05x20 - Simple Explanation

[bunniefuu]

[Open on a room lit only by the light coming through the curtained windows. A few people stand around a bed. Eddie is lying in bed. His breathing is labored. He has a nasal canula on. Some visitors leave. Everyone talks quietly]

Charlotte: Bye

Eddie: I… I want to be alone… with my wife. [Charlotte comes to the bed as the others leave.] I’m a selfish S.O.B. I… I never got you to Rio. There was always… one more problem at the stores. You deserved better than that.

Charlotte: I love you. I always have.

Eddie: I’m ready.

Charlotte: It’s okay. [she sniffles] I know…

[She starts gasping. There’s a quick CGI of her throat closing then she starts collapsing from lack of air. Eddie leans toward her.]

Eddie: Somebody… [Shouts] Help her. Help her!

[Opening credits]

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room. House enters.]

Taub: 54-year-old woman with acute respiratory failure. No anaphylaxis, lung issues or tracheal lesions. Tox screen was clean for coke and amphetamines.

House: I will give you 30 reasons, one for each pound that cause the apnea which enflamed the epiglottis. Why is our rainbow coalition missing brown and bi?

Taub: Thirteen’s with a patient, and Kutner’s dog’s sick. He should be in by lunch.

Foreman: No apnea because no sleeping problems when she’s sleeping. She spent the last six months caring for her husband who’s dying of heart failure.

House: Reason 31 — whatever whacked the husband’s heart is also whacking her airway and… Oh, good. I thought maybe Kutner was home nursing the rib you broke when you elbowed your way in for credit on the last patient.

Taub: I contributed. And the patient’s illness wasn’t caused by her husband unless lung cancer’s contagious.

House: Interesting. Not about the patient. That was kinda dull. I thought maybe you were lying to cover for Kutner which sounds noble. Except you’re doing it out of guilt instead of love.

Taub: She visited her sister in Hawaii about six months ago, just before her husband got sick.

Foreman: Could have picked up melioidosis from one of the islands.

House: Would have jumped to the husband and finished off him and his lame immune system.

Taub: No tumors, no dr*gs, no bacteria. Leaves viral — varicella zoster.

House: Start her on IV fluids and acyclovir.

Thirteen: Can’t. She’s demanding to be released so she can get home to her husband.

House: How sweet. They can die together instead of separately, 40 years apart.

Thirteen: She claims he got stronger as soon as she stopped breathing.

Taub: The mind can heal the body. Seeing his wife in distress might have actually slowed down his death.

House: Or he could have just had an adrenaline surge when he saw his chance to hit the singles market. Send her home.

Taub: We don’t need to. I had an idea… All by myself.

[Cut to Charlotte’s room. Taub and a nurse are wheeling in another bed.]

Charlotte: Eddie?

Taub: Found him loitering in the lobby.

Charlotte: You’re still with me.

Eddie: Where the hell else am I gonna go?

Taub: And now, with your permission, we’d like to try to make you better.

[Cut to the clinic. House is staring at a 12-year-old beauty queen. He takes a sip of his coffee.]

Mother: The pageant starts in an hour. You have to do something. There’s something wrong inside her head. It’s like she has no idea what’s going on around her. [She waves her hand in front of her daughter who doesn’t react.]

House: I thought she was just flirting with me. [Mother gives him a look and daughter stares blankly at him.] I can fix it, but it’s gonna cost you… $3.75. I’m not just gonna give you my coffee. [He hands his cut to the daughter.] Think of it as Costa Rican sober juice.

Mother: She’s drunk?

House: That little minty scent hiding beneath the rose petal perfume and the cherry blossom moisturizer and the morning dew hair spray. You sneak into mommy’s bathroom and gulp some of her mouthwash?

Daughter: [slurring] Gotta be perfect.

House: You spit it out?

Daughter: Mommy doesn’t.

[Cut to clinic desk.]

Foreman: Treatment worked. Charlotte’s breathing’s back to normal. She’s being discharged.

Taub: She can resume her vigil over her husband who started fading again.

House: Win some, lose some. And strictly speaking, since he’s not my patient, win some. Look at the time. It’s half past “Taub was lying about Kutner.”

