[Opens on an airplane. Leona, a teenage girl, is listening to a piano jazz version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" on some headphones. Sitting next to her is her father, Crandall.]

Leona: I know that one. I was at the studio when Grandfather recorded it.

Crandall: Thinking about your mom?

Leona: Mama, everything, my whole life. It was all a lie. I never knew you; I never knew you were my dad.

Crandall: Your life's going to be okay, Leona. You're a good kid, you've got it together. You survived the last eight months on your own. You're not your grandfather or your mom. You're not going to make the same mistakes they did. I'm proud that I'm your father. [The line repeats in Leona's head.] I'm glad I'm getting this chance. [Leona looks, and sees water spilling from the cabin door.]

Leona: We gotta go! Get out of here!

Crandall: Leona! [Leona sees a large torrent of water swallow everyone, but there isn't any water in the plane. CGI of Leona's heart. She collapses.] Leona!

[House's residence. He's pacing, and then sinks into a chair rubbing his leg. He takes a few Vicodin, and then continues to pace. However, he's still in considerable pain. He climbs onto a bookshelf, and finds a box. As he opens it, his phone rings.]

House's answering machine: You've reached a number that has been disconnected and is no longer in service. If you feel you've reached this recording in error, go ahead, hang up on three. One, two, [beep!] [As this is going on, House opens the box, which is full of syringes and bottles of morphine, and begins to tie a rubber strap around his arm.]

Cuddy's voice: House, pick up. I know it's your day off, and you've no doubt got lots of exciting plans, but I've got a case. 16-year-old girl presenting with cardiogenic shock. [House is about to sh**t up until he hears...] No heart att*ck.

[Cut to hallway in the hospital.]

Cuddy: Her heart looks fine. ER did a full cardiac workup. Tox screen's clean, blood work show's no infection -

House: All on the top page. I'm a real good reader. Personal chart handoff means there's something else. I'm hoping it's not personal.

Cuddy: The guy who brought the girl in says he knows you. I thought I'd met all your *friend*. I was also wondering if you could take a look at these, when you have a chance. [gives him an envelope] No hurry, it's just a couple of medical histories, one with a minor cancer concern -

House: No problem.

Crandall: G-man! [He runs toward House as though he's going to hug him, but stops.] You thought I was going to do it, didn't you?

House: Do I know you?

Crandall: Come on, it's me, Crandall!

House: Doesn't ring a bell.

Crandall: Man, I can't believe you didn't -

House: Unless you mean Dylan Crandall, the man who'll believe anything. See, I just made you believe that I....

Crandall: You haven't changed. Heard about your leg.

House: Yeah, pulled a hamstring playing Twister. Just gonna walk it off. So, who's the girl?

Crandall: Jesse Baker's granddaughter. You always said you'd give your right hand to play like him.

House: No, I said I'd give my right hand to have his left. Why is she with you?

Crandall: She lost her mom in Katrina, her home, everything.

House: Wow.

Crandall: And I'm her father.

House: Hmmm... yeah. She looks just like you. [Best to point out now that Crandall is white and Leona is black.] Got the same 'fro.

Crandall: I wrote a book about Baker, hung out with him - his daughter.

House: Yeah, that's how babies are made.

Crandall: I never knew, she never knew. Her mom lied for sixteen years.

House: That's unbelievable.

Crandall: Yeah.

House: Seriously, I don't believe it.

Crandall: Her mom was pissed at me about my book; I trashed her and her dad. She wouldn't talk to me; obviously, she's not going to tell Leona that -

House: You're a sucker. You always were.

Crandall: Does that mean you're not going to help her?

House: Why wouldn't I? She's not scamming me.

[Diagnostics.]

Chase: Acute myocardial infarction?

House: ER said no. Retest.

Cameron: Wolff-Parkinson White syndrome?

House: ER said no. Retest, and read the damn file.

Cameron: You just gave them to us.

Foreman: Delta wave on the EKG looks like -

House: It's all a 'no.' Everything about her heart is healthy.

Cameron: She's a Katrina victim!

House: It's better than Crandall. He's a Katrina victim victim.

Chase: I don't think she was expecting your sympathy. I think her point was New Orleans was a third-world country: toxins, mold, sewage in the streets...

House: What if her heart is like my bike? Runs like crap when I'm by myself, but take it to the mechanic and it runs great?

Foreman: An arrhythmia, a one time event.

