[Open on a dimly lit Buddhist temple in China. Nicole, a Chinese American woman, is there with her interpreter/guide.]

Nicole: Do you see them anywhere?

Fang Dong Wen: Why don't we go back to their house, wait for them there.

Nicole: Yeah, 'cause they'll probably answer the door the sixteenth time I knock. [She wanders around and sees an elderly couple at a shrine.] There they are. Hi. I'm sorry I followed you here. I just really wish you could give me a few minutes of your time. [Fang Dong Wen begins simultaneous translation into Chinese.] I know you never agreed to make it an open adoption, but I just figured maybe you never had a choice. I mean, it's China, right?

[The man replies, briefly. He is obviously angry. The couple walks away quickly.]

Nicole: W — what did he say?

Fang Dong Wen: He wants you to leave them alone.

[Nicole runs after them and blocks their way.]

Nicole: Please. [The woman says something.] I just want ten minutes. Learn what you're like, tell you about my life.

[The man spits on the ground. He starts talking in an angry tone. Fang DongWen replies in a placating way. The couple leaves and Nicole turns to Fang Dong Wen.]

Fang Dong Wen: He said they have no daughter. I am sorry you wasted a trip.

Nicole: I know that's them. [She sees a Buddha.] How does that work? How do I pray?

Fang Dong Wen: You make a wish and lift the Buddha.

Nicole: I wish they could understand how badly I need this.

Fang Dong Wen: Now make the wish again. If you cannot lift the Buddha this time, your wish will be granted.

[She strains to lift the statue but it doesn’t budge. She cries out in pain.]

Fang Dong Wen: Are you okay?

[Nicole falls to her hands and knees, groaning. Fang Dong Wen crouches down next to her. She vomits blood. He calls for help in Chinese.]

[Opening Credits]

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room. House enters, reading a file.]

House: I picked Cameron’s pocket down in ER. I came up with a doozy.

Kutner: Your mother called — twice.

House: She's still healthy. This 25-year-old woman, on the other hand…

Kutner: Her messages sounded kind of urgent.

House: Well, that's the way women sound when their spouse of 50 years dies. [He goes into his office, hanging his cane from the top of the doorframe as he enters.]

Thirteen: Your dad died? Are you —

House: Yep. Fine! Our patient, who's been known to take a few drinks on non-occasions, vomits blood and collapses on a trip to China. Chinese surgeons cut out a foot of bowel, but the pain is worse now than it was before.

Taub: House, call your mom.

House: What are you, my mom?

Taub: We can continue this differential in five minutes.

House: Are those bags under your eyes? You were up all night. You told her, didn't you?

Taub: I don't know what your daddy issues are, but don't deflect them on me.

House: [to the others] Told his wife he's been getting some strange. She kicked his adulterous tuchus to the curb.

Kutner: Seriously, you told her?

Taub: Yes, I told her. But no, she did not kick me to the curb. We stayed up late talking. We're going to continue talking. Much like House should be doing with his mother right now.

Foreman: Anybody read Chinese? Otherwise, we have no idea what these doctors did to her.

House: Kutner, you're sort of Asian, right? Get it translated.

[He drops the file in front of Kutner who takes it and leaves.]

Thirteen: What about Meckel's diverticulum? If the surgeons didn't remove the diverticulum, it can cause pain, bleeding.

House: Too high up for a colonoscopy. CT could miss it. Ultrasound's fastest. And since I'm fastest with the ultrasound…

Foreman: House, let me do the ultrasound. You need to deal with your dad and stop —

House: I'm not deflecting because I'm avoiding something deep. I'm deflecting because I'm avoiding something shallow. Seriously, I'm fine. I didn't even like the man.

[Cut to Nicole’s room. He belly, which is covered with ultrasound gel, has a long, red scar. The stitches haven’t been removed yet.]

House: No Meckel’s. [He hands her a box of tissues.] Were you there for the rice or the reeducation camps?

Nicole: I was there to track down my biological parents.

House: Like a salmon returning to the stream where it was born. Did you become whole again, or did you get eaten by bears?

Nicole: They denied my existence.

[He checks her glands on her right side. She’s facing him when she coughs, right into his face.]

House: Four parents, and not one of them taught you to cover your mouth.

[Bob and Janice, Nicole’s parents, enter. Bob is holding a cardboard box. Janice rushes to the bedside.]

Janice: Oh, my God! It looks like they cut you in half.

Bob: Doctor, we're her parents.

House: I'm just a technician. Her doctors will be by later. You can schmooze then.

Bob: Can you let them know that we, uh, we went by her apartment and collected all her medication.

[House grabs the box.]

House: I'm a technician and a doctor.

Nicole: You went through my apartment?

Janice: We found alcohol. We thought you'd quit.

Bob: [quietly, to House] Did her drinking cause this?

House: No. [He finds a plastic baggie that interests him.]

Bob: Can you tell her it did?

