSF, everything you need.

[Cameron starts to hurry out.]

HOUSE: [calling after her] You need a sperm sample, come back without the needle.

[She gives him a half-smile and leaves.]


CUT TO:

[Light room. Foreman sticks a CAT scan to the lightboard. As mentioned, the patient on the scan is "Luke N.
Laura".]

FOREMAN: Six-centimetre mass in his dorsal midbrain, extending into the temporal lobe. [he turns around
resigned] That's inoperable.

CAMERON: What kind of time does he have?

FOREMAN: He's got a year.


HARD CUT TO:

[Aerial view of PPTH. Day.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [voice over] Nurse!


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. He's seizing heavily. His father tries to hold him down, while yelling out for the nurse.
The nurse enters and checks on Patrick.]


CUT TO:

[Light room. House's scans cover most of the lightboards, while the tired Ducklings try to find ways of
curing him. Cameron seems to have dozed off.]

FOREMAN: [opening a file] Here's a consent from Boston, for the cancer drug trial.

CAMERON: [waking up] Any description of the process for previous trials?

FOREMAN: Yep.

CHASE: Any chance it'll work?

FOREMAN: No. It's not even designed to work.

CAMERON: Why? What're you...?

FOREMAN: It's designed to treat depression in terminal cancer patients.

CHASE: He doesn't seem depressed.

[The door flies open. House limps in, carrying a scan.]

HOUSE: Hah! Okay, let's assume that I am dying. Which I specifically told you not to assume -- [brushes it
off]. Can we at least assume that I'm not dying tomorrow? [puts the scan on the table] Whereas this kid...

[Foreman wearily sits, grimacing.]

HOUSE: PET reveals several more hotspots. But they're non-specific...

FOREMAN: [loud] How can you focus on him?

HOUSE: [mock crying] 'S the only way I can cope. [normal voice] PET also showed the left brain is working
hard...

FOREMAN: Harder than the right?

HOUSE: Wouldn't be worth mentioning otherwise.

CAMERON: Bleeding in the brain. Blood would irritate the lining, might cause the seizures to get worse.

HOUSE: Yes! He needs an angiogram to look at the vasculature inside his brain.

CHASE: We'll get right on it as soon as we're finished here.

[House sees they're resolute, rolls his eyes and takes Patrick's scan off the table.]

HOUSE: Don't get up. I got it. You're busy. Continue.

[He limps off in a huff.]


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. House is performing the angiogram on Patrick.]

HOUSE: You know what my team is doing right now?

PATRICK: No.

HOUSE: Trying to figure what's wrong with me.

PATRICK: What's wrong with you?

HOUSE: Thanks for asking. They found out that I'm dying.

PATRICK: That's sad.

HOUSE: [moves a scanner above Patrick's head] Everyone's dying.

PATRICK: That's sad.

HOUSE: Meteor lands on my head tomorrow, it's all academic. I told them to leave me alone. But did they?

PATRICK: [genuinely curious] Did they?

HOUSE: No, that one was rhetorical.

PATRICK: Oh.

HOUSE: No, they did not.

[Patrick looks away. House watches him for a beat.]

HOUSE: Who the hell were you before you hit your head?

PATRICK: [amused] "Hell" is a bad word.

HOUSE: So is "ass", "bitch".

[Patrick quietly laughs.]

HOUSE: I can probably rattle off fifty much more complicated disgusting ones, but then your dad would get
pissed at me.

[Patrick is really enjoying this conversation.]

HOUSE: Like your life?

PATRICK: What life?

HOUSE: Your life. Like the piano? Going on tours. Scoring girls left and right.

PATRICK: [shyly] I don't like girls.

HOUSE: [oh, okay then] Boys. [shrugs] Whatever gets you off.

PATRICK: I like the piano.

[House looks at the monitor and sees small dots on some blod vessels.]

PATRICK: What's wrong?

[House looks at Patrick.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH Pathology Lab. Foreman is on the phone, while Cameron and Chase condust tests.]

FOREMAN: Dr. Peter Hayes, this is Eric Foreman at Princeton-Plainsborough. You were doing the signal
transduction-inhibitor clinical trial. What kind of results did you...?

HOUSE: [entering from behind] Transduction-inhibitors are a decade away.

[He grabs the receiver from Foreman and puts it to his ear.]

