"I still can't believe you talked me into this." "Come on, honey." "You're gonna throw him off." "It's okay." "I'm almost done." "A little more light on your hips." "Oh, god." "Why couldn't you have come up with this before I had two kids?" "You look amazing." "Okay, I think..." "Yeah, I'm done." "Wanna come take a look?" "I can't." "You first." "No, we'll look together." "I don't understand." "I thought..." " What the hell is that?" " Honey." "It's okay." "This is not what we discussed, or what I paid for." "I don't understand." "I think this is one of the best I've ever done." "I want my money back." "I'm sorry, but this is not some department store photo studio." " And this is not my wife." " Yes, it is." "You asked me to paint her exactly as she looks." "That's exactly what I did." "Honey!" "Oh, stop it!" "What's going on?" "Brandon!" "That check..." "better be in my mailbox by friday." "Or I'll be back." "Come on!" " What happened?" " I don't know." "They saw the painting and they just freaked out." "Brandon, what is this?" "What do you mean?" "It's her portrait." "What's wrong with it? Why's this in here?" "First column, last entry." "Today is going to be a good day." "This him?" " Yes." " No." "She means are you the private investigator whose bills I've tried to slip through as medical expenses?" "Hi." "I'm Lucas Douglas, p. i." "This hospital's not putting a private investigator on retainer." "Nor is it gonna pay any more phony repairs on vending machines, cryostats, or elevators." "Information saves lives." "Saving lives saves money." "No, saving lives costs money, which is why i'm trying to make sure there's still some left!" "You want your own personal p. i., you're gonna have to pay for him yourself." " Sorry." " No, I understand." "Hey, I like the shoes, by the way." "Thank... you." "You don't like her shoes." "You like her legs." "It sounds less creepy if you say shoes." "Less creepy, more gay." "That's my firm's motto." " What is a cryostat?" " No idea." "Whoever fixed ours is about to get stiffed." "There's no distorted perspective in any of his other recent works." "Not much talent, either." "So the symptoms just came on." "Acute onset visual agnosia points to a stroke or brain tumor." "M.R.I. revealed no stroke or brain tumor." "We should do another with contrast." "If he's like the struggling artists I've known, he's also into drugs." "We should..." "What are you looking at?" "Apparently a moron." "One, E.R. routinely tests for drugs." "If it was positive, we wouldn't be looking at this file." "Two, who pays 12% interest on a car loan?" "How did you..." "Did you run a credit check on me?" "No... that would be illegal." "Interestingly enough, paying someone to run it for me, though..." "What?" " It's part of my job." " Your job is to diagnose patients." "Which I do with the team." "How am I supposed to know how best to utilize that team if I don't know everything about them?" "Say the Van Gogh turns out to have neurosyphilis, and our last vial of penicillin is in a storeroom at the end of a 20-mile hallway with a two-foot high ceiling." "You've discovered that one of us has been hiding the ability to stretch or shrink themselves?" "No." "I would never out someone's super powers." "This, on the other hand..." "You crawled 20 miles?" "My name's in the guinness book." "I'll bet that really impresses the babes." "I didn't do it to get the babes." "No, that would cheapen the purity of your achievement." "Sorry to interrupt, but we have a patient with a probable brain tumor." "Who needs an M.R.I. With contrast, we've established that." "What do you got on Taub?" "I got nothing on Taub." "Could be environmental." "We should check his studio for toxins, mold, fungus." " Taub's wife, on the other hand..." " House." "That's enough." "Dad's right." "This is no time for gossip." "A patient desperately needs our help." "Check his head and his house." " Can't lucas..." " Nope." "He's very busy." "If there is a tumor, this test will show us." "Is that stuff dangerous?" "This is just the contrast material." "There is a small risk of an anaphylactic reaction." " I could stop breathing?" " Don't worry." "We're prepared to deal with whatever happens." "You know, I did some drawings this morning, and they seemed fine." "Maybe it was a reaction to something I ate." "How many people have reactions like that to something they ate for breakfast?" " But if I'm getting better..." " You will continue to get better." "If you're not, we need to know why not so we can start treatment immediately." "Baby, let them do the test." "Can lead poisoning cause visual agnosia?" "Not without lead showing up in the blood