Taub: He probably went to a comic book fest, spent the night at some Wonder Woman’s lair. I’m sure he’ll —

House: Find out what or who he’s doing. Either way, Cuddy’s gonna want me to write it under “reason for termination.”

[Taub’s beeper goes off]

Thirteen: That Kutner?

Taub: Charlotte.

[Cut to Charlotte’s room. She’s gasping again.]

Nurse: O2 sat and S-T are normal. It’s not her airway.

[Eddie is standing by the bed. Taub moves him aside to get to Charlotte=

Taub: [to Eddie] You’re okay.

Eddie: Yeah. Don’t worry about me. She’s in pain.

Taub: Pulse is rapid and regular. No fluid in her lungs.

Eddie: What’s happening?

Taub: I don’t know.

[Cut to a hallway in an apartment building. Foreman and Thirteen are there. She knocks on a door.]

Foreman: Kutner. It’s Foreman and Thirteen.

[He starts to leave.]

Thirteen: Where are you going? House didn’t ask us to find out where he wasn’t.

Foreman: If you wanna climb a fifth floor fire escape…

Thirteen: [jingles some keys and whispers] This might be faster.

[They enter the apartment.]

Foreman: Kutner.

Thirteen: Man/boy heaven. Surprised he ever leaves.

Foreman: [checks the computer] There’s nothing on his calendar. His pager’s still here.

[Thirteen smiles. She turns around and the smile freezes then disappears. Cut to her view — a body on the floor in the bedroom. All that can be seen is an arm and the torso.]

Thirteen: Oh, God.

[She runs in and kneels by Kutner’s body. Foreman makes a phone call. He kneels to help as he talks. There’s the sound of her doing CPR.]

Foreman: I need an ambulance at 410 Willis. Apartment 5-C. 28-year-old male. Single g*n sh*t wound to the right temple.

Thirteen: No pulse.

Foreman: Alert Princeton Plainsboro. Have a trauma unit ready. His pupil’s dilated. His head’s swollen.

Thirteen: Still no pulse! Come on, Kutner!

Foreman: Let me try.

[He continues chest compression as she backs away and sits against the bed. Her hand is covered with blood.]

Thirteen: He’s cold. Eric!

[As sirens are heard in the background, Foreman gives up and sits next to Thirteen.]

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room. It’s as dark as Eddie’s bedroom in the teaser was. House is standing, hunched over his cane. The others are at the table, heads bowed.]

House: He didn’t say anything? To any of you? Family problems? Bad relationship? Financial pressures?

Foreman: His parents were sh*t right in front of him.

House: Parents are ancient history.

Foreman: Not to someone who actually cares.

House: He didn’t slit his wrists and… peacefully drift away. He sh*t himself. He didn’t leave a note. That means panic. Which could have been preempted if the idiots who worked alongside him for 80 hours a week had seen this coming.

Thirteen: You’re blaming us?

House: [shakes head slightly] Just trying to figure it out.

Thirteen: We would have helped him if he had reached out to us. He didn’t.

Foreman: We should have picked up on something.

Thirteen: This isn’t our fault! Something like 25% of suicidal people show no outward signs of depression.

House: No. 25% of suicidal people have friends who didn’t notice anything and don’t want to feel guilty.

Taub: k*lling himself also kills all other options. Makes Kutner an idiot. So pity, yes. But guilt, no.

Foreman: That’s what you wanna tell yourself.

Taub: We still have a patient. Actually, two. One worsening, one who should be worsening.

House: You can’t be in denial about Kutner and the husband.

Taub: It’s possible Eddie’s body is willing itself to live.

House: Well, call the tabloids. Tell them you just witnessed the miracle of slightly increased kidney function.

Foreman: Maybe we should pass this file over to another doctor.

House: And the next one too? The one after that? How many files till it’s okay that Kutner’s dead? [pause] Cardiac enzymes means she didn’t have a heart att*ck. No vision problems means no mitochondrial disease.

Foreman: Could be a metabolic disorder, acidosis.

Thirteen: Blood pH was normal. Polyserositis would inflame the membranes near her epiglottis and the heart’s pericardium, causing the chest pain.

