[Opens on two kids walking up to an old, abandoned house.]

Tommy: It’s all about the tongue, man.  You stick it in their mouth.  [Tommy demonstrates – in the air – while saying his next line.]  Not all the way.

Gabe: [the younger of the two]  They like that?

Tommy: Dude, they love it.  [They reach the gated entryway, which Tommy starts to climb over.]

Gabe: What’re you doing?

Tommy: Climbing.  [He drops over on the other side of the fence.]  Just deep enough to lick her teeth.  Slow, one at a time.  Like you’re painting them.  [walking away, towards the house]  This girl, Rachel?  She’s a junior, she’s experienced.

Gabe: Mom says I gotta be home by five!

Tommy: Just chill, okay, and hop the fence before someone sees you!  [Gabe starts to climb over as Tommy retrieves the key from under the doormat and opens the door.]

[Cut to the entry way of the (OMG HUGE) house.]

Gabe: Are you sure this is okay?

Tommy: Dave’s mom’s a realtor.  If it’s for sale, and empty, it’s a clubhouse.  And if you say anything, you’re dead.  I told them you were cool.  These are very serious dudes.

[Cut to the upstairs/attic of the house.  Tommy enters, and motions to Gabe.]

Dave: [smoking something suspicious] Cub scout meeting’s down the street, boys. [Gabe enters, and trips and falls on the floor.]

Tommy: Gabe’s cool, man.  He’s one of us.

Dave: He better be. [Other kid hands Gabe and Tommy suspicious bottles, or tries to.]

Gabe: Uh… I’m not thirsty.  What’s this? [points to Ouija board]

Other kid: Club business, little man.

Dave: [glaring] Put your hands on.

Other kid: Oh, dark spirit!  Will any of us die in the year to come?  [The little pointer thing moves to “yes”.]  Gabe backs away.

Gabe: You’re moving it!

Dave: Put your hands back.  Now.  [Gabe does.]

Other kid: Who among us will die?  [The pointer moves, and the kid says out the letters.] G… A…

Gabe: Oh, man.

Other kid: B…. E.

Dave: Gabe.

Other kid: That blows.

[Cut to Gabe’s room.  Gabe is sick in bed, coughing.  His mom, Sarah, comes in to take his temperature.]

Sarah: That’s it.  We’re going to the hospital.

Gabe: No, Mom.  I’m too tired.

Sarah: [leaving the room] Come on, sweetie!  You’ve had a fever for almost a week, now.  [Gabe gets up, but falls on the floor, hitting his head.  Sarah rushes back in.]  Oh, my God!  Gabe!  Are you okay?  Baby, what’s wrong?

Gabe: [breathing heavily]  I’m dying.

[Opening Credits!]

[Cut to Gabe in a hospital bed, coughing.  His mom is by his side.]

[Cut to House, looking for something in Diagnostic/his office.  Cuddy is hounding him to take a case.]

Cuddy: Male, spiking fever, congested chest and coughing up green sputum, pain in breathing –

House: Baffling.  Though I vaguely recall a disease called noomonia, numania?

Cuddy: But his X-ray and CT scan show an atypical patten for pneumonia.

House: Pneumonia!  That’s it.  Just a guess here, but are his parents big donors?

Cuddy: No infiltrate!  Just enlarged hilar lymph nodes.

House: Tiny unicorns goring his bronchial tubes would be cooler.  And the way you’re ignoring my question… wow, they’re extremely big donors.

Cuddy: He’s not responding to cefuroxime, his pulsox is dropping much faster than it should for pneumonia, and plus, he’s got an odd little rash.

House: Excessive irritation.  He’s 12, he’s on auto-stroke –

Cuddy: On his arm.  Papular lesion, one centimeter, on top of a long thin scab.

House: Ah, you need a dermatologist.  If it’s dry, keep it wet, if it’s wet, keep it dry, if it’s not supposed to be there, cut it off.  I never could master all of that.  [House finds what he’s been looking for – a Vicodin.]  There you are.  It’s okay.  You’re home now.  [He takes it.]

Cuddy: Fine.

House: Cuddy.  As a special favor to you –

Cuddy: No!  Admit it, I got you with the rash.

House: The rash is a total snooze.  [takes the chart] Unless it’s connected to the pneumonia, then it’s party time.

[Cut to House, writing on the clear board.]

House: Purulent sputum, dyspnea, bronchi bilaterally.  What causes this kind of rash?

Chase: Legionnaire’s disease? 

Cameron: Usually means industrial ventilation systems, convention centers.  He’s twelve years old.

House: Send off a urine antigen and check if he’s joined the Elks.  Next?

Cameron: Fungal.

House: Excellent.  Maybe the Elks went spelunking.

Foreman: Chlamydia and pneumonia.

Cameron: Twelve year olds don’t have sex.

House: Your mistake.  That’s it?  Other possibilities?

Chase: What if you’re thinking about this backwards?

