Damn, was this episode awesome! First off, we have a woman who hasn't been able to sleep in ten days. No one can figure out why, and then she starts bleeding from multiple orifices, and her liver dies, and she needs a transplant, but we all know the Evil Transplant Committee won't okay that. Fortunately, her girlfriend is a donor match and is willing to give up half of her liver. Unfortunately, House and the Cottages find out that the sick girl was planning on dumping her girlfriend and have an ethical dilemma over whether or not to tell the healthy woman about it before she gives up part of a vital organ and risks her life. Actually, Cameron's the only one having the ethical dilemma, and House threatens to fire her ass if she tells. That doesn't stop her from tattling to everyone who will listen about how Foreman's newly-published medical journal article ripped hers off as it languished on House's desk, alone and unread. She even has the nerve to tell Cuddy about it, only to have Cuddy give her a "so?" and not give a crap at all. Because Cuddy is so awesome. So the girl gets her half-liver and with her borrowed time, the team figure out that she managed to get the freaking Black Death. The BLACK DEATH, people! THE PLAGUE! Amazing. Oh, but then -- BUT THEN! -- it turns out that her girlfriend knew that she was about to get dumped all along and donated her liver because it would make her stay with her out of guilt. Amazing. And that's not all! Cameron tries to make up with Foreman about the article thing, only to have him refuse to apologize to her AND tell her that they aren't friends. Amazing. But I think the best part of all was when House made a crack about Cameron taking it up the ass.
For today's pre-credits scene of doom, we have a woman, in bed with her eyes wide open, listening to her kitchen sink drip. In fact, her home is alive with sound: the radiator, a clock, something in the dining room that I can't figure out but is nonetheless noisy, and then her girlfriend, who wakes up, sees Hannah sitting up on the edge of the bed, and annoyingly asks her whether she's still having trouble sleeping, which is like asking a decaying corpse whether it's having trouble breathing. Girlfriend Max (of course a lesbian is named Max) asks whether there's anything she can do. Hannah's eyeball says no; she's going downstairs to get some wine.
The morning, Max wakes up to find Hannah not in the bed to her, but slumped against the bathroom wall, softly banging her head into it. On the floor is an empty bottle of Generico Sleeping Pills.
One person who isn't having any trouble sleeping is House, who's spending his Clinic hours on an exam table with a medical journal draped across his face to keep the light out. Cuddy startles him awake, and explains to House that he and Wilson have different sleeping schedules, and therefore House is catching up on the zzzs he has lost. Unless House and Wilson are sharing a bed, I don't see how Wilson's routine is keeping House from getting all his beauty rest. With no shame, House turns over to go back to sleep, but Cuddy presents him with a case: a twenty-five-year-old female with "sleep issues." Which, if I may repeat my metaphor, is like saying that a dead guy is having breathing issues. House doesn't find the case very significant, especially after reading that the patient just swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. House makes a crack about twenty-five-year-old women not exactly being rational or emotional rocks, which is pretty funny coming from the epitome of stability and healthy living that is Gregory House. Cuddy persists, saying that the woman hasn't slept in ten days, despite downing that whole bottle of sleeping pills. Since you only live eleven days without REM sleep, House has about a day to cure his new patient.
Back in the meeting room, Cameron slams a copy of the fictional Midwest Journal of Experimental Medicine down on the table and accuses newly-published author Foreman of stealing her article about the time they killed that cancer girl to make her stronger. Cameron claims that Foreman knew she was writing the article and even gave her notes on it, only to turn around and publish his own article about the same thing. House interrupts them with their newest case, which gives Cameron and Foreman even more stuff to fight over, since Cameron thinks they should sedate their patient and Foreman doesn't see the point in doing that, since it won't give her the sleep she needs. Patient discussion over for Cameron, she turns to House and starts barking at him for leaving her article on his desk for the last four months and not doing whatever needed to be done to it so that she could submit it to the medical journal. House would rather get back to their case, but Cameron keeps whining that House read Foreman's article before hers, even though Foreman submitted it to House after she did. House says that he didn't read Foreman's article; he "sighted" it.