[Cuddy enters]

Cuddy: I’m sorry. I’ve hired a grief counselor whom I’m sure none of you will see and I’m offering time off, which I’m sure none of you will take. But just know it’s available. [Long pause]

House: Polyserositis fits. Start her on indomethacin. [He heads for his office, followed by Cuddy.]

Cuddy: If you’d rather not deal with this case…

House: I’m fine. Despite what Wilson will say.

Cuddy: He hasn’t come to you?

House: Pretty sure he has mah-jongg Tuesday mornings. I assume he thinks I will work through this better if I don’t have to keep flicking his wings off my shoulder.

Cuddy: You didn’t even have an inkling?

House: I know his fantasy football team cratered. Figured he’d gotten over it.

Cuddy: Well… Sorry for your loss.

House: Thanks. But it’s not my loss.

Cuddy: Then I’m sorry you don’t think it is. [She leaves and Foreman and Thirteen come in from the conference room] Patient’s membranes aren’t gonna heal themselves.

Foreman: Taub went to run the treatment. We’d like to go see Kutner’s parents.

House: I’ll join you. [He takes a Vicodin.]

[Cut to Eddie and Charlotte’s room]

Taub: Polyserositis damages the protective covering of the tissue around the organs. The indomethacin is simply an anti-inflammatory but it should fix it.

Charlotte: Just make the pain stop.

Eddie: Charlotte… Close you eyes. Now… pretend you finally made it down to Rio. You’re on the balcony of a… some fancy hotel.

Charlotte: You never talk like this.

Eddie: Yeah, just shut up and let me do this. [He sits up] And you’re on that balcony, and you’re watching the Mardi Gras.

Charlotte: It’s called Carnival. And I don’t wanna go without you.

Eddie: I want you to. And I want it to be everything you’ve ever dreamed of.

Taub: Sorry to interrupt… but I’d like to run one more test… on you.

[Cut to the Kutner’s home]

Julia Kutner: This is the first day we got him. He was six. Sweetest little boy you ever met.

Foreman: Must have been scary, going through a trauma and then being handed off to a new family.

Julia Kutner: We kept telling him to call us Richard and Julia. But it was always Mr. and Mrs. Kutner. And on his ninth birthday, we gave him a chemistry set. Lawrence always loved blowing things up. And he said, “Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad.” That’s who we were from then on.

Thirteen: He was pretty special. We were lucky to have him.

Julia Kutner: You spent the most time with him. He spoke so highly of all of you. Do you have any idea?

Foreman: Wish we did. We all —

House: It was his name. He was conflicted, didn’t know where he fit in, being ripped out of his world and stuck into yours.

Julia Kutner: We encouraged him to hold onto his heritage.

House: It’s hard to still be Lawrence Choudhary when everyone sees you as Lawrence Kutner.

Julia Kutner: It was his idea to take our name.

House: Then you should have said no.

Thirteen: House.

House: All his Anglo name gave him was the illusion that he was someone he wasn’t. You were being emotional, not rational. You didn’t understand him.

Richard Kutner: We loved that boy, you son of a bitch.

House: You wanted to make him happy by shutting out his pain. When he looked happy, you assumed the pain had gone. It just got buried deeper, leaving him tormented about who he was until finally he put a b*llet —

Foreman: House! Go back to the hospital.

[House looks around, seeing the impact his words have had on the Kutners. He stands up.]

House: I’m sorry about your son.

[Cut to elevator door opening. House steps out. Taub catches him up on the case as they walk down the hall and into House’s office.]

Taub: Indomethacin had no effect. She’s still in pain. Rules out polyserositis. I ran a hormone panel on Eddie. His prolactin’s above normal. Means he’s actually improving. Body chemistry changes for all sorts of reasons — stress, fear… Why not love? But maybe he’s going into some sort of remission/

House: You haven’t asked if I learned anything relevant from the Kutners.

Taub: If you had, I’m sure you would have mentioned it.

House: Or you’re afraid there is something relevant. Which would mean you could have saved him.

Taub: I don’t buy that su1c1de is always a cry for help. Sometimes you just don’t want help.

House: Good thing you got some. Or you’d have tried again and gotten it right.

Taub: She doesn’t have Wegener’s. Kidney function’s normal. It’s not byssinosis. It’s not mitral valve stenosis. Nothing fits.

House: If it doesn’t fit any diagnosis, it just leaves one diagnosis.