[Cut to hallway. The baggie flies through the air. It lands on the papers Foreman is working on at the nurses’ station.]

House: Licorice root.

Foreman: Uh, no, thanks. I'm good.

[He tossing it back to House who catches it and throws it back to Foreman. Foreman ends up with it.]

House: I threw it to you for a reason. That's what the Chinese doctors gave her. It contains glycyrrhizin.

Foreman: [quietly] They were treating her for… [very quietly] SARS?

House: Not very effectively. But SARS explains the cough, causes hypoperfusion, which explains the ischemic bowel. It's perfect.

Foreman: Lung involvement isn't very severe.

House: [getting on elevator] Okay, well, so call it "ARS." Start her on ribavirin and interferon.

[Cut to House’s office. He’s at his desk, reading. He looks up as Cuddy enters.]

Cuddy: Sorry about your father.

House: I'm not. Are we done emoting now?

Cuddy: If there's anything I can do, just —

House: You know, you're right. I don't think I can sleep alone tonight. [Cuddy produces a syringe.] And you can tell me that that is liquid Vicodin.

Cuddy: We're giving IG sh*ts to everyone who came in contact with your patient. Shockingly, none of the nurses volunteered to administer yours. [He starts to roll up his sleeve.] It goes better in a large muscle. Drop your pants.

House: [He stands, unbuckles his jeans and leans on the desk.] You know, I usually pay tens of dollars to hear that.

Cuddy: [gives him the sh*t] The funeral's tomorrow.

House: My mom called you?

Cuddy: There is a 3:40 flight out of Newark. If you leave now, you can be in Lexington tonight. Your mother wants you to deliver a eulogy.

House: "Eulogy," from the Greek for "good word." Now, if she asked me to deliver a bastardogy, I'd be happy to —

Cuddy: Then be a grown-up. Call your mother back and tell her that you're sick with grief, but you're too busy to be there.

House: She knows when I'm lying.

Cuddy: Then start writing.

[She leaves.]

[Cut to Nicole’s room. Bob, Janice and two kids in their late teens/early twenties are outside the room looking in.]

Kutner: They yanked my brother and sister out of college. Can you please tell them I'm not dying?

Kutner: You have SARS. I'm wearing a mask. It's a big deal. Cut 'em some slack.

Nicole: But I am gonna be okay, right?

Kutner: That's what all this stuff is for. We're gonna need the names and numbers of everyone you came in contact with here and in China. Flight numbers, dates…

Nicole: That doctor that I coughed all over… Is he gonna be all right?

Kutner: So far he's fine.

[Cut to House’s office. He stands, lurches and passes out on the floor with his eyes open.]

[Cut to Nicole’s room.]

Nicole: Oh, oooh. It's back. This is where the pain all started.

Kutner: [on the intercom] She's tachycardic. Get a crash cart in here!

Janice: [being held back by a nurse] What's going on? I need to know what's going on. That's my daughter.

[Kutner opens her gown and sees something. He pulls off his mask.]

Kutner: Her liver's failing. It's not SARS.

[Cut to House waking up. He’s seated in a car. Farmland is visible through the window. He looks out the window, getting his bearings, then to his left. Wilson is driving.]

Wilson: I am not doing this because I care.

[House looks at him and smiles slightly.]

[Cut to the car, further along the highway.]

House: Cuddy drugged me. She… My mom didn't call Cuddy. She called you. I knew you couldn't stay away. I knew you loved me too much.

Wilson: I'm doing this for your mom.

House: I'm not doing this at all. If there were something to be done, I would have done it in the year he spent dying. [He checks his pockets.] You took my Vicodin? I'm in pain. [Wilson pulls the Vicodin bottle from his inside pocket, opens it and gives House a pill, all without looking at him.] One? So the Vicodin is my leash. One'll take the edge off, but it won't give me enough relief for an escape back to Plainsboro. [He swallows it.]

[Hanson’s Mmmbop is heard. House looks around.]

House: Where's my phone? [Wilson ignores him.] It's the team. It's their ring tone. [nothing] Forget it. The patient's blood is on your hands.

[Wilson takes out the phone and checks the caller ID before answering it on speaker. Cut between the car and the Diagnostics Conference Room, depending on who is speaking.]

Foreman: House? You there?

House: I'm being held against my will. Call the police!

Thirteen: Nicole had a clot in the hepatic vein. Chase sucked it out, saved her liver.

Kutner: No signs of a tumor or venous malformations. Nothing that could cause —

Thirteen: She's an addict.

Kutner: Drugs and alcohol wouldn't —

Thirteen: She's a smoker. Combine smoking with any one of a dozen genetic disorders, and she's a clotting machine.

Taub: Multiple blood clots would tie together bowel ischemia, lungs, and the liver.

Foreman: We need to pinpoint which defect she has so we can start her on the right anticoagulant. Draw her blood. Let's find out which genetic gift her genetic parents gave her.

