[Opens with House getting a lap dance at a strip club.]

DANCER: Do you like that?

HOUSE: Uh...I don’t know.

DANCER: Do you want me to use my butt again?

HOUSE: [House see's a very short flashback of someone bleeding.] I don’t know how I got here. [Exhales into his hand and smells his breath.] How many drinks did I have?

DANCER: Your scotch hasn’t even arrived yet.

HOUSE: That means I was drunk when I got here. [Looks at his watch.] 8:50. [Thinks.] I remember being at work. I’ve lost at least four hours. [To the dancer.] Say five words.

DANCER: [Still dancing.] What do you mean?

HOUSE: That’s four words. The accepted diagnostic test for global memory impairment is five random words.

DANCER: Are you okay?

HOUSE: I’m...[Dancer sits on his lap.] Trying to find that out. Give me five... Animals.

DANCER: Um...Cat. Bird. Monkey. Rhino. Goldfish.

HOUSE: [Closes his eyes.] Monkey, Rhino... [Grabs his head.] Either I’m massively drunk – [Looks at blood on fingertips.]

DANCER: [Sees the blood on his hand.] Oh, you’re bleeding.

HOUSE: Or it’s someone else’s blood. Do you see a wound? [Dancer winces as she looks at his scalp.] How bad is it?

DANCER: It’s all over.

HOUSE: I have a concussion. Retrograde amnesia. [Pats his pockets.] I have no keys, no phone. I’ve been mugged.

DANCER: No you haven’t. You already gave me a twenty.

HOUSE: Did you earn it?

DANCER: Not yet.

[House has a momentary flashback of a woman.]

HOUSE: Someone is going to die.

DANCER: [Looks alarmed and yells toward the bouncer.] Kenny!

HOUSE: Not you. I saw something, a symptom. Someone is going to die unless I find them.

DANCER: Who?

HOUSE: I have no idea. Keep the change.

[House walks out of the strip club and hears sirens, walks out a bit further and sees a bus on its side with f*re trucks, ambulances and police surrounding it. People are being stretchered off the bus and into the ambulances.]

[Opening credits.]

[Cut to PPTH emergency room. House is being treated by Cameron and is talking to Wilson. He looks around at all the injured people and sees another short flashback.]

HOUSE: I saw somebody dying.

WILSON: You saw thirty people flying into glass and metal.

HOUSE: I saw a symptom before the crash.

WILSON: You're concussed. You don't know what you saw and you don't know when you saw it. A week ago, you noticed a symptom in a soap star.

HOUSE: Bad argument. Since I was right about that.

WILSON: But your brain obviously thinks it happened last night. Wires are crossed.

CAMERON: [Finishes pulling stuff out of Houses head.] That's all of it. A few stitches will hold your brain in place. [Starts trying to put in the first stitch.]

HOUSE: [Pulls away.] Ow!

CAMERON: Hey! Hold your head still unless you want me to sew your nose under your eye.

HOUSE: Why was I taking the bus?

WILSON: Because you were drunk.

HOUSE: What if I saw someone and I followed them on from... Somewhere in Princeton?

[Taub, Thirteen and Kutner walk up to House.]

TAUB: You okay?

HOUSE: Perfect. Uh...Uh...You. [Points to Taub.] Get histories from everyone in here.

WILSON: Did you just forget his name?

HOUSE: No. [To Thirteen] Lesbian. Find out if anybody on that bus was taken to other hospitals.

THIRTEEN: You just forgot mine.

HOUSE: No, Thirteen. I just wanted to call you a lesbian.

THIRTEEN: I'm not a lesbian.

HOUSE: I was rounding up, from 50%. [To Kutner] Find my cane and motorcycle. Figure out where I went last night.

KUTNER: [Pulls out a pen and opens a file.] Where’s your cane and motorcycle? And where’d you go last night?

HOUSE: You’re going to trust me? I lie about everything. [The three of them leave.]

CAMERON. You’re staying the night. We need to monitor your brain for swelling.

HOUSE: How much bigger could it get?

WILSON: You don’t think it's – [House motions for Wilson to get the crutch nearby for him. Wilson grabs it and hands it to House.] A little weird that there’s both a giant crash and a simultaneous, mysterious symptom sighting? [House realises something.]

HOUSE: What if it’s not a coincidence?

WILSON: You mean like the hand of God reaching down and screwing with you?

HOUSE: That... Or the symptom caused the crash. [Looks around.] Did you see anybody in a bus driver’s uniform?

[Cut to House pulling a curtain open with the crutch, which he is using as a cane replacement, to reveal the bus driver, who is lying in a bed with some blood on him but he is awake. House takes a quick look and points to a bruise on his chest.]

HOUSE: Right here. Purpura on Ralph Klamden’s neck, indicative of leukaemia. Caused a bleed in the brain, and hence the accident.

WILSON: [Moves the bus driver’s shirt open a bit more revealing the bruise is in the shape of a seatbelt.] Indicative of wearing a seatbelt. It’s just a bruise.

BUS DRIVER: I have leukaemia?

HOUSE: No, we just ruled that out, pay attention. [To Wilson] He probably had a seizure.

BUS DRIVER: I didn’t have a seizure. I got h*t by a garbage truck.

HOUSE: Which you drove into while you were seizing.

WILSON: You saw the bus driver exhibiting the initial stages of a seizure and didn’t bother telling him to pull over?

[Something in the distance catches House’s attention.]