Cameron: What are we going to do, keep her in a room on a cardiac monitor until she has another arrhythmia? That could be weeks, months! [While she says this, we see House clutching his leg.]

House: Relax, I happen to know she's going to have one right after lunch. We are golden.

Cameron: You can't induce an arrhythmia in someone who's heart gave out nearly 48 house ago.

House: Sure you can, but it's kinda technical - you stick all these cool little wires inside her somehow, and -

Cameron: I mean you shouldn't.

House: Oh, right, because it would be much more ethical to let it happen in an uncontrolled setting. There's always a team of cardiologists sitting at the next table, this is Jersey! She's a minor, she's going to need consent.

Cameron: I'll go talk to him.

House: Oh, that's an excellent plan! You'll give him the form and tell him it's wrong and dangerous.

Cameron: I can handle a simple consent form.

House: Okay, I'll be Crandall. Dr. Cameron -

Foreman: House, from what you say, this guy will trust us -

House: Are you in this scene? Go.

Cameron: I'd like to talk to you about a procedure we'd like to do on Leona.

House: Like to do? Is this fun for you?

Cameron: He's not you! He's not going to mock me.

House: Stay in character! I'm so scared. Hold me.

Cameron: In order to figure out which circuit is misfiring, we need to map all the electrical activity in her heart.

House: Swear to me on the Bible you'd do this if it was your kid. Good-bye.

[Cut to House talking to Crandall.]

House: It's a map of the electrical pathways of the heart. We send electricity to each, one at a time, until one fails.

Crandall: It sounds dangerous.

House: It's a risk I am prepared to take.

Crandall: If she's got an electrical problem, couldn't more electricity blow her whole system?

House: Well, who's been watching Bill Nye the Science Guy? The test is perfectly safe. We do it every day. [as Crandall prepares to sign] And you believe me.

Crandall: I shouldn't do the test?

House: It's crazy dangerous. Just sign the damn form. [hands Crandall a tissue]

Crandall: I'm not crying, I can handle this.

House: Blow your nose. I need DNA from somewhere.

Crandall: You're not running a paternity test.

House: She's going to stay around just long enough to get your bank account, your credit card numbers and then she's going to be off with her next daddy.

Crandall: What she's been through... why would you assume -

House: Because of what she's been through.

Crandall: Because that's your default position, always has been!

House: Because she's still alive! Raised by a junkie, living off the streets, that tends to kick the sweetness out of you.

Crandall: Figured you'd have mellowed.

House: That's because you're an idiot.

Crandall: If I let you do the test, it means I don't trust her.

House: No, it means I don't trust her.

[Cut to Leona being put under.]

Leona: 100, 99, 98...

Chase: She's out.

Cameron: Heart rhythm's normal. Insert the first catheter.

Chase: I'm in. [CG of the catheter entering the heart.]

Cameron: All rhythms still normal.

Chase: Haven't zapped her yet.

Cameron: Send the first electrical pulse.

Chase: Sinoatrial node is normal

House: Next! [Leona fidgets, and the monitors beep.]

Chase: Got supraventricular tachycardia.

Foreman: Stop the current.

House: Is she hallucinating?

Chase: IV push stat 12.5 of denozine.

Cameron: She's crashing. BP's plummeting.

House: Foreman, is she hallucinating?

Foreman: No, normal waves.

House: Then the AV node is not the bad pathway. All that was was a heart att*ck. Reset her so we can find the real problem.

Foreman: Charging... clear! [They shock her.]

Chase: Normal rhythm.

House: Chase, high right atrium, please.

Chase: Her heart's fragile after that last att*ck. The chances of tachycardia -

House: You have my permission to blame Foreman at any negligence trial.

Cameron: Send the electrical pulse.

Foreman: That's the one; she's hallucinating.

Chase: It's near the coronary sinus.

House: Freeze it. [Chase presses a button, and CG graphics show the catheter freezing the damaged heart muscle.]

Chase: Damaged heart muscle gone. [something] complete.

Foreman: EEG's back to normal. No hallucinations.

House: She'll be fine by breakfast.

[Cut to Cuddy's office. House enters, holding the files that Cuddy gave him previously.]

House: Interesting reading.

Cuddy: Those are my top two choices for sperm donors. I wanted your medical opinion on genetics.

House: They're losers.

