Plot

House's team resents being made complicit in a web of lies parents have told their son when he's brought in for treatment that may be related to his intersexuality. Meanwhile, no one's content that House is happy.

An intersexual boy has collapsed on the basketball court. His parents have never told him he has both male and female cells and they (that is, the overprotective mother, who seems to be wearing the trousers) don't want the team to tell him either. For Thirteen, withholding the truth from the kid is easier said than done. To everybody's surprise, House acts kind and actually seems to be... happy, which makes everyone think something fishy is going on.—Marco van Hoof <k_luifje7@hotmail.com>

We opened on a doctor (Fred Kronenberg) telling a couple their baby could "have a completely normal and healthy life" despite having both male and female genitalia. He told the couple they had a choice as to whether the kid would be a boy or a girl. Some years in the future, we see their boy, Jackson (Dominic Scott Kay), playing a school basketball game. After making the winning shot, he clutched his stomach and collapsed on the gym floor.

Foreman (Omar Epps) and Thirteen (Olivia Wilde) were getting ready for the day together and still thinking about how they were going to avoid having House (Hugh Laurie) figure out they were still together. House, meanwhile, asked Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) if he was going to finish his bagel before taking it.

"Did you just ask my permission before you took my food?" Wilson said.

"Yes we can," House said.

Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) gave House the case of the boy who could have been a girl. "Fun," House said.

Then she told him the parents wanted assurance he wouldn't divulge that truth to the kid. "Less fun, but still..." he said, before taking the file. Cuddy was surprised at how easy that was.

The doctors went over the case and discovered Jackson's parents had been telling the boy his testosterone meds were vitamins. Foreman then mocked an idea Thirteen had about the kid possibly having a "blind uterus." She wanted to do an MRI. House ordered some other tests, including one putting a camera up the boy's penis. Then the parents walked in and posed the blind uterus idea and suggested an MRI. They said they have done a lot of research on their son's condition. House agreed and told Kutner (Kal Penn) it was easier than arguing with them.

While testing the kid, Taub (Peter Jacobson) asked Thirteen how long the post-break-up awkwardness with Foreman would last. She said they were both professionals. Taub said he never understood what she saw in Foreman. Taub made fun of Foreman's lack of emotion, then he told Thirteen that House did her a favor by splitting them up. Also, the kid didn't have a blind uterus.

Kutner told Wilson he thought there was something wrong with House because of his new-found lack of confrontation. Wilson wondered if House had a great cup of coffee or "a tremendous bowel movement." He told Kutner to stop analyzing and enjoy House's good mood.

While Taub did the penis-camera test on Jackson, his chest became tight and he said he couldn't breathe. His heart was filling with fluid and Thirteen stuck a syringe into his chest to drain it.

Wilson went to Cuddy and said, "You slept with House." He thought that explained House's good mood. She said she didn't. If she did, she would be curled up in a corner ashamed. Wilson was still suspicious.

Thirteen discussed stopping the testosterone treatments for the boy with the parents and they didn't like the idea. She said they could take the opportunity to tell their child the truth, but they told her to tell the kid the testosterone blocker "is something else."

House had a clinic patient who said his arms and legs hurt when he put pressure on them. He poked himself and said, "Oww," every time. House bent the guy's finger back and that also hurt. We next saw the guy walking out of the room with his finger in a splint, telling House, "Thanks, bro."

Thirteen was treating the boy when he revealed that he didn't really like basketball and his mom "flipped out" when he wanted to take dance. He said his dad seemed OK with it, but his mom didn't want him taking dance.

Kutner told Foreman it was probably better he and Thirteen broke up because of "the whole bisexual thing." Foreman said it was never an issue.

Cuddy and Wilson went into House's office to confront him about his good mood, but he was sleeping. Then they realized he wasn't breathing. They revived him, then Cuddy asked, "What the hell is going on?"

Cuddy was testing House and he said, "I think my penis stopped breathing. Do you know CPR?"

"Looks like the brain is working fine," she said.

He wanted information about the patient and insisted his situation was caused by taking too much Vicodin. Then Kutner and Wilson both said they didn't remember seeing House take any Vicodin that day or the previous day.

House left the office and Wilson suggested he was on heroin. "Whatever he's taking," Wilson said, "it's stronger than Vicodin."

Foreman and Thirteen searched the boy's house and Foreman asked if she missed sleeping with women. She said, "Yes." She said she also missed sleeping with other men and he probably missed sleeping with other women. She asked why it was coming up now. He told her about what Kutner said. Thirteen remembered Taub making fun of Foreman. They wondered if it was a coincidence or if the other doctors were just messing with them. They decided if Kutner and Taub knew, then House probably knew. Foreman said that was good, because it meant House chose to jerk them around rather than fire them.

Thirteen found a poem written by the kid, about being alone beneath a mask. As she read it to House, he pretended to be asleep. She decided the poem meant the kid could be suicidal. During the discussion, Foreman touched Thirteen's shoulder and said it was "sweet" she was worried about House. House and Kutner both noticed that move.

Thirteen showed Jackson's parents the poem, which made his dad think telling him the truth might help him. The mother resisted, saying "every teenager feels different." She didn't think it was the right time to spring the news on him. She also asked Thirteen to restart the testosterone.