[Cut to Eddie and Charlotte’s room. Eddie is sitting in bed.]

House: I’m Dr. House. You have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His heart is too weak. Yours is too strong. Good news is it’s fixable. We induce a massive heart att*ck and k*ll off the extra muscle.

Charlotte: You wanna give me a heart att*ck?

House: It’s only dangerous if your heart is normal size. But since all the —

Eddie: Are you serious?

House: No. This is actually very annoying and I’m getting really bored of lying to patients to scare them into telling me the truth. [to Eddie] She’s faking. And yes, if she keeps faking I’m going to eventually do something that will k*ll her.

Eddie: How could she be… The windpipe thing?

House: That was real. Treatment made her better. But good for her was bad for you which was bad for her. So she made herself bad. It’s all so simple. She figured the sicker she was, the longer you’d hang on.

Eddie: Charlotte?

Charlotte: We haven’t been this close for years. I wanted to hang on to that. Ow!

House: Oh, please. People hate reruns.

Charlotte: It’s my leg. I swear this is real!

House: What, you pinky swear or you just plain swear? Because —

Eddie: How can she fake that? [He pulls back Charlotte’s sheet. Her left lower leg is much smaller than the right.]

House: She can’t.

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room]

House: So, what can shred an epiglottis and make muscle disappear?

Foreman: Mr. and Mrs. Kutner. They caused Kutner’s death. Why not Charlotte’s?

House: Mourning period’s over. Foreman’s sense of irony is back. I was wrong about the ethnic reason. Step one — change your name back. Step two — if step one fails — move to Bangalore. Step fourteen, if step thirteen doesn’t work, k*ll yourself.

Foreman: So what now? You gonna insult your way through his Rolodex till you find someone with an answer?

House: I’ve been polite to the friends I’ve called. All of whom were useless.

Thirteen: They weren’t useless. They just didn’t know anything more than we did.

House: Tomato, tomah-to.

Taub: MS. Weakens myelin sheath, compromises nerve conduction. I’m talking about Charlotte, the one who’s still alive.

House: [to Foreman and Thirteen] You two, stick her in an MRI. Confirm MS. [to Taub] And you, run the echo on Eddie that you’re planning to do behind my back to see if his heart’s improving.

[Cut to Clinic. Cuddy is by the nurses’ station]

House: Did you let me hire a pervert?

Cuddy Well, it would be hypocritical of me not to.

House: Kutner’s police background check from when he started. He was charged with indecent exposure.

Cuddy: Kutner streaked at the Penn-Dartmouth football game. Precisely the kind of thing you’d expect him to do. It’s okay. You should be upset. He thought like you, pushed boundaries like you —

House: If he thought like me, he would know that living in misery sucks marginally less than dying in it.

[Cut to MRI lab.]

Thirteen: Just a few more minutes then we’ll get you back to Eddie. What’s it like — 30 years with the same man?

Charlotte: Great for me. Good for him, I hope.

Thirteen: You don’t think he loves you?

Charlotte: I think he always loved me in his way, just not in a “spend time with me or show emotion or any affection for me” sort of way.

Thirteen: Why did you stay?

Charlotte: I didn’t need him to feel about me the way I did about him. Love… doesn’t… [Her voice fades away as machines start beeping.]

Thirteen: Charlotte?

[Cut to Charlotte and Eddie’s room]

Eddie: I’ve heard stories of cancer patients going into spontaneous remission. You think this might be that sort of thing?

Taub: It’s unlikely, but you never know.

Eddie: If I just had a little more time… be with Charlotte, try and do better by her.

Taub: Yeah, maybe.

Eddie: You don’t think I mean it.

Taub: I think you mean it now. I think it’s much easier to mean it than to do anything about it.

Eddie: Ha.

[Taub looks at the echo of Eddie’s heart.]

Taub: Chamber walls are barely moving. I’m sorry.

[Cut to Wilson’s office. The door opens and Cuddy enters.]

Cuddy: He needs a friend.

Wilson: I can’t deal with this and House.

Cuddy: You need a friend too.

Wilson: You couldn’t give a crap what I need. You just want someone to take care of him.

Cuddy: [long pause] He told Kutner’s parents it was their fault.

