Plot

The team tries to treat a patient who keeps lying to them, and Foreman exerts some independence.

We opened on a factory where metal sheets were being cut into squares by a massive blade on a conveyor belt. A young woman who seemed to be running things suddenly clutched her chest and fell onto the conveyor belt. Her co-worker stopped the machine just before she went under the blade. She continued holding her chest and pink foam came out of her mouth.

Cue super cool opening credits music!

House told Wilson he didn't ask Cuddy out. Wilson had nothing to say about it. House was suspicious.

The patient was a 16-year-old girl named Sophia who claimed to have been emancipated after her parents died a year earlier. Foreman suggested she might be pregnant, but Kutner didn't want to believe it because her history said she wasn't sexually active. House asked for a pregnancy test. Kutner also believed Sophia wasn't on drugs. House asked for a test for toxins and drugs.

Foreman asked House if he could take some time to help run a clinical trial. Foreman promised his patients with House would be his priority, but House said no. "Clinical trials take time," House said. "Your time is my time."

Kutner talked to Sophia about his parents dying when he was 6, in an effort to show sympathy. Her heart was healthy, which meant they still didn't know what was wrong with her. While checking out Sophia's apartment, Thirteen told Taub she was annoyed with Kutner's blind trust and need to have everything be "nice." She said trust should be earned, just as she held up a bong she found.

The doctors talked about their options with the new possibility that Sophia was on drugs and House had Foreman start her on beta-blockers, telling everyone else to do anything that wasn't starting her on beta-blockers. After House left the room, Foreman told the other doctors to start the treatment and page him if they needed him.

Kutner told Sophia they'd found the bong, but she said it was her ex's. That's why he became her ex. She said they didn't have any reason to believe her. Kutner told Sophia the other possibility was vasculitis and the treatment was steroids. If they gave her steroids and drugs had damaged her heart, the steroids could kill her. Sophia reiterated she hadn't done drugs. "I'll get the steroids," Kutner said.

Foreman showed up at the clinic and Cuddy knew House had said no. She wouldn't override House's decision. Instead, she gave Foreman a chance to prove he could do House's job and handed him a folder. She gave Foreman the case of little boy who was vomiting blood and no one knew why.

Sophia was raging in her hospital room and while Taub and Kutner restrained her, Taub said, "Beta blockers don't cause psychotic breaks." "She's not on beta blockers," Kutner admitted.

House blamed Foreman for "sticking it to the man" and inspiring Kutner to go rogue. House said Kutner treated her based on "empathetic orphan syndrome." Kutner insisted she wasn't on the steroids long enough for them to have caused her break. He thought it was a new symptom. Foreman suggested Prinzmetal's angina could be causing an artery in the brain to spasm. House ordered Foreman to do an MRI -- and he meant Foreman. He wanted Foreman's signature on the paperwork, videotape, and photographs of Foreman with the patient in the newspaper. Foreman told the rest of the team to set up the procedure and page him when it was ready. He went to work on his other patient.

Foreman gave the young boy a pill that had a camera in it. The kid's older brother convinced him to swallow it by telling him it was a special vitamin, just like the ones they had to take at home. The young patient suddenly began laughing for no apparent reason, and Foreman didn't know why.

Chase and Cameron alert! Foreman went to the cafeteria to work on a differential diagnosis with Chase and Cameron. He's getting the band back together! Foreman told them he wasn't work with House on this case and Chase warned Foreman that whatever he was trying to prove, it wouldn't be enough. Foreman got paged and went to do the MRI on Sophia. There were no spasms, but Kutner noticed certain parts of Sophia's brain -- the parts that light up when people use their imaginations -- were lighting up as Sophia talked about her parents' deaths. She was lying. She confessed and said she lied because her father raped her and her mother pretended it never happened.

As the doctors discussed the case further, Kutner began wondering whether Sophia was also lying about being raped. Thirteen suddenly jumped to Sophia's defense, saying it was understandable that she lied about her parents' death if she were covering up the rape story. House posited stress was causing the problems and had Thirteen put Sophia on anti-anxiety meds. He had Foreman make sure she did it, and had Thirteen make sure Foreman made sure.

House told Wilson he went to Cuddy's house but didn't go in. Wilson offered no opinion.