HOUSE: Hey! [House walks over to one of the crash victims being wheeled out in a wheelchair by a nurse.] Nobody leaves here until I say they can be discharged.

WHEELCHAIR GUY: She said I was –

HOUSE: Is she me? [Feels his forehead.] You have a fever.

WHEELCHAIR GUY: No, I’m fine.

NURSE: 98.6.

HOUSE: I need him to stay.

NURSE: Pulse is normal. BP’s normal. Everything’s normal.

WHEELCHAIR GUY: I just have a stiff neck from the crash.

HOUSE: Stiff neck. [Yells to everyone in the ER.] This man has meningitis. We need to quarantine the whole ER. No one leaves here until their full workup is complete.

[Cut to House, Taub, Thirteen and Kutner in the Diagnostics Office, watching the surveillance tape of House leaving the hospital car park on his bike.]

KUTNER: You left here at 5:23 p.m. Your motorcycle never made it home.

HOUSE: Well, that covers ten seconds out of the four hours I can’t remember. Where else did you look?

KUTNER: We did pull up a list of all of the injuries. Twenty-two victims were brought here, injuries ranging from a broken pelvis to a severed right foot.

TAUB: The other eight were taken over to Princeton General.

HOUSE: [Looking through the files.] It would be helpful if these came with head sh*ts and resumes.

THIRTEEN: [Reading off one of the files.] Twenty-something year-old Jane Doe. Kidney contusion, laceration on her leg –

HOUSE: Both of which are expected complications when someone goes from 60 to 0 in no seconds flat.

TAUB: The weirdest thing we’ve got is a ruptured spleen.

HOUSE: Okay, new plan. We make a list of all the bars between here and the crash site. Find out where I went, we go there –

TAUB: On it. [The three of them start to leave.]

HOUSE: You’re not going to do anything, are you?

THIRTEEN: We’re going to go to the ER and do our jobs.

HOUSE: Someone is dying because I can’t remember –

TAUB: When you remember, you can page us.

KUTNER: [Turns back.] The shortest distance between here and your memory is straight through your prefrontal cortex. All we have to do is access it.

TAUB: Great idea. I’ll build the giant submarine. You get the miniaturization gizmo.

KUTNER: Medical hypnosis can bring the brain to a class II theta state, increasing focus and memory retrieval.

HOUSE: You’re not doing to make me do the chicken dance, are you?

KUTNER: Someone on the surgical department must be trained.

[Cut to House’s office, where Chase is trying to hypnotize House with Wilson watching on.]

CHASE: [In a soft voice.] Just relax. Keep letting go of any intrusive thoughts.

HOUSE: [Lying back with his eyes closed.] So what, you saw an ad on the back of a comic book?

CHASE: Shh… I did a rotation in Melbourne. Focus on the sound of your breath.

WILSON: You're taxing an already injured brain. It’s like telling him to walk it off after a broken ankle.

CHASE: Wilson is done talking now. [Chase glares at Wilson.] Visualize the bus. The way it looked. The way it smelled. The people on it. What they look like.

HOUSE: This is a waste of... [Suddenly House is on the bus, which is empty.] Time. [Looks around.] Cool. [Chase appears on the bus in front of him.]

CHASE: Focus on the details.

HOUSE: The bus is empty. [House suddenly sees a hand waving in front of him. We are back in Houses office and we see that Wilson is waving his hand in House's face who is just staring straight ahead.]

WILSON: Is this really working?

CHASE [To Wilson]: Shh. [Resumes talking to House.] Just focus. Clear your mind. [Back on the bus, now Wilson is there too.] Think back to how you felt. Details you saw.

HOUSE: [Looks around.] I can't see out the windows, and I can see you guys.

CHASE: Memories further from the incident should be clearer. Where were you before you got on the bus?

[Suddenly we see a bunch of liquor bottles, all simply labeled 'Liquor'. House is sitting at a bar, alone. He downs a sh*t of liquor, and then picks up a bottle of beer labeled 'Beer' and starts drinking that.]

WILSON: Why did you get so drunk at five in the afternoon, alone?

HOUSE: I need a reason? [Looks to his right and Wilson is sitting next to him.] God, I hate 'beer' brand beer.

WILSON: [To Chase who appears on the other side of House.] When he's hypnotized, can he lie?

CHASE: He...

HOUSE: I can be mistaken, but I can't actually lie under hypnosis. [Continues drinking.]

WILSON: [To Chase] Is he lying?

CHASE: No.

WILSON: What are you running away from?

HOUSE: When I'm drinking without you? What am I running away from? Hmm, One of those imponderables. Can you hold off on your insecurities until we find this patient?

CHASE: Do you see anyone in the bar?

HOUSE: [Looks around sees some people playing pool, some just drinking, all of them have no faces.] I see a faceless crowd. How do I focus? Say something to make me focus. [Amber appears in the corner.]

AMBER: He's concerned about you. Why does that mean he's insecure?

HOUSE: [To Wilson] Will you get your girlfriend out of here?

AMBER: It's a legit question.

WILSON: Amber's there? You've got Amber in your head?

HOUSE: You put her in my head. I can't even have a conversation with you in my subconscious without her tagging along.

WILSON: Well she better have her clothes on.

HOUSE: [Sighs] Unfortunately. [Pause] I didn't mean to say that out loud.

WILSON: Say what out loud?

HOUSE: I didn't say it out loud? Nothing.

WILSON: What's going on in there?