House: The rash came first, caused the pneumonia.  Nice.

Chase: Rickettsial.  Tick bites.  Nymphal ticks are out now, they’re bloodthirsty little bastards.

Foreman: Rash would be more pustular.

Chase: Not always.  And there’s only one rash, which fits.

Cameron: New Jersey, it’s most likely Lyme disease.

House: All right.  Let’s keep him on fluids and cefuroxime to be safe.  And biopsy that rash.  And take another history.  Even if we don’t learn out what’s causing this we definitely need to know if twelve year olds are getting any action.  [His team leaves.]

[Cut to Chase and Cameron taking samples from Gabe.  Gabe’s father, Jeffery, has now joined his mom.]

Jeffery: What are you doing now?

Cameron: We’re collecting fluids from the rash.

Jeffery: Why?

Sarah: They know what they’re doing, Jeffery.

Jeffery: Oh, great endorsement coming from the woman who thought it was a nasty cold.  If I’d had him last week and –

Sarah: This isn’t helping.

Cameron: We’re checking to see if your son has a tick bite.

Chase: Gabe, have you been camping recently?  Playing sports outside, anything like that?

Gabe: I’m not that good at sports.

Chase: No hanging out anywhere new, strange places?

Jeffery: We’ve been through this.  We don’t let him run wild through the neighborhood.  Right?  [An awkward pause is shared is by all.]

Chase: Okay, this might be a bit delicate.  We need to know if you’re sexually active.

Jeffery: I beg your pardon?  Who do you think my son –

Cameron: Mr. Reillich, we need to –

Gabe: No!  Nothing like that.  [He begins to cough again.]

Chase: We’ve got to get another CT scan, check his lungs again.  [Cameron looks confused.]

Jeffery: Third floor, right?

Cameron: Yeah, Radiology is just –

Chase: Sorry, medical personnel only.

[Cut to Chase wheeling Gabe around the hospital.]

Gabe: Where’s the machine?

Chase: We passed it, actually.  Little tension in the room back there.  Thought you could use a break.  Your dad’s a pretty high-powered guy.

Gabe: Yeah.  He was an Air Force test pilot.  Real top-gun stuff.  Flew a Mach 3.

Chase: Hard to deal with, sometimes?

Gabe: I guess I’m more like my mom.

Chase: Listen, I promised to keep my mouth shut, but I need to know.  You definitely haven’t had any sexual contact of any kind?

Gabe: I wish.

Chase: [going to the vending machine]  Know what?  Girls like the cool guys now.  You give it a few years, they start liking the smart guys.  You’ll be all right.

Gabe: Can you keep a secret?

Chase: I have to, it’s my job.  [He hands Gabe a candy bar and sits on the bench next to him.]

Gabe: I’m cursed.  I’m not kidding.  This seance thing the kids did?  It spelled out my name, said I was gonna die.

Chase: First name and last name?  We’ve got a Gabe upstairs.  He’s very old, very sick.

Gabe: No!  It’s me.  I have the worst luck.  One time, I broke this mirror.  The next week, my parents got separated.

Chase: My parents got split up, too.  Every kid thinks like it’s his fault, it never is.  So what about the rest of the stuff?  Any playing outside that your parents don’t know about, anything like that?  Maybe you were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be?

Gabe: Oh, man.

Chase: Gabe, it’s important.

[Cut to Chase putting on his coat in the Diagnostic office.]

House: Secret club.  What’s the secret, they’re all morons?

Chase: He fell on something in the attic, scraped his arm, got the rash the next day.  Said it smelled really moldy up there.

House: Fungal pneumonia without the cave.  Clever. 

Chase: I’m gonna get a sample.  [He turns to leave, but is blocked by an older gentleman in the doorway.  Chase looks rather surprised to see him.  Let’s call the older man Rowan, for that is his name.]

Rowan: Dr. Chase.  You have a few moments.  [House watches this with interest.]

Chase: Sorry, I’ve gotta go.  [He hurries off.]

House: These young doctors.  It’s like they don’t care about people.  No manners.

Rowan: My fault, probably.

House: That’s an interesting accent you have there.  I’d say Czech, with about thirty years of Aussie.

Rowan: You have quite an ear.

House: You’re Chase’s dad.  Hard to miss, you know, the big hug and how happy he was to see you.  [He sips his coffee and smiles.]

[Cut to the clinic, where Wilson is with a patient.  House enters.]

House: Need a consult.

Wilson: With a patient.

House: Urgent doctor stuff.  [He leaves.]

[Cut to House and Wilson, walking out of the clinic.]

House: 26-year-old male, sudden loss of the ability to speak --

Wilson: Just because you got out of clinic duty doesn’t mean everybody did.

House: -- to his father.  Differential diagnosis?

Wilson: Chase?

House: Dad swoops in, Chase swoops out.

Wilson: Dad say why he was here?