House: Thanks for calling. [He disconnects the phone.] My ring tone for you is "Dancing Queen," by Abba.

[Cut to Nicole’s room. It’s empty. Kutner goes to the bathroom door.]

Kutner: Nicole?

[He runs out.]

[Cut to the car.]

House: I need to pee. Pull over at the next stop. [Wilson hands him a plastic bottle. House tosses it over his shoulder into the back seat.] I'll just pee on the floor. [He looks at the floor, grins and picks something up.] You bought used floor mats? That is brilliant. [He rolls down the window, tosses the mat out and starts to unbuckle his pants.]

Wilson: There's a rest stop in five miles.

[Cut to the rest stop. Wilson has backed into a stop. He gets out and comes around to the passenger side and opens the door for House.]

House: Cane.

Wilson: The restroom's right there. You can make it on your own.

[House turns so he’s sitting sideways on the seat, his feet on the pavement.]

House: I suppose I could talk about the summer he decided he wasn't speaking to me. Two months, not one word. Anything he wanted to say, he typed up and slipped under my bedroom door.

Wilson: You don't want to say anything, don't say anything, but go. Tell your mom you're sad for her.

House: Just by being there, I’d be lying.

Wilson: She wants to think, for a moment, that she had a happy family. So give her a gift — lie!

House: Give me my cane, I'll go to the damn funeral.

[Wilson nods and gets the cane from the trunk. House follows him, takes the cane and hits Wilson on the hand with it. The keys drop down a storm drain.].

House: I said I'd go to the funeral. I didn't say when.

[Cut to PPTH. Nicole is sitting on a bench outside, smoking.]

Kutner: We have these two categories: Inside and outside. Patients stay inside. Then, when they're better, we let them go outside.

Nicole: Thanks. But they don't let you smoke inside. So why don't you go back there and give me five minutes outside?

[He sits next to her and pulls on rubber gloves.]

Kutner: Make a fist. [to a curious woman passing by] Such a beautiful day, we thought we'd do all our doctoring outside.

Nicole: People stare at me any time I'm out with my family. It's like a puzzle. "Which one of these things doesn't belong?"

Kutner: Belonging's overrated. I was adopted by a white family when I was nine. I like being different. The view's better from the outside looking in.

Nicole: Must be easier to be different when you're a success. [He finishes the blood draw, removes the tourniquet and puts a piece on the site. It is immediately soaked with blood.] Is that a problem?

Kutner: This is why we prefer inside.

[He keeps a tight grip on the bleed as he pulls her off the bench.]

[Cut to the parking lot. House is strolling back to the car with a can of soda. Wilson has an opened wire hanger in his mouth. He’s winding up a battery-free flashlight.]

House: You actually keep a flashlight that doesn't need batteries in the trunk? Next to the jacket, emergency water, nail clippers, tooth brush, space blanket —

Wilson: When things go wrong, I like to be ready. Will you… please hold the flashlight for a minute?

[He kneels over the grate and hands House the flashlight. House takes it, leans over and drops it into the storm drain. He sits on the curb.]

Wilson: You know, those aren't just my car keys. My house keys are on there too. Amber gave me that key chain.

House: No, she didn’t. Not unless your pet name for her was "Volvo." [Wilson goes back to the trunk and pulls out another wind-up flashlight.] A man who would lie about a gift from a d*ad girlfriend…

Wilson: Is probably responding to a childish, pointless act of petulance.

House: The struggle to resist one's captors is never pointless. Vive la résistance!

Wilson: Well, I hate to break it to you, Che, but simple delay won't work. Your mother will hold the funeral till we get there.

House: [shakes head] My father was a punctual man, beholden to time. Two minutes late for dinner, you didn't eat. My mother would never disrespect him by starting the funeral late.

Wilson: Yeah, yeah, you clearly have no issues to work through.

House: Come on, forget the keys. Call a locksmith. We'll go inside and play "guess that smell" with the truckers while we're waiting. Join me on the dark side.

Wilson: [pulling the keys out on the hanger] The dark side's done, House. I'm delivering you to your mother, and that's it. I’ve moved on. [He slams the car trunk closed.]

[Cut to the ER. Cameron is studying a computer screen. Chase is behind her, eating. Foreman is leaning on the counter.]

Cameron: What do you think House would send, the "gentle comfort" arrangement or the "warm thoughts" bouquet? I mean, if he wasn't an ass.

Chase: Send one of those giant cookies shaped like a coffin. [She looks at him, annoyed] His mom would believe it was from him.

Foreman: I didn't tell you so you could send anything. Just wanted you to know the extent to which the man is disconnected from the human race.

Kutner: [approaching] Took a six-pack of FFP to stop the oozing.

Cameron: She's bleeding and clotting?

Kutner: Plus schistocytes on her smear means it's DIC, which means she's got cancer.

Cameron: She's young. It could be leukemia.