HOUSE: [To Chase] If I can't lie, I need these two out of here.

CHASE: Let's just ignore Wilson and Amber for now, shall we?

HOUSE: I wish it were that – [Notices that Wilson and Amber have disappeared.] That's some program they got down there in Melbourne. [He picks up a fluted glass of what looks like champagne.] Cheers. [House looks up as he raises his glass and sees the bartender.] I remember the bartender.

CHASE: Good. Now you're accessing your temporal lobe. Does the bartender have any odd symptoms?

HOUSE: He seems fine. [Looks around] Anybody here sick? Anyone here taking the bus?

BARTENDER: You are.

HOUSE: [Looks at the bartender again.] Because... You took my keys.

CHASE: Good. This is good. Now we can retrace your steps. Let's go back to the bus. What's in front of you?

HOUSE: [Back on the bus. He can see all the passengers.] Passengers.

CHASE: Anything, special about them?

[House see's a dark haired woman who smiles at him and he smiles back, then he notices a guy coughing.]

HOUSE: Some emo guitar hero wannabe.

CHASE: You're focusing on him, why?

HOUSE: [Emo Guy picks his nose.] Because nose picking could mean nasal pruritus. He's dying.

[Cut to the ER. House walks up to Emo Guy who is being attended to by Cuddy.]

HOUSE: [To Emo Guy.] You a nose picker?

EMO GUY: Do I have to answer?

HOUSE: If the answer was no, you would have answered. Tilt your head back.

CUDDY: He’s fine. He doesn’t even have meningitis, just like everybody else we’ve had to give meningitis sh*ts to. [To Emo Guy.] You can go.

HOUSE: You have a brain tumour.

EMO GUY: You’re kidding, right?

HOUSE: If I was kidding, I’d be dressed like you.

CUDDY: You’re fine. A nurse will sign you out.

HOUSE: Go home. Have fun. Relax. I’m probably just a nut case. [Emo Guy looks at Cuddy.]

CUDDY: [Sighs.] Tilt your head back.

HOUSE: [Looks in Emo Guy’s nose, sees nothing of interest.] You can get your things and go.

CUDDY: [To House] You need to rest. I’m admitting you.

BUS DRIVER: [Yelling.] Oh! Oh! I can’t get up. I can’t move my legs.

HOUSE: Your legs are not your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is... I don’t know what your biggest problem is.

[Cut to everyone in the Diagnostics Office]

HOUSE: So, we have the who, but not the what.

TAUB: We’ve only got one symptom to go on. Sudden onset paralysis.

HOUSE: We actually have two symptoms.

FOREMAN: Only one that we remember.

TAUB: You did a full work up on the guy. Did you find anything? [House shakes his head.]

KUTNER: CT ruled out subdural hematoma, stroke, or subarachnoid hemorrhage.

THIRTEEN: Guillain-Barré fits.

HOUSE: [Makes some weird arm movements, everyone looks at him.] I’m just trying to figure out what Guillain-Barré looks like.

THIRTEEN: You can’t just eliminate everything because it doesn’t match what you might have seen.

HOUSE: How about because it doesn’t match what I could have seen? Guillain-Barré has no external physical manifestations.

FOREMAN: Everything has some external physical manifestations, and you’re obsessive enough to notice any of them. Which means there’s nothing we can rule out.

KUTNER: Elevated white count means transverse myelitis is...

TAUB: Sudden paralysis while driving a bus. That’s the sort of subtle clue that only a genius would have noticed. [Sips coffee. House has a short flashback of someone on the bus drinking coffee. House takes Taub’s coffee away from him and sniffs it.]

KUTNER: Are you sure you’re feeling okay?

[House puts the coffee down, gets up and starts to leave.]

THIRTEEN: Where are you going?

HOUSE: To smell a bus, obviously. [Taub, Thirteen and Kutner follow him out. Foreman stays behind.]

FOREMAN: Yeah, I’ll uh, start him on antibiotics in case it’s transverse myelitis. You guys go sniff a city bus.

[Cut to House in the ER pulling passenger clothes out of a box and smelling them.]

THIRTEEN: Why are you smelling the passengers’ clothes?

HOUSE: Smell is the most powerful evokerater of memory. [Takes a couple of Vicodin.] I need to get back on that bus.

TAUB: Okay. So why are you taking so much Vicodin?

HOUSE: If Cuddy asks, blocking the pain helps focus the memory.

THIRTEEN: You split your head open, you should rest. [Hands him another piece of clothing.] Anything?

HOUSE: A hint of... Exploded bus. [Takes another couple of Vicodin.]

TAUB: House, that’s four Vicodin in forty seconds. At this rate...

HOUSE: [Dumping all the clothes onto the table.] Wish me luck. I’m going in. Rambo style. [Slams his head down in the clothes.]

TAUB: House, do you think this is going to work, or are you just stoned?

HOUSE: [Stands up again and now he's back on the bus.] Both, apparently.

BUS DRIVER: You’re wrong. It’s not working.

HOUSE: So, you’re saying I’m not here. [Walking towards the bus driver.]

BUS DRIVER: If this were a real memory, you’d be limping. [House looks down and notices that he isn't limping.] And you wouldn’t be talking to me. I’m obviously a hallucination.

HOUSE: Okay. So I went a little heavy on the Vicodin.

BUS DRIVER. Better hope so. Because otherwise, that means that your brain’s bleeding.