House: See?  You asked.  Dad comes 5000 miles and you’re more curious than Junior is.  Can’t just be about the divorce.  It’s been fifteen years and mom’s been dead for ten of them.  You think Daddy murdered her?

Wilson: You want to get to the bottom of this, you’re doing it exactly right.  Don’t talk to the people involved, drag your buddy away from work for some pointless speculation.

House: You want to know how two chemicals interact, do you ask them?  No, they’re going to lie through their lying little chemical teeth.  Throw them in a beaker and apply heat.

Wilson: Even I don’t like you.  [He walks off.]

House: [calling after him] You know, words can hurt!

[Cut to Chase climbing over the fence at the house.  He picks up the key from under the mat, and unlocks the door.]

[Cut to Dave and the other kid drinking in the attic.  Chase comes in, and they start to panic and try to climb out the window.]

Chase: Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Hold on, guys, I don’t care that you’re up here!

Dave: You a cop?

Chase: [putting on rubber gloves] Doctor.  I’m treating Gabe Reillich.  He said he fell over near some pipes?

Dave: [pointing] Yeah, over there.

Chase: [putting on a mask]  What, here?

Other kid: Yeah.

Chase: Right, any of you guys been feeling sick lately?  Rash, cold, anything? [He begins to collect samples of the dust.]

Both kids: No.  [There’s speaker noise outside, and Dave looks out the window.]

Dave: Oh, crap.  He is a cop!

Other kid: Damn it!  [They run out the door, Chase walks to the window to see a policeman walking up.  Chase then climbs out a window and climbs down a tree, falling a few feet from the ground.  Aww.]

[Cut to the lab, where Foreman is looking at the sample Chase collected.]

Chase: He fell on it.  Some weird kind of insulation.  It’s old, house was built in the sixties.

Cameron: What’s it made of?

Chase: Felt.  Fibers are made of what, cotton?

House: Hah, hah hah.  [The team looks over to see House reading a book on rheumatology by Chase’s father.]  Sorry, forgotten how funny your dad was. 

Chase: Not as funny as you.

House: High praise.  I know how protective kids can be of their parents.  [He hands his cane over to Chase and goes to look at the microscope.]  Not cotton, animal hair.  Get me the CT scan. [The team crowds around the CT.]  First, find the company who made the insulation and second, tell me what I’m seeing that makes me want to short their stock.

Foreman: Uh, enlarged hilar lymph nodes.

Cameron: Parabronchial thickening.

Chase: Purile effusions.

House: Less obvious, more scary.

Chase: Well, the mediastinum doesn’t look right.

Cameron: Slightly widened.  Oh God, it can be transmitted through infected animal hair.  But the gram stain would have shown –

House: No, the cefuroxime would have killed some of it, clouded the result.

Cameron: We’ve gotta get this kid on levaquin. 

Foreman: What does he have?

House: Anthrax.  This house belonged to old man Hussein?

Chase: Maybe he is cursed.

[Cut to Foreman giving Gabe IV medications.]

[Cut to Chase and Cuddy talking to Sarah and Jeffery.]

Jeffery: Anthrax.  So, what, you think there were terrorists in that attic?

Chase: It’s a naturally occurring bacteria.  We believe it was in the insulation.

Sarah: How sick is he?

Chase: Anthrax is very dangerous, but we’ve caught it early.  He’s on levaquin, it’s the best antibiotic we have.

Jeffery: Lisa, you buy this?

Cuddy: Jeff, you’ve helped our hospital a lot.  I wouldn’t have assigned Dr. House to your case if I didn’t have every confidence in –

Jeffery: But, who’s this guy?

Sarah: Jeffery!

Jeffery: There’s all these weird diseases that can cause a rash.  What about leishmaniasis and filariasis?

Cuddy: Where’d you hear about those?

Jeffery: The internet.  I did some research.

Cuddy: Well, those are very rare conditions.

Jeffery: Oh, and anthrax grows along the interstate?

Chase: Leishmaniasis doesn’t cause pneumonia and filariasis –

Jeffery: Just look into everything, this is my son, all right? [Sarah leaves.]  And I’m going to stay on top of you until I know he’s safe.

Cuddy: I wouldn’t expect anything else. [as Jeffery walks off]  Everyone’s a doctor.  [Beeping is heard, all heads in the lobby turn toward Gabe’s room.]

[Cut to Gabe, who is having difficulty breathing.]

Sarah: Breathe, baby.  It’s okay.  [Chase and Cuddy walks in.]  Breathe, honey.

Jeffery: His breathing!  It’s on the inhale!

Sarah: What does that mean?

Cuddy: It means his airway’s closing up.  [She pushes Jeffery and Sarah away from the bed.]

Jeffery: Is the anthrax doing it?

Chase: All right, hold still, Gabe.  This is going to be a little uncomfortable.  [Chase looks down Gabe’s airway with a scope.]

