"Book you for 9:00 ?" "Yeah." "Uh-huh." "Take the day off." "Thank you." "All right." "So what did you do ?" "You figured out I was in jail, but you don't know why ?" "I've been busy." "Excessive prescribing." "Not that busy." "I know that you pled down to excessive prescribing, but the question was "what did you do ?"" "36-year-old, non-smoking junior high science teacher started coughing blood in the middle of homeroom." "House says he's gonna be out for the next three days." "Sweet." "If I go straight to the airport," "I can make Cabo for the last call." "Um, he also said to call him if we find a case." "Which we didn't." "What do you call this ?" "Could be a case." "Could be nothing." "Sadly, we'll just never know." "He's coughing blood." "A lot of people are." "Right now I have to get to Vernon while there's still enough powder to ski on." "This is where a lesser man would make a black-guy-skiing joke." "You owe me a body shot." "Make it fast." "I'm driving." "I don't want to end up in jail like..." "A person should who used their phone illegally while driving." "36-year-old male with hemoptysis, headaches, chills, and chest pain." "Where are you ?" "On my way to the greater Schenectady chili cook-off and spud gun competition." "That's your honeymoon ?" "Nope, Dominika went to A.C. with her boyfriend." "E.R. ruled out bronchitis, pneumonia, and lung cancer." "So diagnosis... boring." "It's epistaxis." "It's a nosebleed." "Blood runs into his lungs, he coughs it back up, flu explains the rest of the symptoms." "Going once, going twice..." "Toxic exposure to ammonia or sulfites can traumatize the lungs, cause neuralgias or fevers." "Fits better because of his radiating chest pain." "Sold." "To Masters." "Do a home search for toxins." "Draw cultures for bacteria and fungi." "You're married ?" "You were gone so long." "Green card." "Thanks for not saying anything." "I just need some time to..." "I didn't do it for you." "Some puzzles are just too good to share." "This is my exit." "Chili ?" "I hate chili." "Love spud guns." "You get nosebleeds ?" "Yeah, yeah." "You think that's where the blood came from ?" "I don't just think it." "I hope it." "When was the last time it happened ?" "At the quarterfinals." "I coach volleyball, and during warm-ups" "I got hit in the nose a few months ago." "You coach volleyball in a gym ?" "Yes." "With showers ?" "Yes." "Clean showers ?" "Not particularly." "The blood you were coughing up wasn't blood." "Dirty gym washroom means serratia infection." "Your lungs are full of red bacteria." "You were right." "That was an interesting case." "You start him on Levaquin." "I'll start looking for my good flip-flops." "Think that might be blood." "What's this really all about, House ?" "As convincing as I find your deep devotion to vegetable trajectory." "First of all, it's a tuber." "And you're just jealous because your potato-related plans are more of the serving up fries variety." "You did time." "Means your license is suspended." "Which means your leave of absence is definitely indefinite." "What exactly are you going back to ?" "I'd only have to serve up fries until the medical board hearing." "I stand corrected." "You obviously have a rich, full life waiting for you." "I'll slow down the car and you can roll out." "I don't even have a change of clothes." "Damn." "If only I'd planned for that." "Okay, here's what I got." "One, you were in jail for six months, but you were gone about a year, which means that when you left you hadn't been arrested." "Two, you enjoy being known as a number." "You don't want people to know the real you, because you think the real you is weak." "You were running..." "A bleeding-heart medical consulting business for illegals, or some other sympathetic under-class." "No." "Over-class ?" "This interrogation thing is getting annoying." "Studies have shown that un-annoying interrogation is 50% less effective." "Why are you so determined to bring me to this competition ?" "Why don't you bring Wilson ?" "Wilson thinks it's stupid." "I think it's stupid." "Junior year of high school, you placed fourth in a West Virginia all-county science fair." "Your project, clean combustion." "Yeah, I also wore a training bra." "Things have changed." "Not that much." "I've been going to this contest for four years." "For four years I've come second to a pissant named Harold Lam." "This is serious ?" "Second." "Okay." "I can help you, but I'm going to need to make a personal stop along the way." "What kind of stop ?" "Personal." "Did I not mention that ?" "You gonna tell me where you were last night ?" "I ran into a friend." "We had 50 bucks on the Bulls." "I had to eat a large pizza by myself." "You missed me." "Not as much as I miss my $50." "Where'd you meet her ?" "At the hospital." "If it's Masters, just lie to me." "Oh." "It's the new CNA on the third floor." "The redhead." "She's hot." "And I'm seeing her again tomorrow night." "I don't know how you do it." "Is it the cute, harmless vibe, the self-deprecating humor, or just straight-up roofies ?" "If you're interested," "I do seminars." "No electric, no gas either." "It's cold in here." "The good thing is I found a guy who makes you look like a good roommate." "Maybe hoarding's a symptom." "Could be caused by brain injury or early-onset Alzheimer's." "It's most likely that it's psychological." "As to what's making him cough blood, dealer's choice." "Declutter your home." "The hoarder's handbook." "He's hoarding books on hoarding." "Ugh." "He doesn't have running water." "How does this guy live, let alone make it to work every day and teach a bunch of kids ?" "Fridge is on." "He's hooked it up to a neighbor or something." "Cat." "I might have to throw up." "He'll want to keep that too." "Aspergillosis." "Explains the coughing blood, and if he's formed small aspergillomas, it could explain the headache and chest pain." "I'll be in the car." "Okay, turn right." "You were writing bogus prescriptions for medical marijuana." "Please say no because you have to be an idiot to actually screw that up." "No." "I mean, I was, but I didn't get caught." "I have to admit, you have one of the best game faces" "I've ever seen." "Also one of the best game bodies." "Pull over." "Hang on a second." "Didn't know you were a Jehovah's Witness." "Yeah, the weak lost faith when Christ didn't return in '75, but I still believe." "You're really not gonna tell me what just happened ?" "I don't know about you, but I am starving." "You broke into my home ?" "We slowly pushed into your home." "So what did you find ?" "A compost heap in your fridge." "We think you have aspergillosis." "It's treatable with antifungals." "You do remarkably well for living..." "Like you live." "I use bottled water and flashlights." "It's like camping." "Fun." "We're also gonna need a psych consult." "I'm not a hoarder." "I'm just a major slob." "You save earwax." "You know, I'm actually kind of hurt that you don't know what I did." "I'm not worth bribing a court official or hacking into police records ?" "Where's the fun in that ?" "You could have at least hired Cuddy's weird boyfriend." "Lucas ?" "Mm-hmm." "You don't know ?" "What, is he dead or something ?" "No." "Actually, until a couple of weeks ago," "I was Cuddy's weird boyfriend." "You're gonna have to do a lot better than that." "Are... are you okay ?" "Yeah, I'm fine." "It's not a big deal." "I killed a man." "Psych eval gave us nothing." "So our patient is just an average Joe with a two-foot pile of used q-tips ?" "Whatever he is, he doesn't have aspergillosis." "Pain's intensified, and now he needs oxygen." "There's got to be all kinds of toxins in that place." "Exposure issues don't make sense." "He's been here a full day." "He'd be getting better, not worse." "Unless exposure was keeping him from getting worse." "The gas was off at his place." "How does he stay warm ?" "Portable heater ?" "Or portable gas heater, which emits carbon monoxide." "Which is a vasodilator." "The low-grade exposure was actually improving his lung capacity." "We bring him here, he gets worse." "If we're right, don't need House, and we still get two days off." "We still have to prove it." "Someone's got to go back into that place and test for C.O." "Chase and I can go." "It's only fair." "Fairness is important." "You're awfully quiet." "Sorry." "That's just how I get around people who have recently killed a man." "It wasn't..." "You know, I've had a pretty rough year." "Do you think maybe we could just give this whole thing a rest ?" "You killed a man." "But you pled out to drugs." "Hit-and-run under the influence." "Guy you kneed in the groin was your date who dropped a dime on you." "I'm asking you to let it go." "And I really wish I was the kind of person who could do that." "Ruby, right ?" "Yeah." "Hey, how are you liking PPTH ?" "It's great." "Everyone's so friendly." "Yeah." "Especially Dr. Taub." "Don't worry." "I'm not gonna bust your chops." "I just want to know one thing." "How did he get you to go out with him ?" "Why ?" "Is... is there something..." "No, no, no, no, he's... he's great." "I'm... you know, I'm just asking because..." "Well, he's..." "Um..." "You know what, never mind." "It's none of my business." "You guys have fun tonight." "I'm not seeing him tonight." "We had plans, but he canceled." "Dr. Stern to Radiology." "Dr. Stern to Radiology." "This thing's got no fuel valve." "Means you can't regulate the input." "And what is this ?" "A barbecue lighter ?" "Your gun sucks." "We should treat this like an archaeological dig." "Grid the site, excavate, catalog, analyze." "You like it here." "You don't think this is fascinating ?" "Not nearly as fascinating as the fact that you think it's fascinating." "But this guy kept everything he ever came into contact with." "An interactive life history." "It's an indiscriminate pile of rubbish." "Well, for the most part, so are our lives." "There's no carbon monoxide." "A bit of a blow to Foreman's exposure hypothesis and my plan to get out of here quickly." "Maybe we don't just figure out the what, we figure out the why." "Then maybe..." "From the size and the undigested seeds," "I'm guessing this came from a raccoon." "If you're thinking Q fever, it fits." "So why are you still looking ?" "Well, you only found one thing." "It fits perfectly." "Yeah, but that doesn't mean..." "Chase." "You missed something at his place." "His wife." "Nina." "I didn't know where you were." "I'm so sorry." "I couldn't get home." "You okay ?" "We think you both have Q fever." "Found raccoon feces in the kitchen cupboard." "We're gonna start you on Doxycycline." "Why wouldn't you tell us you're married ?" "The fewer people who know about her, the easier it is." "When can I go back ?" "She gets anxious when she's away from her things." "She's the hoarder." "He just lives there." "On purpose ?" "She's my wife." "How do they not have 1/2-inch drill bits ?" "By the way, Harold's probably gonna hit on you." "Everything I have, he wants." "Just turn him down flat." "Unless..." "Yes." "Let's stop shopping." "I'll just do him and get him to throw the contest." "I'm not sugges..." "Would you do that ?" "How's this thing judged ?" "Hang time, distance, and accuracy." "Okay, how about this ?" "You met a guy in a club, you brought him home, he O.D.'d, so the guy now writhing on his front porch was the dealer who sold you the faulty goods." "Categories weighted the same ?" "Yup." "Screw accuracy." "We're gonna double distance and hang time, beat Harold on points." "We need raw power." "Where's the fertilizer ?" "By all means, Kaczynski." "Hi." "You and Taub sharing phones now ?" "He's seeing the redhead on the third floor." "Please tell me you're not talking about the hot new CNA with the dimples." "She confirmed it." "What she didn't confirm was their date tonight." "He bailed on her." "If he's standing her up, he must have something better going on." "Better than sex with a 22-year-old ?" "Who's artie92 ?" "Presumably a 21-year-old." "Whoever it is," "Taub's meeting 'em at my place at 8:00, which is usually when I go to the gym." "Guess you'll be missing spin class." "Okay, contestants, the field is now open for practice." "You've got one hour." "Have fun." "Schedule 80 PVC is pressure rated for 220 psi, fuel valve 300." "We can easily push it to 250, have your friend Harold peeing in his pants." "Damn." "Be cool." "Harold." "House." "You look good." "I like that jacket on you." "Thanks." "You filled out a little." "Who's the babe ?" "She's the boot in your ass." "Perhaps you've heard of famed Russian physicist" "Olga Petrovich ?" "Olga Petrovich is 72 years old." "And her granddaughter works at a little place called JPL." "I did an internship there last summer." "She killed a man." "No." "I'm guessing she didn't do it with a spud gun." "Just a bad combustion valve." "Shut up." "On my sofa." "Oh." "Uh." "Hey." "You remember my wife." "Hi, Eric." "Hey, rt92." "I hope you like rhubarb." "We're celebrating." "We're going rogue." "We rip out the combustion valve, replace it with disks." "With enough pressure, it should blow out at maximum velocity." "Turning the spud into spudnik." "What do we use for disks ?" "Well, here's a hint." "I actually hate rhubarb." "Pie tins." "You're a genius." "You know that I'm a doctor." "Any interest I have in the human body is purely clinical." "Yeah, that line never works for me either." "That line always works for you." "So what did you do ?" "No more guessing ?" "I need to know." "I can make some phone calls, see if we