House:  Hey.

Kutner: Don't bother. He's d*ad.

House: You're d*ad too.

Kutner: [gesturing with his chin] The f*re isn't.

[House looks past the d*ad guy. There’s a rosy glow showing through the wide cracks between the floorboards. House looks back at Kutner.]

OPENING CREDITS 

Cut to a long sh*t of the room. It looks like a deserted factory. Kutner stands in the middle, facing House who is propped up on a central wall, across from the windows.

Kutner: You might want to get up and start heading for the exit signs.

House: For all I know, I already am up. More interesting question is why would I hallucinate an ex-employee who I last saw with a self-inflicted g*n wound, as opposed to someone more… busty? [Kutner takes his gum out of his mouth and looks around.] Care to explain why you're here?

Kutner: The d*ad guy. Who is he? How'd you meet him?

[Cut to the clinic. House is wearing a blue button-down shirt and a jacket over the black T-shirt he had on in the building. The d*ad guy, Oliver, is House’s patient. He has a nasty bruise on his left cheekbone.]

Oliver: I was in a car accident last month.

House: I won a swimming trophy in high school. Your turn.

Oliver: I-I ran out of pain medication. I got an orbital fracture. It's just taking ages to heal.

House: Take off your shirt. [puts down the patient file]

Oliver: My eye's up here. [points]

House: Orbital fracture means your face went into the windshield, which means your chest went into the steering wheel. Painkillers can suppress heart rate, so unless you want me to k*ll you, take off your shirt, let me do a heart exam.

[As Oliver removes his tie and unbuttons his shirt, House gets up and faces the wall. Without turning around, he continues:]

House: I also wanted to see the ring of burns around your collarbone.

[He turns back. Oliver has several circular burns right where House said they would be.]

Oliver: How'd you know?

House: The codeine allergy you told the nurse about. That's shorthand for "give me the strong stuff," which matches your seen-better-days-because-my-life-fell-apart suit. The two old burns on your fingers mean you tend to nod off with a cigarette in your hand. No reason you shouldn't do that with one in your mouth. May all your doctors be stupid. [Annoyed, Oliver grabs his jacket and tie, preparing to leave.] Hold on a second. That bruising around your belly button. [He examines the streaky, purple bruise extending for several inches in each direction.] Well, you might get some fun drugs out of this after all.

[Cut to Diagnostics. House distributes patient files to the team.]

House: Cullen's sign. But the ultrasound showed air as well as blood. Now, I know what you're thinking. Hemorrhagic pancreatitis. But I also know what I'm thinking. Doesn't explain the pneuomoperitoneum.

Adams: You took a new case?

Park: You ran tests yourself?

House: I saw the chance to help someone in need, and I instinctively — Oh, no, wait, that was someone else's instinct.

Taub: Wilson is dying. Your parole officer is probably on his way here right now. How are you possibly in a good mood?

House: Did you never see d*ad Poets Society? Carpe diem.

Adams: Air in his abdomen could mean blah, blah, blah. Blah?

Taub: But blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Park: Blah. Blah, blah.

[Cut back to the burning building. Kutner shrugs at House who explains leaving out the details in his narrative.]

House: Nobody cares about the medicine. It was a perforated ulcer. Laparotomy to find the hole in his tummy and close it up.

Kutner: You didn't answer the team's question.

House: Which is weird, because normally, when I talk to my own employees, I'm under oath and hooked up to a lie detector.

Kutner: You were looking at six months of prison instead of five months of Wilson. Why happy?

House: Obviously I had a plan.

Kutner: Obviously, obviously you had a plan. The more interesting question is why you didn't tell the team. I think it's because part of you knew from the start that the plan wouldn't work.

[Cut to Foreman’s office. Foreman is kneeling, putting paper under the leg on an end table. He pulls it out and folds it in half before trying again.]

House: I need a meeting.

Foreman: I'm busy. Call my office.

House: [reaching into his pocket] Yes… because wobbly tables don't just unwobble themselves.