work." "Nothing in the medicine cabinet except some harmless toiletries." "No signs of mold or fungus anywhere, either." "You think House really got something on your wife?" "No." "Not that i'd care if he did." "Wait, your wife's doing the doorman in your bed, and they're sweating all over the sheets that you paid for..." " My wife's not doing the doorman." " How do you know?" "We don't have a doorman." "And I just do, okay?" "Drop it." "In college, my friends and I came up with an inverse-square law." "Sounds like a real fun group." "The girls who you think are the most inhibited..." "Straight arrows..." " They're the ones you hook up with." " Are you saying my wife's a slut?" "I'm saying if my wife was a slut, I'd wanna know." "His place was clean." "So is his head." "Even with contrast, no masses, no lesions." "A neurological symptom with no apparent neurological cause." "Time course means we can rule out cancer and M.S." "Just leaves toxins or drugs." "You called thirteen a moron for thinking it was drugs." "Yeah, but when she said it, she had other options." "And I really just wanted to segue into her stupid loan and your..." "A cavernous angioma in the brain could leak." "Once the blood gets reabsorbed, the pressure goes down, symptom goes away." "He'll never consent to petrosal vein sampling." "Really?" "He was nervous about an injection of contrast." "Is his girlfriend hot?" "And I'm not talking fever here." "I mean, is she all curvy and perky?" "Very..." "And if he dies, it's good news for all of us, but..." "That explains why all his paintings suck." "And what's wrong with him." "Where are you going?" "Tell him he may have a massive brain tumor." " But he doesn't." " I know." "I'm not a moron." "It's drugs." "You seem to have a massive brain tumor." " Who are you?" " He's Dr. House." "He's pleased to meet you." "We found no trace on any of your imaging, so we need to cut your head open." "It's risky, but it's the only way to save your life." "No." "Wrong answer." " I'm not allowed to say no?" " You're not allowed to not be terrified." "There's only two good reasons not to be terrified in a hospital." "You're delusional." "But then you're not afraid of contrast material either." "Or you know you're fine." "Since we haven't told you you're fine, you obviously have information we don't have." " What drugs are you on?" " His drug tests were clean." "Drug tests only test for drugs they've made tests for." "What are you talking about?" "Hottie thinks that he's a great artist, selling art to the rich and tasteful." "She's stupid enough to be fooled by the canvases, but bank accounts don't lie." "He needed money." "There's not many jobs you can do that don't require time, training, and intelligence." "I know you're not a news anchor or a supermodel, 'cause those jobs seldom cause agnosia." "He's a guinea pig." "Companies pay him to test their untested drugs." "Did Hottie go for a pee or coffee?" "Either way, I don't think you should waste any time on denials." "The clinical trials were supposed to be safe." "The drugs are about to be approved by the FDA." "Drugs?" "How many trials are you on?" "Three." "Admirable." "Not many idiots have that much ambition." "You've been symptom-free since your admission, so whatever you took has probably cleared your system now." "You'll be fine." "Keep him overnight, to make sure, and get the names of all the trials he's been in." "You gonna tell Heather?" "Couldn't, even if I cared enough to want to." "Not bad." "You almost made it the whole day." "What'd you find out?" "The point is to see how everyone reacts." "I'm gonna go get the rest of the gang." "Cut the crap, House." "Your wife has a separate bank account in her name only." "She's been making weekly cash deposits for about a year now." "No withdrawals... yet." "That's it?" "A bank account?" "A secret bank account." "What makes you think it's a secret?" "Because if it wasn't, you'd call it" ""the" bank account." "Damn." "Always forget to use the right article when lying." "It's not secret." "We're refurnishing." "We set the budget, set up an account." "I couldn't make it to the bank the day we opened it." "You're spending almost $100,000 on furniture?" "Yes." " What happened?" " I don't know." "He was fine, then all of a sudden, he started seizing." "He said you told him he was better." "What's happening?" "What's wrong with him?" "She is hot." "Obviously the drugs weren't out of his system." "None of these drugs, nor the drugs that they're derived from," " are known for causing seizures." " By themselves, no." "But three unproven, untested drugs?" "This is like the mod squad." "No one could stop them." "Ridiculous