Cuddy: Uh, medically, or -

House: Donor 1284 likes square dancing. No one likes square dancing. 613 has been practicing medicine for five minutes, calls himself a healer. Loves Mozart.

Cuddy: I'm not going dancing with them, I'm looking for healthy sperm. He's got four living grandparents -

House: Who they are, what they do, that doesn't matter?

Cuddy: I'm leaning toward 613.

House: Oh, sure. Go with the Jewish number.

Cuddy: 1284 has a cousin that tested positive for the BRACA gene -

House: But his mother was negative, which means so's your baby.

Cuddy: What about the -

House: The Mediterranean-Dutch factor on the dad's side? It's not a problem, because his dad's mother didn't carry the thalassemia gene. Bigger issue is the jerk composer genes. This Mozart lie -

Cuddy: People can't like Classical music?

House: You're designing a kid, a loser kid! He's already getting pummeled at recess.

Cuddy: Here, knock yourself out. Go find sperm that can b*at up 613's kids. And thanks for your help.

House: Pretentiousness is hereditary. Just 'cause they haven't found the gene yet...

[Cut to Leona, sleeping in her room.]

Woman's voice: Could I have some water please? Hello? I just need some water. Is anyone there? [Leona gets up, and moves the curtains around the bed. In the next bed, she hallucinates a woman with water rushing over her, dirty and covered in plants and bugs.]

Leona: Mama? [She wakes up, screaming.]

[Cut to House, pacing outside Diagnosics.]

[Inside -- ]

Cameron: Second hallucination means we didn't fix her heart. Maybe we missed something.

Chase: Her heart's fine. If she hallucinated, it wasn't caused by her heart.

Foreman: If? The screaming, the floundering... it was a hallucination.

House: [poking his head in] What if it wasn't a hallucination?

Cameron: We covered -

House: Not finished. What if it was an atypical seizure?

Foreman: Seizure? She saw her mother. Mother's d*ad. Ergo, hallucination. [House leaves.]

Chase: Anyone want to explain that?

Cameron: His leg hurts. Walking takes his mind off of it. [House enters again.]

House: Flashback. All that wind and rain from the hurricane, post traumatic stress syndrome.

Cameron: Why are you so bent on her not having a hallucination?

House: If she did have a hallucination, then the heart problem that we predicted, found, and fixed was just a gigantic coincidence. [He leaves again.]

Chase: His leg always hurts.

Cameron: It's getting worse.

House: [yelling through the wall] What if the heart isn't a coincidence and isn't what caused the hallucination? An arrhythmia hurts. What if her hallucination was caused by pain? What if she has a pain that translates pain into a bizarre, physiological response, like a hallucination?

Cameron: She has an autoimmune disease. She needs a CRP, a rheumatoid factor, a -

House: I can prove an autoimmune disease in five minutes. She needs a PET scan.

Foreman: You can't test for autoimmune in a PET scan -

House: I'm proving that her hallucinations are a consistant response to pain, which proves that she has an autoimmune disease.

Cameron: How do you test someone's response to pain?

House: Easy. Hurt them.

[Cut to House strapping Leona into the PET scan machine.]

House: It's not going to hurt at all. We just need to make sure you don't move.

Leona: I won't.

House: Okay, give me your arm. Let's check your muscle responses. Okay, turn it over, arm upward. Everything okay?

Leona: Yeah. [House sticks her finger with a needle.] OW!

Crandall: What the hell was that?

Foreman: Diagnostic test. Cerebral cortex responding normally, she's not hallucinating.

House: You know he's not your father, don't you?

Leona: He's my dad. Mama told me.

House: I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you. [He sticks her again in the leg.]

Crandall: House, leave her alone!

House: Come on, we both know it's a hustle. Are the walls closing in?

Leona: No, why are you doing this?

House: Spiders coming out of my nose?

Leona: Let me out.

Foreman: House, the test is over. Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is fine.

House: Give me your hand.

Leona: No!

House: Give me your hand! [He bends one of her fingers back.] Forget it, he's not the perfect mark because he was the perfect mark. Plenty of people got there before you. He's used up, tainted. Pumped dry. [Leona starts to scream, because she sees House's face melt away.]

Foreman: She's hallucinating.

[Cut to Cameron and House walking.]

Cameron: She's lost everything, and you're breaking fingers. A new low.

House: Diagnostically, she needed to be hurt. I wanted to hurt her. Win-win. What I didn't consider was the threshold to trigger the hallucinations, otherwise I would have done the fingerbending first instead of s*ab her twice. That was cruel.