House and Chase return to the case, saying that, aside from the sleeping pills and some steroids she was given for a recent poison ivy infection, Hannah has been clean of all drugs. Cameron doesn't care about other people when there's something for her to be indignant about, however, and asks House when he got Foreman's article. "Three weeks ago," he says. Damn, the Midwest Journal publishes fast! Foreman smirks and raises his eyebrows, but stops just short of sticking out his tongue at Cameron. House pulls out his human brain model, and says that they should focus on optic nerve diseases, which can affect sleep. There isn't much else to say about them, since we all know that the first diagnosis is never correct. And, as a special bonus, House says that this should make for a great journal article! Cameron looks homicidal as she volunteers to perform the tests. And while she has every right to be angry and Foreman is a total asshole for going behind her back with that article, I have a feeling that by the end of this episode, I'll be taking his side just because of how obnoxious she'll be about it.
Cameron sets Sleepless Hannah up on some machine that can look inside her eyes, which looks really cool. Things are going well until Foreman strolls in, and they get into their personal shit. Cameron says that she doesn't "see the need to make [Foreman] feel better by forgiving [him]," apparently under the mistaken impression that Foreman feels bad about anything and that this is something they should be discussing in front of a patient. Cameron even has the nerve to tell Foreman that he's being unprofessional by discussing this in front of a patient when she was the one who started it! All Foreman did was ask her if she needed help! It doesn't matter anyway, since Hannah, like most of viewers, is so bored by Cameron's ridiculous childishness that she has fallen asleep. All right! The patient is cured, and we can all go home! Oh, wait -- Hannah has woken up and denies ever having fallen asleep at all.
As House shows us his new way of ingesting Vicodin and giving his lunch a flavorful punch at the same time by crushing up a few pills and sprinkling them over his sandwich, Foreman explains that the optic nerve tests were negative, and that while Hannah is able to sleep for a few seconds at a time, it's only stage one sleep that won't do her any good. House takes a bite out of his Vicodin and roast beef, and asks Foreman where Cameron is, as if he didn't know that she would throw a hissyfit and refuse to talk to House as well as Foreman over the article thing. "Oh, this is gonna work out great," House says, because it's not like he couldn't have avoided the situation and made all of our lives easier by just reading Cameron's freaking article when she gave it to him. Foreman just nods, smiles, and probably thinks about how he can steal House's idea and create a new spice that tastes just like cocaine for the junkie foodie crowd.
House, followed by the Cottages, limps down the hall. He lectures Cameron and Foreman to play nice, and before Cameron can get two words out to accuse House of starting this by reading Foreman's article before hers, House reminds her that he doesn't care and doesn't want to hear any more about it. Instead, House wants to focus on the patient, who is still dying. His latest plan of action is to make Hannah even sicker than she is now, hoping that this will make something show up on their tests that didn't before. The downside of this is that making Hannah sicker will also kill her faster. That's never stopped House before, though! House orders the Cottages to take turns monitoring Hannah and making sure she doesn't fall asleep. Cameron and Foreman will be taking the first four hours of watch, because they did such a great job of keeping Hannah awake before. Chase will smile and enjoy his precious few moments of not being House's least favorite.
Much to Max's displeasure, Cameron and Foreman wake Hannah up from another one of her microsleeps. When Hannah drops off to sleep again, and can't be roused by someone yelling at her, Foreman rolls his eyes and stabs her toe with a needle. Cameron pulls Foreman aside and tells him not to be "cruel," to which Foreman responds that being "nice" doesn't get you anywhere. Especially not published in a medical journal. Max urgently calls them back into the room. "Did she fall asleep again?" Foreman sighs, since this case is too small potatoes for him, now that he's a published author. Hannah has fallen asleep. She's also lying in a pool of her own blood. She must really be tired to fall asleep in a wet bed like that.
House is napping again when the Cottages come knocking. "We've got rectal bleeding," Cameron announces. "All of you?" House responds. Awesome. The Cottages are not as amused by that as I was, though. The blood gave them some more ideas of what's wrong with Hannah, so they decided that they didn't need to keep her awake anymore. Not so, says House. In fact, they won't even be sedating Hannah to do the necessary colonoscopy. Yikes!
