(POLICE RADIO CHATTERING)
Are we almost done here?
I have to call my mother, get my daughter, call the hospital.
So he didn't threaten you?
No.
- No fight? - Not really.
Sounds like a yes.
Was there any indication that something would happen?
Yeah.
Every moment I've spent with him.
I was always waiting for something to happen.
But this?
And no idea where he is?
No.
(HELICOPTER HOVERING)
These domestic situations, it's not uncommon to get cold feet.
You're asking me to file charges?
Just give me the paperwork.
If Greg House steps foot in my hospital again,
comes anywhere near me,
I want him thrown in jail.
So, we can use any of these?
Yeah.
And just do whatever we want to her?
That's what they're there for.
(LAUGHS)
Hey! We're just getting to the good part.
Is there a good part? It's performance art.
That's Afsoun Hamidi. She's a genius.
She just won the MacArthur, legally proving it.
Just had a retrospective at the Tate Modern.
Nobody reads The New Yorker?
No, but I subscribed to her patient file.
House, you should relax. You had surgery this morning.
Minor surgery, removing a drain.
Put there during major surgery.
My doctor says it's okay as long as I don't leave my hospital bed.
Which doctor was that, Seuss or J?
Nurse!
Dr. Hourani wrote it in his chart.
I'm surprised he approved it.
I'm more surprised you actually asked.
I do things like that now.
I'm making some changes.
Like skipping ahead to minute 37.
What is that, paint thinner?
(GASPS)
I'm not gonna watch a woman get set on fire.
Philistine.
Who's the guy with the notebook who can't decide what to do?
Her assistant. He's been instructed not to intervene.
Spoiler alert, he does.
For her, it is, literally, heartbreaking.
Let the games begin.
CHASE: Arrhythmia, high hematocrit
and inconsistent RR variability.
You forgot about the fourth symptom, "being completely crazy."
One man's crazy is another woman's art.
Her work explores things like gender politics and self-image.
HOUSE: And the pressing issue of shaving your entire body in public
while wearing a monkey mask.
THIRTEEN: She saw her mom commit suicide
and was abused by her stepdad for years.
Didn't say the crazy wasn't motivated.
Well, she took that pain and transformed it into art.
That's better than a lot of the alternatives.
I still vote for nuts.
We should run a resting state functional MRI
to look for increased activity in the dorsal nexus.
She's not nuts.
The monkey mask shaving medium really speaks to you?
What speaks to me is she's elevated being full of crap
to a genuine art form.
And made a fortune doing it.
People who pay 20 grand for one of her video stills,
on the other hand,
really do need their dorsal nexi checked.
Maybe the paint thinner set off an allergic reaction.
Not without bronchospasm.
There was a space heater next to her in the gallery.
Carbon monoxide poisoning.
It fits.
Put her in a hyperbaric chamber.
(WOMAN ANNOUNCING OVER PA)
(CELL PHONE CHIMING)
Lisa?
You're Lisa Cuddy.
What's this about?
I'm sorry. I'm Jerry Barrett.
I recognized you from the photos.
They barely do you justice.
The usual.
I'm friends with your sister.
She showed me your photos.
I work at the bank across the street.
Julia's my client. She wanted to set us up.
I'm afraid you have me mixed up with somebody else.
No, I don't think so. I've seen many pictures of you, several times.
That didn't sound the way I...
I guess I just have one of those faces.
Nice to meet you.
Yeah. Say hi to Lisa Cuddy when you meet her in the office you share.
Oh, thank God!
The ICU isn't being attacked by giant radioactive spiders.
Did I text you that? That was meant for my dream journal.
I wanted to return your stuff.
Don't worry, I didn't go AWOL.
I had my wife-maid bring it over.
My sweater, a coffee mug,
half used bottle of lotion and a DVD of Marley & Me.
Given your thing for Owen Wilson,
I thought you might want those last two back ASAP.