Kutner: Normal WBC makes that less likely.

Foreman: The belly pain points toward a GI tumor.

Kutner: House already did an ultrasound.

Foreman: He wasn't looking for a tumor. Go run a CT.

[Kutner leaves.]

Chase: I don't buy it.

Foreman: CT can find small intestinal cancers that an ultrasound —

Chase: I don't buy House. When my father died, I wound up k*lling a patient. And I hated the man. Whatever House says or doesn't say, I'm sure the guy's a mess.

[Cut to the car. They’re back on the road.]

Wilson: So he was a bastard. He was still your father. You're biologically programmed to have feelings for him.

House: No, I'm not.

Wilson: Feelings aren't rational. I know you have trouble with anything that can't be quantified and counted.

House: He's not my biological father. [Wilson looks at him.] I figured it out when I was 12.

Wilson: Of course. You were a brilliant, socially isolated 12-year-old, and you create a parallel universe in which your life doesn't suck.

House: I look at the facts. First of all, he was deployed on training exercises off Okinawa during the time I had to be conceived.

Wilson: And since you're 150 years old, air travel was impossible.

House: His second toe is longer than his big toe. Mine isn't.

Wilson: This is sad. You don't believe your mother screwed around —

House: I have a distinctive red birthmark on my scalp that matches a certain friend of the family.

Wilson: If you believed this story, you wouldn't be telling me about his birthmarks. You'd be telling me about the genetic testing you had done. [House notices a police car ahead of them.] And since you haven't mentioned it, obviously, you didn't do it. Because you don't want to — House, what are you doing? [House has jammed his cane against the accelerator.] Get your — get off the — there's a cop!

[They speed past the cop who puts his siren on. House pulls his cane back and sits back, innocently.]

House: Uh-oh.

[Cut to CT lab.]

Kutner: Nicole, lie still. This'll only take a few seconds.

Taub: One millimeter cut through upper abdomen.

Kutner: She was adopted when the parents thought they couldn't have kids. Then they had three more. She took the message as "thanks for playing, but we have our real children now."

Taub: And the real children probably think they're accidents while she was hand-picked. Everybody's got problems with their parents.

Kutner: She's an addict. Something went wrong.

Taub: And it has to be the parents? Magnifying pancreas.

Kutner: I'm not saying the parents screwed up.

Taub: You're saying you like her. So you don't want her faults to be her fault. But they're someone's fault, and the only other people you know are —

[The monitor beeps. They both look at the screen.]

Kutner: I think we may need to call House again.

[Cut to the car. Sheriff Costello is standing by his police car, talking into the radio.]

House: You lost track of your speed? I think that was h*tler’s excuse. Lost track of the Jews. No one held him responsible.

Wilson: I'm not playing, House.

House: You were protecting me. Anybody in their right mind would have ratted me out.

Wilson: I'm just trying to speed things along. You are going to this funeral.

[Mmmbop is heard. Wilson takes House’s phone from his pocket and tosses it to him.]

House: Make it fast. I don't want to miss the a**l cavity search.

[The team is in the radiology room.]

Foreman: Looks like a mass in the pancreas.

House: Not to me. This is radio. And I want a full play-by-play.

Foreman: It's fluid-filled.

Costello: [approaching on the driver’s side] Would you get out of the car, please, sir?

Wilson: Officer, if you want to give me a ticket, I totally understand.

Costello: Just get out of the car, sir.

House: Cyst?

Foreman: Large cyst. Something going on there?

House: Wilson's getting arrested. How large? SUV sized, or mid-range sedan?

Foreman: Seriously? What'd you do?

House: I'm obviously joking. If Wilson was getting handcuffed on the hood of his car, would I be carrying on a differential?

[Wilson’s getting handcuffed on the hood of his car.]

Foreman: Diameter is at least eight centimeters.

House: [whistles] Is it in the tail or in the head?

Foreman: The head.

Costello: [at House’s window] You too, sir. Out of the car.

House: [ignoring him] We've got a construction site. A steamroller is plowing —

Costello: [takes the phone] Out now. [House undoes his seat belt and picks up his cane.] No cane.

[House joins Wilson facing the hood of the car. The sheriff pushes him so he’s leaing on the hood and frisks him.]

Costello: James Evan Wilson, there's a warrant for your arrest in Louisiana.

[He handcuffs House.]

[Cut to the Diagnostics Conference Room.]

Kutner: What are the traits of a steamroller? Powerful. Maybe pancreatic cancer.

Foreman: Great idea, except the only symptom it matches up with is being steamrollerish.

Thirteen: You don't think House is onto something?

Foreman: I think he thought he had an idea. I also think his metaphors are tough enough to decipher after he's said them. We need to be focusing on the medicine.

Taub: No answer. [He been calling. Now he hangs up the phone.]

Foreman: There's not gonna be an answer. They've been arrested.

Taub: He was joking.