Hannah screams in pain. "Can't you hurry?" Max asks, stroking Hannah's forehead, while Chase violates her intestines. "Trust me, you don't want me to hurry," he says. I have to imagine that the pain is like taking the biggest shit ever, but in reverse. TIMES FIVE THOUSAND. As if things weren't bad enough for Hannah, she also has to listen to even more of Cameron's whining about her goddamned article! "How am I supposed to work with him?" Cameron asks Chase, who is trying to do a fucking colonoscopy, Cameron, so maybe this can wait, hmm? Hopefully until the summer hiatus. "Do you think I'm overreacting?" asks Cameron. Hey, if you have to ask, then you probably are. Chase ignores Cameron, and asks Hannah to relax her anus. Max tries to talk Hannah's ass muscles open by telling Hannah to imagine that they're skiing in Vail, instead of here. Lesbians love sports. Meanwhile, Cameron's still on the article thing, and asks Chase what he said about her to Foreman. Chase says that he told Foreman he could have written up any one of their other cases, instead of Cameron's, showing that he's at least a little bit on her side. And then blood starts pouring out of Hannah's nose, so either Chase took a serious wrong turn on that colonoscopy, or Hannah has a new symptom.
Foreman tells House that they got Hannah's nosebleed under control. Cameron comes in with the results of a test that showed nose skin in the rectal bleed. "So the butt bleed's just a nosebleed," Foreman says. For the first and probably last time this episode, Cameron is correct to point something out, saying that all that blood is not "just" anything. Foreman thinks that they're just looking at a massive sinus hemorrhage. All they need to do now is figure out what's causing it. Cameron angrily snaps that they can't just test for the hundreds of things that could cause it, nor should they discount the idea that they've been making Hannah worse on their own. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to have a six-foot-long hose shoved into your large intestine?" Cameron asks. House perks right up at this and responds, "No, but I now have a much greater respect for whichever basketball player you dated in college." OH! NO WAY! NO HE DID NOT! HE DID! Best line ever, even though it's probably racist and totally wrong to say to someone, and ran the risk of Cameron bringing up her Poor Dead Husband. Even Foreman has to turn away and chuckle. Cameron just rolls her eyes and ignores the comment, saying that all the "torture" they've been inflicting on Hannah could have raised her blood pressure and made her bleed everywhere. Except it's more likely that those symptoms are associated with the ten days of sleep she hasn't been getting. I mean, come on, Cameron.
House wonders if that poison ivy Hannah was treated for recently wasn't poison ivy at all. Wegener's granulomatosis has been known to cause a rash, nosebleed, and sleep disturbances, even though the last time it was on this show, they were hoping to diagnose a guy with paralysis with it. Wegener's does all kinds of apparently unrelated things, it seems. House tells Cameron and Foreman to start treating Hannah for it, while they do some tests to confirm the diagnosis, which we all know they won't. Cameron and Foreman exit the room, Foreman holding the door open for Cameron. She glares at him and doesn't say "thank you." He turns to House and shrugs, all, "Can you believe that she won't accept my gestures? All I did was rip her off and totally undermine our working relationship for the sake of a journal article! Women are so touchy!"
Clinic time! House's latest patient is an Asian woman, whose teenage daughter translates that she's having really bad menstrual cramps and is "super-depressed." Indeed, the woman does look sad. She also has a bright red nose and watery eyes. House pulls up a chair, and immediately questions that an older non-English-speaking woman would use the term "super-depressed." The teenager adds that her mother was hoping for some birth-control pills to alleviate her PMS symptoms. House says it looks more like the woman has a "URI" (Upper Respiratory Infection) as well as an "SAC" (Stupid American Child). If the teenager really wanted to get herself some birth-control pills, all she had to do was walk into a free clinic and get some. That's a lot easier than the girl's plan, which was to apparently wait for her mother to get sick, and then take her to a Clinic, and use her inability to speak English to get some birth-control pills, which she would then switch out for some ineffective over-the-counter cold medicine. House hands the girl a prescription for birth-control pills and says that she's "not the sharpest chopstick in the drawer," even though I have to say that her plan, while unnecessarily complicated and kind of evil, was pretty smart.