[Foreman’s phone rings. He picks up the receiver but doesn’t bother to put it to his ear. House speaks into his cell phone.]

House: I need a meeting. [Foreman hangs up. House puts his cell phone back in his pocket.] Thanks for fitting me in. My team has eight urgent, life-or-death cases that they've been waiting for me to accept or reject.

Foreman: When is that not true?

[Foreman walks out. House follows him through the clinic and the lobby to the elevator.]

House: Well, right now, for one. But tell my parole board that I'm taking all eight… that no one else can crack them; that you need me here for the next five months or eight people will die.

Foreman: You're asking me to perjure myself.

House: It's a tiny, white lie. No offense. Especially since, from what I hear, nothing black is tiny. Except your penis, I guess. [Foreman pushes for the elevator] You really think I wanted to cave in that ceiling? It was a prank that went wrong. Dock my pay, sue me—

Foreman: Felony vandalism should have added another year or two to your sentence. It's a miracle the parole board agreed to six months.

House: [serious] I will go to jail, eventually. I will pay the price. I just rather that Wilson didn't. Come on, be a friend.

Foreman: [thinks, then sighs] Okay. But whatever cases you have, you have to take them all.

[House nods as Foreman gets on the elevator. He turns and Kutner is standing in front of the reception desk.]

Kutner: "Be a friend"?

House: How many fingers am I holding up? [He puts his hand behind his back.] Of course you know it's three, because you know everything I know. Everything my smack-addled brain can remember, including that I actually said, "be a friend."

Kutner: My point wasn't that you said it. My point was, once again, why? I think it's because part of you knew you were gonna need a friend. Part of you knew the plan, even when it was working, wouldn't work. And right now, I'm curious about why you're sitting on the ground instead of heading for the door.

[Cut to the present in the burning building. House hasn’t moved.]

Kutner: Guess we’ve figured out why you're seeing me; your suicidal friend.

**

[Cut to Wilson’s office. He is briefing Dr. Frankel on a patient.]

Wilson: He'll call you twice a day. Then his wife will call you twice a day to make sure she understands what he told her you told him, which she won't because he didn't.

Frankel: Maybe you want to give this one to Connors.

[Wilson laughs. The door opens and Foreman, who didn’t bother to knock, enters.]

Foreman: Where's House?

Wilson: Don't know, don't care. Working. [Foreman doesn’t budge. Wilson rolls his eyes and turns to Frankel.] Excuse me.

[He joins Foreman in the hall.]

Foreman: No one has seen or heard from him since two nights ago.

Wilson: I'm sure he's enjoying himself. Last time he went to prison, he maxed out his credit cards.

Foreman: Last time he went to prison, he thought he had you waiting for him.

Wilson: You think he could've done something stupid?

Foreman: I think stupid is our best-case scenario.

[Cut to the building.]

Kutner: Why do you want to k*ll yourself?

House: Well, here's a reason. I can't even get stoned without some annoying jerk deciding I need to be deeply analyzed. Isn't this just an incredibly simple calculation? I'm going to jail, losing my job, losing my best friend. Do I need more?

Kutner: You think that's the sum total of who you are? A doctor? A friend to Wilson?

House: I'm also a tremendous baritone. Now go away.

Kutner: Even with your subconscious, you're evasive. [He sits next to House who refuses to look at him.] Death's not interesting. You exist for what's interesting. Puzzles, ideas, analysis. Death is the opposite of a cool puzzle. It's eternal nothingness. But you don't find life interesting anymore.

Amber: Stop being an idiot.

[Amber is standing in front of House, several feet away.]

House: Can I have Kutner back, please?

Amber: How much pathetic wallowing do I have to sit through?

House: How are things in hell? Is the humidity the big issue?

Amber: What happened next with the guy's medical case?

House: Why?

Amber: Exactly. Why am I, meaning you, still obsessing about this case? Obviously we think it's relevant to why we're still sitting on the floor of a burning building.