Cameron: For autoimmune diseases this advanced, usual treatment's not going to help.

Foreman: We don't even know what autoimmune disease she has. Could be Lambert-Eaton, could be [something].

House: Good point. Let's k*ll them all at once.

Cameron: The only way to do that is to replace her entire immune system.

House: Good point. Let's do that.

Chase: Bone marrow transplant requires an exact match. Leona has no siblings.

House: Good point. She's all alone, poor thing, no one in the whole, wide world.

[Cut to House putting a CD that goes along with Crandall's book. Piano jazz plays until -- ]

Jesse Baker: I asked for this tuned! Did you get this instrument tuned? [Crandall enters.]

Crandall: If my daughter needs bone marrow, why are you looking at a bone marrow registry?

House: Because that's where they keep the bone marrow.

Crandall: I'm her father!

House: How does someone who believes absolutely everything become a nonfiction writer?

Crandall: Test my bone marrow.

House: Here's how this is going to end: One day you'll be sitting at your computer writing one of your little music books, and your daughter will come home with a big, angry policeman who will throw you in jail because, "Daddy touched my poozle."

Crandall: Test me.

House: Happy to.

Crandall: Just my marrow - I'm not authorizing a paternity test.

House: You're not afraid of the truth?

Crandall: I know the truth!

House: Easy lay feigns truth, and says she needs a bus ticket home to visit her sick grandma. You gave her a hundred bucks. She bought weed. I know, because I told her you'd go for the sick grandma story.

Crandall: If our friendship means anything to you -

House: Come on, do you know me at all?

Crandall: If you do the test, one of two things happens: either you're right, or I'm right. If you're right, I'll be miserable, and if I'm right, I'll hate myself because I didn't trust her! Either way, I lose.

[Cut to the clinic. A mother takes the shirt off of her son, who has red splotches over his chest and face.]

Mother: They don't itch. Not raise. He's had his MMR; no one's sick at school. His father took him camping.

Son: We caught two spiders.

Mother: You didn't tell me about the spiders!

House: Did you get a new couch?

Mother: Do you think there might be some sort of toxin?

House: What color is it?

Son: Red.

House: Is that where you watch your cartoons after you take your bath?

Son: Mm hmm! [He wipes the kid's chest with a wet washcloth, which turns red.]

House: Fall asleep sometimes?

Son: [sneezes] Yes.

House: Bless you. [Cuddy enters.]

Cuddy: Need you. Now.

House: Yes, mistress. I'll write you a prescription for one of these. Just wet and apply.

[Cut to Cuddy's office.]

Cuddy: You didn't tell anyone else what I'm doing?

House: Not a soul.

Cuddy: Wilson? Cameron, maybe you mentioned it to her?

House: No, I'm a really good secret keeper. I never told anyone that Wilson wets his bed.

Cuddy: Part of the protocol for in vitro fertilization is twice-daily injections of menotropins. I can't do it myself.

House: Turn around.

Cuddy: No clever comments about bending over?

House: Not unless you want me to.

Cuddy: I'm just not use to House the professional. [House is transfixed by Cuddy's behind.]

House: I was just thinking about what your mother looked like, because your father obviously chose her for breeding purposes -

Cuddy: Shut up.

House: Natural selection sucks. We pick our mates based on breast size, cars they drive.... They did autopsies on married couples and found correlations in pancreas size. We're hardwired to pick for stupid reasons, you have the chance to pick for smart reasons.

Cuddy: I think the Germans had a similar theory about 60 years ago.

House: I'm not advocating wiping out entire races, I'm just saying you don't want to mate with the first plastic cup that buys you a drink. [All this time, he's wiping a patch with a alcohol swab.]

Cuddy: I'm pretty sure you've got that.

House: Microbes can be sneaky.

Cuddy: Ow! Thanks.

House: Twice a day. This is going to be fun.

[Cut to Leona undergoing radiation treatment.]

Wilson: I got it. [Radiation tech leaves.] So why were you friends with this guy?

House: We were 20 years old, he had a car. If he had been a woman, I would have married him.

Wilson: Is he a match?

House: No. Lying girl lucked out and found one in the registry.

Wilson: Is he the dad?

House: I don't think so.

Wilson: You didn't run the test?

House: Said I wouldn't.