House gets approximately zero inches out of the exam room before he's confronted by Cameron, who blocks his egress to yell at him some more about her stupid article. Shut UP, Cameron. House says that he was being lazy by not reading Cameron's article, so he had no idea that Foreman was ripping it off when he put his in front of House and let him sign off on it without actually reading it. Cameron protests that House should have had time to warn her about this, since he has the time to think of "incredibly witty remarks" about Cameron's anal sex life and Cuddy's boobs. House says that he'd rather have Cameron mad at him than Foreman, since Foreman is black, and black people are prone to shooting people they don't like. Yes, he really said that. The only thing that confuses House is why Cameron is always so shocked and upset when people act like human beings and do what benefits them. I'd say it's because the writer of this episode didn't get the memo that Season 2 Cameron is much cooler, sassier, and adult than Season 1 Cameron. Also, as a woman, Cameron is automatically the emotional, optimistic, naïve, moral center of the show. All the guys get to be assholes. And Cuddy is just a guy with boobs.
The day, Hannah is looking rough. Foreman is feeling a little guilty about the article thing, and asks Chase whether he thinks he was "out of line." Chase, eager to side with whoever happens to be in the room, points out that Cameron's article would have sat, unread, on House's desk until the end of time, and that Cameron should have known that. Hannah can't take the endless article talk anymore, and her eyes start moving rapidly back and forth. She's having REM, but she isn't asleep. Foreman yells at her until she snaps out of it. As usual, she doesn't remember anything.
House declares that there is no way Hannah was in REM sleep, since she was sitting up, and during REM sleep, your muscles don't work to prevent you from acting out your dreams. So they're looking at some kind of movement disorder and not Wegener's, after all. Cameron and Chase react in a bunch of recycled over-the-shoulder shots that don't really make any sense. Chase brings up rabies as a possible diagnosis, and Cameron says that she's pretty sure Hannah would remember being bitten by a rabid animal. Unless, of course, Hannah is homeless. Hannah did have a dog a month ago, which Max gave her for her birthday, but she had to get rid of it because she's allergic to dogs. House has a different theory as to why Hannah had to give the dog up: "She's just leaving her girlfriend." His proof is that Hannah would have still been on the steroids for her poison ivy when she had the dog, and, therefore, couldn't have had an allergic reaction to it. Instead, Hannah didn't want the dog because it would have been a commitment to Max that Hannah knew she couldn't keep. Therefore, House says, Hannah's current medical issues are not being caused by any allergies. How about guilt? Guilt could probably keep me up for a night. Not ten nights, but then, I'm not the kind of person who prolongs a breakup for over a month and leads my partner on. Chase and Cameron insist on doing an allergy test to find out for sure, figuring that while House's understanding of lesbian relationships is "admittedly keen" (I guess those Classic Lesbian Prison Stories do have some educational value after all!), they'd rather not base their diagnosis on it. Or they could, you know, ask Hannah when Max isn't in the room.
And that ends up being exactly what Cameron does when Max leaves the room to get some soda during Hannah's allergy scratch test. In between blood-coughing fits, Hannah admits that House was right: while Max is a "good person," Hannah has gotten "tired of her." Ironically, that's about all that Hannah is tired of right now. Cameron doesn't come out and say that she now thinks Hannah is a horrible person who deserves to die for not believing in the power of love, but you can see the disdain on her face. Hannah complains that her back hurts, and Cameron checks it out to reveal what is either an insane allergic reaction or some hardcore internal bleeding.
It's the latter. Chase thinks they should look at an aspirin overdose, considering Hannah's known history of taking too many pills and the fact that she's a young woman, and, therefore, crazy in the head. Chase thinks he's really earned House's love now, but House just snaps that Hannah's taking sleeping pills has nothing to do with her mental state. You lose again, Chase. Foreman walks in, and House snaps at him for not being at Hannah's bedside to keep her awake. Foreman says that doesn't matter anymore, since Hannah's liver function tests just came back, and they're "through the sky." Which kind of sounds like he's saying that Hannah's liver is functioning awesomely, but it really means that her liver is dead. Hannah will need a transplant in the six hours or she'll die, and the Evil Transplant Committee isn't about to give a liver out to someone with an undiagnosed illness that will just kill it again. Then again, the Evil Transplant Committee doesn't like to give its precious organs out to anyone, does it? Foreman says that the only option is to test Hannah for whatever conditions can be tested for in six hours. Since there aren't any, they're out of options.