Foreman: He reacted to the size and location. That's what we should be focusing on. Not playing Mad Libs while our patient's exploding noun destroys her life-sustaining noun.

Taub: I'll try to get Wilson on the line.

Thirteen: What if it's not how a steamroller works, but what it does? Clears things.

Foreman: This is a waste of time. [He leaves.]

[Cut to the police station. Wilson and House sit side-by-side on a bench. Each of them is handcuffed to an arm of the bench. Mmmbop is playing.]

House: I need that phone call. I'm a doctor, and when someone tries to call you three times, it's code for "pick up the damn phone before someone dies."

Costello: I'm sure there's other smart doctors.

House: You'd be surprised.

Wilson: [to House] You told me you'd taken care of this.

House: I did.

Wilson: First words you ever said to me.

House: I took care of it. You must've screwed up somehow.

Wilson: [to Costello] Sir? Not to hurry you, but we need to be at a funeral in —

Costello: Nobody is going anywhere or taking any phone calls till I hear back from Louisiana.

Wilson: It's a really old warrant. Isn't there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing?

House: It's suspended when you flee the state.

Wilson: I didn't flee the state. I left the state. Because I don't live in the state. And the charges were just so minor…

Costello: "Vandalism, destruction of property, as*ault."

Wilson: There is a simple explanation. There was a medical convention in New Orleans…

Costello: [standing up to get coffee] You don't need to explain to me.

Wilson: I was fresh out of med school. I didn't know anybody at the convention.

House: You heard the man, Wilson. You don't have to explain.

Wilson: [very angry] I am not gonna sit here wasting time just so you can avoid your father's funeral! [Costello looks at them, interested.]

House: He's my father. I have the right to avoid his funeral.

Costello: Not if your mother's alive, you don't. [to Wilson] Okay… explain.

[Cut to the ER. Foreman is consulting with Chase and Cameron. Chase is stretched out on a stretcher.]

Chase: Did House react to the eight centimeters?

Foreman: He whistled. It's huge. Anyone would think so.

Cameron: House doesn't whistle because he's impressed. It means he wasn't expecting it. It means he changed his mind at that point.

Chase: A single super-sized cyst ruled out a diffuse process like scleroderma or lupus.

Cameron: Rule out diffuse process, you're stuck with single process affecting just the pancreas.

Foreman: Gallstones or pancreatic divisum.

Chase: Whatever he asked next would have narrowed that down.

Foreman: He asked about location.

Chase: Heads it's gallstones, tails it's divisum.

Foreman: It's at the head. She's got gallstones.

[Foreman turns to leave just as Kutner enters.]

Kutner: The steamroller means potholes —

Foreman: Relax. We got it.

Kutner: You figured out she's got gallstones?

[They all look at him, startled.]

[Cut to the police station.]

Wilson: I was at the hotel bar trying to unwind, have a drink. There was this guy who kept playing Billy Joel’s "Leave a Tender Moment Alone" on the jukebox.

Costello: "Leave a Tender Moment" is a good song.

House: It's a great song. He was out of line.

Costello: Not as good as "Scenes from an Italian restaurant" or

Wilson: So I — I asked the man to stop, politely.

House: Yeah, you yelled politely.

Wilson: I was polite the first couple of times, but courtesy made no impression on this ass. So I threw a bottle into the mirror, which successfully conveyed my message.

House: And smashed a ten-foot antique mirror. And set an example to two other patrons who threw sh*t glasses.

Wilson: I had nothing to do with that fight. The as*ault charge was totally bogus. And I paid for the mirror.

Costello: I think I have the picture. I assume you're the guy who was playing the song.

House: No, I was the guy who bailed him out.

Wilson: That's how we met. I was in jail.

Costello: This guy was a total stranger to you, and you bailed him out?

House: It was a boring convention. Had to have somebody to drink with.

Wilson: And there's the foundation of our entire friendship. If you hadn't been bored one weekend, it wouldn't even exist.

House: Hey, there were 3,000 people at that convention. You were the one I thought wasn't boring. That says something.

Wilson: It also says something that you lied to me about getting the charges dropped!

House: I got a lawyer. He cut a deal. You didn't call the guy? You have to show up at the arraignment. Everybody knows that.

Wilson: Everybody with your misdemeanor experience.

Costello: [reading a fax] You can go.

House: What? He — he's a fugitive from justice. That whole story was lies. He s*ab a man.

Costello: [unlocking the handcuffs] Louisiana doesn't want to pay to get you back.

House: Forget Louisiana. He was driving recklessly through your comatose village. Do they put lead in the jelly doughnuts here?

Costello: Stop acting like such an ingrate and go pay your respects to your father.

[Cut to Nicole’s room.]

Chase: The CT confirmed gallstones. Normally not dangerous. Almost everyone has them. But sometimes…

Nicole: They k*ll you?

Chase: Yup. Unless I take 'em out. We do it laparoscopically. [He looks down.] Um… how long has her urine been brown? [He holds up the urine collection bag. The urine is almost black.]