HOUSE: [into phone] Hi, Pete! [hangs up]

[There's a pregnant silence, until Chase stands up.]

CHASE: Got another trial going on at Duke. Fifteen percent extend their lives beyond five years. If you're
positive for Protein PHF...

HOUSE: [interrupting] Stop... trying to save me. I'm fine. MRA confirms smalls collections of blood
throughout the white matter of Patrick's right hemisphere. Mind if we chat about that for a few moments?

CHASE: Either trauma, an aneurysm, cancer or autoimmune disease.

HOUSE: We need a biopsy to figure out which it is.

FOREMAN: EEG was non-specific. Where you gonna biopsy?

HOUSE: Everywhere!

FOREMAN: Sssure. Just put on a blindfold and play "Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Brain".

HOUSE: He's bleeding into his brain. He's dying.

CHASE: You can't just randomly stab the temporal lobe and hope to hit the right spot.

HOUSE: [mock-whining] I'm only gonna take little tiny pieces.

CAMERON: 'Til what?

HOUSE: 'Til I find the problem.

CAMERON: Or you kill him.

HOUSE: No, I'll keep going even if I kill him. [looks at them, sighs] Then he's screwed. Thanks for the chat.

[He walks out.]


CUT TO:

[Aerial view of PPTH. Night.]


CUT TO:

[House's office. House sits on the couch, bouncing his cane on the floor, when Foreman enters.]

FOREMAN: What if... we do the EEG from inside his brain?

HOUSE: I'm actually little insulted. You were supposed to spend the last hour worried about me.

FOREMAN: [carrying on] It's risky and invasive.

HOUSE: But that's why God invented the long consent form. Can you get to why this is a brilliant idea?

FOREMAN: External EEG could get confused if there are multiple structural abnormalities. If we perform the
EEG inside the skull, it could show us where to biopsy.

HOUSE: [shrugs] Brilliant. Go. Do.

FOREMAN: [hangs around] I'd also like to talk to you about...

HOUSE: [getting up from the couch] This is gonna get personal, isn't it?

FOREMAN: Yeah.

[House takes a look at him and beats a hasty retreat. Foreman looks frustrated.]


[CUE MUSIC. "Rainy Day Lament" by Joe Purdy.]


START MONTAGE:

[PPTH Hallway. Dr. Obyedkov sits despondently in front of the Wall Fountain. Foreman holds a consent form in
front of him. He looks up.]

FOREMAN: We'll use a small drill to get inside his skull...

[EEG Room. Patrick's fully shaven head is moved towards the EEG. A hole is drilled into Patrick's head, while
a nurse wipes off the blood pouring out of the hole.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [voice over] He's... bleeding inside...

FOREMAN: Yes. Once we have twelve holes, we'll ____ electrodes ____ injuries against the brain.

[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The soft dialogue was difficult to hear over the loud singing.]

[PPTH Hallway. Dr. Obyedkov hands back the signed consent form to Foreman, who leaves. He looks down,
anxiously.]

[EEG Room. The doctor starts drilling the next hole in a marked spot on Patrick's head. He's awake and seems
a bit uneasy while the doctor adjusts the head clamp. ]

FOREMAN: [voice over] And it's either cancer or autoimmune disease.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [voice over, softly] 'S either?

FOREMAN: [voice over] Yeah.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [voice over] Which one is better?

FOREMAN: [voice over] Neither.

[PPTH Hallway. Dr. Obyedkov has a concerned look on his face.]

[EEG Room. Foreman speaks to Patrick as the holes are being drilled into his head.]


END MONTAGE. END MUSIC


FADE TO:

[Patrick's room. House stands at the piano, hitting a few keys. Foreman enters, closing the door behind him.
He has a file in his hand.]

FOREMAN: Hey.

HOUSE: [eagerly] Where do we cut?

[House reaches for the file, but Foreman moves it out of his reach.]

FOREMAN: We don't. I need to say something.

HOUSE: [here we go again] Something personal?

FOREMAN: Yeah.

HOUSE: And I can't leave because you got something interesting in that file.

FOREMAN: [smug] Sorry.

[House sighs in surrender and sits on the piano stool, pretending to eagerly await Foreman's "personal"
speech.]