can speed up your medical board hearing." "In the meantime, no one could stop me from hiring an assistant." "You were right this morning." "I met a guy at a coffee shop, we went back to my place, and he O.D.'d." "Damn." "I could have saved myself a job offer." "We both acted like idiots." "And I ended up doing time." "Guess he did more." "When we first moved into the house, we had people over all the time." "Then she started collecting things." "I figured it was a hobby." "Piles turned into art projects, and art projects turned into what you saw." "So why do you stay ?" "To everyone else, the world is full of junk... meaningless, ugly, broken things." "But to Nina, every shape, every color, texture, smell, they all tell a story." "They're all worth treasuring." "I wouldn't wish what she has on anyone, but every now and then I get a glimpse of what she sees, and..." "It helps." "Your lungs are clearing up nicely." "Respiratory rate's normal." "Temp's normal." "Looks like you're gonna be fine." "She okay ?" "Something's wrong with her heart." "The husband is fine." "The wife is worse." "She had a heart attack." "Her heart attack could be from a complication." "Q fever would cause congestive heart failure, not myocardial infarction." "So she had Q fever and something else that causes heart attack ?" "And the hoarding." "Now that the wife is the only patient, hoard is back on the board." "Or we were wrong about Q fever." "I don't buy it's just a coincidence." "It's not a coincidence." "Diagnosis X caused the hoarding, which caused the Q fever when the raccoons came to spend spring break at her house." "Now all we have to do is solve for x." "I remember somebody saying that hoarding could be a symptom." "We should do an MRI." "Hydrogen sulfide." "It's given off by eggs and rotting food." "Long-term exposure could cause the pulmonary issues, headaches..." "Even the heart attack." "Hydrogen sulfide is also a vasodilator." "Which my crack team never tested the place for." "Of course, half my crack team never tested the place for people." "So we should go back, check it out." "Might be safer to just assume we're right and start treatment." "Go with God." "And some air freshener." "You know, maybe Taub is right, so I'm gonna stay here with him and help him with the MRI." "Shine up your spuds, folks." "We're gonna start shooting for hang time in just a few minutes." "The wind's coming from the southeast." "You have to aim five degrees to the left." "We're gonna break 14 seconds." "I can feel it." "When I was 10 or 11, my dad used to take us to this county fair." "And there was this kid..." "What ?" "Who's "us" ?" "My mom and me." "Your mom who had advanced stage Huntington's." "You have a sibling that you've never mentioned." "Why did you slip up now ?" "Not everything means something." "We're gonna be up soon." "I want to check the pressure." "You don't wake up in the middle of the night to cry over a dead stranger." "You don't confess to killing a man and then hide the details unless the details reveal more about you than the crime itself." "You pled down to drugs." "You've got a horrible genetic disease and a sibling who's suddenly on your mind." "You euthanized your brother." "And that guy back at the house was the doctor who wouldn't help you cover it up." "The guy back at the house is my cellmate's boyfriend." "He cheated on her when she was inside." "But I was right about everything else." "Congratulations." "You're mad." "No." "Actually, I'm impressed." "Messing around on a 22-year-old hottie with your wife on my sofa." "You're a full-throttle head case." "I was doing you a solid with the sofa." "Rachel wanted to do it in your bed." "You've got the memory foam top." "Let's make this really simple:" "If I own it, I don't want you doing it on it." "You might want to get rid of your kitchen table." "Look, I'm sorry, but it was worth it." "Yeah, I bet." "You get to mess with her physically and emotionally." "I still care about her." "Not enough to let her move on with her life." "While we're talking about your bad ideas," "MRI's clean." "There has to be some kind of inciting psychological incident." "This is perfect for you." "You get all the human interaction you crave without any actual human interaction." "She was a cheerleader." "Huh." "You know when you're interested in something and nobody else is, the polite thing is to keep it to yourself." "Popular, beautiful, gregarious." "Hydrogen sulfide's about two parts per billion." "The size of a healthy fart." "I'll