[He watches her leave.]

[Cut to OR.]

Chase: Ruptured spleen means it’s not MS. [To Taub] What are you doing here?

Taub: [On speaker from observation area] Waiting for you to fix her spleen so we can biopsy it for rheumatoid arthritis.

Chase: I’ll do it. Go home.

Taub: She’s not your patient.

Chase: And Kutner wasn’t my friend.

Taub: Kutner wanted to die. Charlotte doesn’t. So in a contest for my concern and interest, she wins.

Chase: Okay, either you’re a cold-hearted bastard or you’re too miserable to face it. Go home and cry. It’s not rheumatoid arthritis. Her liver’s scarred. Whatever she’s got, it’s spreading.

[Cut to Kutner’s apartment. House is standing and staring. Wilson comes in behind him.]

Wilson: For the record, I’m uncomfortable violating a dead colleague’s dignity.

House: It’s only violating it if you find something. Good to see you.

Wilson: What are we looking for?

House: He was hiding. Why?

Wilson: Shame? Fear? Are you okay? It’s okay not to be okay.

House: [reading a card in a trophy case] “Colonial Warrior Blaster. Number One One.” He spent months tracking this down. He had passions.

Wilson: He was obviously in pain. Does it really matter why?

House: He hung the bad with the good. [Looking photos in a twin frame — baby Kutner with his biological parents and him graduating college with his adoptive ones.] His loss beside a reminder of what he’d gained. Means he was open about the pain. Should mean that if it got worse, he had no reason to hide it.

Wilson: Here’s how we’re going to handle this, House. We’re going to leave here and go to the closest bar and drink and tell stories about the time Kutner almost blew up an OR. And pass out in our own sick. Sound like a plan?

[House turns on a bedside lamp and stares at the enormous bloodstains on the floor and the comforter. As House walks around the bed, Wilson exhales loudly and stays in the doorway, rubbing his neck.]

House: What am I missing? [to Wilson] You’ve got that look. You figured this out.

Wilson: You’re not here because you care about Kutner. You’re here because it’s a mystery. You’re here for the puzzle.

House: What if I didn’t miss anything ‘cause there’s nothing to miss? He didn’t k*ll himself. He was m*rder*d.

[Wilson stares at him for a few minutes then walks out, leaving House looking for clues.]

[Cut to Diagnostics Conference Room]

Taub: Epiglottis, spleen and now her liver which is operating at 20% and deteriorating fast.

Thirteen: Autoimmne hepatitis? Did you page Foreman?

House: Took up Cuddy’s offer of time off. Normal thyroid means no hepatitis.

Taub: Could be amyloidosis. Amyloid buildup hits the organs, tissue —

House: Her muscles wouldn’t have atrophied. You run the echo on the husband?

Taub: Heart’s still failing. The improvement was only temporary.

House: I prefer the less subtle answer: You were right, House. So… Less time proving why hubby isn’t dead, more time proving why Kutner is. [He turns the white board which around to face them.] Motives for m*rder.

Thirteen: House… it was a su1c1de. The police have already investigated.

House: They investigated what they saw, not what they didn’t saw. Talk to friends, classmates, pizza delivery guy. And draft Foreman. He can make calls through his tears.

Thirteen: No.

House: Is that “No, I’m not calling my boyfriend, who apparently called my boss instead of me to say he wasn’t coming in?” ‘Cause it’s really not fair to have that much subtext in one syllable.

Thirteen: We all want to know why Kutner did it but we’re not gonna waste time chasing ghosts.

House: You’re not remotely curious?

Taub: Only why a man who embraces the rational is suddenly pursuing the irrational.

House: She could have alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency. Run her AAT proteins.

[Cut to Charlotte’s bedside.]

Charlotte; I’d like to be with Eddie.

Taub: It’s too soon after your surgery.

Charlotte: You can ask that someone get your organs when you die, right? Even if the donor bank turned them down?

Taub: Individual donors can bypass the registry, but there are a lot of other factors… Blood type —

Charlotte: I’ve given him blood.

Taub: It’s not just —

Charlotte: Please. If I go before him, I want you to give him my heart.

Taub: This isn’t over yet.

Charlotte: For me. But it is for him, isn’t it?

Taub: Yes.