FOREMAN: You're an arrogant ass..., who makes it impossible for anyone to like him, by punching people who
don't deserve...

HOUSE: [impatient] Can we get to the "but" part of this speech?

FOREMAN: [softly] But I like you.

HOUSE: [looks at him for a beat] No, you don't. You're just reacting to the perception of my death. You need
to put things in order. Fear of guilt...

FOREMAN: [irritated] Will you shut up?

HOUSE: See? I annoy you. Now are you gonna give me the results or are we gonna... [makes a hug-and-cry
gesture.]

FOREMAN: [sighs in frustration] Inter-cranial EEG showed no electrical abnormalities.

HOUSE: [finally getting his hands on the file] Which means it's autoimmune.

FOREMAN: No. Also showed his entire right hemisphere is brain-dead.

[House takes in this new info.]


CUT TO:

[Diagnostics office. House is chiding the Ducklings.]

HOUSE: So, while you guys were worried about me, half of this kid's brain died. The only solace you should
take from this is the fact that... it didn't. Garden-variety EEG sucks compared to the in-brain variety,
which is not gonna miss brain death.

FOREMAN: He's gotten worse.

HOUSE: Not that much worse.

FOREMAN: Respiration is depressed. Seizures are increasing, one every five minutes.

HOUSE: Not that much worse. He can still talk. He's left-handed, which means his speech is in the right side.

CHASE: You don't know how Patrick's brain reorganized itself twenty-five years ago?

HOUSE: [looking at a model of a brain] What if the right side... is just a little dead. Maybe he has random
neurons firing.

CAMERON: You're just looking for a puzzle to distract you from your own situation.

HOUSE: You're right. He's dead. Let's go home.

[He limps off.]


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. Patrick is awake. His father is standing beside his bed. House and Foreman enter. House is
carrying an electronic Flexi-Piano.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [hopefully] What'd you find out? Is he gonna be okay?

FOREMAN: I'm so sor...

HOUSE: [emphatically] Yes!

[He shoots down Foreman with a look and opens up the Flexi-Piano onto Patrick's bed-table. Foreman takes out
a small paddle and cover's Patrick's right eye.]

FOREMAN: What's this?

PATRICK: [hoarse] A piano.

FOREMAN: [covers Patrick's left eye] What's this?

[Patrick doesn't answer.]

FOREMAN: [to House] He's obviously lost the use of his...

HOUSE: [quietly] Shut up.

[House plays the opening bars of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer". Foreman, as usual, seems to think of it as
an exercise in futility. House stops playing and turns the Flexi-Piano to face Patrick. He moves the bed-
table closer to Patrick. Patrick slowly moves his right hand to the piano and plays the remaining bars
slowly, yet correctly.]

HOUSE: [almost beaming] Music is a global process. Can't play the piano with half a brain.


CUT TO:

[PPTH Hallway. House and Foreman walk along the corridor.]

FOREMAN: What's it mean?

HOUSE: Means the right side of his brain has always sucked. Means it's not relevant what's going on now.

FOREMAN: [smirks] Wow, then it's autoimmune.

HOUSE: Yeah! Question is, what do we do about it?

FOREMAN: 'S likely ones we can fix. Polyarteritis nodosa, Takayasu or sarcoid. I'll start treatment.

[House has stopped walking.]

HOUSE: Not what I was talking about. But yeah, you do that.

[He limps off, leaving Foreman confused.]


CUT TO:

[House's office. He's facing the window and reading an article about Patrick. Chase enters.]

HOUSE: [without turning around] Your turn?

CHASE: Do you have to do that?

HOUSE: [turning around] You mean, cheapen everyone's attempt at a human moment by identifying the real
calculations taht go into it?

CHASE: Yeeah.

HOUSE: Yeah! I do. [goes back to reading the magazine]

CHASE: I'm sorry you're dying. I'm gonna hug you.

[House looks at him, dubiously.]

CHASE: [getting emotional] Anything to say?

HOUSE: Well, if you're considering grabbing my ass, don't start anything...

[Chase ignores him and embraces him. House is expectedly surprised.]

HOUSE: ... you can't finish.

[Chase's face is almost buried in House's shoulder, but it's obvious he's crying. House drops his shoulders.]

HOUSE: As long as we're just standing here, you mind if we work? How's the kid's treatment going?