that they let people take potentially dangerous drugs for money." "Just to short circuit that discussion, people should not be testing drugs because they're desperate." "But people won't test drugs unless they're desperate." "We need drugs to save children and puppies." "Ergo, we need desperate people." "Ergo, welfare kills sick children." " First drug..." " Why don't we call it bisexidrine?" "Clinical trials involve experimental drugs." "Means they don't have comforting, catchy names yet." "Just random, unmemorable trial numbers." "Go ahead." "Bisexidrine is designed as an anticoagulant." "Phase one indicated some risk of nausea, E.D., and insomnia." " Second drug." " Cuckoldisol." " She is having an affair?" " Worse." "Sex can be dismissed as hormonal or emotional." "Can be easily regretted." "Money is always a calculated decision." "My wife has her own bank account that House doesn't think I know about." "Shocking." "Discuss." "Drug b is an autoimmune treatment." "Almost no side effects." "Even if it's doing what it's supposed to be doing, it doesn't mix well with anticoagulants or anticonvulsives." " Which is the third drug?" " World's-sorest-knees-isil." "Cuddy used to have that title." "There's a million ways these drugs could interact if they're doing what they're supposed to." "If they're not two million." "It'd be interesting to know which interactions was causing the problem." "Unfortunately, we don't have to." "We just have to stop the interacting." " If we don't know which..." " Stop them all." "Put him on dialysis." "Clear out his system." "Rapid detox risks arrhythmia, another seizure, hepatic failure." "Difference is, we know what those risks are." "Put him on dialysis." "Dialysis." "Use that for kidney failure, right?" "Don't worry." "Your kidneys are fine." "He's not worried about his kidneys." "He's worried about how he's going to explain the dialysis to his girlfriend." "I just don't want her to worry." "You mean you don't want her to leave you?" "What's wrong with that?" "I love her." "It's not like I've lied to her about anything important." "I'm an artist." "I've sold plenty of paintings in the past." "It's just..." "I've hit a bit of a dry spell lately, is all." "So tell her that." "He can't." "He wants her to be happy too." "He's telling her what she wants to hear." "You didn't know?" "No." "What are you gonna do?" "She's not sleeping around." "She's not gambling it away." "She hasn't even spent any of it." "So I don't see a reason to do anything." "You don't think a conversation..." "How many people do you know in completely happy and fulfilled relationships?" " None." " I am." "Most people cling to some storybook notion of what a relationship is." "You can't have an imperfect thought." "You can't have a private zone..." "Steal money and hide it away in a secret account?" "She makes me happy." "I make her happy." "It works." "Because we don't do storybook." "And I don't plan to poke into her business." "You were right about the dialysis." "He made it through the night without any more seizures or visual symptoms." "And I am going to be just as right after breakfast up in my office." "The only difference is i'm gonna be right in front of other people." "Which means you're not here to talk about the medicine." "You can screw with me at work, but stay out of my personal life." "What did she say?" "Did you hear what I said?" "I heard the part about you can screw with me at work all you want." " Want my advice?" " Of course not." "Good, 'cause I have no idea what you should do." "I only know what you're going to do." " I said I didn't want your advice." " I said this is not advice." "You are going to forgive her for opening that account, and you're going to confess everything you've done, and you're gonna beg her to forgive you." "What purpose could that possibly serve?" "None... which is why i'm not saying you should." "But you will." "What's your end game?" "Where are you?" "At the track." "That's, like, six miles away." " How cool are these things?" " I feel like an idiot." "I'm not giving you any more of my stuff." "You have those night vision goggles?" "No." " You're lying." " You like making him miserable." "You like driving people away from you." "He deserved to know the truth." "There was no truth until you dug it up." "You do know that stuff exists even when you can't see it, right?" "It was a truth that mattered to him and a truth that mattered to her." "Why did it matter to you?" "First of all, stop saying "a" truth." "There is only one truth." "That may be true for you." "Miserable people save more lives." "If your life has meaning, your job doesn't have to have