House: There was a code.

[Cut to the hospital. House slides the door to Oliver’s room open. The alarms on his monitors are beeping. Park, Adams and Taub are all treating him.]

Adams: Gotta be a clot in his lungs. We need to get him to an O.R.

Park: No time. His O-2 stats are falling. We have to suck it out here. Bedside embolectomy.

Adams: Float a catheter through his heart and his oxygenation will get even worse. He'll die before we can finish the procedure.

[House looks though a cart in the room.]

Taub: House, we need a call here.

[House fills a syringe that was in the unlocked cart with a drug that was there as well. He pushes it into Oliver’s IV.]

Adams: What are you doing? What did you give him?

House: Five… four… three… two…

Oliver: [his eyes pop open and he flails at the doctors] Ahhh! Arg!! Ahhh!

House: Naloxone. We should've got suspicious when his visiting cousin signed in as "Mr. Tar H. Horse." Heroin caused the respiratory distress. The naloxone turned off the receptors, caused your distress.

Oliver: [shouting] I'm not gonna stop doing drugs! It's reality that sucks!

[Amber laughs. She’s in Oliver’s room with House. The rest of the team has disappeared and Oliver is asleep.]

House: You're saying I'm lying… to my subconscious?

Amber: People do it all the time. And like it or not, you are a person.

House: He said every one of those things.

Amber: But not then and not like that. This guy was going nuts from the naloxone. He couldn't be rational if you wanted him to be, which you did. Why?

House: I compressed the story a little—

Amber: Context matters. You never talk to patients for non-diagnostic reasons, but this guy…

[House is in a chair next to Oliver’s bed. Oliver wakes up and looks at him.]

House: Feeling better?

Oliver: I'm not gonna stop doing drugs.

House: You were a stockbroker. Son of a stockbroker. Married, children.

Oliver: I was miserable.

House: Well, you say you were miserable because you need to rationalize screwing it up.

Oliver: Except I didn't. I mean, I-I did. But I'm not miserable. Not anymore. [House, fascinated, studies Oliver’s faces as he talks.] I had a ski injury and painkillers weren't enough, and a friend of mine gave me some heroin. The second it entered my veins, it was like… God had taken over my body. It was like there was no more pain or unhappiness in my life or anybody else's.

House: But then you lost everything.

Oliver: Everything wasn't enough. Because it's reality that sucks.

[Cut to the building. Amber is sitting on the floor, using Oliver’s legs as a footrest. She has House’s cane.]

Amber: Are you arguing that he's a good role model?

House: He's happy.

Amber: He's d*ad. You heard what you wanted to hear. The more interesting question — always — is why you wanted to hear it.

[Cut to Oliver’s room. Oliver is asleep. House is using the oxygen mask. Foreman enters.]

Foreman: You're stealing this guy's oxygen?

House: There's oxygen everywhere.

[Foreman takes the oxygen mask and puts it on Oliver’s face.]

Foreman: You passed on all your cases, reassigned them to other doctors.

House: They weren't interesting.

Foreman: They were my reason for getting your sentence delayed!

House: Yeah, well, I guess you'll have to tell the parole board something else. Maybe that I was in the O.R. the entire day the ceiling collapsed, so I couldn't have caused the plumbing problem.

Foreman: You set me up.

House: Not really. You were going to basically perjure yourself so that I could delay jail time. Doesn't it make more sense to actually perjure yourself so that I can actually avoid jail time?

Foreman: Why are you doing this? Why are you risking destroying yourself?

House: There's no risk. I know you. You'll do the honest thing. You'll lie.

[There is a long pause while Foreman looks at House.]

Foreman: No.

[House stares at him, dumbfounded, as he leaves the room.]

[Cut to the building. House looks at Oliver.]

House: He's happy.

Amber: He's d*ad.

**

Amber: You weren't worried.

House: Of course I was worried. My plan fell through.