[Chase says nothing and continues to hold House emotionally.]

HOUSE: Are you crying?

CHASE: [finally letting go] No. [moves away, keeping his back to House] Respiration rate's up. Seizures are
coming down. 'S all good.

HOUSE: Not for what I'm gonna do next.

CHASE: But there is no next. He's gonna be fine.

HOUSE: Only if he wants to remain a four-year-old who wets his bed.

[House starts to limp off.]

CHASE: There's nothing else for him.

HOUSE: There's better. Thanks for the hug. [leaves]

[Chase looks perplexed.]


CUT TO:

[Cuddy's home. Dark. The doorbell is ringing incessantly. She's wearing a nightgown. Sleepily, she staggers
towards the door, putting on nearby lights as she passes. She slaps her hand on the door, peering through the
peep-hole.]

[POV: Peep-hole. It's House, who moves his face closer to the peep-hole, making his face look hilariously
expanded.]

[Cuddy drops her shoulders and opens the door.]

CUDDY: It's the middle of the night. You know I'd be asleep.

HOUSE: Phone would have woken you up just as much. I can see what you're wearing on the phone.

[Wearily, she walks inside. House follows.]

HOUSE: [closing the door] My patient with the fifty-five IQ has Takayasu syndrome. Very uncommon. Happens
mostly in Asian women.

[He enters her living room. She puts on a wrap.]

CUDDY: Takayasu is manageable with steroids, which you already know. So, I assume you're here for something
else.

HOUSE: My patient also has a significant seizure problem.

CUDDY: Also manageable with anticonvulsive medication.

HOUSE: Yes. He kept taking his anticonvulsive medication, he could go back on tour and play the piano.

[Cuddy seems puzzled.]

HOUSE: But... a hemispherectomy would completely stop the right-brain seizure activity and he would no
longer need to take his anticonvulsive medication.

CUDDY: [in disbelief] You want to remove half his brain?

HOUSE: [confirming] The right half. It'd be irresponsible to remove the left.

CUDDY: [arguing] You don't remove half a brain and gain function.

HOUSE: Not my brain. But his, who knows? What? Lets say I'm the left side of Patrick's brain, I'm quick-
witted, I'm charming, I'm great looking.

[Cuddy smiles, amused at his analogy.]

HOUSE: You're the right side of his brain. You're useless, old, damaged.

[Cuddy smile wrily, but humours him nonetheless.]

HOUSE: We go to a bar for a drink. Now, I have the mad skills to be scoring all the hot babes, but instead,
I'm spending my time wiping drool off your chin and making sure you don't eat the tablecloth.

CUDDY: [beat] What's the father wanna do?

HOUSE: I don't know.

CUDDY: [standing up] So go wake him up.

[She starts to walk back to bed, putting off the living room lights. She stops in the foyer, as House comes
up behind.]

CUDDY: House, I'm so sorry.

HOUSE: Forgot I was dying, huh?

CUDDY: I'm here, if you need me.

HOUSE: [all right!] I need you.

[He advances. She smiles and hugs him, standing on her toes. Slowly, he moves his hands and places them
firmly on her butt. She closes her eyes and smiles.]

HOUSE: One small feel for man. One giant ass for mankind.

[She pats him on his back and breaks the hug.]

CUDDY: [softly] Thanks. Good luck in Boston.

[She starts to go back to her bedroom. House starts to follow.]

CUDDY: [without turning or stopping] Call the "Make-A-Wish" Foundation.

[Smiling in defeat, House turns and makes for the door.]


CUT TO:

[Aerial shot of PPTH. Night.]


CUT TO:

[Outside Patrick's room. Patrick is asleep in his room. Dr. Obyedkov comes outside to speak to House.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [much more relaxed] Dr. Foreman was just here. Seizures have almost completely gone away. Says
we might be able to go home in the next day or two. Thank you... so much.

HOUSE: [like asking for change] I think we should we should remove the right side of your son's brain.

DR. OBYEDKOV: I thought you fixed him.

HOUSE: Does he look fixed? Right side of his brain is keeping him walking straight. Other than that, it's
been dead-weight ever since the accident. 'F we remove it, seizures would stop completely.

DR. OBYEDKOV: The seizures are hardly noticeable. They don't bother Patrick.

