House M.D. Episode 7.03 Unwritten

Alice Tanner is furiously hammering away at an old typewriter in a study, surrounded by shelves lined with copies of her young adult novel series, Jack Cannon: Boy Detective. Faster and faster, wiping her brow and then, finally: "The End." She sits back, sighs, and massages her aching hands. "They have a cure for that, you know. It's called ´a computer.´ A teenaged boy sits leisurely in a mahogany leather chair, reading one of Alice's novels and absentmindedly spooling a yo-yo. "I'm done," Alice tells him. Now the boy is excited: he wants to read it, but Alice says no. She won't even tell him what happens in the book.

"Come on. How am I supposed to help with the next book if you don't-" But Alice says that there won't be any more books. When the boy asks why, she gets up and takes his face in her hand, gently touching a scar on his cheek, and says that she can't do it anymore. "I'm not brave like you." Alice walks back to her desk and pulls out a handgun. She says she should have done this years ago. "Put it down! Put it down or I'll make you!," the boy yells at her. "How, Jack?," Alice asks. "You don't even exist." Alice is alone in the room. Trembling, she points the gun to her mouth. "I'm sorry." Suddenly, she's shaking uncontrollably, her eyes rolling back in her head. The gun fires, but it hits the ceiling, and Alice falls to the floor.

At the hospital, House walks tentatively into a female coma patient's room. Certain that there's no one to witness him, he surveys the various gifts well-wishers have dropped off for the woman, picking up a couple of stuffed animals, as Wilson walks in.

"Which of these says, 'I want to sleep with you' more: penguin or beaver?," House asks Wilson. Wilson wants to know what he's done to Cuddy that was so bad he's got to pilfer through a coma patient's room to find an appropriately conciliatory gift. House says that he and Cuddy are fine, happy even. And that's why he's worried.

"We're in the honeymoon period. Our brains are flooded with endorphins. But when she snaps out of it, where does that leave us?" House thinks that his relationship with Cuddy is doomed due to their lack of common interests and compatibility.

"So, instead of enjoying the honeymoon phase, you've decided to skip it entirely?," Wilson asks him. House has a plan: "I need to find something that we both like doing, besides each other."

But first Wilson wants him to go down the E.R.: there's someone there he'll want to see. Alice is in the emergency room, telling the nurse that she's fine, as House pulls back the curtain. He's a huge Jack Cannon fan.

"Really? My fans tend to be overly annoying teenaged girls," she tells him, as he shines a light in her eyes. He wants to know about her latest book, but she won't talk about it. "I'll make you a deal," Alice says. "You finish this exam quickly, and I'll answer one question." House takes the deal, but his question has nothing to do with the novels.

"Why'd you try to kill yourself?," he asks. He's noticed the gun powder burns on her face. Alice is taken aback and gets up to leave. She doesn't get far. House announces to the staff that Alice is now on a 72-hour psychiatric hold.

It's late in the evening, but House has called the team in to work on Alice's case. "You called us back to work because a lady might have had a seizure?," Taub asks. House tells them about the suicide attempt, but they're still unimpressed with the case. He admits it's because he loves her books.