Taub: Kidney's were fine this afternoon.

Chase: They're not now. It's not the gallstones.

[Cut to the car. They’re in Lexington. House is on the phone with the team. They’re in the Diagnostics Conference Room.]

House: Well, of course it's not gallstones. Who thought it was gallstones?

Kutner: You said "steamroller."

House: I also said "construction site."

Foreman: Gallstones could cause a pancreatic cyst.

House: [to Wilson] Will you just turn around. The thing is two hours over already, and that's the third time we passed that colonial with the cross burning out front.

Wilson: I'm not lost.

House: I'm not talking about what caused the cyst. I'm talking about what the cyst caused. Everything.

Foreman: Cysts are symptoms, not diagnoses.

House: Unless it's a multiple cyst, with connections to other organs… like a steamroller.

Taub: That's a long road down to the kidneys.

Foreman: How do we prove it? Won't be visible in a scan. Chase isn't gonna go groping around when she's got kidney failure.

Thirteen: Bubbles.

House: Is that your new stripper name?

Thirteen: Yes. And also, we inject bubbles into the cyst and follow where they drift. If they end up in the other organs, we know you're right, cut it out, she's fine.

House: Bubbles is right. Go echo. [He hangs up.]

Wilson: I'm not lost.

[He points in front of the car. House doesn’t look happy as they pull up to an antebellum mansion with a plaque indicating it’s the Lambert Funeral Home.]

[Cut to Nicole’s room. Kutner is about to inject something in her scar but she’s moving too much.]

Taub: Nicole, you gotta stay still.

Nicole: I'm — I'm nervous.

Kutner: You're not nervous. It's the DTS, isn't it?

Nicole: I haven't had a drink since I got here.

[Cut to the funeral home. Wilson fixes his tie as they walk past clusters of mourners.]

Wilson: Good heavens, we haven't missed it after all. It's like the end of a Christmas carol.

[Blythe House sees them, sighs in relief and comes over.]

Blythe: I'm so glad you're here. Oh, it's a load off of my mind just to see you. [She hugs House.] Thank you, James.

House: Mom, how could you delay the funeral?

Blythe: Honey, your dad is d*ad. He's not going to care. Do you know what you're going to say?

House: I don't know. Just let the minister or one of his buddies from the corps…

Blythe: You're talking. I don't care that you didn't like him. He was your father, and he loved you. The w*r is over, Greg. Please do this for me. [to Wilson] Stop looking so worried. I know he's gonna make me proud.

Wilson: I'm sure you know him better than I do.

[House glares at Wilson who walks off. House follows.]

[Cut to Nicole’s room. Her parents are there.]

Taub: Her liver's been compromised. And the DTS will cause her muscles to continue to twitch, even under sedation. We need to paralyze her to do this procedure.

Nicole: I wanted to stop.

Kutner: A phenobarbital coma will not only allow us to inject the cyst, it'll treat the DTS. When she wakes up, she won't be in withdrawal.

Bob: We've seen her through withdrawal before. We've seen her through everything. We've been supportive. We've been combative. We've picked her up from bars in the middle of the night. We've let her spend the night in jail.

Nicole: I used to say it'd be okay. That I'd get it together. I don't say that anymore.

Kutner: Let's make you healthy. Then we'll worry about making you sober.

[Cut to John House’s funeral. John is in an open casket, the bottom of which is draped with an American flag. He’s in full dress uniform, including white gloves.]

Minister and mourners: The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…

House: [quietly to Wilson] I am not talking We were strangers who shared some geography 30 years ago.

Wilson: Right, he had no influence on you at all. The father who was compulsive about punctuality.

House: His issue. Which I deliberately made not my issue.

Wilson: Thereby making it your issue. Compulsively showing up four hours late, ignoring discipline, ignoring rules.

House: [looking around] Oh, God, he's here.

Wilson: Who's here? [looks] The one you're pretending is your father? Nice pick. He looks like Sean Connery. So back when you were devising this fantasy, did you tell your father: "Dad, I refuse to recognize your existence because I have chosen James Bond as my dad"?

House: I used different words.

Wilson: What? Hearing that your own son hates you so much he's replaced you in his mind? That's gotta suck. How did he take it?

House: I already told you. He didn't speak to me for a summer.

[The opening prayers are over. They sit.]

Blythe: [at the podium] It means more to me than — than I can say to have all of you here today. And now, uh, our son Gregory would like to say a few words. [House doesn’t move.] Greg?

[House plants his cane and stands up. He and his mother pass as he moves to the podium. He looks around for a moment then starts speaking.]

House: There's a lot of people here today. Including some from the corps. And I notice that every one of them is either my father's rank or higher. And that doesn't surprise me. Because, if the test of a man is how he treats those he has power over, it was a test my father failed. [Wilson looks embarrassed. Blythe looks worried.] This man you're eager to pay homage to, he was incapable of admitting any point of view but his own. He punished failure, and he did not accept anything less than —

[House catches first his mother’s eye, then Wilson’s. He pauses. When he continues, it’s in a different vein.]