HOUSE: But without the seizures, the left side would have a chance to actually function. He'll learn to do
new things. Only bummer, he'll never play the piano again.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [shaking his head] No. The piano's everything.

HOUSE: I'm not saying he'd ever work for NASA, but flipping burgers isn't out of the question.

DR. OBYEDKOV: I don't mind taking care of him, so he can play the piano.

HOUSE: No, you're actually lucky. You don't have to watch your kid grow up, you don't have to let go.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [mad] You trying to make this about me? I love my son! Just the way he is!

HOUSE: He's a monkey-grinder at the circus.

DR. OBYEDKOV: He's worked hard to get where he is!

HOUSE: So has the monkey. [beat] The piano is a neurological accident.

DR. OBYEDKOV: It's a gift.

HOUSE: And I'm offering him a life.

[Dr. Obyedkov looks at House a beat and begins to consider it.]

HOUSE: It's up to you.

[House leaves. Dr. Obyedkov looks at Patrick asleep in his room.]


CUT TO:

[PPTH Pathology lab. The tired yet persevering Ducklings continue to run tests on House's samples.]

CHASE: [running a test] I've isolated the cancer proteins in House's CSF.

FOREMAN: [impatient] About time. Can't let him go to Boston if he qualifies for the due [?] trial.

CHASE: [sleepy yet annoyed] You wanna do it?

[Foreman doesn't say anything. Chase hands Cameron a sample, which she carefully places in a machine. She
checks the computer monitor for results. The monitor shows a bar graph with the words "Protein Type PHF".]

CAMERON: Damn. He's negative for Protein PHF. He doesn't qualify.

[Foreman drops his head in frustration. Chase comes over to the computer and types a couple of leys,
bringing up a magnified view of the sample.]

CHASE: [sees something] What's that?

[He zooms into it and points. Cameron and Foreman lean to look.]

CHASE: That shouldn't be there.

[They all take a closer look.]


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. Patrick is asleep in his bed, holding a pillow. His father stands over him, deep in thought.
He sits and lightly taps Patrick on his shoulder.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [gently] Patrick.

[Patrick awakens slowly.]

PATRICK: [softly] Oh, papa.

DR. OBYEDKOV: [smiles lovingly] Patrick, I have a question for you.

PATRICK: Yes?

DR. OBYEDKOV: [fighting back tears] Are you happy?

[Patrick takes a while to say anything. Finally...]

PATRICK: [repeating softly] Are you happy?

[The repeated words are all the answer Dr. Obyedkov needs. He lets out a sob. He shifts around on his seat
in grief, then stands and gives Patrick a short yet fatherly kiss on his forehead. He moves away to the
door.]


CUT TO:

[Operating Room. Patrick's hemispherectomy is underway. A hole has been made in his head and the doctors are
removing the right brain. The camera moves from the OR to the Prep room to the next room, where Dr. Obyedkov
leans nervously against the door.]


CUT TO:

[Aerial view of PPTH. Night.]


CUT TO:

[House's apartment. It's now his time to be rudely awoken. He limps through the darkened apartment, as
excited knocks are heard.]

FOREMAN: [voice over] House! Open up! [knock! knock! knock! knock!] Open up! It's important!

[Foreman keeps knocking, 'til House finally opens up, a bit irritated.]

HOUSE: I got a flight in three hours.

[On the other side of the door, stand three very excited Ducklings.]

FOREMAN: [ecstatic] You don't have cancer. There was an abnormal presence of IgC and IgM indicating...

[As he speaks, he advances inside. House blocks his way with his cane.]

HOUSE: I don't have neurosyphilis. My MRI showed nothing...

CAMERON: [really wide-eyed with joy] It's a gumma in your brain. It's very rare not to be in the liver and
I'm really glad we never slept together, but...

HOUSE: We would have used a condom and I don't have syphilis. My VDRL was negative...

CHASE: We did an FDA antibody test. The VDRL was a false negative. [thrilled to bits] You're not going to
die! All you need is IV antibiotics!

[The Ducklings almost expect House to be jubilant. All House does is stare blankly at them.]

HOUSE: [quietly, seriously] Did you send these results to Mass General?

CHASE: [gestures happily] Of course.

HOUSE: [pissed] You... idiots.

[He walks away from the door in exasperation.]