be back for you in July." "He couldn't do it himself." "He was... the disease had progressed too far." "He was flailing." "He didn't have any control over his own body." "He pretty much lost control of his mind too, but..." "Every once in a while, he would have a few seconds of lucidity." "He turned to me, and he said," ""it's time"." "I hooked up the I.V." "I used gloves." "I knew they'd get me on the drugs, but they couldn't prove who pushed the plunger." "I put in the needle, and he just..." "Got quiet." "And it was over." "And I was alone." "And one day, I will be that sick, and there will be no one there when it's time." "I didn't expect compassion from you." "I would have taken commiseration." "Hell, I would have taken revulsion, any emotional engagement at all." "It's no wonder Cuddy broke up with you." "Folks, Chad Lockerbie just won first place in the chili cook-off." "Congratulations, Chad." "That cocoa powder really did it." "Dumped in a field in Schenectady." "Ouch." "You mind if I make a move ?" "I know she's out of my league, but she's at a spud gun contest with the soon-to-be five-time runner-up, so she's probably got some self-esteem issues." "You wouldn't." "So ?" "Warning." "They gave you a warning ?" "Well, it turns out our friend Harold felt up the sheriff's daughter last night at the potato mash mixer, so sheriff's feeling kind of ambivalent." "You always get your way, don't you ?" "Not always." "Today would have been our one-year anniversary." "Which is an incredibly arbitrary thing to celebrate." "If you want to get to the bottom of something, you literally have to dig down to the bottom." "So stratigraphically, the oldest stuff I found was in the bedroom." "And the oldest stuff in the bedroom was in the closet." "And at the bottom of the closet..." "Tell me about this." "We have a new symptom." "Infertility." "They wanted kids but couldn't have them." "She started collecting things to fill the void." "We should run a full hormone blood panel." "Hey, Harriet the Spy, before you get too full of yourself, you might want to go back to bio 101." "It takes two to not-tango." "Hubby could be shooting blanks." "So either it's a new symptom that will help us save her life or it's a complete waste of time." "Figure out which is fried, the bacon or the eggs." "I'll start the hormone workup." "There's another option." "House, who's that ?" "Radio." "Sounded a lot like Thirteen." "It's a Thirteen tribute band with their new song," ""I've got a better theory than Masters"." "She said they never had kids." "Oh, my God." "Where the hell have you been ?" "I think we've all got something a little more important to worry about than..." "No, we don't." "She's been missing for a year." "You can ask her all about it when she comes in on Monday." "Monday ?" "This Monday ?" "Can I talk ?" "She said they never had kids, and you all jumped to infertility." "You never considered the other option." "And the bitch is back." "We think you have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome." "It would explain the symptoms." "It also causes miscarriages." "Is that something you think you might have ?" "Were you pregnant ?" "Three times." "The miscarriages triggered the hoarding." "Hoarding eventually made you sick too." "Can you cure her ?" "We can treat the physical symptoms as they arise, make her life a lot better, but the hoarding, we're the wrong kind of doctors." "You lied to me ?" "For nine years ?" "I was so afraid of losing you." "What have I ever done to make you afraid of that ?" "I need to get some air." "I've been selfish." "I need to let you move on." "I think we should stop seeing each other." "No." "Um, I just want you to be able to... the last time you got all noble on me, we ended up dividing our dishes." "This time, I want to make the decision." "You don't feel weird about this ?" "Of course I feel weird about this." "It's confusing and messy and dirty." "Dumb." "But we spent our whole lives trying to do everything right, and it sucked." "It wasn't all bad." "It sucked, Chris." "And this, whatever it is, it's fun." "So I'm not taking advantage of you ?" "The fun is fading." "You know... there's something seriously wrong with us." "I know." "# don't leave # # 'cause I believe # # we were meant # # to sleep # # in the dirt #" "Home, sweet home." "You owe me 87 bucks for gas." "I'll kill you." "When the time comes, if you want me to." "I'll do it now if you like." "I think I've got a baseball bat in the back." "I'll see you Monday."