Wilson: Okay, so either you lied or he has pictures of you... being nice?

House: Stop the radiation. [House rushes in to find black sludge trickling out of Leona's mouth.]

Wilson: What the hell is that?

House: I have no idea.

[Cut to House pacing. The team walks up.]

Chase: Lab results from the black ooze. You're not going to believe it.

House: She pooped out of her mouth.

Cameron: The sample contained stool and digestive blood, how did you guess?

House: 'Cause it oozed; if it was in her stomach it would have sprayed, if it was in her lungs she would have coughed. This oozed, as in squeezed, as in reverse peristalsis. Who's hungry, Mexican takeout?

Chase: In order for there to be digestive blood in her intestines there had to be internal bleeding.

Cameron: Yeah, and for whatever in her intestines to come back up there had to be a blockage.

Foreman: Liver failure. Renal proteins that clot the blood so it would clot the blood and mess up her intestines.

House: Means oops, we were wrong, because no autoimmune disease shuts down an organ in two hours. We need to do a liver biopsy, find out what the real problem is.

[Cut to Leona's room, where Crandall is sitting by her side. House pokes his head in.]

House: Hey, need to talk to you. The good news is she doesn't have an autoimmune condition, so she doesn't need a bone marrow transplant and we were able to stop the radiation in time. The bad news: she has potty mouth. Her liver is failing, she's made her digestive system go in reverse. It's actually much worse than it sounds. We need to do a liver biopsy. I don't know what's going to happen when we stick a needle into her liver, but she could die right then and there.

Crandall: You need to tell me what to do.

House: No inside information on this one. But Crandall, three days ago you didn't even know this girl. If she'd been h*t by a bus you wouldn't lose a moment's sleep. There are people all over this hospital who are in just as much trouble and just as not related to you.

Crandall: You telling me I shouldn't care? Prep me to handle it, in case she dies?

[Cut to House listening to more of Jesse Baker's music in his office. Wilson enters with some food.]

House: It's brown, it's lumpy... I'm going to heave all over my desk.

Wilson: Chicken mole. 21 herbs and spices. I find it very comforting, you defending a man you haven't seen in years. To know my friend, no matter what, will always be my champion, my protector.

House: I'm not protecting him, I'm smacking her.

Wilson: The modesty of a true hero.

House: Push me and I'll let her die, just so you'll stop annoying me.

Wilson: Here's my theory: you're jealous. He's maturing, he's accepting responsibility, you're emotionally stuck at seventeen.

House: He's manufacturing responsibility, he's not maturing. He hasn't changed at all.

Wilson: So then, why do you care?

House: That black ooze we saw? That was a bowel movement. Out of her mouth.

Wilson: You're trying to end this conversation by grossing me out? I'm an oncologist. Half of my patients have their skin schleffing off. Why are you so worried about this guy?

House: He was having a rough time with his girlfriend. He was in love, he was always in love. He wanted to marry her, but I thought she was flaky, sending mixed signals.

Wilson: So, you gave him advice and she dumped him.

House: No, I told him that I would talk to her.

Wilson: And you blew it?

House: Technically... [makes a reversing hand gesture] I was doing him a favor, she was nuts! [Wilson leaves in disgust, leaving the food, which House eats. He turns on the music, but turns it off again. Epiphany time!]

[Cut to Foreman and Chase doing the liver biopsy. Foreman's pager beeps.]

Foreman: Stop the biopsy.

Chase: I'm right at her liver.

Foreman: It's House. He says stop.

[Cut to House's office, where he's got the music going again.]

House: Check it out.

Foreman: Please tell me you didn't have us stop the biopsy to check out some tunes!

House: His left hand is very subtle, very delicate.

Cameron: This girl is dying.

House: Be dying a lot faster if I let you do that obviously unnecessary biopsy. Now listen.

Jesse Baker: I asked for this tuned! Did you get this instrument tuned?

Foreman: My God! Grandpa was an angry drunk, if only we'd known!

House: Here's how to become a great artist. First, get miserable. Misery drives you to become a great artist, but the art does nothing for your misery, which drives you to drugs, which makes you a lousy artist, and this is not lousy.

Chase: You're saying he didn't do drugs?

House: Not when he played this. Something was screwing with his personality.

Foreman: Yeah, drugs and alcohol don't do that.

House: And that note that he says is out of tune, it's not, which means that something is screwing with his aural perception, too. Now, what happens when you add all that to the liver disease, which he supposedly died of?