Foreman confronted Kutner and Taub about messing with him and Thirteen, which led to Kutner and Taub settling their bet. Kutner figured it out because Foreman smelled like Thirteen's soap every morning. Then Foreman wondered why, if Kutner had figured it out, House hadn't figured it out.

Foreman then called Wilson and said he thought House was on heroin. Wilson had answered the phone while having dinner with House. Wilson wanted to toast with bourbon shots and House didn't drink it. House knew Wilson was suspicious House was on something stronger -- he figured it out because of the drink.

House said he knew if he was on heroin he couldn't drink the bourbon "without risking another bout of not breathing."

"Well?" Wilson asked. House took the drink, then left.

Back at the hospital, Thirteen told Jackson "these aren't vitamins" when he said the injection looked like the vitamins his parents give him. He asked what it was, but she said she couldn't tell him. "You should ask your parents," Thirteen said.

Back outside the the restaurant, Wilson caught House forcing himself to throw up. House said he wasn't on heroin, he was on methadone -- "Stupid product," he said. "Heroin without the high." Wilson said it had twice the risk of death. "But no risk of arrest," House said.

House told Wilson he wasn't detoxing. House said "it doesn't help with my pain, it eliminates it." He threw his cane in a dumpster and walked away, saying, "My leg doesn't hurt anymore."

Jackson's parents wanted Thirteen taken off the case for violating their instructions. The dad wanted to "deal with Jackson" because the questions weren't going to go away. She said he wasn't ready, and the dad said, "Let's hope you're wrong." Cuddy told Thirteen to be available for the kid because she was the only person he was going to trust.

Jackson's dad told him he was "just a little different." He wondered why they never told him, why they lied. He told them to leave him alone.

Cuddy confronted House about the methadone. He said it was legal and he had a prescription. She worried that if he kept taking it he could die. She told him, as long as he was in her hospital, he couldn't do methadone. "I'll send someone for my stuff," he said.

He said he would choose "lack of pain over this job."

Jackson worried that he was supposed to be a girl, telling Thirteen he really likes hanging out with a boy on his basketball team. He wondered if he was supposed to be a girl because he liked dance more than basketball. She handed him the poem about hiding behind a mask, telling him "no matter how bad things get, killing yourself is never the answer." He said it was just an English assignment and he hadn't had those kinds of thoughts. "I'm sad sometimes, but I don't want to die," he said. "At least, I didn't." Thirteen panicked. Then the kid threw up blood.

Back at home, House shaved.

Foreman told the doctors they were on their own. He said Cuddy didn't say why House wasn't there, he was just gone. Thirteen pushed for a diagnosis that wasn't fatal and Foreman asked her why. He knew she thought she'd ruined the boy's family. She was afraid she "started a fire and threw gas on it."

Wilson went to House's place and discovered he'd hired a hooker to watch him sleep. House was all cleaned up and putting on a suit. He was going to a meeting at another hospital to try to convince them to start a diagnostics department. Wilson was amazed House owned a tie, actually two.

Jackson's parents got the news from Taub the doctors thought their child has scleroderma, which was fatal. The mother confronted Thirteen about ruining things. Cuddy came and told the mother to go be with her child. Thirteen thanked Cuddy for intervening, but Cuddy said, "I didn't do it for you."

Wilson told Cuddy they made a mistake with House, saying the methadone was good for House. He said House was their friend and "this is his one chance to not be miserable."

Jackson's mom went to his bed side. They waited in silence.

Back at Thirteen's place, she and Foreman were discussing Jackson's response to the treatment. They realized his kidney function meant he didn't have scleroderma.

A spiffy looking and cleaned up House went to Cuddy for a recommendation letter and she handed him a list of requirements for his methadone treatment. She gave him his job back and he agreed to the methadone treatment conditions. He thanked her.

House went back to his office to catch up on the case. Thirteen and Foreman came in talking about their new theory. House asked when they came up with that, and Thirteen said they met in the lobby. House asked what they'd ruled out. As soon as Taub said they'd ruled out dehydration, House became concerned. He asked if the kid liked energy drinks, then left to the patient's room.

House called the parents idiots and said their son simply had dehydration. He said the energy drinks put a strain on his kidneys, which made them need more time to rebound. He wasn't better because House let the parents talk him into that MRI for the blind uterus before they could give the kid more water.

"My team injects him with contrast material," House said. He said the contrast material would have been processed by healthy kidneys in a couple of hours. Instead, it traveled through his system, "getting in trouble everywhere it went." House said with a few weeks of dialysis he should be fine.

"You gave birth to a freak of nature," House told them. "That doesn't mean it's a good idea to treat him like one."

Thirteen talked to Jackson alone later, and he said his mom asked him if he wanted to take dance lessons. He was worried he might miss basketball. "No reason you can't do both," Thirteen said.

House sat in his office when Cuddy came in with his methadone treatment, but he said he was done. He was upset with himself for missing things during the case. "I played nice because I was in a good mood because my leg didn't hurt," he told her.

She said he didn't need pain to be a good doctor, but he said he wasn't interested in "good."

House asked her why it mattered to her whether he was happy. She said he was afraid of change, that he thinks the one thing he has is his intellect and if that's compromised he'd have nothing.

He refused to take the methadone and threw it in the trash.

"This is the only me you get," he said, before walking out and turning off the lights.