House M.D. Episode 3.12 One Day, One Room

Cuddy orders House to two days of nothing but clinic duty. He starts by assembling the many who think they might have an STD. Then he ambles out to the waiting room to see how many patients are left. Suddenly, a man clutches his ear and runs around, screaming in agony. House trips the man with his cane, holds him down and administers a paralytic agent. The man becomes frozen, but at least he's no longer making noise. Unfortunately, they need to intubate because the paralytic has stopped the man's breathing.

House gathers his team to discuss the man's case. House asks what right ear pain, psychotic behavior and dizziness might indicate. Foreman throws out an acoustic neuroma that started to hemorrhage, so House asks for an MRI. Chase mentions that the man could have been psychotic first and mutilated himself. House likes that idea too, and he asks for a full psych work up. He then tells the doctors to pour some alcohol into the man's ear and pull out the cockroach. House knew this was the cause all along. He only wanted a big case to get him out of clinic duty.

Cameron, making the rounds on clinic duty, sees an old, disheveled man who's most likely homeless. He hands her a note and says that the other hospital gave it to him but he cannot read. The note says that the man has a six centimeter cancerous mass in his right lung which is inoperable. The man asks if he can sleep in the hospital because it's cold outside. Cameron finds Cuddy and spills the truth about House and the cockroach patient. Cuddy angrily tracks House down and makes it clear, once again, that either he does clinic duty or she will confess about the evidence against him. He owes her.

House returns to clinic duty and announces to the waiting room that he'll give $50 to anybody who leaves without being seen. Cuddy pulls him back into her office, desperate for a solution. She offers House $10 for every patient he can diagnose without touching. However, he will have to pay her $10 for every patient he does have to touch. So House starts plowing through patients without touching any of them.

The test results come back from the earlier STD patients, and the first two are clean. The third is a 20-something blonde female named Eve who tests positive. Eve breaks down in tears at the news even though House reassures her that Chlamydia isn't all that bad. House tries to hand her some pills, but Eve yells at him to not touch her. House goes to tell Cuddy to get a new doctor for this patient. Eve has been raped.

Cuddy explains to Eve that the hospital will assign another doctor, but Eve insists on House. House says that he isn't interested in treating her because there is nothing to treat. She is perfectly healthy. Eve doesn't care, and only wants to talk to him. House comments that she just wants to reclaim power after being raped. Eve screams at him to leave.

Eve crashes in the clinic. Cuddy and another doctor attend to her, but she is unconscious and foaming at the mouth because of a pill overdose. The doctor tells House that she had talked to Eve for over an hour but the girl said nothing. When the doctor turned her back, Eve grabbed the pill bottle.

House waits for Eve to awake and he asks her what she wants. She only wants to talk to him - about anything. House goes to his team for advice, and they suggest he give the girl his conversation. Cameron angrily says that there is no way that Eve can pretend the rape did not occur. She needs to process it. House returns to Eve and explains to her that she can't blame herself for this. Eve says that she knows that already, but she still wants to talk about nothing.

Cameron's homeless patient is hooked up to a battery of machines and IVs. He pleads with her to stop the treatment because he doesn't want it and doesn't think he deserves it. Although she disagrees, Cameron unhooks the equipment. She visits him later and questions why he wants to suffer. The man asks her why her husband had to suffer. Cameron demands he tell her how he knows about her husband. The man admits that the nurse told him.

House and Eve discuss where they went to college. House still gets no answer on why Eve trusts him. She inquires whether anything terrible has ever happened to him. He hesitates, so Eve flips his own logic back on him. Not knowing what to do, House leaves to go seek counsel. Wilson thinks he should just tell Eve the truth. Cameron advises House to say his life has been wonderful so that the girl has some hope. Foreman suggests he just admit that his life has sucked so that she will see that she too can rebound. Chase notes that there is no wrong answer.

House returns to Eve's bedside and starts into his life story. He says that he was abused by his grandmother. His parents traveled and often left him with her. She was a strict disciplinarian. House never misbehaved when she was around because he was too afraid of being forced to sleep in the yard or of being made to take a bath in ice. He never told his parents. Eve asks if any of his story is true, and House assures her that it all is. She again asks if it is true. House replies that it is the truth for somebody.

Cuddy lets House know that Eve is pregnant. He breaks the news to the girl, then offers her the chance to terminate it. Eve isn't interested because she considers abortion to be murder. House asks her if she wants to take a walk outside to get some air.

Meanwhile, Cameron's homeless patient is still suffering. She tries to force pain medication on him, but he resists. The man says that if he dies suffering, then Cameron will always remember him. Nobody else will remember him. Cameron leaves the syringe next to his bed and sits down across the room. The man later struggles for breath and dies.

House and Eve sit in a park watching people jog by. They continue their philosophical discussion. Eve argues that eternity is what we live for, and House believes that our time on Earth is all we have. Eve refuses to believe that because then there are no ultimate consequences. She needs the comfort of knowing that this all means something.

Eve wonders if her attacker feels remorse for his actions. House asks why that matters. He then inquires why she trusts him. Eve explains that there's something about him, as if he is hurt too. House confesses that his story was true. Yet it wasn't his grandmother but his father who abused him. Eve begins to acknowledge what happened to her to House.

Back at the hospital, House informs Cuddy that Eve terminated her pregnancy and has been discharged from the hospital.