- I don't get it. - You masturbate to Owen Wilson.
I meant the box.
Oh.
It's a symbolic gesture.
I want things to go back to the way they were before we started dating.
No more bad feelings, no more issues. Just work.
Thanks for coming.
I haven't even spoken to you since you hurt yourself.
I was self-destructive.
It won't happen again.
I'm making changes. I'm gonna stop doing stupid things.
Great.
The smart thing to do would be to talk about why you did it.
If you don't understand...
I think I can avoid putting another hole in my leg
without talking about my mother.
I don't wanna find out you're wrong
by getting another phone call from you in a bloody bathtub.
I'm a big believer that the best way to get past the past
is to shoot it in the head,
bury it in a deep pit and pour lye on it.
I'm just asking you to talk about it.
You owe me.
Forget about saving your life,
you exposed my daughter to that obnoxious pirate cartoon.
Bring me lunch tomorrow and we can plumb my depths.
I should have known the gallery wasn't ventilated enough.
Hey, if it wasn't for you,
we'd be treating her for third-degree burns, too.
AFSOUN: That was a mistake.
He shouldn't have interfered.
LUCA: I told you I'm sorry.
I want to share your commitment,
but it's hard for me sometimes.
Like when she read your love letters
in the middle of the New Museum?
Yes, I read The New Yorker.
That was a year ago, and we're not together any more.
Seriously, you weren't really gonna let that guy set you on fire?
He was just a plant to get the crowd going, right?
If that's your interpretation, I welcome it.
Afsoun believes explaining her work limits its potential.
But between us, he was real. And a total dick.
FOREMAN: No sane person would let themselves
be burned alive for the sake of art.
My work is meant to force the audience to break with the rational
and see things in a new way.
Fine. No sane person would let themselves be burned alive
to break with the rational.
I feel...
(RETCHING)
Luca, hand me the oxygen mask behind you.
(COUGHING)
THIRTEEN: Luca!
Congratulations, it's a gestational sac.
You can't see anything this early. I know.
I just figured this would help me process what's happening.
There's a lot we gotta figure out.
We have almost eight months.
You're not having doubts, are you?
No. Are you?
Definitely not.
A nice, cozy home for little Ruben.
- It's a family name. - It's a sandwich.
Named for my family.
(CELL PHONE CHIMING)
It's just House.
I swear to God, stay out of my personal life.
Where's the downside here?
Huh? Jerry is cute,
he's a Senior VP,
he kite-surfs in Costa Rica every winter, and he loves his mother.
Seasonally?
Or is that just the kite-surfing?
Is this about House?
What?
Like, I secretly wish I could alter the laws of the universe,
change who we are and magically make it work out?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm asking.
And my sarcasm indicated "no."
No. Your sarcasm indicated you wanted
to avoid actually saying anything.
Look, Lisa...
All I know is you seem stuck.
And I don't like seeing you like that.
She got worse in the hyperbaric chamber, it's not CO poisoning.
I think we should consider infection and test the assistant.
I couldn't get his attention, he was in a daze.
FOREMAN: You think that's a symptom? He's in love with her.
He's probably just overwhelmed and couldn't decide what to do.
What's he been doing since she was admitted?
Did he bring anything from the patient room into the treatment room?
Few things. A handbag, flowers, a stuffed elephant.
Does she seem like the kind of woman who needs a stuffed animal?
THIRTEEN: Who are you calling?
(CELL PHONE RINGING)
Oh. Of course.
What are you wearing?
Oh. I can see what you're wearing. Go to her room.
HOUSE ON PHONE: Now go address the elephant in the room.
This is a nanny cam.
The reason Luca couldn't decide
what to do in the treatment room
is the same as in the gallery.
He's been told not to intervene.
Congratulations. We've become her latest work of art.
THIRTEEN: It shouldn't have surprised us.
All her work is based on personal traumas.
She's had Luca taking notes, videotape her treatments,
collect things, like sharps and bandages.