Amber: The plan didn't matter. Your plan to replace that plan didn't matter. Wilson didn't matter. Jail didn't matter. The only thing that mattered, the only thing that ever mattered, was the puzzle.

[Cut to Oliver’s room. House sits next to Oliver’s bed. He checks out Oliver’s left hand.]

House: I noticed a slight twitch in his thenar eminence, which meant… [to Oliver] You're dying.

Oliver: Because my thumb's a little shaky?

House: Plus the thinning in the muscle, plus that speech you gave at Yankee Stadium saying you were the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Add them up, it means ALS.

Oliver: Lou Gehrig's disease? You're trapped in your body; you can't move or speak while you just die?

House: If it makes you feel any better, at this rate, it'll be fast. [As Oliver drops his head onto his pillow, House, standing on the right side of the bed, continues to observe him.] You're not symmetrical.

Amber: Wait. Now you're standing at the door. What happened in the meantime?

House: And lo, there was a miraculous wonder — I walked across the room.

Amber: No, you just skipped over a chunk of conversation.

House: He swore that he would live a better and more selfless life in his remaining time, blah, blah, blah. After two blahs, I'd heard enough. I moved to the door.

Amber: No, you're avoiding it.

House: Do you smell smoke?

Amber: [accepting his reason for editing his report] Fair enough.

House: [to Oliver] You're not symmetrical. The veins on your right side are distended.

Oliver: What does that mean?

House: [examining Oliver’s neck] There's a bulge in your superclavicular notch. There's something in there.

Oliver: What?

House: Well, I'm not that good a doctor. [pulls over an ultrasound machine and checks Oliver’s neck] Good news: your case is fascinating. And good news for you: you're gonna live.

House: [voice over] You've inhaled a small branch, probably while you were realizing that it's all worth it, while you were passed out on a park bench. Anyone else would have coughed it up, but 'cause you're a junkie, your cough reflex is suppressed.

Oliver: [voice over] And it grew?

House: [voice over] Not unless you also inhaled a chunk of the sun and a drip-irrigation system, you idiot. It set off an auto-immune reaction, which — I can't help saying this — was the root of all your problems. [Taub holds up a small piece of a fir branch, including the needles.]

[Cut to the building]

Amber: You're smiling.

House: I was, and now I'm not. Because a moment's fun a few days ago does not trump a friend dying.

Amber: [staring down at him] Yeah, it does, you idiot. 'Cause after he's d*ad, you cry for a while, and then you go back to doing what you love.

House: Every patient that I've had, 70 years from now, they'll all be as d*ad as Wilson. Everybody dies. It's meaningless.

Amber: [sitting next to him] When you solve a puzzle, the world makes sense, and everything feels right. And you'll always have another one, because people always get sick. It's shallow and it's insignificant, but if you don't give a damn if idiots live, why would you possibly give a damn about shallowness? It makes you happy. And why would you need more than that? Go home.

[House gets up and takes his cane. He is limping heavily. The door to the stairs is on the far side of the room. He opens it. The f*re is enormous, with flames as tall as he is. He slams the door shut and looks at Amber. Some of the wooden floorboards behind her are on f*re.]

[Cut to House’s apartment. Wilson is near the piano, holding a Chinese food takeout carton. There are more cartons on the table in front of him.]

Wilson: Foreman! [Foreman enters from the hallway.] House would never leave food out here rotting for days.

Foreman: His suitcases are in his closet.

Wilson: If we had handled this differently—

Foreman: We did the right thing. [A phone rings. They go into the kitchen. House’s cell phone is on the counter. Foreman answers it.] Hello? I'll let his accountant know. [hangs up] House no-showed on a hooker two nights ago.

Wilson: [grabs the phone] Outgoing calls. Hooker… me, I didn't pick up. Chinese place…

Foreman: Wait, wait, wait. Who's that? He called four times.

Wilson: I don't know.