Cuddy: We’ve got you, it’s okay.

Chase: Two nodules in his throat.

Cuddy: Airway’s inhibited?

Chase: We’ve got to intubate.  Ativan!

Cuddy: Pushing 3 ccs.  [They move the bed out, and Foreman prepares to intubate Gabe.]

Foreman: Airway’s too tight.

Jeffery: What’s wrong?  What’s wrong?!  You’re killing him!

Sarah: Jeffery!  Jeffery, let them do their job!

Foreman: Airway’s too tight, get me a smaller tube.

Chase: We’re traching. 

Foreman: Smaller tube!  [Chase hands him a smaller tube, which Foreman tries to use.]

Cuddy: His lips are cyanotic

Sarah: Oh my God, he’s not breathing.

Chase: Foreman!  We’re traching!

Foreman: No, I can do it, I’ll get it.

Chase: Foreman, you’re not getting through!

Cuddy: He’s not getting air.  Oh, we have to trach him right now.

Foreman: No, I can do it.

Chase: Betadine.  [Cuddy swabs Gabe’s neck with Betadine.]  I’m doing this.  [He prepares to cut -- ]

Foreman: Got it! [ -- and pulls back, a tiny nick on Gabe’s throat.  They begin to ventilate, Cuddy check’s Gabe’s breathing.]

Cuddy: He’s okay.  [Sarah gives Jeffery a hug.]

[Cut to House walking into Diagnostics with Cameron, Chase and Foreman.]

House: Allergic reaction to the antibiotics?

Cameron: I don’t think so.  We switched him to rifampin and there was no change in swelling.

Chase: We should try another antibiotic –

Foreman: You really think he’s allergic to two antibiotics?

House: I want to know what Dr. Chase thinks.

Chase: It’s possible to think he’s allergic to both anti –

House: Oh, I’m sorry!  Not you.  Understandable mistake.  The other Dr. Chase.  [Chase is not amused.]

[Cut to the Diagnostic offices, where the gang is all there, plus one!]

Rowan: Boy gets anthrax, but happens to be allergic to two antibiotics.  Hate to step on anybody’s toes, but is it possible that your guys got this one wrong?

Chase: The rash is classic anthrax.

Rowan: Except the color.

Cameron: The rash hasn’t turned black yet.  No necrosis, no anthrax. [House is watching this like a tennis match.]

Chase: Necrosis can theoretically take as long as two weeks.  [Smirk.]

House: Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Guys, it’s not a competition!  It’s a diagnosis!  Okay, who thinks [raising a hand over Chase’s head] Junior wins?  [Everyone’s quiet.]  Four to one, it’s not anthrax.  So we start over, what’s changed?  What do the nodules tell us?

Rowan: Sarcoidosis. 

House: Excellent.  Send an ACE level.  If it comes back positive, put him on methotrexate.

[Cut to Gabe’s room.  Foreman is talking to Jeffery.]

Foreman: We ran some tests, and the results point toward sarcoidosis.  It makes the body’s tissue swell up.  It seems to have gone after Gabriel’s skin and lungs, and given him this fever.

Sarah: Doctor.  [She gets their attention for Gabe, who has written to them on a white board the question, “Why?”]

Chase: We don’t know what causes it.

Jeffery: But you’re sure he has this one.

Chase: We have a world-renowned doctor consulting.  He’s convinced this is sarcoidosis.

Sarah: Is it treatable?

Foreman: Very, actually. See, this [he hooks it up to the IV] is IV methotrexate.  It’s an anti-inflammatory, which should make all the swelling go down, and get you all better.

Chase: Stop!  [He notices something on Gabe’s arm – the rash has turned black.]

Sarah: My God, it’s black.

Chase: Necrosis.

[Cut to the Ducklings plus Rowan entering the office.]

Foreman: It’s definitely anthrax, and it definitely can’t be anthrax.  It doesn’t cause throat nodules.

Rowan: The only explanation is this kid has got anthrax and sarcoidosis!

Chase: Right, two incredibly rare diseases just happening to strike at once.

Rowan: Unless you’ve got a better theory.

Chase: Anthrax plus an allergic reaction.

Rowan: [something I couldn’t catch], because that’s one bizarre allergic reaction.

House: Come on, there’s no reason you both can’t be wrong.  It’s not allergy, but it’s not coincidence, either.  Disease number one set off disease number two.

Cameron: Anthrax weakened his immune system.

House: And triggered a dormant sarcoidosis.  Keep him on antibiotics for the anthrax and start him on methotrexate for the sarcoidosis.

Chase: Fine.  [He leaves.]

House: Better go with him.  Make sure he doesn’t snap and hurt somebody.  [Foreman follows him.]

[Cut to Foreman and Chase with Gabe and his parents.]

Jeffery: You – you’re treating him for both diseases?

Foreman: We’re covering all the bases.

Jeffery: What, throw everything against the wall and see what sticks?