But House won't give up! Hannah and Max have the same blood type, which means they could be an organ match. If Max gives up part of her liver to Hannah, that will buy them some time to save Hannah's life. It's perfect, except for one thing: Cameron is in the room, and she doesn't think it's right for someone to risk her life and give part of her vital organ to someone who's about to dump her ass. House admits that this is tacky, but that won't stop him from making it happen.
House goes into Hannah's room ready to do his very best acting performance. He introduces himself to the ladies and gravely informs the now-orange-colored Hannah that her liver is a dier. Hannah doesn't have much to say about that, since she's half out of her mind from not sleeping. But Max's reaction is exactly what House was banking on: after hearing that Hannah is ineligible for a liver transplant, Max volunteers her own. House acts like that idea never occurred to him. Max tearfully begs him to let her do it, saying that she doesn't care about the risks to herself. Max and House both turn to Hannah, who's keeping herself entertained by doing her impression of a zombie. "You're very lucky to have such a devoted partner," House tells her pointedly. Hannah continues to stare and look extremely scary. House, on the other hand, looks like he might well be feeling just a little bit guilty about the situation himself.
House returns to the meeting room and reports that, with the transplant, they have thirty-six more hours with Hannah, even though I thought she was supposed to have died by now from the lack of sleep thing. Oh well. Of course, Cameron thinks that Max should be told about Hannah's future plans for their relationship before she risks her life to save Hannah's. She's the only person in the room who feels this way, since everyone else is a real doctor. House also points out that if Cameron hadn't insisted on finding out that Hannah was planning to leave Max for sure, this wouldn't be a problem for anyone. True. Everyone tries to get back to saving Hannah's life, but Cameron insists that they have an "ethical dilemma" that must be attended to. "No, we don't," House says. Hannah is their patient. Max isn't. And Hannah's breakup plans are not medical information. And they are medical people who deal in medical things. Cameron seems to have this confused with the role she's picked out for herself here, which, of course, is patient BFF.
Chase and Foreman try to come up with diagnoses, while Cameron whines about how immoral they are, and they come up with either Wilson's disease or a variety of fun and exciting cancers, which are also, in a way, Wilson's disease. Cameron adds her thoughts about how they can help their patient. Just kidding! She's still upset about the Hannah/Max thing. House has finally reached his limit of Cameron preachiness, and yells at her that he thinks influencing Max's decision by telling her something they have no right to know, and therefore killing Hannah after Max decides not to give her any of her liver after all, is a hell of a lot more immoral than minding their own damn business. Cameron has no response to this because House is right. Foreman suggests poisonous mushrooms as a possible cause, which Chase dismisses, since Hannah is a "sports nut" and therefore wouldn't poison her body with drugs. Lesbians love sports. They hate illegal substances. Cameron tries to protest on Max's behalf AGAIN, and maybe she can just go give Hannah her own liver if she feels so strongly about it, and save us all a lot of grief. House lists off a bunch of tests to do on Hannah before and after the transplant -- since your body is so strong and ready for invasive procedures then -- saying that they'll have to do some of them at the same time to make their thirty-six-hour deadline. And, House says, looking directly at the only person this actually applies to, if anyone tells Max that Hannah is going to dump her, that person is fired. Which means that person won't be able to afford any more silly vests. "We have to," Cameron protests, as if the thought of NOT tattling to Max had never even occurred to her. Doctor-patient confidentiality apparently has never occurred to Cameron, either.
So, House goes to Cuddy. He tells her that the sleepless patient she gave him is now in liver failure, and will be getting a new liver from her girlfriend. Cuddy is appalled to hear that they are doing a transplant as a stopgap measure, but she will still allow House to go on his merry way, as long as she isn't involved. But now she is, because House and his team can't be Max's doctors, since Max and Hannah, House says, have "opposing interests." Cuddy is shocked that House is coming to her with an ethical dilemma. I would be too if I didn't think he was doing this to ensure that Cameron wouldn't get to Cuddy first and foil his plans. House says that the ethical dilemma is relevant to the case, but not medically so. So Max doesn't need to know it, and neither does Cuddy, now that she's Max's doctor. Cuddy goes to look up House's secret on the hospital computer, but he stops her, asking whether satisfying her own curiosity is worth Hannah's death. As long as Cuddy stays in the dark, she isn't doing anything ethically wrong by clearing Max for transplant surgery. Except that Cuddy's not exactly in the dark, is she? I mean, there's at least a small nightlight on there.