HOUSE: We’re both in my head. You’d think one of us would have noticed the blood.

BUS DRIVER: Why haven’t you had a head CT yet?

HOUSE: Who do you want me to treat? Me or you? Did you have a seizure?

BUS DRIVER: Dumb question. The brain’s too fried during a seizure to form memories.

HOUSE: Dumb answer. I wasn’t asking you, I was asking me. Because you’ve already proven that you're not here.

BUS DRIVER: I’m getting a headache.

HOUSE: Is that a clue?

BUS DRIVER: Again, I’m not here. You’re getting a headache. Stop arguing with a hallucination and get some treatment.

MYSTERY WOMAN: He can’t. [House turns around and sees that same dark haired woman from earlier on, now there are other passengers around.] The hallucination is your messed up brain’s way of reasoning out a problem.

HOUSE: You weren’t on the bus.

MYSTERY WOMAN: How do you know?

HOUSE: Five hundred dollar shoes. Not on a Princeton cross-town.

MYSTERY WOMAN: Must be another reason why I’m here.

HOUSE: Yes. What do you have to tell me? [Wilson slaps his hand on House’s shoulder, bringing him back to the present. House is annoyed.] I was talking to the passengers on the bus!

WILSON: You were hallucinating. You’re getting an MRI.

[Cut to House in the MRI. He scratches his beard.]

WILSON: [Monitoring the test.] Stop fidgeting.

HOUSE: If you haven’t found the bleed yet, it can’t be –

WILSON: There’s edema, and localized swelling in the section of the temporal lobe that controls short-term memory. Also, the penis size cortex is set to pathetic. What didn’t you say out loud?

HOUSE: Very little.

WILSON: When you were under hypnosis, you were talking to Amber?

HOUSE: I wanted to see her naked.

WILSON: Seriously, what were you hiding?

HOUSE: I want to see her naked.

WILSON: You want to see everyone naked. Why would you hide that?

HOUSE: [Laughs.] Well some guys get upset when you objectify their girlfriends. But if you’re okay, I’ve got a digital video camera. So we could –

WILSON: Why would I be upset that you’re treating my girlfriend like you treat every other woman on the planet, unless...You’re not? Unless it’s deeper than that. You WEREN'T objectifying her.

HOUSE: Trust me. I want to do some very nasty, demeaning stuff to your girlfriend.

WILSON: You have feelings for her. [Pauses as he looks at the screen] This is bad.

[Cut to Radiology viewing room. Cuddy and Wilson are looking at the scans while House stands on the other side of the room with his back to them.]

CUDDY: It’s a longitudinal fracture of the temporal bone.

HOUSE: I banged my head.

CUDDY: This isn’t just a boo-boo.

HOUSE: I’ll rest once I’ve figured out what’s wrong with this guy.

WILSON: Why? Why this guy? You want patients with weird undiagnosed symptoms? You get five files like that on your desk every morning and you’d never risk your life for them. [House turns around.] Why is this guy so special, so that you become Batman?

HOUSE: I don’t know.

CUDDY: Maybe it’s because you have a cracked skull, and you’re not yourself. Go home. Go to sleep. [House nods.]

[Cut to the Cafeteria. House is scribbling notes on a pad:

Thymoma               Twitch in the hands

                                Legionnaires

                               Thyroid cancer

Lymphoma

                                Myoclonic jerk

                                Thyroid

Myelitis

He puts some question marks next to Legionnaires and then circles it. Writes something else on the pad and then draws an arrow from Lymphoma to Thymoma. He turns the page over and suddenly gets a bad migraine. He puts his head in his hands for a few seconds and then goes back to what he was doing.]

[Cut to Bus driver’s room. Thirteen and Foreman are helping him stand.]

BUS DRIVER: My legs are holding.

THIRTEEN: Good, now put all your weight on your right leg. [House enters.] The antibiotics are working. It’s TM.

FOREMAN: It’s two in the morning. You should be home resting what’s left of your bruised brain.

HOUSE: Recovery’s too fast.

THIRTEEN: What, the fact that he’s getting better is evidence that we’re wrong?

BUS DRIVER: [Groans] I need to sit. [They help him back onto his bed.]

FOREMAN: Recovery slow enough for you now?

BUS DRIVER: It’s my stomach. Oh... [Lies down on his back.]

HOUSE: Which means it’s not transverse myelitis.

THIRTEEN: Rapid onset. It could be a perforated ulcer.

HOUSE: Wouldn’t explain the paralysis. Addison’s, from a tumour. It’s possible that I saw his eyelids droop.

FOREMAN: We’ve scanned his head five times. [Looks at House and notices blood dripping from his ear.] You’re bleeding.

HOUSE: A little thing called a bus crash. It’s just a scalp laceration. It could be hidden in his optic chiasm.

FOREMAN: It’s coming from your ear. You think that’s a good thing?

HOUSE: [Ignores Foreman.] But that would have affected his eyesight. I need to take a bath.

[Cut to Sensory Deprivation t*nk room. House is standing in a t*nk of water pouring salt in while thirteen watches on.]

THIRTEEN: Hallucinations and smells were kind of working, right? Why the bath?

HOUSE: Hypnosis gave me a nose picker. Smells set off hallucinations. Sensory deprivation should get the brain into an alpha-theta phase. [Hands the rest of the salt to Thirteen and then takes off his shirt.] Didn’t you see Altered States?

THIRTEEN: I don’t think I was even born when that movie was out.