[Cut to the building. The floor space is L-shaped. House turns down the leg away from where Oliver’s body is. He walks around but stops short as the floor under his feet almost gives way. He taps with his cane, finding a s*ab spot he can step to. The fourth time a floorboard cracks loudly and he falls through a hole up to his armpits. As he struggles, his feet, sticking through the ceiling of the ground floor, kick ineffectually. He tries to pull himself up but the hole widens and he falls to the floor below.]

[Cut to the lower level. House lands feet first then falls to the floor. Pieces of wood and other debris fall on top of him. House makes one sound as he pushes some wood off him and grabs his right leg. He sits up and looks around. The f*re is everywhere. The ceiling of this floor, which is only the underside of the wooden floor above, is completely engulfed in flames.]

**

Male Patient: It's a total disaster. Do you have any idea how hard it is to schedule a cable appointment with the hours that I work?

[Nolan is about to answer when the door opens. Foreman, who apparently has le arned about knocking from The Gregory House School of Etiquette, enters, followed by Wilson and Nolan’s assistant (who leaves immediately.)]

Foreman: House has been missing for two days. We know he talked to you.

Wilson: Anything you can tell us about his mental state, or where he was headed — anything at all—

Nolan: [sitting up straight] Would be a breach of confidentiality and a violation of the law.

Foreman: Not if he's a danger to himself or someone else.

[Nolan thinks about how to answer this.]

Male Patient: Is this coming out of our 50 minutes?

Foreman: Is this your douche bag group?

Nolan: [to the patient] Excuse me.

[He gestures to the door. He, Wilson and Foreman go into the hall, closing the door behind them.]

Nolan: What makes you think he's a danger to himself?

Foreman: He hasn't been home, but he didn't take anything with him, not even his cell.

[Nolan doesn’t answer.]

Wilson: You're not saying anything, which means he didn't specifically mention su1c1de, but you came out here to talk to us, so he must have said something that worries you.

Nolan: [carefully] There are other ways of reaching oblivion.

Wilson: Vicodin?

Foreman: He always has his Vicodin. There's no reason to call a shri— His last patient was a heroin addict.

Nolan: So I guess we're all done here. [Heads back in.]

Wilson: The guy's address has gotta be in the file.

[Cut to the building. There’s a platform, a couple of feet high, covers most of the room. House is on his back in the middle of the raised area. The f*re started where Oliver’s cigarette fell, behind House and to his left. That area is almost a wall of flames. There are patches of f*re in several other areas including a lively one in the pit to the right of the platform.]

Stacy: What about God? You were leaving, and then you stopped. Why?

[He looks up. Stacy is sitting next to him, on a chair. She’s wearing a brown pants suit with a tan button-down blouse (but not her necklace.) He props himself up on one elbow to talk to her.]

House: Your theory is I'm not leaving, because I believe in God? What, he's calling me home?

Stacy: Maybe falling through that floor was a sign. Maybe that the universe hates you. Something. You really don't believe? Really? Not in some deep crack of some remote recess of some dark corner of your mind?

House: No. Except that some deep crack of some remote recess of some dark corner is here telling me—

Stacy: That's enough. In a burning building, facing imminent death, that's more than enough.

House: Pascal's wager is facile.

Stacy: Saying it's facile is facile. Why is it wrong? [He stares at her.] Don't be logical, be desperate. You gotta have something to hold on to.

House: You can't live your life based on something you don't believe.

Stacy: But you can end your life based on something you don't believe? What about love? I lived with you for years. I know you believe in love.

[Cut to the PPTH cafeteria. House and Wilson are in a booth. There is a plate of fries between them, closer to House.]

House: Foreman wouldn't help me, which means I need you to take the fall.

Wilson: You do remember I'm dying, right?

House: Which is you will never spend a day in jail. Fresh-faced, cancer-ridden. It's tough to do both, but you pull it off.

Wilson: Your fingerprints are all over those hockey tickets.

House: I never admitted to flushing anything. My prints make sense if I gave those tickets to you as an incentive to stay alive.

Wilson: And I was so angry that you didn't respect my dying wishes, I took thousands of dollars of season tickets and flushed them down toilets?