meaning." "Screw-ups are more palatable if you have someone's arms to go cry in." "Yeah, that makes sense." "Usually I have more of a fight on that one." "So why are you making Taub miserable?" "I just said!" "He left his last job to save his marriage." "If his marriage falls apart, you think he'll be working harder for you?" "Or you think he won't be working for you at all?" "His head and neck are completely swollen." "I need a trache kit." "His throat's closing." " Can't find any landmarks." " Just start cutting." " An exploratory trache?" " We don't have a choice." "Got it." "Here." "His face is so swollen it squeezed his tear ducts shut." "We've been lubricating his eyes by hand." "We started him on steroids, IV and cream, to reduce the swelling," " but it's having limited effect." " Negative for thrombosis and chagas." " Could be infection." " Culture's still negative." "Could be his immune system's on hyperdrive." "Cytokine storm." "Why would you pay for a three-year gym membership and only go twice?" "Sorry." "You guys still diagnosing?" "Thought we'd finished hours ago." "You remember, when we decided it was the unproven, unapproved cocktail of drugs he's been downing like..." "Like a cocktail." "He just completed a total dialysis." "If it was the drugs, he'd be better." "Or he'd be worse." "I take it none of you saw trainspotting." "You think swelling is a symptom of withdrawal?" "It's a coincidence that 3 new symptoms cropped up" " as soon as we took him off the drugs?" " It's possible some of the symptoms" "Either the drugs are the answer, or the drugs are a coincidence." "If it's one, we have to find a better way to detox him." "If it's two, we have to know which symptoms are withdrawal-related before we can formulate a diagnosis." "Which means we have to find a better way to detox him." "So how do we do it?" "Hair of the drug that bit him." "That's ridiculous." "If it is the drugs, they're dangerous..." "That's why we're gonna put him back on the drugs, and then wean him off again." "Just much slower." "Why are you looking at him?" "Try it out." "You heard the boss!" "Go!" " Taub." " I didn't talk to her." "Why are you..." "Excuse me." "Sorry." " He does look like me, doesn't he?" " You gave him your hat." "I needed you out of here, I could go through your desk." "Of course." "Nice blouse." "I really like that color on you." "Tell house that if he wants to know what I'm doing, all he has to do..." "It's not house, it's..." "It's me." "I was, I don't know." "I was thinking maybe we could get together for a drink or something." "I wasn't sure exactly what you like to do." "So I thought..." " You'd spy on me." " No." "No." "Not spying." "More like research." "I think it's a good idea to get to know a little bit more about a woman before you ask her out." "Show you care about more than just what she looks like." "As romantic as you make that sound, i'm pretty sure that what you're doing is..." "Not so much caring as creepy." "That's not fair." " You were scrounging through my desk." " What the hell am I gonna find out?" "You went to michigan." "You like your sandwiches a little light on mayo." "You stay in touch with your mother." "You rented the english patient and you gave money to amnesty international." "There's not one thing I can find out in here that you wouldn't tell a coworker while riding in an elevator." "I'm not a creep." "I just thought you seemed interesting." "I'll go now." "Yeah, these, um..." "I'll give you embarrassing info on house." " In exchange for..." " No, no need for a date." "You'd be employing me, so..." "I'd have all the time in the world to ask you all about you, and it would fall under the category of socializing instead of creepy stalking." " And I'd be paying you?" " I know it's weird." "But if you pay me while I check you out, it's all cool." "And you get value, you get leverage against him." "Help you keep him in line." "You think I need help keeping house in line?" "Nope, sorry." "This hospital can't afford..." "Oh, whatever you can afford." "How'd you know I liked roses?" "I was in your house last night." "No!" "I'm kidding." "Who the hell doesn't like roses?" "I forgot to tell you." "The parker quartet's gonna play at the library fundraiser." "That's it?" "It was your idea." "They'll be great." "You okay?" "I couldn't find the letter opener." "I went through some of the drawers in your desk looking for it." "There were a bunch of statements" "There were a bunch of statements in there from jefferson mutual." "I was so close." "To what?" "You've got $83,000 socked away in a secret account." "Not anymore." "I wanted to keep it a surprise, but..." "I bought you