HOUSE: Well then you’re too young to be a doctor. That movie was released in 1980.

THIRTEEN: That was twenty-eight years ago.

HOUSE: No, it wasn’t, shut up.

THIRTEEN: Did you just forget what year it is?

HOUSE: No. I just remembered how old I am. [Gets into the t*nk.] I need to give my brain time to transition so I can embrace my inner monkey. Or maybe I don’t. Give me some physostigmine. It crosses the blood-brain barrier.

THIRTEEN: And act like a nerve gas, stop your heart, you’ll go to heaven and be omniscient. Good idea. Not going to happen. [Starts closing the lid. House stops her.]

HOUSE: Don’t do anything. Even if I escape. Eat a goat. Get sh*t by police –

THIRTEEN: Wasn’t born yet means I won’t be entertained by further reference. [Closes the lid as House lies down.]

[Cut to House on the Bus, Cuddy is sitting nearby.]

CUDDY: I didn’t know you rode the bus.

HOUSE: I used to drive home after getting drunk, but some mothers got MAD-D. What are you doing here? You weren’t on the bus with me.

CUDDY: [Gets up and walks over to House.] Then I guess this isn’t a memory. It’s a fantasy.

HOUSE: If it’s a fantasy, you’d be wearing... This. [Cuddy clothes suddenly change to a much skimpier outfit.]

CUDDY: You’re convinced your patient is dying, and you want to waste your time with a sex fantasy?

HOUSE: Don’t blame me. Blame my gender.

CUDDY: Well, I’m not here to indulge that. I’m here to help you figure out what symptom you saw. Your patient was driving the bus, so all you could see –

HOUSE: Why can’t you do both?

[Cue cheesy strip tease music as Cuddy starts to dance around a pole that just appeared, the bus has now morphed into a strip club.]

CUDDY: Your patient was driving the bus, so all you could see was him sitting down. Most likely facing forward.

HOUSE: [House smiles as he watches Cuddy.] From behind, I saw his earlobes wiggling. Or his head bobbing. [Cuddy takes off her top and drops it on House's face. House sits stunned for a few seconds and then takes it off his face, as Cuddy gives him a nice look at her ass.] But not that.

CUDDY: Could indicate aortic insufficiency.

HOUSE: Marfan’s syndrome.

CUDDY: Or syphilis. [Takes off her skirt. She is now just wearing her white bra and underwear - which are glowing under the black light - and her black stiletto’s as she swings around the pole to face House again.]

HOUSE: What if his earlobes were just drooping?

CUDDY: Ehlers-Danlos?

HOUSE: Or cutis laxa.

CUDDY: It’s not fatal in adults. [She turns around. With her back to House she unclips her bra.]

HOUSE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s an adult, very good point. Keep going. [She holds her bra up and turns around to House again who is leaning forward watching very closely.]

CUDDY: I’m distracting you. [She stops dancing, and sits down beside House. She’s wearing a suit again.]

HOUSE: [Screams.] No! Dance, woman!

CUDDY: You’d rather be diagnosing.

HOUSE: I screamed no.

CUDDY: And your own subconscious ignored you. Because you’d rather fantasize about finding symptoms. How screwed up is that?

BUS DRIVER: Hey, over here. [House looks up at the bus driver and Cuddy disappears.] Remember me? I’m the sick guy. [House gets up and walks over, without limping.]

HOUSE: Tell me what I saw.

BUS DRIVER: Was it the blood dripping from my ear? [Shows House his ear which is dripping blood.]

HOUSE: That doesn’t make sense. Because your shirt wasn’t stained. And because that was me. [House’s ear starts bleeding.]

BUS DRIVER: I could have had a subtle hemiballismus, indicating the early stages of Huntington’s.

HOUSE: Huntington’s wouldn’t explain the abdominal pain. And it’s only on the table because we’re thinking of Thirteen.

BUS DRIVER: A shuffling gait could suggest Parkinson’s.

HOUSE: Except there’s no such thing as shuffling sitting.

MYSTERY WOMAN: [Appears behind him.] He moved when he helped the old lady up the steps.

HOUSE: [Turns around and walks over to her.] Who are you?

MYSTERY WOMAN: I’m the answer. Look.

HOUSE: At what?

BUS DRIVER: Here. [House turns around, the bus is full of people and the Bus Driver is helping an old lady up the steps.]

HOUSE: [To Mystery Woman.] You were right. [Turns around and is suddenly blinded with light, which brings him back to the present as Foreman, Cuddy, Wilson, and Thirteen open the lid to the t*nk.]

CUDDY: Help him up.

HOUSE: [Jumps up.] I got it! It’s Parkinson’s.

THIRTEEN: House. Your ear.

HOUSE: Start him on levodopa.

WILSON: You should sit down.

[House throws up.]

CUDDY: House!

[House collapses. They manage to catch him as he falls into the t*nk and passes out.]

[Cut to House’s apartment. House wakes up with a nurse shining a light in his eyes.]

HOUSE: Get that out of my face.

NURSE: Welcome back. I’m Nurse Dickerson.

HOUSE: I don’t need your name. And I got your profession from your super competent technique of melting my retinas.

NURSE: Verbal faculties seem to be intact. Do you remember passing out?

HOUSE: I remember puking on Cuddy’s shoes. [Turns his head.] Ow.

NURSE: Yeah. Skull fractures tend to hurt.

HOUSE: It’d hurt a lot less if you didn’t swipe my pain pills.