Cuddy runs tests on Max, and tells her that she's making a huge decision and should know that she could die doing this, and be certain that it's worth it. Max says that all she wants is to grow old with Hannah. They can lie in bed and compare their matching liver surgery scars. In Max's mind, things will work out perfectly.
Over in Hannah's area, Cameron is testing her for vascular abnormalities that would prevent them from giving her a transplant, and also testing for mushroom spores, at the same time. Hannah denies doing drugs, but Cameron doesn't believe her, figuring that people who lie to their girlfriends must also lie about everything ever. She shoves a tube down Hannah's throat, and asks her whether she cares about all the painful tests Max is going through on Hannah's behalf without knowing the truth. It's not like Hannah can answer her with that tube in her mouth. This is like when your dentist asks your questions when she's in the middle of cleaning your teeth. I hate that. At least my dentist isn't yelling at me for having questionable morals, though. She does yell at me for not flossing enough sometimes, though. And, as painful as those tests Cameron is doing on Hannah are, it's probably even more painful for her to hear one of Cameron's Trademark Morality Lectures. I know it is for me. I'd rather listen to House imply that black men are basketball players with huge penises all day than this. Cameron says that if Hannah really loved Max, she wouldn't let her risk her life blindly. "You'd really tell?" Hannah asks. "Yeah!" Cameron says without hesitation, which is easy for her to say since her liver is working just fine. "You'd die?" Hannah asks. Cameron doesn't answer this time.
Wilson makes his obligatory appearance to lecture House on the whole Foreman/Cameron article fiasco. Can't there just be one person on this show who doesn't have anything to say about this? Ugh. Wilson actually read both Foreman's and Cameron's articles, and says that while Foreman's was more analytical, Cameron's focused on the ethical dilemma of informed consent. NO, REALLY? I can't believe that Cameron would be at all concerned with something like that! Wilson says that House shouldn't allow backstabbing stuff like this in his department, because it will lead to sabotage, which will compromise patient care, while possibly making for an even more entertaining show. Sabotage is usually extremely fun to watch. House says he's hoping that Cameron learned something from all of this, which she obviously hasn't, since the girl is constantly learning about the blackness of other people's hearts, only to unlearn it before the episode starts.
Foreman and Chase meet up with House. Cameron is not there, because she is back with Hannah doing another test. Which means that Max is probably in the room too, since the surgery is starting in fifteen minutes. "They're both awake -- with Cameron," House says. Not for long, I'll bet. Girl puts me to sleep every time she opens her mouth to say something she's said thirty times in the episode already.
Hannah and Max are wheeled to each other. Cameron suggests to a nurse that they give the couple a few minutes alone together before the surgery, all the better to get a confession with. Cameron's morally righteous plan seems to be working perfectly, as Hannah says she needs to tell Max something. "I know," Max says. "I love you, too." Ouch. Hannah says she has something else to say, actually. She starts, but then House runs in and pumps her full of sedatives, knocking her ass right out. Amazing. I love this show.
As Max and Hannah are wheeled off, House pulls Cameron aside to give her a moral lesson of his own: humans enjoy breathing. They will do a lot of bad things to keep doing it. Cameron points out that if House really believed that, he wouldn't have rushed in to knock Hannah out, since he'd be certain she wouldn't say anything. Instead, Cameron says, he's being selfish in wanting to keep Hannah alive to solve his own medical mystery. As opposed to Cameron, who is totally right to badger a woman who hasn't slept in eleven days into saying something that could kill her.