Chase: Works for spaghetti.  [Chase clears his throat.]

[Cut to House playing on his Game Boy in his office.  Jeffery knocks on the door.  House gestures to him to wait.  He walks to the door… and locks it.  Jeffery comes and walks in through the Diagnostic office door, which House can’t get to in time.]

Jeffery: You’re being funny?

House: Apparently not.

Jeffery: You know why I give money to this hospital?  It’s the only way to get attention.  You see this?  [He holds up his wrist.]

House: Is this a magic trick?  Because I am a total David Copperfield fan, although that “Tornado of Fire,” that seemed a little fake –

Jeffery: Pain in the wrist.  Won’t go away for months.  [House pops a Vicodin.]  Six doctors’ brilliant conclusion is to take it easy.  I write a check, name goes on a plaque, and forty-eight hours later I’ve got two MRIs, a bone scan, and a diagnosis: carpal tunnel.  I’m in surgery that afternoon.

House: Fascinating story.  You thought of adapting it for the stage?  [His beeper beeps, he goes to get it in his office.]

Jeffery: I love my – look at me! – love my son, love him more than anything else in the world, and you’re going to start paying attention to this case, or I’m going to make things miserable for –

House: Go back to your son’s room.

Jeffery: I’m not leaving here until you get your ass in gear –

House: There’s a problem.  [Jeffery walks out, and..]

[Cut to Jeffery running into Gabe’s room.]

Jeffery: What is it?

Foreman: I don’t know.  [We see that Gabe’s back is covered in a bizarre rash.]

[Cut to Cameron, Foreman and House entering the office.]

Foreman: Skin lesions are spreading all over his body.  They’re opening and the fatty tissues are oozing out.  He’ll be septic in a matter of days.

Cameron: Death by dermatitis.  [Rowan is already in the room.]

Rowan: Where’s Robert?

Cameron: Uh, he has clinic duty this morning.

House: No, he doesn’t.  I rescheduled you guys so you’d be free.

Cameron: Yeah, but he re-rescheduled himself.

[Cut to the clinic, where an older gentleman has his hands together (in a praying motion) and is bringing them down in front of him.]

Patient: It doesn’t hurt yet.

Chase: Keep going.  [House enters.]

House: You page me?

Chase: No, I don’t need you.

House: Oh, come on.  We all need help now and again.  [Cameron, Foreman and Rowan also enter.]  You’re getting a consult.  Okay, we’ve got new skin lesions, bigger and uglier.  What would cause that?

Patient: My hand hurts.

Rowan: What if his body worked so hard attacking the anthrax that it started attacking itself?

Cameron: Auto-immune.

Chase: Wouldn’t present this aggressively.  [Patient is trying to get Chase’s attention.]

Cameron: It’s not likely, but it is possible.

Chase: What, in a twelve-year-old male?

Patient: This isn’t about me, is it?

Chase: Gabe’s dad found leishmaniasis and filariasis on the internet yesterday.  They didn’t fit then, but now they kind of do.

House: Sure, except for the nodules and we’re not working out of Calcutta General.

Chase: Multiple neurofibromatosis.

Foreman: You think this is neurological?

Chase: The only reason you’re thinking auto-immune is because you’re a rheumatologist!  If you were a proctologist you’d think rectal cancer.

House: Gotta go with Senior.  He literally wrote the book with this one.

Cameron: Auto-immune is a big universe.  It could be anything from scleroderma to churg-strauss.

Foreman: Whatever it is, we should start him on steroids, keep the swelling down.

Cameron: And 100 mg. of cytoxan, it treats most auto-immunes.

House: We’ll give it to him now, before the fat starts dripping out his eyeballs.

Patient: Hey!  My fingers are numb!

House: Your watch is on too tight.  [Well, how about that!  Patient crisis solved.]

[Cut to Chase and House exiting the clinic.]

Chase: You’re messing with my head.

House: Your relationship with your dad is messing with your ability to do your job.

Chase: Only because you made my dad part of my job.

House: Good point.  Haven’t seen him in years, he flies across the Atlantic to see you –

Chase: Pacific.

House: You breeze by him like he’s a Hare Krishna at the airport.  You don’t even ask why he’s in town.

Chase: [on the stairs]  It’s probably a conference.

House: Probably.  I was hoping to do this by sheer manipulation, but if you insist on talking, fine, talk.  [He walks over to the foot of the stairs.] What did he do to you?

Chase: How would you feel if I interfered in your personal life?

House: I’d hate it.  That’s why I cleverly have no personal life.

Chase: I’m going to biopsy his skin lesions.

House: Good thinking!  Prove your dad wrong.  That’ll solve everything.

[Cut to Chase in the lab, getting test results.  He nods and shakes his head over them.]

[Cut to Gabe’s room, where Gabe is lying there, minus the breathing tube.]

Chase: Who extubated him?