House: He loved doing what he did. He saw his work as some kind of… sacred calling. More important than any personal relationship. Maybe if he'd been a better father, I'd be a better son. But I am what I am because of him, for better or for worse. And I just — I just wish —

[House ducks he head down. He seems about to cry. He unhooks his cane from the podium and limps to the casket. As he leans down to kiss John, Wilson stares for a second then rises. House kisses John’s forehead, using the opportunity to take a DNA sample from John’s earlobe with the nail clippers he has hidden by a handkerchief in his left hand. As House steps back from the casket, Wilson is there. He puts his hand on House’s shoulder, "comfortingly." They whisper to each other.]

Wilson: Put it back.

House: Well, he's not gonna miss it.

Wilson: I'm done enabling. You can't even let them put him in the ground without making it serve your agenda?

[The mourners seem a little restless.]

House: You really want to do this in front of everybody? You wanna punish me or them?

[Wilson pats House’s shoulder and leaves, waving to Blythe as he goes. House follows him.]

[Cut to a room laid out for a wake, complete with food, alcohol and a body.]

Wilson: How can I still feel surprise? You would take, even this, a moment of real human grief, and turn it into a farce.

House: Oh, cut the crap. You enjoy what I do. I never had to force you. You like coming along for the ride.

Wilson: Yes, that's why I'm cheering you on now.

House: This is about you needing to be prepared for the worst. So you become an oncologist. No surprises there. Worst happens all the time. But Amber, she was young and healthy. Her death came out of nowhere.

Wilson: Don't bring Amber into this.

House: And you weren't ready. That makes you angry. The world sucks, and you didn't have time to brace yourself.

Wilson: What happened out there is your show!

House: You're scared to death of losing anyone that matters. So you dump the person who matters the most to you!

Wilson: I'm not scared to death. I'm moving forward!

House: Because no one can take away from you what you no longer have.

Wilson: Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho. Your father's death is about you. Amber's death is about you. I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to be your friend!

House: Admit it, you're angry and you're scared of losing me.

Wilson: I'm not angry, I'm not scared.

House: Admit it.

Wilson: I'm not afraid.

House: Admit it.

Wilson: I've lost people. It happens.

House: Admit it. Admit it!

Wilson: What are you, five? Stop repeating —

House: Admit it. Admit it. Admit it. Admit it. Admit it. Admit it. Admit it. Come on, admit it. Admit it!

[With a cry, Wilson picks up a liquor bottle and flings it — through a stained glass window. They both stare.]

House: Still not boring.

[Cut to a diner. Wilson and House are in a booth.]

Wilson: Did you know I was gonna do that? Because I didn't know I was gonna do that.

House: I know you have trouble losing people. In New Orleans, I saw you carrying this express package around the conference. And you wouldn't let it go, but you wouldn't open it. So I peeked at the return address.

Wilson: Diamond, Fairbairn.

House: Divorce attorneys. Your first wife had just served you with papers.

Wilson: Did you know that when you bailed me out? Were you… doing something nice for me?

House: What did I say about being boring? [He picks up his phone and starts dialing.]

Wilson: We owe your mom an apology.

[Cut to Diagnostics. Foreman answers on the first ring.]

Foreman: Hello? It's House. [turns on speakerphone]

House: How'd the bubble test go?

Taub: The problem wasn't the cyst. It's advanced dilated cardiomyopathy.

Foreman: We did a three-dimensional echo. Showed a mass in the left atrium.

Kutner: Looks like an atrial myxoma, but the ultrasound images are a little grainy, so it's hard to tell. [House is thinking]

Thirteen: House?

House: The images aren't grainy.

Taub: They sure look grainy.

House: I've seen pictures of you where you look tall. It's iron overload. Creates speckles on the image, makes it look grainy. Also makes her pancreas fail, her blood clot, and her intestine —

Kutner: Atrial myxoma is more likely.

House: MRI for a better view. And call me back and tell me you're embarrassed because my eyesight is better 500 miles away. I need a phone number.

[Cut to China. The phone rings. Fang Dong Wen answers.]

House: I'm a doctor in New Jersey, treating one of your clients. A young woman looking for her biological parents.

Wilson: You know, you could just wait for the MRI to have your curiosity satisfied.

House: What person who is nothing like me are you saying that to?

House: Did the parents look tan? The disease she has is genetic, which means they should have it too.

Fang Dong Wen: They don't look more tan than anyone else.

House: Discolored teeth?

Fang Dong Wen: They're farmers — the village doesn't even have a dentist.

House: Right. Thanks.

Fang Dong Wen: But if it matters, I'm not convinced they were her parents.

House: Why not?