The transplant proceeds. Cameron watches it from the balcony. Cuddy joins her, and asks what the big secret is between Hannah and Max. "You read Foreman's article?" Cameron says out of nowhere. This gives us the opportunity to see Cuddy's awesome "what the fuck?" face. "He basically stole from me," Cameron pouts. You know what might be even more backstabby than stealing someone's article idea, Cameron? TATTLING TO HIS BOSS'S BOSS ABOUT IT. Oh my GOD, I didn't think I could hate Cameron any more in this episode than I already did. How did she not learn how to be a fucking adult and a professional and deal with life being unfair without telling the whole world about it? What a baby! It's almost worth it, though, for Cuddy's reaction: "So?" HA! She doesn't even care! "You're on his side?" Cameron asks. Cuddy laughs at her: "Sides? No. This isn't dodgeball." Cameron asks what she's supposed to do, then, if she can't complain about it. Cuddy's answer is simple: shut up, keep your head down, and work your ass off to be more accomplished than Foreman will ever be. And then, one day, Cuddy says, you'll be sitting behind your big, expensive desk, wearing either a low-cut blazer with no undershirt or something off the Mayflower, and someone from Johns Hopkins will call for a recommendation for Foreman, and then you can tell them all about Foreman's article-stealing. "Lovely. Revenge as motive for success," Cameron says. "Well, it doesn't have to be the motive. But it sure tastes good," Cuddy answers. What do revenge and gazpacho have in common? They're a dish best served cold. And they're usually made with tomatoes.
And then Max's heart stops, just as House comes in and tells Cameron to get her ass to the meeting room so they can cure Hannah.
After the commercial, Chase exposits that Max recovered from her heart stoppage problem, the transplant was successful, and both women are recovering from their surgeries. The tests for Wilson's disease and mushrooms were negative. The real Wilson says that the tests they did for cancer won't be accurate, since the doctors stupidly used Hannah's blood after she was given immunosuppressants for the transplant. Nice one, guys. Brilliant. House says it's time to "sound the retreat."
Foreman tells Hannah that they're going to stop giving her immunosuppressants, thereby making Max's liver contribution a big old waste of time. But, Foreman says, without the blood tests, they won't be able to figure out what's wrong with Hannah, and she'll die anyway. Hannah doesn't even care anymore; she just wants to know if rejecting the new liver will hurt. Foreman says that it totally will. Hannah forgoes being knocked out and spared the pain to be able to talk to Max when she wakes up, showing that Hannah may like to avoid death, but she will face pain for the sake of her girlfriend.
In the middle of all this, House has Clinic duty. The Asian woman and her daughter are back, and this time the woman is complaining that she still has her cold and her boobs have gotten bigger. In only one day?! What the hell birth-control pill is that? Also, the girl has been feeling remarkably cold-free lately. House is outraged that the girl could be so stupid as to mix up freaking Robitussin with birth-control pills. And really, I don't think she really needs to be concerned with birth-control pills, after all, since she's obviously too dumb to figure out where her boyfriend's penis is supposed to go, and has probably been having ear sex this whole time. You can't get pregnant from ear sex. The girl says something to her mother in Mandarin, and House gets all huffy and tells the girl not to tell her mother that this was his mistake. "You speak Mandarin?" the girl says, full of dread. Indeed, he does! Not fluently, of course, but well enough to inform the woman that her daughter is pregnant. Mom is horrified. A rapid angry exchange of Mandarin follows, and House leaves the ladies to resolve their problems on their own. After all, he only deals with his patients' medical lives, not their personal ones. Unlike, say, Cameron.
House returns to the meeting room, where Cameron informs him that despite the fact that Hannah is now fully rejecting the liver, her white count is normal. This is significant: after all Hannah's been through, her white count should be extremely low. So whatever she has, it's making her body produce enough white blood cells to bring the count up to a normal range. It's some kind of infection. Suggestions are thrown around, Cameron scoffing at Foreman's because she doesn't like him right now. Foreman wonders whether Hannah or Max could have gotten something exotic and lied about not leaving the state in the last year. He asks Cameron whether she talked to any of their neighbors, friends, or family. Cameron snaps at him that he should read her notes to find out the answer to his question, and also steal more stuff for his article. Hey, you know what's morally wrong? Taking time to fight over your personal bullshit while your patient is dying by the second, Cameron. House wonders where that dog has been. Cameron checks the file and reports that they got it from a breeder at the "Blue Barrel Kennels." Fortunately, a blue barrel is the name of a cactus, which gives them a good idea of where those kennels are located.