House: All you have to do is create reasonable doubt.

Wilson: Great, what if I do more than that? What if I end up in jail? Or spending my final months in endless hearings?

House: That is a risk you are willing to take.

Wilson: I have a reputation. I have a legacy that could—

House: [sincerely] Wilson… I don't want to lose this time with you.

[There’s a long pause and Wilson looks at House before nodding.]

Wilson: Okay.

House: Thanks. I knew I could count on you.

[He grabs a handful of fries and stuffs them in his mouth as he gets up. Wilson looks annoyed and shakes his head.]

Wilson: Wait! Wait.

House: [stops, mouth full] You want the fries back?

Wilson: I'm not gonna take the fall.

House: Don't do this to me, Wilson. This is our only option.

Wilson: Exactly, because you overplayed your hand with Foreman, because you knew you had me as a backstop. Even with me dying, you-you just assumed I'd be here to bail you out.

House: Since you're here, and you are bailing me out, it seems like a pretty safe assumption.

[He starts to leave again. Wilson jumps up and catches up with him.]

Wilson: Hey! I won't be here soon. If I do this, I'm teaching you that your bad behavior will always be rewarded. You need to learn—

[They both get angry and start raising their voices.]

House: How to act when you're gone? 'Cause if that's the lesson, we got a really great opportunity coming up.

Wilson: You'll just try to find someone else, and it won't work, and it shouldn't work!

House: So that's the great wisdom you're imparting? That I'll always be alone?

Wilson: There's only one person you can count on.

House: [pause, quietly] I thought there were two.

Wilson: [looking a little guilty] I need to do this… for you.

[Cut to the building. The flames around the edges of the room are quite high. House is in the center, almost sitting, facing Stacy.]

Stacy: Wilson's right. He's always right. He's always been your good side.

House: I always wondered why I photographed so poorly.

Stacy: And because he's always played that role, you've never had to develop a conscience of your own.

House: People don't change. Consciences don't spontaneously develop.

Stacy: You're wrong, Greg. Which is… why you'll be better off without him. You've been looking to him to find what you have gotta find within yourself. [She stands and holds her hand out to him.] Something you can find.

[He takes her hand and stands, looking intently at her face the whole time. The camera circles around them, past the flames and, when it stops, they are in a suburban house. A spring garden can be seen through the window. House wears the same T-shirt in his hallucination that he wore in the building, but Stacy has changed into a blue V-neck sweater. She’s holding a baby in a gray and white knit outfit, trimmed in the same blue.]

Stacy: Hold your child.

[House takes the baby who looks up at him.]

House: This is a reason to die. This is what my life could've been, not what it can be.

Stacy: If it could've been, you're capable of it now.

House: You're married. Cuddy's gone.

Stacy: We aren't the only two people who could love you.

[He looks over to the sofa in the adjoining room. He and Dominika are sitting together, laughing. His arm is around her. Unlike his idiosyncratic apartment, his dream home is apparently generic, white-bread suburban. He and Dominika lean in for a kiss.]

House: Why settle so easily? [The kiss with one of the identically clad cheerleaders surrounding him ends and he turns to the girl on the other side for a kiss.] These are just idiotic fantasies…

[He stoops down.]

Stacy: Greg, don't.

[House sits on the floor.]

House: … at odds with every logical bone in my body.

[He curls up on his side. There’s a f*re in the fireplace behind him.]

Stacy: Get up. [angry] You do not have to die in here!

[Cut to the building. House is alone. He’s not even bothering to hold his head up any longer. The entire perimeter of the building is in flames as are several of the wooden support beams. Someone steps in front of his face. He tilts his head slightly to see who it is.]

House: Is this hell? An eternity of people trying to convince me to live?

Cameron: [sitting on the floor in front of him.] Who says I'm here to convince you to live?

**

[Cut to House sitting up, facing Cameron. The f*re is growing. There are huge flames close to them on several sides.]