[Cut to Foreman opening his apartment door. Thirteen is there.]

Thirteen: Remy Hadley. I also answer to Thirteen. I sometimes sleep with you.

Foreman: I know I should have called. I just need some time.

Thirteen: Alone?

Foreman: I’ve worked through a lot of bad stuff in my life. Always done it solo.

Thirteen: [swallows hard] So I should go.

Foreman: I’m sorry.

[She nods and leaves. He closes the door.]

[Cut to House’s office. He’s staring at a computer screen. Someone clears her throat.]

Cuddy: IT’s been trying to close out Kutner’s email account. Apparently someone’s still logged onto it.

House: It wasn’t hard to figure out that his password was Kutner. He did what they tell you not to do.

Cuddy: He wasn’t m*rder*d.

House: But his parents were. And the guy who k*lled them is coming up for parole.

Cuddy: He’s coming up for parole. He’s not out on parole.

House: Kutner testified at every one of his hearings. The guy wouldn’t be the first to see the clock ticking.

Cuddy: He was k*lled by his own g*n.

House: Which he bought years ago, obviously for self-defense.

Cuddy: In the temple. Cops found residue.

House: Right. The m*rder*r would never try to make it look like su1c1de. That would be unethical. [Cuddy stands up to leave] You haven’t asked about my patient.

Cuddy: You’re waiting on an AAT protein results.

House: Means you checked up to see that I’m still on it. You wanna transfer the case but you won’t because you think it’s the only thing that’s holding me together. Relax. Either I’m right or I’m wrong. We’ll know soon enough.

Cuddy: Find what’s k*lling your patient. And then I’ll find you another patient.

[Cut to Charlotte’s room. She’s on the floor, convulsing. Taub enters]

Taub: What happened?

Thirteen: Nurses found her like this. She broke into the cart and injected whatever she could grab. Dumb way to look worse for Eddie.

Taub: She wasn’t trying to look worse. She was trying to k*ll herself. [He holds an oxygen mask to her face.]

[Cut to Charlotte’s room, later. She’s in bed.]

Taub: [voice over] She’s stable. But whatever was left of her liver is definitely sh*t now. And there’s no change in Eddie.

[Cut to House’s office.]

House: So, thanks to her idiotic move, she’s dead in 24 hours if she doesn’t get a new liver.

Taub: It was selfless. She loves him.

House: How does that disagree with what I just said?

Thirteen: Test was negative for AAT deficiency. Myelofibrosis fits but testing takes at least 48 hours.

Taub: We should try a partial donation from a live donor.

Thirteen: Damage is too severe. She needs a whole new liver.

Taub: No diagnosis, no liver. No liver, no living.

[House was looking through the bookshelves. He returns to the table waving a single sheet of paper.

House: What do you know. It is myelofibrosis. [He starts writing on the paper.] Says so right here. Who wants to tell Cuddy?

Thirteen: How many times have you lied to the transplant committee?

House: Just twice.

Thirteen: How many times has it worked?

House: I don’t quite see how that’s relevant. [His pager goes off. He checks it.] Cheese it. It’s the coppers.

Thirteen: [grabbing his pager] We’re not just going to leave them to die while you fixate on Kutner.

House: Technically, he’s not our patient. So I’m really only leaving her to die.

Taub: We’ve already explored the usual options. Shouldn’t we at least explore unusual ones?

House: Absolutely. [He goes to his desk and picks up his phone] Don’t worry. This is why God gave me two ears.

Taub: Kutner would say we should just come clean with Cuddy.

House: Wow. If only he were here to say that. I’m sure Cuddy would be bound to fall for the old, “Hey, the dead guy won’t mind if we’re wasting —”

[He has an idea, hangs up the phone and leaves.]

[Cut to ER. House slams his cane down in front of Cameron.]

House: Need an incurable romantic to talk to an incurable romantic.

Cameron: Kutner wasn’t m*rder*d.

House: You deduced that by removing your sunglasses to the strains of a Who song?

Cameron: su1c1de means you could have helped him. m*rder lets you off the hook.

House: [shows Cameron two films. He points at the first one] Needs a liver. Has a liver. [He points at the second film.] He can make a partial donation. The faster he agrees, the faster she gets to not die.