And with this information alone, House goes over to Hannah and does the "got your nose!" trick. For some strange reason, Hannah is not amused by it. House looks for the nose he pretended to steal from her face in some very strange places, such as Hannah's armpits. He doesn't find a nose, but he does find a bubo. What's a bubo, you ask? I'll give you hint: you can't spell "bubonic plague" without "bubo." Without bothering to put gloves on, House sticks a needle in the horrible red nodule, draws some fluid from it, and gives it to Chase to take to the lab. He should also call the CDC. "And tell 'em what?" Chase asks. Idiot. Even I knew where this was going. "We have a patient with the plague," says House. Before I saw this episode, my mother -- who, by virtue of living on the East Coast, sees it three hours before I do -- sent me an email with a link to a breaking news story about a case of the plague in Los Angeles. "How timely!" she wrote. I hadn't seen the episode yet, and therefore assumed she meant the timing of me moving to Los Angeles and the Black Death being found there, so I was very angry with her indeed until I saw this part of the show and realized what she actually meant. And so I'd like to make a public apology to my mother for all the horrible things I thought about her when I thought she wanted me to die of the plague. Thank you.
House explains that dogs have fleas, and some fleas in the southwest carry the plague. In very rare cases, House says, the plague can cause sleep disturbances. So not only did Hannah get the plague through an extremely unlikely set of circumstances, but she also got a really weird plague that's impossible to identify without losing a liver and being in incredible pain for eleven days first? Karma not only bit Hannah in the ass, it shoved a six-foot-long tube up it. The buboes that make the plague so readily identifiable didn't show up because of the steroid she took for the poison ivy and all that other stuff they were giving her once she got to the hospital. So once again, House's method of treating a patient before diagnosing her backfires. As soon as they stopped the immunosuppressants, the bacteria went flooding to Hannah's lymph nodes and the bubo appeared. Hannah will be fine after they pump her full of antibiotics and immunosuppressants. She'll even be able to keep her Liver of Lies. House sends the Cottages out to do all of this, as well as make sure that plague-carrying dog is tracked down and, presumably, the rest of the PPTH staff is informed that they may have come into contact with something that killed about a third of Europe once. Hannah finally speaks: "I've got the plague?" she asks, looking kind of pissed off. I know I'd be pissed off if I managed to get the freaking Black Death. "Don't worry," House says, "it's treatable. Being a bitch, though...nothing we can do about that." Hannah scowls, because she has been BURNED. Nice one, House.
Cameron finds Max sitting on a bench. Max says that her surgeon recommended walking as a way to heal faster. Never having given up a part of my liver (and now that I've seen that there are people out there who will lie to me just to get my vital organs, I probably never will), I'm not exactly an expert here, but wouldn't walking or even sitting up stretch the huge fresh surgery scar Max has and hurt horribly? Maybe she's hoping to win the "whose scar is bigger?" contest she's planning on having with Hannah when they're eighty years old, and is doing this to ensure a victory. Anyway, Cameron tells Max that what she did for Hannah was "pretty amazing," as if Max really cares what Cameron thinks of her. Max looks at Hannah in her room across the hall, and says that she knew this WHOLE TIME that Hannah was planning on leaving her. My jaw dropped, people. Cameron's does too, but she recovers herself and pretends that she had no idea about any of this. Hannah told a friend, who then "let it slip" to Max. Looks like Cameron has a twin out there somewhere! Cameron is about ready to nominate Max for sainthood for giving up a liver to someone who wasn't even in love with her...until Max says this: "She can't leave me now." OH! That sizzling sound you hear is Cameron...being BURNED! All this time we thought Hannah was the evil one in their relationship, and it was really Max, using her own organs to get what she wanted. Damn, that was great.
Cameron has learned her lesson, and tells Foreman that he had every right to write an article about the case. "You should have told me, but I should've handled it better, too," Cameron says. She just wants them to stay friends by apologizing to each other and moving on. That seems very fair of Cameron, actually. And then Foreman says that while he likes Cameron, she isn't his friend; she's his colleague. And therefore, he doesn't owe her anything. Especially not an apology. Foreman, you asshole! And do I smell barbecue? I think Cameron just got BURNED -- TIMES TWO! She and Foreman just stand there looking at each other for five very awkward minutes, while House slumbers peacefully in his office.