a car." "The one that..." "that I..." "I knew you would never buy it yourself, so..." "I've been saving." "And it's gonna be delivered on friday." "You are amazing." "Lucky you." "We've gradually reduced your dosage." "You're actually drug-free now." "I feel great." "Thanks to you." "All part of the job." "Your blood pressure's normal." "Can you sit up?" "What are you--ohh!" "What happened to his face?" "Question is what happened to his hormones?" "We're gonna need an ice pack in here!" "We can rule out the clinical trial drugs at this point." "His system has been completely cleaned twice." "Unless the drugs found a hiding place under the stairs." "Drugs could have set off a dormant neurological condition." "Good point." "Coming clean can cause a lot of damage." "Alienation, divorce." "My wife's buying me a car." "I was talking about the patient." " You were wrong." " Divorce was metaphorical." "What about kluver-bucy syndrome?" "Bilateral lesions in the temporal lobes, visual agnosia and hyper-sexuality are the key symptoms." "Good thing he's got that girlfriend." "If it's kluver-bucy, his brain'll melt down, he'll try to swallow his own hands, and she can take care of him for the rest of his talentless life." "You owe me an apology." "Any rationalization you had for meddling in my private life disappeared when she had" " good reason..." " You're right." "Fact is, nothing I said applies." "You had no reason to forgive her." "Therefore, no reason to seek forgiveness." "No reason to be an idiot." "Kluver-bucy wouldn't explain the seizure or the cytokine storm." "Withdrawal complications." "Then again, she is handing you a giant gift you don't think you deserve." "The fact the M.R.I. showed no lesions on the temporal lobe tends to rule out your lesions on the temporal lobe theory." "The damage can be a circulatory issue rather than structural." "We wouldn't see that on the M.R.I." "Foreman's right." "Go call your wife, tell her you're not coming home 'cause you have to give the patient a cranial M. R. Angiogram." "Then say good night and hang up." "Odd that a man who can't run would own so many pairs of sneakers." "You mind hanging this up when you're done?" "I have to find something embarrassing about you." "No, you don't." "I ordered us indian." "Not too embarrassing, just something credible." "Well, if you hand her that..." "She's not gonna need you anymore." "If I don't hand her anything, she'll think i'm incompetent." "I don't care if she thinks you're incompetent." "This isn't gonna work." "It's worked so far." "No, I'm no good at lying." "I know." "That's why your cover is that you want to do her." "I like her." "I don't wanna do her." "Then what's the point of liking her?" "I meant I don't just want to do her." "I like her." "What do you think you're gonna find out about her?" "Something... personal." "Something embarrassing." "I've spent half my life negotiating with that woman." "Anything I can use to scare her into saying yes." "Okay." "Okay?" "You're okay with being paid twice to facilitate blackmail?" "I'm okay." "I don't believe you, but I'm okay." "You're doing this for the same reason I'm doing this." "We'll see who gets there first." "Here it is." "Circle of Willis, the vessels are narrow." "Narrow for you, normal for him." "If there were problems with the vessels, he'd have had symptoms long ago." "Not if something else changed." " Like?" " His heart." "He could have recently gotten an intermittent arrhythmia." "I know "heart" and "head" start with the same three letters, but you gotta read all the way to the end." "The experimental drug is causing arrhythmia, which causes low blood pressure." "Combine that with those narrow vessels, the brain doesn't get enough blood." "That causes all of his symptoms." "If we can trigger the arrhythmia and identify it, we might be able to stop it from killing him." " Been home?" " No." "Good." "Do an E.P. study." "Find the arrhythmia." "We're gonna insert three electrocatheters into your heart." "Tell Dr. Hadley i'm sorry." "She understands." "And you should tell her yourself." " Maybe I should tell heather about..." " You're gonna be fine." "She's just so supportive." "And so great." "All I do is lie to her." "What happens if you tell her?" "I don't know." "You love her, right?" "More than anything, and she loves me." "If you open your mouth, one of two things happens." "She either forgives you or she leaves you." "At best, you wind up exactly where you are right now." "It's noble to want to confess." "Really, it is." "But if the result's just damage and pain, that's not noble." "That's selfish." "Stimulate right atrium." "No more conduction." "How