Cameron: Partial won’t be enough. She needs a whole liver and he’d never survive the procedure.

House: Nice symmetry, huh?

Cameron: [gets it] He dies on the table and you give her his whole liver.

House: If he’s gonna do this, he’s gonna do this for love. I though he should talk to someone who spoke the language.

[Cut to Eddie’s room.]

Eddie: You want me to die on the table.

Cameron: We don’t want you to. Your wife needs you to.

Eddie: My heart?

Cameron: Is still dying. You have a couple of days at most. But this could buy us enough time to save her.

Eddie: When can I say good-bye?

Cameron: You can’t. If she knew what we were planning, would she be okay?

Eddie: She’ll resent me.

Cameron: She’ll be alive. Nothing else matters.

[She hands him a clipboard. He nods and signs the form.]

[Cut to PPTH lobby. Cameron walks with House.]

Cameron: You can’t do the transplant.

House: Only if he said no. But your urgent hovering means he said yes.

Cameron: His fingers have nodules. I think his doctors misdiagnosed him.

House: Or you sprinkled too much wishful thinking in your tea.

Cameron: Obese man with lung cancer — Two easy explanations for his heart failure. Nodules can mean something else. Something curable.

House: Go back to the ER. My thanks to you and your cold feet.

Cameron: What’s going on? I’m giving you a sh*t at a cool result. Better yet, a chance to prove other doctors idiotic.

House: Except you’re wrong.

Cameron: You figure that out by taking off your sunglasses to the strains of a Who song?

House: The guy who k*lled Kutner’s parents d*ed of an aneurism two months ago.

Cameron: Kutner hid from everyone. You didn’t get a chance to save him. No one did. Run the tests. Find out if you have a chance to save Eddie.

[Cut to Eddie’s room. The door slides open]

House: Bad news. Love can’t save you. On the other hand, mold can. [He hooks a stool with his cane, rolls it to the bedside and sits.] Your heart failure was caused by a fungal infection called cardiac blastomycosis. It started as nodules in your lungs which every doc, except one, mistook for cancer. It’s very rare, very curable. I’m starting you on itraconazole.

Eddie: But how come I was getting better without the medicine?

House: Your emotional state bumped your catecholamines which helped raise your prolactin.

Eddie: My emotional state?

House: Three months of treatment, you’ll be back to your buff, chiseled self.

Eddie: I don’t want the treatment. Do the transplant.

House: But you’d be trading the certainty that you’ll live for the uncertainty that she’ll live.

Eddie: I was ready to die anyway.

House: Now you get to be nicer to your next wife.

Eddie: If you won’t do it, release me. And when I get hit by a car and show up in your morgue, you can give her my liver then.

[Cut to House’s office.]

Thirteen: You’re basically asking us to commit m*rder.

House: I was yesterday too.

Thirteen: There’s a difference when he has 20 years to live instead of two days.

House: Not really. Not legally.

Thirteen: That’s your way of convincing us to do this, by saying it’s no more immoral?

House: The idiot is gonna do this with or without us. This way we can protect the organ.

Thirteen: We should be protecting him.

House: So we strap him to the bed, wait till his wife dies?

Thirteen: I’m not doing this.

Taub: I will. We’ve already had one pointless death.

[Cut to Taub wheeling Eddie’s bed into Charlotte’s room.]

Charlotte: Eddie, what’s going on?

Eddie: I don’t know. He just came and got me.

Taub: Your husband has a curable disease, but he wants to die so he can give you his liver. Are you okay with that or would you rather he take the treatment?

Eddie: You son of a bitch!

Charlotte: Eddie, don’t!

Eddie: You have to let me do this.

Taub: Charlotte, can you hear me? [He checks her eyes.]

[Cut to House’s office.]

Taub: She spiked a fever. LP shows her white cells through the roof. She’s infected everywhere.

House: I should fire you.

Taub: Just did what you failed to do, convince Eddie to live and let his wife die.

Thirteen: Infection means we have a new clue.

House: And a full two or three hours to figure it out.

Thirteen: Sarcoidosis hits the spleen and the liver.

House: She would have lung issues.

Taub: Scleroderma inflames the tissue.

House: No skin or GI problems. [He sighs] What is she hiding?

