Spoiler:

TEASER:

Fran is an uptight, middle-aged woman who has a very G-Rated life, so it seems. Robin shows up at the door in a suit looking like a real estate agent. Robin enters the house and they make small talk. They start discussing a „business“ deal, where Robin takes out what appears to be a contract and hands it to Fran. So we think that Fran is selling the house or something. Turns out Robin is an escort of sorts, offering in-home services with all sorts of options that Fran can pick from. It’s a thousand dollars for her „services“. Fran picks a package and Robin goes to change into an outfit. Fran goes to get the money and begins to get dizzy and finally collapses.

CLINIC WITH WILSON

Wilson begins to check out Fran with Robin beside her. They don’t tell Wilson right away that they don’t know each other. Wilson knows something is up by the way they’re acting. Wilson thinks it’s just a drug side effect and sends her on her way. He asks where House is and we cut to…

In the Airport/ Singapore

We find House, unhappy, in a wheelchair being pushed by a porter. Cuddy walks beside him. Behind him a mother carries a small crying child.

House: It’s an antique vintner’s canel and it cost me 900 dollars.
Cuddy: It has a corkscrew in it.
House: Ahh, that would explain the ‚vintner‘ reference…

Cuddy: A hundred and twenty dollars in „video services“.
House: I was lonely.
Cuddy: It’s five hundred in expenses I can’t justify.
House: Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.
Cuddy: Right.

(A flight attendant named Keo greets them.)

Keo: Welcome aboard. Mr. House, you’re in 4A, first class to my right. Ms. Cuddy, you’re in 15C to my left.
Cuddy: No, I booked 2 first class tickets; there must be some mistake.
House: No mistake. I just arranged for a five hundred dollar fare reduction. Unjustified expense problem solved.

Off Cuddy as House limps to take his seat in 1st class. Note: House is without his cane throughout this episode.

(Kate note: They lost his cane)

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Back at the hospital…

Fran has gotten worse and is admitted. Wilson talks to Fran again to get a history out of her. Find out where she’s been, what she’s eaten, etc. Turns out she went to Caracas where she ate the food and water, as well as cocaine and lots of sex.

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Back in the plane…

Peng: (to flight attendant) Another, please?

But as Keo turns to go, Peng suddenly doubles over, groaning in pain.

Keo: Mr. Peng…
Peng: Oh God…
Keo: Are you alright?
Peng: I think i’m gonna be sick…
Keo: Let’s get you to the rest room.

As she takes his arm, he recoils from her touch, crying out in pain.

Peng: My shoulder…
Keo: You’ll feel better if you..

Peng vomits.

(End scene)

Peng is very ill. House bends over and puts his head against Peng’s chest.

Peng: What are you doing?
House: Listening for chest sounds, shhh. (beat) take off your shirt.
Peng: My shirt? Why?
House: I think I hear something.
Peng: What is it?
House; Sounds like an Asian man talking. (beat) Take off your pants.
Peng: Here? No…
House: I need to get a better look at your rash. Promise we won’t laugh.

Peng reluctantly agrees to undo his pants, stopping as the movement causes pain.

Peng: I can’t… it hurts…

(Next scene)

Peng, still in pain, is now dazed, half-conscious, his speech slurred. House shoves a vicodin in Peng’s mouth.

Peng: What’s that…
Houe: Vicodin, and something to wash it down.

House pours a mini of vodka down Peng’s throat. Peng swallows it, half chocking.

Peng: It burns…
House: Not for long. We have to operate on you.
Peng: Operate? In a hospital?
House: No here.
Peng: On a plane?
House: they have a great health plan.

Peng sees the tray of makeshift surgical instruments; he panics.

Peng: No, no…

But peng is too weak to fight back.

---

Back in the hospital….

Wilson gets the sense that the patients „friend“ isn’t really that close to her, but asks her to stay with Fran anyway because she has no one else there. He sends Fran for a mammography with Cameron. Fran tries to tell Robin that she can leave but Roin stays, even though she’s a bit uncomfortable about it. During the mammogram, Fran’s goes blind in her right eye.

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Back in the plane…

House sprawls out in his roomy 1st class seat, sipping a glass of white wine.

Keo: Here you are, rib eye, medium rare. Some more Pinot Grigio?
House: No, I think I’ll switch to the Syrah, please.

As House is about to dig in, he hears a groan from across the aisle, coming from PENG, Asian male, 30s, bald, empty cocktail glass and a half finished fish meal in front of him.

Keo: Mr. Peng, are you alright?
House: He’s just drunk.

Keo quickly offers Peng a airsickness bag but too late. Peng vomits. Keo speaks to him in Chinese and Peng responds in a language Keo clearly doesn’t understand. Keo looks around desperately.

(next scene)

House places a post-it note as it in an L-shape on Peng’s chest and watches it. Keo and Cuddy watch, confused. We see it move with each beat of his heart.

House (to Keo) A healthy heart goes, lub-dub, lub-dub“ His heart goes „pul-lub-dub, pul-lub-dub“.

Close up on post it note…Sure enough there’s a tiny extra beat between 2 bigger ones.

House: Arrythmia explains the disorientation, pain, ataxia.
Cuddy: Not the vomiting. not the rash. And none of her symptoms. Unless you think she has arrythmia too.

House lifts peng’s shirt and sees that he has a rash that runs down his pants.

House: help me get his pants off (off Cuddy’s look). I want a better look at his rash. And set and important precedent for when I examine Baby Spice.

Off Joy, her fear growing…

Peng wakes up half naked as House and Cuddy are examining him. He’s got a rash down his legs and knees. House touches the rash.