It'll all go into a gallery installation.
Well, then, I guess as long as the exploitation is properly motivated,
it's all okay. (CELL PHONE CHIMES)
Ultrasound showed a cyst on her pancreas. We drained it...
TAUB: Why are we even discussing this case?
She lied to us, it's opening us up to malpractice...
Our practice opens us up to malpractice.
How do we know she's actually sick?
Her being sick is a clue.
She would have let that guy set her on fire for the sake of her work.
You think she's scared of a little arrhythmia?
She probably huffed paint thinner.
She would have let him set her on fire
because of the honesty of her work.
Faking an illness doesn't fit. Thirteen's right.
At least her conclusion was.
Everything else was laughably wrong.
If the patient induced pancreatitis
and a heart attack, she'd be suicidal.
Exactly. She's risking her life all the time.
Exactly. If she wanted to be dead,
she'd be dead a long time ago.
Pretending to cheat death pays better than watercolors.
Coxsackie B fits. But do a spiral CT
of her biliary tree to rule out gallstones.
Fine. I'll get the CT.
HOUSE: Sure, I'd be happy to come with you.
Thanks for asking.
You're supposed to stay in bed. Doctor's orders.
If you really cared about me,
you wouldn't be so obvious when you scheme to prove me wrong.
You volunteered because you want to CT her lungs,
not her biliary tree.
You want to find fibrosis and prove your paint thinner theory.
If I don't come with, when you fail,
you'll pretend you never tried.
I don't really have a choice now, do I?
(WHISTLING)
Since I've seen your pay check, I probably shouldn't...
But canned beans aren't so bad.
Once they're cooked over an oil drum fire
under a bridge with the king of the hobos...
AFSOUN: I feel dizzy.
(CT SCANNER BEEPING)
Pale, diaphoretic, tachycardia.
BP 80 over 40.
Internal bleeding?
Get her out of here and scope her.
CHASE: I'm sorry. (GROANS)
The colonoscopy didn't find the bleed,
so we gotta look by your liver.
Luca, please. We need to document everything.
(CLICKING)
Hold this.
I'm just below the celiac artery.
No blood.
Could it be leaking into her thighs?
No swelling, no asymmetry...
So where's the blood going?
Why are you looking down there?
Because I don't like beans.
You stood me up. Sorry.
I should have scheduled my patient's internal bleeding for Thursday.
You're still playing the same petty passive-aggressive games.
Got you to go all the way to the second floor
of the building you work in.
Boy, did I screw with you.
You said you were going to change.
Check the sign.
It says you got to treat me with intensive care.
I'm expressing my anger. You should try it.
Right now. Let's finally have our fight.
All we do is fight.
No, all you've done is pull pranks,
or have temper tantrums with Wilson, never me,
marry mail-order prostitutes,
make me go to your wedding...
Dominika is a licensed esthetician.
You cut open your own leg!
So all this was about you?
You don't think it was even related?
House, we've never even had a conversation about our breakup.
You are obviously still angry at me,
and it's hurting both of us.
Wow. I didn't realize the incredible healing power of lunch.
I know one conversation isn't gonna solve everything,
but it is a start.
It's a privacy curtain.
It wasn't working.
Lunch at 1:00, tomorrow in the cafeteria. You happy?
FOREMAN: How many of those have you had today?
I don't know. ls "your mother" a number?
The patient is a fraud.
I found a puncture in the dorsal vein of her left foot.
Shooting up heroin wouldn't explain...
Not heroin,
she was injecting herself with her own red blood cells.
It caused her heart issues,
and when her hematocrit evened out,
we mistook it for internal bleeding.
That must've been a very distinctively shaped,
and awfully talkative puncture
for you to get all of that.
The browser history on her laptop helped.
She was researching blood doping, among other things.
She was researching me?
For months.
This isn't about creating art in the moment.
It's about you.
She set you up.