Cameron: Too much iron. He could have had hemocromatosis, that's genetic.

Foreman: Unless you can tell me Miles Davis couldn't play stoned -

House: Played better when he wasn't. I think, I mean, no one knows for sure.

Cameron: I'll get Leona a TIBC and [something].

House: We can test this in three minutes.

[Cut to Leona's room.]

House: So, what is she, Foreman? Light-skinned black chick or dark-skinned white chick?

Foreman: Not sure. Can we hear the music again?

Chase: It's too early to see jaundice from the liver.

House: True. This is a photograph of Leona when she was 13 years old. She's darker now.

Cameron: She's been living on the streets for eight months.

House: No tan line, so unless those streets she's been living on are indoor streets, I'm thinking she's got iron deposits in her melanin, both byproducts of hemocromatosis, just like Granddad used to make. SQUID exam to calculate the amount of iron in her blood. And treat her with deferoxamine, she'll be fine by lunch. 'Cause, you see, I was wrong before, about the breakfast....

[Cut to Foreman monitoring the exam on Leona.]

Foreman: There's the iron, and lots of it.

[Cut to House interviewing some guy.]

Patrick: I'm not going to get this job, am I?

House: It's a done deal. I knew it the moment I saw you. Interview's just a formality.

Cuddy: House, what are you -

House: Lisa Cuddy, this is Patrick Glidahan. Patrick's going to be the new intern rotating in my department.

Cuddy: I didn't even know you were looking for one, nice to meet you. [He laughs, complete with snort.]

Patrick: Sorry. I laugh when I'm nervous.

House: Bet you've been doing that your whole life, huh?

Cuddy: What kind of medicine are you interested in, Patrick?

Patrick: Cancer, infectious disease, the big devils. I think that medicine has become too institutionalized. We need to send a message to our patients that we're just like them. I mean, we're all people.

House: We're all people. I like that. She's all hard science, facts. I like to know a person's hopes and dreams. What kind of music do you like, Patrick?

Cuddy: Actually, I don't -

Patrick: I'm a Mozart man. He says what I feel, but can't express.

Cuddy: I'm late for a meeting.

House: You see, this is why the face-to-face interview is so important. You've got to know who you're getting in bed with.

Cuddy: Get him out of here.

[Cut to Chase setting up the IV for Leona.]

Chase: Deferoxamine is a chelating agent. It binds to the iron, and the liver can get rid of it. Once the iron's out of the liver, it's finally evacuated from the body in the form of urine. Should be quick and painless. [Cut to a CG of a black mass breaking off, and then breaking holes in her veins.] Leona?

Crandall: What's happening?

Chase: Crash cart! She's not getting any air. [Chase puts a tube down her throat.]

[Clinic lobby.]

Chase: CT shows her lungs are Swiss cheese. Ventilator's helping, but at this point, her time is basically up.

House: We developed a theory: hemocromatosis. Like good scientists we tested that theory, we proved that theory. We acted based on that proof and we treated her. As a result of which, she is on the verge of death. Is it just me, or have we discovered a flaw in this scientific method? Walk me through it, step-by-step. What is supposed to happen when you give someone deferoxamine?

Cameron: It's a chelating agent.

House: What does the chelating do?

Chase: Removes excess iron from the liver.

House: How?

Chase: Iron is heavy, it gets stuck. Deferoxamine is like a lubricant. It makes the iron slick so it can move around again.

House: Moves around where?

Chase: It's supposed to be discharged through waste.

House: Her waste system is a little screwy right now, means the waste can't go where it wants to go. What if it went to the lungs?

Foreman: Whatever's in the lungs likes iron, bound with it, started poking holes.

House: What likes iron?

Chase: Oxygen attaches itself to iron, which increases the chance of infection.

Foreman: And when we started massive antibiotics prior to the radiation...

Cameron: Some neurodegenerative diseases like iron.

Chase: Her MRI was clean, no iron deposits on the brain.

Foreman: Fungus likes iron.

House: No objections to that one?

Chase: If a fungus is doing all this, she's d*ad. There are 25 anti-fungals, if we don't know which -

House: When in doubt, go broad.

Cameron: Most common is Aspergillus.

House: Continue to ventilate her lungs, get her on a voriconazole drip, hope she has Aspergillus.

[Cut to House in a clinic room. Cuddy enters.]