FOREMAN: [reasoning] We just told you you're not gonna die. You should be making out with Cameron!

[Chase looks annoyed at Foreman for that suggestion.]

CAMERON: [unsure] You knew it wasn't cancer?

HOUSE: I'm sure it wasn't cancer.

CHASE: Then why aren't you celebrating?

HOUSE: [turning around, loudly] Because... it wasn't my damn file!

CAMERON: [non-plussed] You faked cancer?

HOUSE: The real patient is in the Witherspoon Wing. Feel free to tell his wife he's not gonna die, but he is
cheating on her.

CHASE: Why would you want us to think you...?

HOUSE: [exasperated] I didn't!! I wanted the guys at Boston to think that I had cancer. I wanted the guys,
who were gonna implant a cool drug right into pleasure centre of my brain, to think that I had cancer!

CAMERON: [in disbelief] You faked cancer to get high?

[House sighs. The Ducklings look at House in a mixture of astonishment and displeasure.]

HOUSE: I'm going to bed.

[He starts to move towards his bedroom. Cameron is still in shock. Foreman shakes his head.]

FOREMAN: You're right! I don't like you! [leaves]

HOUSE: Sure. Now that I'm not dying.

[Chase leaves. Cameron, pissed, follows, closing the door behind her.]


CUT TO:

[House's office. House is at his desk, reading something and playing with his pen. Wilson enters, looking
a bit miffed. House impatiently waits for him to start ranting.]

WILSON: Heard Patrick's hemispherectomy went well.

HOUSE: He survived the surgery. He's unconscious, but...

WILSON: How depressed are you?!

HOUSE: I'm not depressed.

WILSON: You faked... cancer.

HOUSE: It was an outpatient procedure. I was curious.

WILSON: Are you curious about heroin?

HOUSE: Not since last year's Christmas party. Whoof! [beat] I know thsi goes against your nature, but can we
not make too much of this?

WILSON: You made people think that you were going to die!

HOUSE: [protesting] I didn't make them! I tried to hide it! You idiots needed to get into my business.

[Wilson is about to say something, but just starts laughing.]

HOUSE: I'm sure I'll regret asking, but why are you laughing?

WILSON: It's ironic.

HOUSE: I'm sure I'll regret asking, but why...?

WILSON: Depression in cancer patients. 'S not as common as you think. It's not the dying that gets to people.
It's the dying alone. The patients with family, with friends... they tend to do okay. You don't have cancer.
You do have people who give a damn. So what do you do? [laughs again] You fake the cancer, then push the
people who care away.

HOUSE: Because... they're boring. [looks at Wilson] Go home to your hotel room and laugh at that irony.

WILSON: [smiles wrily] Start small, House. Take a chance. Maybe something that doesn't involve sticking stuff
in your brain. Pizza with a friend. [points to himself with a bow] A movie. Something.

[He leaves. House contemplates Wilson's words.]


CUT TO:

[Aerial view of PPTH. Day.]


CUT TO:

[Patrick's room. House shines a light in Patrick's eyes. Patrick's head is bandaged up.]

HOUSE: [switching off the penlight] Follow my finger.

[He passes his index finger in front of Patrick's face. Patrick follows it correctly.]

HOUSE: You know your name?

[Patrick doesn't respond.]

HOUSE: Speech centre was on the right side. It'll be a while before he's talking.

DR. OBYEDKOV: He hasn't really done anything except that... stare off into the distance.

HOUSE: [nods] It'll take some time to...

[House stops, watching Patrick. Patrick is buttoning up his pajama shirt.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [going to help him] Oh, uh...

[House stops him with his cane. Patrick manages to get one button in correctly. He quickly does the others
and straightens out the shirt. He looks at them.]

DR. OBYEDKOV: [overjoyed] You buttoned your shirt?

[Patrick smiles unsurely.]

HOUSE: Looks happy.

[Camera holds on Patrick.]


CUT TO:

[CUE MUSIC: "See The World" by Gomez]

[Outside. Night. House sullenly walks home. He stops by a restaurant window and sees the Ducklings at a
table, talking. A waiter comes up to take their orders. House stops walking, presumably thinking about
Wilson's advice. A couple happily walks out of the restaurant, past him. House looks inside and seems to
have made a decision. He puts his hand on the doorknob and...]

[END CREDITS.]