NURSE: Dr. Cuddy’s orders. Wants me to regulate the amount –

HOUSE: [Sees a security guard standing near the door.] Wait a second, you brought muscle?

NURSE: Dr. Cuddy’s orders.

HOUSE: Means I was wrong. My patient doesn’t have Parkinson’s. Cuddy knows that’s the only reason I wouldn’t want to stay here with my pain pills, p*rn, and you forever. [Tries to sit up, Nurse Dickerson pushes him back down.]

NURSE: Vomiting means your brain injury is getting worse.

[Cut to Diagnostics Office. Kutner is look at House's MRI.]

KUTNER: House’s skull fracture extends all the way down to his ear canal.

FOREMAN: House is being looked after. Our other patient has jaundice, low albumin, and no diagnosis.

THIRTEEN: Wilson’s disease.

FOREMAN: Thank you. But Wilson’s wouldn’t explain – [Phone rings and he answers it.] Foreman.

HOUSE: [Lying on his couch using his mobile.] How did you eliminate Parkinson’s?

FOREMAN: Well, the tests confirmed the abdominal pain was caused by liver failure.

HOUSE: I assume you’ve already ruled out hepatitis and Wilson’s.

KUTNER: You should really be resting.

THIRTEEN: Give him five minutes. Brainstorming a few possibilities isn’t going to explode his brain.

HOUSE: Then if she’s wrong, that makes this phone call that much more exciting. What about hepatic fibrosis?

FOREMAN: Can’t be, his alk-phos was normal.

TAUB: It could be thyrotoxic periodic paralysis.

HOUSE: Did I mention this diagnosis needs to make sense?

FOREMAN: Why doesn’t it make sense? The bus driver’s Asian, his potassium is slightly low –

HOUSE: If he got paralysed while driving the bus, don’t you think I would have gotten off at the next stop?

THIRTEEN: Not if the next stop was at a 90 degree angle into an SUV.

HOUSE: The bus would have slowed, I would have noticed –

NURSE: Phone call’s over. [Tries to take the phone off House, he switches hands to avoid her grasp.]

TAUB: TPP has all the confirmed symptoms. There’s no downside to testing.

HOUSE: Genetic test is too slow. [Nurse takes phone away from him so he yells out.] Run the bagel test!

[Cut to Cardiology testing room. The Bus driver is on a treadmill and eating bagels.]

BUS DRIVER: How many more bagels do I have to eat for this to work?

THIRTEEN: High carbs plus exercise is the quickest way to confirm TPP.

BUS DRIVER: I’ve been on this for half an hour. I’m not going to collapse again.

THIRTEEN: Up the speed.

TAUB: Keep eating.

[Kutner’s phone rings.]

KUTNER: [Answers it.] Yeah?

HOUSE: [In his bathroom using a different phone.] So the carbo-loading marathon isn’t working. [Kutner looks around surprised.] Stop looking around suspiciously. To answer your next two questions, no, I am not there, and yes, you are completely predictable. If the test had worked, you would have called to put my delicate brain at ease. [Nurse knocks on the bathroom door.]

NURSE: I told you not to lock the door.

HOUSE: [Yells out.] Still wiping! [To Kutner.] Put the phone up to bus driver’s grill. [Kutner does as he’s told and House listens to the bus driver’s breathing.]

NURSE: Who are you talking to?

HOUSE: My large colon. [To Kutner.] TPP is not consistent with your patient’s laboured breathing.

KUTNER: The patient has laboured breathing because he’s been on a treadmill for the last thirty minutes.

NURSE: Did you take my cell phone?

HOUSE: My large colon did. I’m negotiating its release.

BUS DRIVER: Help!

HOUSE: What’s happening?

[Bus driver collapses. They put an oxygen mask over his mouth as he takes some deep breaths.]

KUTNER: The test worked. He collapsed.

HOUSE: You’re half right. He’s wheezing, isn’t he?

KUTNER: Yeah.

HOUSE: You can’t wheeze without moving your chest muscles. This isn’t TPP.

KUTNER: Then what is it?

HOUSE: Well how am I supposed to know? I’m not there! [Hangs up the phone.]

[Cut to Bus Driver’s room. The team is performing an ultrasound.]

TAUB: Right heart strain, he’s still not oxygenating.

KUTNER: It must be a pulmonary embolism. [Cuddy walks in with House.]

HOUSE: So why haven’t you pushed a vial of tPA?

KUTNER: You let him back in?

CUDDY: I asked him back in.

HOUSE: At the tail end of me patiently explaining how you idiots were idiots.

THIRTEEN: We pushed tPA ten minutes ago.

HOUSE: That means it’s not a clot.

TAUB: It has to be a clot. If he had a bagel stuck in his windpipe, I’d have seen it on the echo.

FOREMAN: Get him to the OR to suck it out.

HOUSE: Must have just screwed up the intubation. [Checks the tube.] Seal’s good.

TAUB: It’s a clot, House. [They start moving him out.]

HOUSE: Wait, wait. [They stop.] Look at his teeth. He’s got shiny new caps. He’s had recent dental surgery.

CUDDY: You can tell us what that means while we’re rolling him to the OR.

[Just as Everyone besides House, Thirteen and the Bus Driver step out of the room. House shuts the door and stops it from being opened with his crutch.]

THIRTEEN: House!

CUDDY: House!