Cuddy: The process is confidential. You violated his privacy! How did you even -

House: I looked up 'loser' in the cryo bank. You wouldn't look within a hundred miles of that idiot, and yet you're willing to have his baby.

Cuddy: I'm not looking for a date, I'm tired of looking for a - ow! [House s*ab her with the needle.]

House: Cotton ball? I don't care if you marry this guy, date this guy, go through his garbage, but you should know genes matter. Who you are matters. Find somebody you trust.

Cuddy: Somebody like you?

House: Someone like you.

[Cut to Wilson entrering House's office.]

Wilson: Listen, oh, sorry! [House is having his leg massaged, which from Wilson's angle looks like a different kind of service altogether.]

House: It's not what you think.

Ingrid: I rub his leg.

Wilson: Oh, Ingrid! Hi. Okay, you feel guilty about stealing the guy's girl, I get that, and I'm glad. It's a good thing. But you did the paternity test. And either the paternity test comes back negative and you shove it in the guy's face, or it comes back positive and you shut up and your leg starts hurting.

House: Or I never ran the test. [Cameron enters.] Not what you think!

Cameron: Leona's lung's collapsed. The treatment's not working, we've got the wrong fungus.

House: You can stop. She ruined it.

[Diagnostics.]

House: Three rules for hunting fungus. Location, location, location.

Chase: Crandall says she was living in the children's shelter in Ridgeland.

House: Okay, the one thing we know for sure is she was not living in the children's shelter in Ridgeland.

Foreman: Why would he lie about that?

House: He wouldn't, if he believed her story about the sweet little girl trying to do the right thing.

Cameron: We can't ask Leona where she was, she's intubated.

[Cut to House waking up Leona.]

House: Don't try to talk, you've got a big medical thing in your mouth. Just blink if you understand. [Blink.] Fantastic. Blink if you lied to Crandall about everything. You picked up a fungus somewhere. If you were living in the shelter like you told your new daddy I got nothing to go on, and you will die. So, did you lie to Crandall? You're a lousy con artist. First rule of the game is know your mark. Once you got Crandall to bite on the poppet thing you had him. You could have told him that you were servicing Al Qaeda's su1c1de b*mb for crack, this guy would still let you pick out the colors in your new room. Did you lie to Crandall? [Blink. House puts a pen and paper in her hands.] Where were you?

[Cut to House leaving the ICU.]

House: And the winner is... oh, you read it, I just get so nervous at these things.

Cameron: Recording studio.

House: She read the book. She knew how much Crandall hated that place, what went on there. She overplayed her hand.

Cameron: She was desperate. If she didn't sell this, she was stuck in Hell.

Chase: Recording studio doesn't help us, medically.

House: Recording studios. Why are these buildings different from all other buildings?

Cameron: Soundproofing. Absorbs sound, also absorbs moisture.

House: Where there's moisture, a lot of it, let's say, Katrina moist, there's -

Foreman: Zygomycosis. Only occurs at the highest levels of mold.

House: Start her on an IV drip of Amphotericin B with colony stimulating factors. She'll be fine by... dinner.

[Cut to Foreman putting on the drip.]

Foreman: She's going to be fine.

Crandall: She said she'd never go back there.

Foreman: She lied to you. She's your kid - get used to it.

[Cut to House's office.]

Cuddy: Thank you for the injections.

House: You're welcome. You came all the way up here just to tell me that?

Cuddy: No. [She leaves.]

[Cut to House examining Leona.]

House: Pretty much normal. Liver function tests are good.

Crandall: Thanks, G-man.

House: What makes you think you'd be a good father?

Crandall: I don't know. Feels right. It feels good.

House: Well, at least you've got a good reason.

Crandall: It feels good is a good enough reason. [Leona begins to choke.] What's happening?

House: She's choking, she can't breathe. Get him out of here, will you? Out! [grabs random instruments] Quick, the curtain! You're breathing on your own, choking's normal. I lied to him, I ran a paternity test. Your lie was a bad one. He is your dad. [to Crandall] We're even.

[Cut to House's residence. His phone is ringing.]

Wilson's voice: Uh, your machine's broken, there's not even a message. House, are you there? Okay, see you Monday, I guess. [House looks at the results of the paternity test, they're negative. He sets them next to an empty syringe.]
{"type": "series", "show": "House", "episode": "02x23 - Who's Your Daddy"}