Foreman went back to Chase and Cameron for more differentials on the run. Foreman decided "we" should run a couple of tests, with "we" meaning Chase and Cameron. He said "thanks" as he walked away to treat Sophia. Her urine was brown, meaning her problem wasn't stress.

While the team talked about Sophia's new symptoms, Foreman got a page. He got up and walked out while telling the doctors how to test Sophia for arsenic poisoning. Chase told Foreman the tests on the little boy were negative for stomach cancer and porphyria. Chase said they were done and suggested Foreman talk to House. "There's a point when Cameron and I aren't enough," Chase said. "We're not there," Foreman replied. "We need to run some more tests." The boy went into cardiac arrest. "Foreman," Chase said, " we're there.

Thirteen told Sophia she was arsenic free and could leave the hospital the next day. Sophia wanted advice from Thirteen, who told her she's strong and makes good choices. "You'll be fine," she said. Sophia then had a seizure.

Sophia's brain suddenly had lesions, which weren't there three days earlier. House thought they should give her arsenic because it wasn't killing her and may have been saving her. Thirteen thought Sophia might have a certain form leukemia. She might need a bone marrow transplant from an immediate relative.

Foreman wanted to talk to House, but House already knew about the case Foreman didn't want him to know about. "He needs you," Foreman told House. "But he has you," House replied. Foreman tried to talk House into helping the patient because it's their job as doctors. "You wanted to do something on your own, now you've got it," House told Foreman.

House again tried to get Wilson to give his opinion on the Cuddy situation.

Sophia refused to get bone marrow from her parents, saying if she did it she would owe them her life. She would rather die. Taub interjected by telling Sophia that he had Huntington's Disease -- using Thirteen's story -- and wanted to live what was left of his life as well as he possibly could. Sophia asked if he'd ever been raped. When he said no, she told him not to try to walk in her shoes and she wouldn't try to walk in his.

Thirteen was upset that Taub lied to Sophia. House told the doctors to run the donor banks for a bone marrow transplant, knowing the patient wouldn't agree to get in touch with her parents. Thirteen insisted on tracking down Sophia's parents despite House's objection.

Foreman, Chase and Cameron sat around trying to figure out what they'd missed with the young boy's case. Foreman talked about how over-protective the older brother was with his little brother. Foreman left. "We gave him an idea," Chase said. "Either that," Cameron responded, "or he's off to kill House."

Thirteen went to what she thought was Sophia's parents' house and discovered Sophia lied about who she was. Sophia told Thirteen she'd stolen another girl's identity to protect herself against her family finding her. Thirteen told Sophia her parents would have to sign off on any operation she might have, but Sophia still refused to reveal her real identity and decided to wait until her situation became an emergency, in which case the doctors would have to operate with or without consent.

Foreman's young patient was suffering from an iron overdose after his older brother had given him too many vitamins. The older brother was afraid his little brother would hate him, but Foreman told him, "That's the great thing about brothers. You make mistakes, they'll still love you."

Kutner found a partial donor match, but Thirteen was worried a partial match would be rejected. House and the team talked about Sophia's emotional reactions versus rational reactions. House was intrigued by the fact that Sophia's position (she didn't want to give her parents the satisfaction of saving her life) was rational, not emotional. But he said it didn't make sense that she skipped any emotional reaction, meaning she had no emotional reaction to process. House wondered what was worse than rape, because he thought she was lying about it.

House got in her head and tried to figure out what she'd done that she was really hiding. Finally, she confessed that she'd killed her brother, She was supposed to watch him. He was in the bath. She could hear him laughing. "Every time they look at me it's like I kill him again," Sophia said. "If you don't take your parents' bone marrow, you'll be killing their other child," House said.

He said there was nothing she could do to change how bad her situation was, but there was one thing she could do to not make it worse. Her parents came to the hospital. They cried when they reunited.

Foreman went back to House and said he wanted to do clinical trials, because he'd proven he could do two cases at once. "And I'm doing it," Foreman said. "OK," House said. The explanation: Foreman didn't ask this time, he told House what he was going to do. House couldn't say no if it wasn't a question.

Wilson and House left the hospital together and saw Cuddy from afar. "You want to talk about her?" Wilson asked House.

"Nope," House said.