We sent a uni over to his apartment and the hospital.
Yeah, he won't be there.
Any ideas?
When you find him, you're gonna arrest him?
Is there some reason you think I shouldn't?
Knowing him, he'll be in a bar.
He'll find one that matches how he feels inside.
It'll be the most dark, depressing hole
you can find in New Jersey.
(SIGHS)
Now you're just pissing me off.
LUCA: I'm really sorry. I didn't know she researched you,
- I had no idea she... HOUSE: - You don't know anything?
Then why are you talking?
AFSOUN: Please, don't take it out on Luca.
I'll take it out on whoever I think will irritate you the most.
I thought you would understand someone
who uses their work to deal with pain.
I didn't realize that search engines could look within the soul.
You're standing in front of me in a hospital gown.
What the hell is the point of this?
What personal trauma are you exploiting...
Sorry. Mining for its artistic potential?
My illness.
I did the blood doping to intrigue you, but I was already ill.
Wait. You're really sick?
- Why me? LUCA: - Do you know what you have?
- Yes. - So tell him.
If I do, there won't be any game for him.
And then, there won't be any art for us.
Why me?
I don't answer those questions.
You know, there's a lot of games I could play
that don't involve dealing with narcissistic, manipulative posers.
But this is a puzzle tailor-made for you.
You don't know which of my symptoms are real,
which are fake, which ones I'm not even telling you about.
I know that intrigues you.
Do you really want to end it now?
No.
You want us to waste a bed on her?
You took an oath,
an oath to be cool.
At least that was the one I mumbled under my breath
while everyone else was doing the boring one.
Even if she is sick, which I don't believe,
she also says she has a diagnosis.
So, it's either just a lie or it's just a game.
So what? I like the game, it's fun.
Go get a blood culture. Check for parasites and bacteria.
FOREMAN: This is the new House?
Half the leg power, twice the irresponsibility?
The new House is about making my life healthier.
I never said anything about yours.
Go get her blood.
I'll do it.
He's going through a tough patch right now.
If this is the distraction he needs
to keep him in his hospital bed,
I'm sure it's better than any of the alternatives.
That was incredibly condescending. Did it work?
(CELL PHONE CHIMING)
Why do you keep ducking your wife's calls?
Ex-wife.
I'm sure she just wants to congratulate you
about knocking up a 22-year-old nurse.
I haven't told her yet.
But you have told her you're not gonna
sleep with her any more, right?
(SCOFFS)
How are you planning on letting her know?
Just invite her to the bris?
I'm trying to let her down easy.
Rachel never wanted to have kids,
I don't want to hurt her feelings.
Yeah, you are all about feelings.
I've loved Rachel for 20 years.
What if she never speaks to me again?
She's gonna find out. It better be from you.
You can't cheat your way out of this one.
(GROANS)
What is it?
A F ' v UN: Just the nausea.
She said her back was hurting earlier.
What's the pain level on a scale of one to 10?
Five.
How do we know we can take her word for it?
THIRTEEN: We can't.
Fun,huh?
Roll on your side.
Grey-Turner's sign.
We're done playing.
Your pancreas is releasing corrosive enzymes.
It'll eat away at the surrounding organs.
But you must know that.
The doctor who diagnosed you would have said
what will happen if you don't get treatment.
Just tell them.
If you know what's wrong with you,
tell them so they can fix it.
How many projects have we done together?
You're always so worried.
Have you ever gone wrong trusting me?
(INDISTICT CHATTER)
That pancreatic cyst we drained, it's back.
And she doesn't care at all.
You think she actually is suicidal?
I would.
But how does she give herself the cysts?
Tox screen was negative, and there's no sign of trauma.
There is another explanation.
The reason that she didn't react isn't 'cause she wants to die.
It's 'cause she knows she can't do anything about it.
Whatever she has, it's fatal.
That should narrow it down.
What are we doing here?
Testing a theory.