long you plan on keeping me from going home?" "Until you're convinced I'm a different person, one who won't do anything stupid?" "Guilt fades quickly." "By wednesday, you'll be fine." "Right ventricle." "And why do you want it to fade?" "Why do you suddenly care about my marriage?" "Because..." " If it ain't broke..." " You obviously think it is broke." "You obviously think it ain't." "Your marriage is a broken toaster." "The bread keeps popping out, and you calling it toast." "Which is weird, because you've put your bread in a lot of toasters." "Apparently, you don't see any difference." "It's kind of fascinating." " He's going into v-tach." " What's wrong?" "Good news..." "The test is working." "Your heart's freaking out, but it's cool that you're still conscious." "Try to overdrive." "Didn't work." "This might burn a little bit." "Charging to 60." "Clear." "Going again, charging to 120." "Are you dyeing your hair?" "No." "House, clear." "Right." "The hair is growing in red." "His heart rate is stabilized." "Does your theory include any genetic mutations that could cause his hair to change color?" "Either he's lying about dyeing..." "Or just... dying." "Red hair means it's not kluver-bucy." "Melanin affects hair color." "What affects melanin?" "Hormones." " Hormone panels were all normal." " Age." "He's turning prematurely crimson?" "A genetic disorder." "Waardenburg syndrome causes arrhythmias and can change hair color." "And make you deaf." "Next." "Found a long qt interval." "I think it's romano-ward syndrome." "Explains the irregular heart rhythms." "But not the ginger nut." "If he's got romano's, he's got at least five gene mutations." "Not a big leap to think he has others that would give him the hair." "It gives him the likelihood of sudden and unexpected death." "Beta blockers don't work." "His heart can't handle an I.C.D." "Pete best." "Good God!" "Has none of you ever read a history book?" "The original beatles drummer." "A bunch of nerves controls the tempo of the heart." "They're all playing in time, except one dude can't keep the beat." "Wrecks the whole thing." "So we hire Ringo." "Pete best was actually a great drummer, but I assume you mean the patient needs a cardiac sympathectomy." "Probably should have just said that, huh?" "Start cutting nerves, you risk his swallowing, vocal cords, sweating." "So he saves a fortune on karaoke machines and deodorant." "You think he's stable enough for surgery?" "If he was, he wouldn't need it." "Do you have any brothers and sisters?" "One sister." "He told me he was on the lacrosse team." "In high school." "In college, he just cheered the lacrosse team on to victory." "How was your relationship with your dad?" "Fine." "You have three more questions." " How was your relationship with mom?" " Fine." "When did you lose your virginity?" "Not something I'd discuss with coworkers in an elevator." "And... and... you know, don't you?" "A bit of a wasted third question." "'cause the answer is "know what?"" "Okay, bear with me here." "Because some people sometimes consider my thought processes complicated." "I'm into you, 'cause you're hot." "And smart." "In that order, but both are needed." "Photos can be retouched." "And house is an evil genius, which makes this photo suspicious." "And yet you're not suspicious." "Which means either you're not smart enough to be suspicious, in which case," "I am less interested in you, or you're not suspicious because you know this is actually a doctored photo of House." "In which case, I am more interested in you." "But I am wasting my time, because you know this is a game we are playing on you, and I am busted." "And I'm screwed." "I know the photo's a fake." "And I know this is a game." "I'm sorry." "Too bad." "Good-bye." "So you knew that I wasn't gonna give you anything worthwhile?" "And you were never gonna give me anything worthwhile." "Then why did you bother coming out with me?" "I... wanted to screw with House." "By wasting my time?" "That doesn't make sense." "No... there must be another reason." "Is it okay if I sit back down here?" "Your heartbeat's out of control." "We need to surgically sever the connection between your heart and brain." "We believe it's necessary, but you need to know the ramifications." "You'll never be able to feel angina." "You may not know if you have a heart attack." "You may not be able to get help in time." "Where are my regular doctors?" "Regular doctors?" "Dr. Taub and Dr. Hadley." "Why aren't they telling me this?" "Brandon, I am dr." "Hadley." "And this is Dr. Taub." "What are you talking about?" "I've never seen you before in my life." "We can't do the surgery." "We're back where