HOUSE: House! [Turns around and sees Thirteen standing there.] Oh. [To Thirteen] Get a syringe.

CUDDY: [Yelling through the glass.] I didn’t bring you back here so you could stage a coup! [Kutner tries to open the door but it doesn't budge. Thirteen goes to remove the crutch.]

HOUSE: Listen to me. [She stops.] Dental air drill pushed an air bubble into his gums. Dislodged while he was driving, and caused a myoclonic jerk. That’s what I must have seen. Then it h*t his spine, his liver, and now his lungs. [Moves the pillows from his head and sticks them under his feet.]

CUDDY: [Knocks on the glass.] Dr. Hadley, open the door. (Transcribers note: We have a name! From here on out I will be referring to Thirteen as Hadley.)

HOUSE: I’m not plumping his pillows here. I’m putting him in the Trendelenburg position to move the bubble to the apex of his heart so you can suck it out, now get the damn syringe.

CUDDY: I can’t risk you s*ab him in the heart looking for an unconfirmed air bubble.

HOUSE: s*ab him.

CUDDY: [Bangs on the glass again.] Dr. Hadley!

HOUSE: See? She doesn’t even know your name. [Yells.] s*ab his heart! [Machines start beeping.]

HADLEY: [Looks at the screen.] Sat’s at 75.

HOUSE: Yes, he's suffocating.

HADLEY: If you’re wrong –

HOUSE: Shut up and make a decision. You keep standing there, he’s d*ad either way.

CUDDY: Dr. Hadley!

HADLEY: [To Cuddy] I’m sorry.

CUDDY: Open that door. [Hadley s*ab his heart just as they finally manage to get the door open.]

HOUSE: [Holds up his hands.] Don’t sh**t!

CUDDY: Get him to the OR.

HADLEY: The O2 sats. [Machines stop beeping.] There was an air bubble. He’s okay.

[Cut to House getting into bed.]

HOUSE: The other nurse always used to tuck me in.

CUDDY: I’ll be on the couch. With a g*n in my lap.

HOUSE: Worrying about me?

CUDDY: Making sure you don’t try and make a limp for the border. Get some sleep. [Turns out the light.]

[House lies on his side and closes his eyes, two seconds later he opens them again. He walks to the living room, not limping. He looks at the person asleep on the chair.]

HOUSE: I’m not sleepy, Mummy.

MYSTERY WOMAN: [Takes the blanket off and sits up.] Me neither.

HOUSE: Who are you? And why are you stalking me?

MYSTERY WOMAN: Technically, you’re stalking me. [She plays with her necklace.]

HOUSE: [Looks at her necklace which is a yellow orangey colour with something in it.] What is that? Mosquito?

MYSTERY WOMAN: Maybe just a fly.

HOUSE: In the ointment. So there’s something wrong. There’s some detail I’m not noticing that’s spoiling the big picture.

[Mystery Woman gently brushes House’s hand against her cheek.]

HOUSE: Is this significant? Or is this dream just going in a different direction now?

MYSTERY WOMAN: I guess that depends. [Still brushing House’s hand against her cheek.] What are you going to do with that?

HOUSE: [House looks his hand which has a red ribbon in it.] I have to tie this around you. [Ties it around her leg.]

MYSTERY WOMAN: I’m cold.

HOUSE: Stay with me. Why did I say that? [Blood starts to ooze onto the ribbon.]

[Cut to House waking up in bed. He walks into the Living room, this time he is limping. He walks over to Cuddy sleeping in his chair and sits on the edge of it as he shakes her awake.]

HOUSE: Hey.

CUDDY: Go away.

HOUSE: It’s not over. [She turns around and looks at him.] I saved the wrong person. [She sits up.]

[Cut to House still in his living room but now he is dressed and is putting his shoes on.]

HOUSE: This wasn’t just a dream or a fantasy, or a drug-induced trip to Wonderland.

CUDDY: So the bus driver with the air bubble was just a coincidence?

HOUSE: Nope. I got the causation flipped. The bubble didn’t cause the crash. The crash caused the bubble to dislodge. There was no myoclonic jerk. I saw something else in someone else.

CUDDY: You’re not leaving. [House walks over to the closet and pulls out a blood pressure arm band and puts it around his arm and starts pumping.]

HOUSE: What’s the most dangerous thing a patient could do when his brain is on the brink of herniating?

CUDDY: Elevated heart rate, BP... Which is exactly why you need to stop. [House grabs her hand and sticks it on his neck so she can check his heart rate.]

HOUSE: Instead of sleeping, I’m going to be pacing around this apartment trying to decipher those visions.

CUDDY: Why does this matter so much?

HOUSE: I don’t know. Heart rate?

CUDDY: 127.

HOUSE: BP? [She walks away and grabs a stethoscope.] Contextual memory. I need to get back on that bus with all 31 passengers to remember who and what I saw.

CUDDY: I’m not going to call in crash victims because you’ve gone insane.

HOUSE: Maybe I don’t need the actual victims.

[Cut to all the House regulars and some extras standing on the bus with signs hanging from their neck showing a picture of the victim they are portraying. House is directing them all to sit in certain spots based on what he remembers.]

HOUSE: Who’s playing Anne McKeehan? [Cameron raises her hand.] Right here. Jane Doe #2 from Princeton General. [Hadley.] Right here. You two, that’s right. Goth kid. [Points to where to sit, Kutner sits there.] Yeah. [Foreman walks up to House.] At the back on the right. [Foreman sits.] Yeah. Here. [Everyone is now in their places.] Okay...