It's based on some stuff you can't understand,
like RR variability.
And some stuff you can,
like the fact she shaved her head
in an art piece four months ago.
That was a commentary on society's...
It was a commentary on the fact
that it was gonna fall out anyway,
and she wanted to hide why.
Cancer?
Are you sure about that?
See that tumor-ish thingamajig near her brainamabob?
Are you getting this?
Game's over. I won.
Primary CNS lymphoma with associated paraneoplastic syndrome.
Is that really what it is?
Yes.
Four months ago, I had some vision and balance problems
and New York Mercy diagnosed me.
The tumor was too close to the brain stem to cut out,
so they did a few rounds of radiation.
But it didn't work, and they sent me home.
That was around the time you broke up with me.
We were having a fling. It wouldn't have been fair to involve you.
I'm involved now. You just didn't want to open up.
Luca, my mind was not clear then.
And then you cleared it.
You realized you could use your death to make your magnum opus.
Maybe you wanted to show that no one can cheat death,
even with an entire team of doctors with unlimited resources.
Or maybe your first doctors
didn't treat you like a person,
just a series of symptoms.
You wanted to recreate that depersonalization,
and I was the man to see.
If that was what I thought, I don't any longer.
You spent time with me,
you took this personally.
No, I didn't.
And I don't actually think your piece is about anything.
I think you just figured out that you were mortal.
Just a bag of cells and waste
with an expiration date.
You wanted to act out, you wanted people to notice.
Maybe you even prayed for a different answer this time.
I got a title for your piece.
"It doesn't mean anything."
WILSON: You're forging my name on prescriptions again.
No.
What you just said implies that I stopped at some point.
Twenty minutes ago, I put a notice out to all local pharmacies
to require verbal authorization
before filling in my prescriptions.
You have any idea how much extra work you've just given yourself?
You're not gonna last a week.
I've been dealing with this for years,
but it's over.
Your liver, your hearing,
never mind the fact that each scrip you write is a separate felony.
You will serve time. So could I.
You've chosen this moment to give me crap about my Vicodin use?
You filled this three days ago,
now it's almost half gone.
So is my leg.
It's a month's supply.
The amount you're taking has nothing to do with physical pain.
Okay-
So, maybe I am trying to numb myself a little.
Because I'm trying to change.
I'm trying to stop being self-destructive.
So, you can only handle not self-destructing
by being self-destructive?
What do you want from me?
I don't know, House. But I'm worried about you.
I don't know how many times I can watch you
cut off pieces of yourself.
Now it's the ICU, next time it'll be the morgue.
You're miserable and you're angry.
And I want you to actually deal with that
and not just try to medicate the issue away.
No.
You know what I feel right now?
I don't feel miserable or angry. I don't feel good or bad.
I feel nothing.
Which feels great.
What are you doing?
Moving on. In the direction of my house,
where I've got some more pills.
You're discharging yourself against doctor's orders,
you've got to check that box.
I'm a doctor, so technically...
Wouldn't it be easier if you just checked the box?
Why are you still here?
I'm going as soon as the nurse brings me something for my eczema.
I figured it was irritated by the paint thinner
poured on me in the gallery.
Does this mean something?
It's not eczema.
And it's not cancer.
CHASE: It's Wegener's granulomatosis.
The biopsy confirmed that what you thought was eczema
was actually a swelling of the blood vessels in your skin.
It also explains the pancreatitis and the mass in your brain.
And it's treatable.
What's the treatment?
We could do steroids alone,
to shrink the growth in your brain.
But it's much better to add another course of radiation.
Radiation? On my brain?
But it made me fuzzy last time.
It was harder to work.
I'm still slowed down from it.
And it'll get worse.
But, you know, dying can also do a number on your ability to think.
I'm sorry. I can't do the radiation.
They just said it was the better treatment.
It could save your life.
My life's not worth anything if I can't do my art.
You have friends, people who care about you.