Rowan: I did.  Temperature’s down two degrees and the swelling’s almost gone.

Sarah: And his skin looks better, too.

Rowan: The cytoxan is working.

Chase: Feeling better, Gabe?

Gabe: Yup, a lot.

Chase: Dr. Chase, can you and I have a word?

[Cut to Chase and Rowan walking down a hallway.

Chase: Your diagnosis is wrong.  No auto-immune disease.  The swelling’s probably just down because we’ve got him on steroids.  It’s masking whatever’s wrong.

Rowan: ANAs are unreliable. 

Chase: Phospholipid antibodies are negative, so no lupus.  Same for churg-strauss.

Rowan: You’re arguing with a rheumatologist.  There’s about twenty distinct auto-immune diseases –

Chase: Why are you here?

Rowan: SLE conference.

Chase: You were in New York last year for the scleroderma conference, I didn’t hear anything from you.

Rowan: Just wanted to say hi this time.

Chase: You said it, you’re still here.

Rowan: I miss you.

Chase: I was 15 years old when you walked out.  Now you’re walking back in?

Rowan: I left your mother.  I didn’t leave you.

Chase: [near tears] Mum was living on gin and tonics, how was I supposed to take care of her?

Rowan: She wasn’t your responsibility.

Chase: I know!  She was yours.

Rowan: I’m sorry she died.  I’m sorry you had to deal with that.  But she was falling apart long before –

Chase: I’ve got to talk to House about this treatment.

[Cut to Chase shoving the test results in House’s face.]

House: But the patient’s getting better.

Chase: In spite of the cytoxan.

House: On the other hand, getting better.

Chase: Cytoxan makes him more susceptible to infection.  The anthrax could relapse and be more resistant.

House: Better!

Chase: You want a negative test for every auto-immune disease known to man?  Fine, I’ll get them!

House: Be home by midnight or he can’t have the car this weekend.  [Chase stops by the door.]  You guys talk?  Did he tell you why he’s here?

Chase: The SLE conference.

[Cut to the main lobby.  House walks up to Rowan as he’s leaving.]

House: Going back to the conference?

Rowan: Afternoon panel.  I hope I can stay awake.

House: I hope you can get in.  You’re not registered.  I get it.  You had to make up a lie.  Can’t just tell your kid you’re here to see him.  What father does that?  That little blue dot under your collar. [Rowan moves to cover it up.]  It’s a tattoo for guiding radiation treatment.  I was looking for it after I saw what you had for breakfast: brown rice and vegetables, macrobiotic diet.  Popular with Hollywood starlets and cancer patients.

Rowan: Lungs, stage four.

House: You look good.

Rowan: I’m not.  Came to the States to go to Sloan-Kettering, and to see Dr. Wilson.

House: What’d he say?

Rowan: Three months.

House: But you haven’t told Robert.  You don’t want to burden him because you were such a lousy dad.

Rowan: I’d prefer you not tell him.

House: Yeah, it’s better.  I’ll get to see his face when he reads his dad’s obituary.

Rowan: It’s not your business.

House: I suppose it isn’t.

[Cut to Chase, taking blood from Gabe.]

Gabe: You sure do a lot a tests.

Chase: If we figure out exactly which auto-immune condition it is, we can get you better quicker.

Gabe: Was that your dad before?

Chase: Yeah.

Gabe: That’s so cool.  Do you guys work together a lot?

Chase: Not really.

Gabe: When can I go home?

Chase: We’ll see.  Looks like you got your appetite back.  That’s a good sign.  [Gabe coughs.]  Want some water?

Gabe: Yes.

Chase: Okay.  [He gives Gabe the water, which drops out of Gabe’s hand.]  Whoops.  It’s all right.  Water’s cheap.

Gabe: [staring at his hand]  Oh, God.

Chase: What?

Gabe: I can’t, I can’t move my hand.

[Cut to Gabe looking much worse.]

Chase: Squeeze my fingers for me, Gabe?  [Gabe can’t.  Chase tests the movement in his arm.]

[Cut to Diagnostics, with all the usual suspects, plus Rowan.]

Chase: He’s getting worse.  Now his entire right hand and forearm are paralyzed.

Cameron: And his fever’s back, it’s back over 105.

Foreman: If we don’t stop the nerve deterioration quickly, he’ll be paralyzed for life.

House: Well, luckily, at this rate, that should only last about a week.  Okay, so –

Chase: I told you we should get him off the cytoxan.  This is toxic neuropathy.  We’ve been shoving drugs into his system for a disease he doesn’t have!

Foreman: You know, it could be neurological.

Cameron: What kind of brain process would cause a paralyzed hand, skin lesions, and swollen throat nodules?

Rowan: Robert was right.  You said multiple neurofibromatosis.

House: Are you saying that for the chance of a beautiful family moment, or is there some medicine involved?

Rowan: Fits better.

House: Too bad.  I was hoping for the other reason.  I was gonna go get my camera.  Get a CT scan.  His brain this time.