CHASE: You think that staring at pictures on our shirts is going to be more effective than hypnosis?

HOUSE: Well, if only you’d stop talking, the re-enactment could stimulate activity in my hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex.

CAMERON: How long do we have to sit here before you are stimulated? [House gets a small flashback of the woman Cameron was portraying on the bus.]

ANN: Stop staring at my breasts. And don’t say or lack thereof. [Back to present.]

CAMERON: [Stands up.] Are you okay? [House stares into space.] What’d you see?

HOUSE: It just slipped away. [Takes some pills.]

CUDDY: Is that Vicodin?

HOUSE: Nope. Just a little memory pick-me-up.

CAMERON: [Takes them out of his hands and looks at the label.] It’s physostigmine.

CUDDY: Are you crazy? Alzheimer’s drugs will make your brain go into overdrive.

HOUSE: That’s the point. It’ll speed up my neuronal f*ring. Turn up the voltage on my memory.

WILSON: And blow out your heart. How many did you take?

HOUSE: Just now? Or including the ones I took on the ride over?

CUDDY: House, this isn’t worth –

[Flashback to bus. All the passengers are there, House sits down.]

MYSTERY WOMAN: House.

HOUSE: [Looks to his right and sees the mystery woman sitting facing him. She is wearing a red scarf now.] Why are you here?

MYSTERY WOMAN: You believe in reason above all else. There must be a reason.

HOUSE: You have something to tell me.

MYSTERY WOMAN: Yes. Who am I?

HOUSE: That’s asking, not telling. Who are you?

MYSTERY WOMAN: You know who I am.

HOUSE: If I did, I’d be passed out in bed instead of OD’ing on physostigmine on the 6th Street cross-town.

MYSTERY WOMAN: What’s my necklace made of?

HOUSE: [Looks down at the necklace.] Resin.

MYSTERY WOMAN: Who am I?

HOUSE: I don’t know. Why the guessing game?

MYSTERY WOMAN: Because you don’t know the answer.

HOUSE: And if I don’t, you don’t. But you know the clues.

MYSTERY WOMAN: I know what’s bugging your subconscious. What’s my necklace made of?

HOUSE: [Looks at the necklace again, realises and whispers.] No.

MYSTERY WOMAN: Who am I?

HOUSE: [Shakes his head.] Doesn’t make sense.

MYSTERY WOMAN: What’s my necklace made of?

HOUSE: Amber.

[Now we see the real memory. The mystery woman turns into Amber and we can see out the windows, the bus is moving. Suddenly from behind Amber House sees headlights coming towards the side of the bus. It hits, glass shatters, Amber gets thrown out of her seat onto the floor and people start screaming. In slow motion we see Amber lose her bag as she tries to hang on to the pole near the door and House hangs on to his seat. The bus driver tries to control the bus as it is spinning but fails to keep it upright, the bus flips on its side and keeps sliding forward, House loses his cane and smashes his head. Both Amber and House try to hang on to whatever they can, they reach out and hold hands for a second but then lose grip and are unable to grab on a second time. The bus slides into something and everything goes black. House comes to, looks around and sees a lot of injured people. He then sees Amber trying to sit up. She has a nasty gash in her head and a pole going through her leg. She sees the pole and starts to freak out. House manages to crawl over to her.]

HOUSE: I have to tie this around you. [Removes the red scarf from around her neck and uses it as a tourniquet around her right leg.]

AMBER: I’m cold.

HOUSE: Stay with me. Just stay with me.

[House ties the scarf tight around her leg and then passes out. It goes black. House briefly comes to as the paramedics are taking Amber away. He reaches out but they are already gone. He’s eventually able to get out of the bus on his own. A Paramedic sees him getting out of the bus.]

PARAMEDIC: Sir, are you all right? Are you all right? Are you injured anywhere? [House shows his hands to the paramedic which have some blood on them, he wipes it off and then points to where House can receive more treatment.] They’ll take care of you over there. [House limps away in the direction of the strip club. As House walks we see a black and white flash of Cuddy kissing someone and then a fist pounding something. And then we see it again, then we just hear the pounding, House looks up to the sky, and it cuts back to the present.]

[We see House on the floor of the bus as Cuddy and Wilson are performing CPR on him, everyone else is watching on looking worried. House eventually comes to.]

CUDDY: He’s coming out of it.

KUTNER: [Feels House's neck as House is still trying to catch his breath.] Strong pulse.

CUDDY: You idiot! Your heart stopped.

HOUSE: Amber.

WILSON: What?

HOUSE: Amber. It was Amber. [Tries to sit up, Cuddy helps his head onto her lap.] She was on the bus.

WILSON: You almost k*ll yourself, and all we’re getting is drug-induced fantasies.

HOUSE: Have you spoken to her?

WILSON: She’s probably working. She’s... She’s been on call. [Looks at his watch.] I called her... [Starts to realise.] She didn’t call... I... I... How could she...

HOUSE: I don’t know... Jane Doe #2.

HADLEY: [Realises what he wants, grabs the file and starts reading from it.] Female. Late twenties. Kidney damage. Does Amber have a birthmark on her right shoulder blade? [Looks at Wilson. Wilson turns and looks at House.]

HOUSE: She was on the bus with me. She’s the one who’s dying.

[End.]
{"type": "series", "show": "House", "episode": "04x15 - House's Head"}