we started." "Visual agnosia." "We need to reexamine neurological disorders." " Something's slowly progressing." " This isn't progressing." "It's there, then it's not, then it is." "It's a new symptom, intermittence." "It's irrelevant." "Since when is a new symptom irrelevant?" "Since it points towards the same disease." "Intermittence can fit with romano-ward." " We still need to do a sympathectomy." " Maybe we missed something." " Toxins." " When?" "When you checked every bottle, every can, every tube of paint?" "Or when you detoxed him twice?" "Maybe there is a batch of toxic paint that he used up a few months ago." "Then he would have been sick months ago, not now." "He's lost weight since he got here." "That's a symptom of trying to cram hospital food down a throat he can barely get air down." "It's not a symptom, but what if the toxins were stored in his fat cells a year ago, and now they're being released into his bloodstream?" "So where you gonna get this old paint?" "City dump?" "On his old paintings." "We know he hasn't sold one in ages." "But there weren't many in his studio." "He's hid them somewhere." "If you're wrong..." "He could drop dead from romano-ward at any moment." "You okay with that?" "Just give me a few hours." "You got one." "I need to talk to him alone." "It's about your work." "Your paintings." "I need to look at all the ones you've sold recently." " Honey, can you give us a minute?" " To talk about your paintings?" "Brandon, please." "Tell me what's going on." "I've only sold two paintings in the last... three years." "Since we met." "One was to my cousin." "I've been making money enrolling in drug trials." "Two, three at a time." "Why did you lie to me?" "I wanna be, uh... the way you look at me." "The way it makes me feel." "I wanna be... what you see... when you look at me." "You think i'm that shallow?" "When I look at you..." "I see you." "So... where are the ones you didn't sell?" "It's not the paint, it's the drugs." " He's not on the drugs." " I know it doesn't make sense, but I'm looking at his paintings for the last six months." "They're normal april, june, and august." "But they're distorted may, july, september." "Every other month, he was having visual agnosia, because every other month he was on all three drugs simultaneously." "The statin was one month on, one month off." "I don't know why the symptoms keep coming and going, but it is the drugs." "They're hiding under the stairs." "In the fat?" "That doesn't make sense." " These drugs aren't fat soluble." " I said stairs, not closet." "What was the last drug he was on before the drugs he was on when the symptoms started?" "I'm not sure." "I think..." "Antacid." " How do you know?" " It makes sense." "Also, I'm looking at the file." "Yes?" "It's Dr. House." "Wake him up." "We're done." "No, no--he says he needs surgery, but not this one." "Did he give any specifics?" "Abdominal surgery to remove a... bezoar." "It's like a hairball, but it's made up of undigested food." "You can get it if your stomac acid's low, which brandon's was because of an experimental antacid." "Fruit and vegetable fibers and skins get stuck together and form a ball." "It gets sticky, ferments, grows." "It starts sucking up some of the pills he'd taken." "Some are never heard from again." "But some get released." "For the last week, it's basically been giving him massive doses of all three at once." "And that... is why I won't let cameron buy a cat." "He should be fine." "Are you glad he told you the truth?" "Yes... of course." "But... were you happier before you knew?" "About ten more feet." "I do know what it looks like, so maybe this whole blindfold thing" "My gift, my rules." "Bump." "All right, if you don't like the color, apparently we can exchange it." "But I'm hoping." "You ready?" "Do you like it?" "Baby, are you okay?" "We need to talk." "She didn't buy it." "Damn." "So you didn't get anything." "Nothin'." "We probably overstepped." "You're really not the cheerleader type." "On the other hand," "I figured she probably wouldn't figure me as the "photoshopping"" "a photo and planting it in an obscure college paper" type either." "About that." "I took a little trip to your alma mater." "You took a little trip 150 miles." "Online, by phone." "I meant I did research." "That's a real photo, isn't it?" "Wow, that is humiliating." "There was a girl." "Even more so." "That's too bad." "You wanted her to see you in a different light, and... not only didn't she see it... she didn't even believe it was possible." "You know, people hate people who have theories about people." " You want me to back off?" " Would you?" "I barely know you."