[Cut to Wilson, talking to some blonde accountant.  Oooh.]

Blonde: You think three copies will be enough, right?

Wilson: One’s always been more than enough for me.  [House taps him on the shoulder with his cane.]

House: Why didn’t you tell me that Rowan Chase was in to see you?

Wilson: [to the blonde]  Excuse me.  [to House]  Ethics, confidentiality?  Does any of this ring a bell?

House: You could have covered yourself.  Called me in for a consult.

Wilson: It is a juicy piece of gossip.  You know what happened?  I got all focused on his cancer and lost perspective.

House: You can’t tell Chase, but I can.  What should I do?

Wilson: Oh!  This is where I give you advice and pretend you’re going to listen to it.  I like this part.  Did Rowan ask you not to tell?

House: I promised I wouldn’t.  My fingers were crossed, though, so I’m wide open.

Wilson: I was wrong!  This is the musing-out-loud part!  Do I actually need to be here?

House: Telling him, now that’s got real entertainment value.

Wilson: Hmmm, he might even cry.  On the other hand, there is the “do unto others” thingy.

House: Then I should definitely tell him!  I’d want to know.

Wilson: You want to know everything.  There’s also the “keeping your promises” thingy.

House: Oh, you never run out of thingies.  Like that blonde thing you were chatting up.

Wilson: She’s the hospital accountant!  We were going over billing procedures!

House: Double-entry bookkeeping? [Elevator dings, because the elevator wins at comic timing.]

Wilson: What are you going to do?

House: Billing procedures.  They’re so complicated, aren’t they?  [Wilson rolls his eyes as the doors close.]

[Cut to Gabe going into the CT machine.]

Cameron: You know, parents are never as bad as kids think they are.

Chase: You like my dad so much, ask him out.

Cameron: I’d make an excellent step-mom, I’m very lenient.  [pause]  He’s your father, you never see him, and he’s here.  Unless he’s done some unspeakable thing, you should lighten up.

Chase: Right, thanks for the tip.

Cameron: Okay.  He beat your mom.  He beat you.  [no answer]  What did he do?

Chase: Really, don’t push it.

Cameron: All this hate.  It’s toxic.

Chase: Then stay away.  [looks at the scan]  There’s nothing there.

[Cut to the team looking at the CT.]

Chase: No masses, no fibrous tangles, nothing.  It’s not neurofibromatosis.

House: Drs. Chase are 0 – 3.  Even when they agree they’re wrong.  So, next. What else could cause neural damage as well as all the nodules?

Cameron: Burger’s disease.

Foreman: He’s never been out of the country.

Rowan: Have his parents?  They could have brought it back.

Foreman: I don’t think so.

Chase: Doesn’t matter.  His lesions are in the wrong place, his feet are the one clear spot.

House: Kid’s dad mentioned leishmaniasis.

Chase: Yeah, and filariasis, but the throat nodules still don’t fit with that.

House: Two diseases pretty much exclusive to Southeast Asia.  What if the anthrax didn’t set off the second disease?

Foreman: We’re back at coincidence again?

House: No.  What if something else was the trigger?

Cameron: Nothing else happened.

House: We happened.

Rowan: Antibiotics?

Chase: We’ve been through this, it’s not an allergy.

House: I’ve gotta pee.  [He leaves.]

[Cut to House entering Gabe’s room.]

Jeffery: What did the CT scan tell you?

House: Nothing.  [He grabs Jeffery’s bad wrist.]

Jeffery: Ow!

House: On a scale of one to ten, how painful?

Jeffery: About half as painful as when I punch you in the face.

House: Don’t do that.  It’ll hurt you.  Carpal tunnel surgery obviously didn’t work.

Gabe: Who are you?

House: The little ones call me Uncle Gregg.  Your dad never had carpal tunnel.  You mentioned two obscure diseases to Dr. Chase.  How’d you know about them?

Jeffery: I read about them on the internet.

House: So, what’d you search for?  “Diseases from Asia that don’t match my son’s symptoms”?  You heard about them in Asia.

Jeffery: I’ve never been there.

House: Well, you probably just forgot.  Let me refresh your memory.  Some remote, dusty village, close quarters, at least a year… starting to come back?

Jeffery: I’m calling Dr. Cuddy.

Sarah: Excuse me, what does this have to do with our son?

House: [to Gabe] Your dad’s pissed off.  He should be.  Comes here, expecting us to do an extra good job because he gives a whole lot of money to this hospital –

Jeffery: [yelling] Don’t talk to my son like that!

House: Just telling him my job, my obligation to this –

Sarah: Stop!  What’s going on?

House: There’s only one thing that you guys have got to do.  Tell the truth, or your son will die.  How long were you in Asia?

Sarah: Jeff, it’s a simple question.

Jeffery: Two years, in India.

Sarah: Why would you lie about something like that?