Taub: You don’t know that —

House: [angry] Either we have all the clues and we’re idiots or we don’t have all the clues.

Thirteen: Possible exposure, people, places.

House: Both.

[Cut to House and Taub entering Charlotte and Eddie’s room.]

House: Bad lie. Did you really think the beaches in Hawaii were just like the beaches in Rio? The disease bearing sand flies are completely different.

Eddie: She’s never been to Rio.

House: Who’d you go with?

Charlotte: Why are you doing this?

House: I don’t actually need to know who it was. I just need to know that you went so we can know that you have visceral leishmaniasis. But since Lancelot there was ready to die for you, he might want the answer to both.

Charlotte: [turns her head toward Eddie, slowly] Last year… It was nobody you know. Rio was supposed to be ours. I got tired of waiting. I’m so sorry.

House: [to Taub on his way out] Start her on antimony and have Cuddy find her a liver. [He looks back at Eddie who is trying to come to grips with this information.] They were ready to die. But for guilt, no love.

Taub: You can’t feel that much guilt without love.

[Cut to Cuddy’s office. She opens the door for Taub.]

Cuddy: New York Mercy’s medevacing the liver. It should be here…

Taub: Tell them to turn around. Charlotte’s treatment isn’t taking. We diagnosed it too late.

Cuddy: Everyone’s heading over to Kutner’s funeral. You’re welcome to ride with me.

Taub: I’m gonna stay with Charlotte.

Cuddy: She bought you some time to save Eddie. It’ll give her death some meaning.

Taub: No. It won’t. [He leaves]

[Cut to the white board which is in House’s office. House’s reasons for m*rder are still there — money, power, dr*gs, jealousy, revenge. House is staring at it when Wilson enters.]

Wilson: I was wrong about you.

House: No, you weren’t.

Wilson: You’re in pain.

House: And you’re romanticizing. Again.

Wilson: You worked with him every day for two years and you never saw this coming.

House: No one saw it coming.

Wilson: But you see everything coming. This has never been about what you missed. This is about why you missed it. You’re terrified that you’re losing your gift, losing… who you are. And I’m terrified of what you’d do then.

House: Unless you feel there’s more to do here to cure me, don’t you have a funeral to go to?

[Wilson leaves. House continues to stare at the white board.]

[Closing montage, to “Lose You” by Peter Yorn, starts with cut to a poster-sized picture of Kutner. The mosque is packed. Cameron is there. Wilson and Cuddy are together. Thirteen is behind them. She looks across the aisle and back, to where Foreman stands, alone.]

[Charlotte and Eddie’s room. She is lying in bed. He is partially sitting up.]

[House opening the door to Kutner’s apartment.]

[The funeral. Foreman and Thirteen are pallbearers. They, with the casket, pass Cuddy, Wilson, Chase and Cameron.]

[House, at the apartment, looks at the side-by-side pictures of Kutner with his two families. He takes it off the wall as…]

[.. the casket is carried out.]

[Charlotte is lying very still. Taub, standing next to her bed, nods at Eddie, indicated that is about to die. Eddie leans over, holds her hand and kisses it. She watches him.]

[The mourners gather outside of the mosque.]

[House sorts through pictures at Kutner’s apartment.]

[Outside the mosque, Foreman walks up to Thirteen and takes her hand. Her face is very tight as if she’s trying not to cry. The camera rises to show a minaret. White smoke is rising from a chimney behind it.]

[Taub sits on a bench in a PPTH hallway. He begins to sob.]

[House sits on Kutner’s bed, looking at a picture of Kutner, alone.]

[The End]

Lose You
I’m taking a ride
Off to one side
It is a personal thing
Where when I can’t stand
Up in this cage I’m not regretting

I don’t need a better thing
I’ll settle for less
It’s another thing for me
I just have to wander through this world alone

Stop before you fall
Into the hole that I have dug here
Rest even as you
Are starting to feel the way I used to

I don’t need a better thing
Just to sound confused
Don’t talk about everyone
I am not amused by you

'Cause I’m gonna lose ya
Yes, I’m gonna lose ya
If I'm gonna lose ya

'Cause I’m gonna lose ya
Yes, I’m gonna lose ya
If I'm gonna lose ya
I'll lose you for good