House: You're the last one I thought would hate me.

Cameron: I don't hate you. I love you.

House: And yet you think I deserve to die.

Cameron: But not as a punishment. As a reward. I think… you've suffered enough. You've given enough. I think you deserve a chance to just… give up.

[House stares at her intently as she speaks, considering what she’s saying. He looks almost fascinated with her idea. When she’s done he reaches a decision and his face changes.]

House: Like Wilson did?

Cameron: [ignoring the contemptuous tone House used] Like Wilson did. You accepted his choice — that ending the pain was better than the pain. Why can't you give yourself that gift?

[House thinks about this.]

[Cut to the street at twilight. Foreman and Wilson get out of Wilson’s car in front of a chain link fence. Foreman gestures to the fence and the empty lot behind it.]

Foreman: This is the address House's patient gave?

Wilson: Everybody lies. [looks around] You smell smoke?

[They walk in the direction of the smoke, picking up speed as they go. As they turn a corner, the burning building is a few blocks away but directly in front of them. All of the windows on the first two floors are completely engulfed with flames. f*re trucks can be heard approaching as Wilson and Foreman run toward the building.]

[Cut to inside. House and Cameron are lying on the floor, facing each other.]

Cameron: Just let go. Just go to sleep.

House: I had a chance to avoid this.

Cameron: You had many chances, and you blew them all up.

House: No, this was different.

Cameron: They're all different, but the reasons are all the same. You're arrogant. You're self-destructive. You only care about yourself.

House: That moment with the patient… the chunk of the conversation I skipped over… I told him he was dying.

[Cut to Oliver’s room.]

House: If it makes you feel any better, at this rate, it'll be fast.

Oliver: [thinks] Let me take the fall. For you, for that prank.

House: [puzzled] You don't owe me anything.

Oliver: You tried to save me.

House: I failed. Motives don't matter. Only actions.

Oliver: Trying is an action. Why are you trying to talk me out of this? You just fake the records. You say I came into the clinic last week. I'll tell the cops you treated me like crap, so I stole your tickets and flushed 'em.

House: Thank you. [stands and crosses to the door] And you're doing this because you're dying?

Oliver: I'm doing this because I have nothing left to lose.

House: [thinking through this puzzle] So when you were living, you did nothing for anyone and you didn't care. Now that you're dying, you're willing to help a virtual stranger. Which means you're a better person dying than you ever were living, and the world is a better place because I didn't save you. Which makes me wonder why I'm about to tell you… you're not symmetrical.

Cameron: What's your point? That you cared about him more than you cared about yourself? You cared about the puzzle more than you cared about yourself.

House: If I kept it to myself, then it would just be a puzzle, but I opened my mouth because I thought it was more.

Cameron: You know it's the same, or you wouldn't be bickering with me while the flames lick at your feet. You're afraid of this decision, and you are trying to argue until fate takes it out of your hands. You're taking the cowardly way out. And worse… you're too cowardly to even admit you're taking the cowardly way out.

[Cut to the building. House is still lying with his head on the floor.]

House: You're right. But I can change.

[He stands up slowly. The flames are all around and taller than he is now.]

**

[Cut to the same spot, several hours later. It’s daylight and the f*re is just smoldering now. There are hoses and water and soot everywhere. At least a dozen cops and firemen are at the scene.]

[The camera pulls back to where the team is, across the street. From there the roof of the building or, more accurately the entire lack of a roof and most of the third floor, can be seen. Wilson sits on the curb next to them, draped in a blanket. Foreman stands next to him.]

Adams: He could've gotten out.

Park: People are found sometimes, even in… collapsed—

Taub: I think they're pulling a body out.

[They watch as two firemen come out with a body bag on a basket stretcher. Two EMTs wheel over an ambulance stretcher. They put the basket on it and adjust it as Foreman and the team look on. As the body is wheeled out of sight, Wilson stares, looking like an unhappy, seated statue.]