Jeffery: It was ’87 and ’88.  This, uh, this guru, I thought he had some answers.  I went to his ashram, and, um, ended up with no money and no answers.  I was embarrassed, I didn’t want anybody to know.

Gabe: No.  No, you were a test pilot.

Jeffery: I’m so sorry, Gabe.

Sarah: What does this have to do with my son? [But House has left.]

[Cut to House’s office.]

House: Clue number one: If I were Jesus, curing this kid would be as easy as turning water into wine.

Foreman: Demonic possession?

House: Close, but no wafer.  Clue number two: Rheumatology Rowan was almost right.  It causes auto-immune symptoms.

Chase: Leprosy?

Foreman: Yeah, that’s real big in the Jersey suburbs.

House: It’s leprosy.  Run a FITE stain, it’ll be positive.  Daddy hung out on the wrong kind of Indian ashram.

Foreman: But it’s obviously dormant in the dad, how could the kid catch it?

House: It’s not dormant in the dad, it’s just slow.  Damaged his ulnar nerve, was misdiagnosed as carpal tunnel.  Never trust doctors.  Run a FITE stain.

Rowan: No wonder he got anthrax.  The leprosy weakened his immune system.

House: Vicious circle.  The leprosy made him vulnerable to the anthrax, and the anthrax treatment put the leprosy in overdrive.

Chase: But the antibiotics we gave him, they cure leprosy.

House: Yeah, that’s where the trouble starts.  [CGI shot of what House is talking about.] The antibiotics hit the nerve strands, they kill the leprosy bacteria.  The corpses get tossed into the system.  And as fascinating as our bodies are, they’re also stupid.  They produce antibodies to beat dead bacteria.  And these aren’t the polite antibodies, they’re the ones that won’t sit still, kick during naptimes.  They attack his neural and fat cells, cause some inflammation and all the rest of his symptoms.

Rowan: So the cure’s killing him!

House: [to Cameron] I want you to call down to Carville, Louisiana, home of the last leper colony in the lower 48.  Get them to send up some thalidomide.

Cameron: Thalidomide?

House: Twelve year olds don’t have sex, right?  So he can’t be pregnant.  Make the call. [to Rowan]  I need to speak to your boy.  [Chase is alone in the office with House.]

Chase: Why does everybody need to know my business?

House: People like talking about people.  Makes us feel superior.  Makes us feel in control.  And sometimes, for some people, knowing some things makes them care. [He takes some Vicodin.]

Chase: I’d tell you my dad left, my mum drank herself to death… you gonna care about me more?

House: Cameron would.  Me, I just like knowing stuff. [pause] I know you hate your dad, but I’m gonna tell you something –

Chase: I don’t hate him.  I loved him until I figured out it hurts a lot less to just not care.  You don’t expect him to turn up to your football match?  No disappointments.  You don’t expect a call on your birthday, don’t expect to see him for months?  No disappointments.  You want us to go make up?  Sink a few beers together, nice family hug?  I’ve given him enough hugs.  He’s given me enough disappointments.

House: Okay.

Chase: That’s it?

House: That’s it.  [Chase leaves.]

[Cut to Jeffery in a hospital bed, hooked up to IV meds.]

[Cut to Chase checking Gabe out.]

Chase: Breathe.  [Gabe breathes.]  Breathe again.  Breathe again.

Gabe: You gonna have to tell my friends I’m a leper?

Chase: You had the antibiotics.  You’re not contagious any more.

Gabe: What if they already caught it?

Chase: Leprosy is incredibly hard to catch.  Even your mum didn’t get it.  All right, I want you to make a fist.  [Gabe does so, slowly.]

Gabe: It’s still kinda stiff.

Chase: It’ll get back to normal in a month or two.  Your skin, two or three weeks.  You haven’t asked about your dad.

Gabe: He lied about everything.  He lied to my mom.  He lied to his boss.  He’s just a liar.

Chase: He loves you.

Gabe: [near tears]  I don’t love him.

Chase: Yeah, you do. [He sits on the bed next to Gabe.]  Nothing you can do about it.  He’s your dad.  It doesn’t matter what he does, you’re gonna love him.

[Cut to Rowan leaving a hotel.]

Rowan: [to the bellhop-type person] Thanks.

Chase: Hey! [Rowan turns to see Chase walking up.]  When’s your flight?  You got time for a drink?

Rowan: Wish I did.

Cabbie: Dr. Chase!  [Rowan starts to lug his heavy suitcase, Chase grabs it.]

Chase: I’ve got it.

Rowan: You’re going to be getting down to Oz any time soon?

Chase: Not too long.  Next autumn, I hope.  I’ll call you.  Well, you’re all set.  [Rowan offers his hand, which Chase takes.]  I’ll see you.

Rowan: Yeah.  I’ll see you. [Chase embraces his father, and then watches as Rowan drives off in the taxi.]

[End!]