This is my brain, my work and my life, Luca.
You have more!
This is not some great performance piece any more.
This is just crazy.
I'm sorry.
I can't watch you die.
Not when you can save yourself.
Goodbye, Afsoun.
Good for you.
- So... - So...
Why did I ever ban alcohol from the cafeteria?
Before I forget, there's a brush,
tortoise shell handle, natural bristles.
It wasn't in the box. If you could look for it?
Like the Lindbergh baby.
You dating anyone?
We don't have to...
Look, it's just standard lunch conversation.
Not for us.
Okay, well, if you've gone over
to the "we don't talk about things" side,
then I got a pot roast in the oven.
No.
I haven't dated anyone since you.
You know what they say, once you go gimp...
We should talk about your leg.
You think I have unresolved issues,
and you are the unresolved issues.
Yes.
But I think it's more than that.
Your life, your choices...
I did it to fix my life.
No, wait.
No, I did it because I am a deeply unhappy person.
No, I did it to get sympathy from you.
I did it to piss you off. I did it because I'm not over you.
Or I was over you and I was moving on.
I did it because I wanna know
what it's like not to be in pain.
I did it because I wanna feel more pain.
Whatever the reason, it was a bad reason and a bad idea.
That's all that matters.
Good lunch.
House! Talk to me.
I already did.
No, you just parroted back
what Wilson and I have been saying to you the last few days.
- Get out of my way. - No.
You pulled a stitch.
House, please. Just talk to me.
You want to know how I feel?
I feel hurt.
I know.
I'm sorry.
It's not your fault.
Did I make the wrong choice?
Five years, through every opening, every installation,
every day and every night,
he was there the whole time.
Except the first time you were diagnosed.
You broke up with him and you had to go through all of that alone.
Maybe that's the real reason you're doing this piece,
so that this time, you can have him with you.
You still could.
Hi.
Lisa Cuddy. Nice to meet you.
I'm sorry about the other day.
I... There was some personal things going on in my life
and I wasn't at my best.
Well, in retrospect,
my approach could've come off as a little creepy.
No.
On a scale from one to creepy,
you were, maybe, mildly unnerving.
(CHUCKLES)
Rach.
Sorry I ducked your calls. I keep making the same mistakes,
- but at some point... - Chris.
I'm pregnant.
I didn't expect that.
Sorry, I was checking the stitches on my penis.
Your leg okay?
- It's healing. - Good.
Just came to grab the radiation therapy forms.
What?
Afsoun changed her mind.
Get out.
You made a decision.
- I changed my mind. - Why?
Because there are more important things than...
Than what? Than your brain? Your abilities?
That's where everything comes from,
any meaning in your life, any happiness.
Not all happiness.
He's already left once.
He's gonna leave you again.
You don't need to depend on people who are gonna let you down.
If you do this, you're a pathetic hypocrite.
You're saying that your whole life,
all your work up until him was a pointless...
Why are you doing this?
(DOOR SLIDES OPEN)
(KNOCKING ON DOOR)
(PILLS RATTLING)
(CELL PHONE RINGING)
WILSON: House, I can hear your phone ringing.
You all right?
Did you go to lunch with Cuddy?
Yeah.
How was it?
The pasta arrabiata was cold.
Why don't we get a drink?
We could go to the Sawmill.
Cuddy's is on the way.
I need to return this.
You think she's going to have an emergency tangle?
It was on my mind.
I want to get it off.
(DOOR OPENS)
Want me to come?
You think I'm gonna get in trouble?
I'm delivering a hairbrush.
What just happened?
Get out.
What just happened?
Get out.
House, what are you mad about?
Just let it out, you'll feel better.
(STARTS ENGINE)
(TIRES SCREECHING)
You're right. I feel much better.
(EXHALES)
You want another one?
No, I think I've had enough.
What do you think I should do today?
I don't know, go home?
Not tonight.
Cheers.
(SEAGULLS CAWING)