Fang Dong Wen: Because they said they have no daughter. The man was adamant, and the woman seemed confused and frightened.

House: Thank you. [He hangs up and turns to Wilson.] Differential. Say you're a middle-aged Chinese woman…

Wilson: Fine.

House: Say it.

Wilson: I'm a middle-aged Chinese woman.

House: Girl comes to you, says that she's your long-lost daughter. Why would you be frightened?

Wilson: I'm frightened because she's a thr*at? Maybe she knows something?

House: She hasn't seen you since she was an infant.

Wilson: Maybe an inheritance issue.

House: They're peasants.

Wilson: Her very presence is a thr*at. She — what year was she born?

House: '83.

Wilson: She's not supposed to be alive. China introduced the one-child policy in 1979. Say they didn't want a girl. They tried to k*ll her.

House: Maybe the baby doesn't die. Maybe the father panics or regrets it. Takes the baby to an orphanage. Maybe he doesn't tell his wife.

Wilson: Who freaks out like she's seen a ghost 25 years later when the girl shows up.

House: Why does attempted m*rder from 25 years ago suddenly become relevant to her health now?

Wilson: Maybe they gave her something toxic. It would have to be fat soluble.

House: This is fun, isn't it?

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room. House enters.]

House: Let me see the MRI.

Kutner: We don't have one.

Taub: She started vomiting as soon as we started the scan.

House: Then let her vomit through the MRI. That's what nurses are for. [Taub takes the file and leaves.] Her parents tried to k*ll her. I don't know how, but I know it caused her to get sick 25 years later trying to lift a Buddha. Explain. I already had this conversation with Wilson — just go with it.

Foreman: Poison?

House: Buddha wouldn't make it worse.

Thirteen: Maybe the weight stressed her back, which —

House: Makes sense if she's never lifted anything in her life.

Kutner: She actually didn't get sick till she tried lifting it that second time. I'm guessing the weight changed.

House: [epiphany] Anybody have Taub’s pager number?

Thirteen: What's up?

House: Maybe give him a call. If he tosses that switch on the MRI, she's d*ad. X-ray her brain.

[Cut to radiology. The team is looking at the x-ray on the light table. It has white streaks on it.]

House: Pins. Push them through the soft fontanelle of an infant, you skewer the brain, and the hair hides the entry wounds. It's the perfect crime.

Foreman: She's had them in her all these years.

Thirteen: What changed at the temple?

House: Same thing that changed in the MRI. Shockingly, not all religious leaders are honest. I'm guessing these particular monks are bilking the faithful by pushing a magnet up Buddha’s butt. There's another one under the table that'll repel or attract, depending on how you shift them. When she picked up that magnet, it moved one of the pins deeper into the sympathetic nervous center of her brain. This sent a signal through the nerves to the blood vessels in her small intestine, which caused the symptoms in China and in the giant magnet we call an MRI. She's lucky. We're all screwed up by our parents. She's got documentation.

[Cut to Nicole’s room. She’s in the pheno coma. Kuter is talking to her parents.]

Kutner: The pins will be removed surgically, and she'll be fine. We'll wake her from the coma after the operation.

Bob: Is there any way you could not tell her?

Janice: Please. She's fragile. She desperately wanted to know her biological parents. For her to find out that they wanted her d*ad… I don't know what that'll do to her.

Kutner: She may not be as fragile as you think.

Janice: We know our daughter.

Kutner: [shows them the x-ray] See this pin here? It's been pressing directly on her addiction center. It's not her fault. And it's definitely not your fault. She's not who you think she is.

[Cut to House’s office. It’s night. Wilson opens the door then knocks quietly.]

Wilson: I hear your patient's gonna be all right.

House: Is that why you're here? A colleague checking up on a patient?

[He takes a sip from the glass of bourbon on his desk.]

Wilson: Something goin' on?

House: I'm celebrating. [He hands Wilson a sheet of paper from his desk. Wilson looks at it, then back at House.] My mom hated him too.

Wilson: Your DNA test showed no match? That's incredible. At the age of 12, you actually figured out your father wasn't your birth father? That's what you wanted, wasn't it? Why should it depress you?

House: It doesn't depress me. Doesn't make any difference at all. That's what depresses me.

Wilson: Well, I guess nobody gets to choose who their parents are. I'm not even sure anymore if we get to choose who our friends are. [pause] I spoke with Cuddy. She hasn't filled my position yet.

House: If you're coming back just because you're attracted to the shine of my neediness… [Wilson smiles slightly] I'd be okay with that.

Wilson: I'm coming back because you're right. That strange, annoying trip we just took was the most fun I've had since Amber died.

House: You hungry? [Wilson nods. House gets up and they head for the door. House stops.] Wilson.

Wilson: Yeah?

House: My dad's d*ad.

Wilson: Yeah. My sympathies.

[They leave together.]

[The End]
{"type": "series", "show": "House", "episode": "05x04 - Birthmarks"}