[Cut to a cinderblock hallway – if not the PPTH basement, a place very much like it. Wilson sits, motionless, on one of the couches that line the hallway. A door opens and Foreman comes out, walking very slowly.]

Foreman: Coroner confirms it's him. Dental records match. [He collapses back against the wall.]

[Cut to a black urn on a small nest of pine branches. The only decoration is a band of Greek keys and a plaque, hung by a chain. Wilson sits, stony-faced, listening.]

[It’s House’s memorial service. At one end of the room there is a stained-glass window in muted colors. This is framed by a drape with four large swags. Flanking the window are two marble stands, each with an enormous red and white flower arrangement. The urn is on a table in front of the flowers on the right. On the opposite side is a portrait of House. It is all very tasteful — just what House would have hated.]

[As various people speak, the camera pans the room. There are about 50 chairs arranged in rows on either side of an aisle. In addition to the speakers, Nolan, Nurse Jeffrey and various hospital personnel are there. Cameron and Chase sit next to each other. There is a montage with bits and pieces of each person’s eulogy.]

Park: House hired me when no one else would.

Adams: He got me fired. [clarifies] He gave me the guts to get fired.

Masters: He gave me the courage to quit.

Blythe: Gregory was — he was a good son. [She sounds a little surprised.]

Stacy: He was a trying boyfriend, but I… never stopped loving him.

Dominika: He was my husband for real. [slight laugh] I couldn't help but love him.

Foreman: He was my boss. And… my employee. And both times… I learned from him.

Taub: He made me a better parent, whether he meant to or not.

Thirteen: [awed] He was willing to k*ll me. And I'll always be grateful.

Chase: He wasn't always easy to deal with.

Cameron: But somewhere in there… he knew how to love.

Wilson: [reading his notes] He was my friend. The thing you have to… remember — the thing you can't forget is that Gregory House saved lives. [large, open-handed shrug] He was a healer. And-and in the end…

[He checks his notes and tries to keep his place. He looks into the distance then nods to himself as he makes a decision.]

Wilson: House was an ass. [That gets everyone’s attention.] He mocked anyone —patients, co-workers, his dwindling friends — anyone who didn't measure up to his insane ideals of integrity. He claimed to be on some heroic quest for truth, but the truth is, he was a bitter jerk who liked making people miserable. And he proved that by dying selfishly, numbed by narcotics, without athought of anyone. A betrayal of everyone who cared about him.

[A cell phone rings.]

Wilson: Phone. A million times he needed me, and the one time that I needed him—[The phone rings again. A few people shift uncomfortably. Nolan checks his phone to see if it’s on.] Oh, come on. This is a funeral. Just get it. [The phone rings two more times. Foreman starts to take his phone from his jacket pocket. Wilson realizes it’s the phone in his pocket.] Well, this is embarrassing. Could've sworn I turned this off. [mutters] This isn't my phone.

[He flips House’s phone open and sees the incoming text]

SHUT UP YOU IDIOT

[Cut to the street in front of La Scala, an Italian restaurant. Wilson drives up and gets out of his car. He looks around then starts as he sees House seated on the steps to the building across the street. He crosses to him.]

House: Hi.

[Shakes his head, confused. After a pause…]

Wilson: How?

House: I got out of the back of the building.

Wilson: The body—

House: Just switched the dental records.

Wilson: You're destroying your entire life. You can't go back from this. You'll go to jail for years. You can never be a doctor again.

House: I'm d*ad, Wilson. How do you want to spend your last five months?

Wilson realizes what House is saying. He breaks into a grin and laughs.

Cut to House looking more relaxed and happier than he has in a long time. He looks around then walks to his motorcycle, which is right next to the one Wilson is on.

Wilson: When the cancer starts getting really bad…

House: Cancer's boring.

House puts on his helmet and sunglasses. Wilson smiles and does the same. They ride casually and soon disappear into the trees as the camera keeps filming from above.

THE END FINALE
{"type": "series", "show": "House", "episode": "08x22 - Everybody Dies"}