Cuddy: Well?
House: It’s definitely a rash.

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Back in the hospital….

Foreman and Cameron are doing a test on Fran’s eyes.

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Back on the plane…

In contrast to the 2 million dollar equiptment we just saw the hospital using on Fran, we see House shining a 2 dollar flashlight into Cuddy’s eyes. Cuddy recoils.

Cuddy: Photophobia. Symptom of meningiis. We need antibiotics.
House: I’ll call down to the pharmacy.

House begins to smell Cuddy– her hair, her breath, her rash…

Cuddy: You’re creeping me out.

As he continues to sniff her…

House: Pseudomonas smell yeasty, staph smells musty, some liver diseases smell like ammonia. Not terribly accurate but until Nunavut open an ER, it’ll have to do.

House now sniffs her below the waist.

Cuddy: House, I’m not in heat.
House: Citrusy on the nose with a blush of toasted coconut.

House lifts Cuddy’s shirt to study the rash. Hosue touches it. She flinches. Lists her shirt higher, touches it again, another flinch. As he reached for her belt buckle–

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Back in the hospital….

Robin finally tells Wilson the truth about how she knows Fran. She gives Wilson her card and asks Wilson to call and let her know how Fran is doing.

As they examine Fran, here’s the dialogue between Cameron and Foreman (I believe they’re in a separate room using a microphone to talk to Fran… Fran doesn’t actually hear their conversation):

Foreman: Look ar T5 and T6; P100 latency is prlonged in her right eye.
Cameron: Definite impairment. (then, hushed) It’s just sex.

Foreman shoots Cameron a look.

Foreman: No such thing. (to Fran) Other eye.

Fran moves the paddle to cover her other eye.

Cameron: You saying women can’t separate the physical from the emotional?
Formean: No one does it well; women do it worse.
Cameron: You just want us to stop because you think it’s affecting–
Forman:– me. Yeah.

After this, Fran begins to get worse and slumps over in the chair. foreman and Cameron rush to check her out and she’s not responding. She’s in a coma.

---

Back in the plane…

Cuddy: the first aid kit has 2 epi pens.
House: If he has a major reaction, ten epi pens won’t save him. You take the pills.
Cuddy: I should survive until we land. He’s gonna…
Joy: I’ll take the pills.
House: You’re number 3 on the list. (to Cuddy) If it’s not meningitis, we’re risking his life while flushing meds down the toilet.
Cuddy: Them do an LP on him. If it’s clear, you win. If it’s cloudy, he gets the augmentin and we risk a reaction.
House: Sounds like a plan. Except for the part where we dont‘ have an LP needle. Oh and the fact that a visual test is the next best thing to useless. Oh, and the shaking of the plane means I’ll probably pierce his spinal chord and cripple him for life. But, I mean, it totally sounds like a plan.
Cuddy: You’re right. Let him die. Give me the meds.

---

Back in the hospital….

Cameron and Chase are prepping all their equiptment for an LP for Fran…

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Back in the plane…

Cuddy: You son of a bitch! We could have turned around!

House is taken aback by her rage.

House: Yes, we’ve covered that territory.
Cuddy: We should have turned around–
House: Settle down. Hysteria is not a symptom of meningitis.

Cuddy is now in tears. House looks to Keo standing at the rear of the cabin.

House: Gonna need some soap so I can pretend I’m not shoving eight million germs into this guys spine.

---

Back in the hospital….

In the pristine, quiet and still hospital, Chase expertly begins the LP on Fran

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Back in the plane…

It’s noisy, crammed, vibrating and House is struggling to stay as steady as he can.

He takes a deep breath. As he’s about to insert the needle, the plane jumps, hitting an air pocket. House trades looks with Cuddy: that would have been a disaster.

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Back in the hospital….

Cameron and Chase finish the LP on Fran. (Kate note… if you haven’t figured it out, the episode is going very fast paced, back and forth between the clean, pristine hospital procedures, and House on a plane trying to do the same thing in horrible conditions.)

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Back on the plane…

Curious, a boy eases up on Peng’s shoulder, and Peng winces with pain. Boy looks up to see House staring at him intently. Boy reddens wuickly pressing down again.

Boy: Sorry.
House: No, do that again; ease up, then press down.

Boy does. Easing up brings painl pressure brings relief. House presses down on Peng’s knee; it brings relief. House presses Peng’s ankle, same thing. House looks at Cuddy.

House: Pressure on his joints relives his pain.
Cuddy: (confused) Okay.

House drops the knife.

House: We’re wrong. Where’s his wallet?

On Cuddy, even more confused…

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Back to Fran’s story…

Chase is at Fran’s house doing some recon. He’s wearing a respirator so he doesn’t breath anything in. He notices a screen opening to a crawlspace. there he sees a large conduit running across the backyard all the way to the neighbors house… which is draped in a big fumigation tent. Chase quickly pulls out his phone and calls them to tell them to stop the operation they were planning on Fran.

Off Chase, feeling pretty pleased with himself…

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Back to the airplane….

House rifles though Peng’s wallet as Cuddy looks over his shoulder.

Cuddy: House, what’s going on?

House holds up a card.

House: PADI certification card. he’s a scuba diver.
Cuddy: Big deal, I have one of those.

House holds up a receipt.

House: So you also have a receipt from Tekong’s scuba rental dated yesterday?

Cuddy gets it, turns to Keo:

Cuddy: tell the pilot to drop as low as he can– under 5000 feet.
Keo: We’re at 38,000 feet. We can’t just–
Cuddy: Peng’s got the bends.
House: He went scuba diving and, like an idiot, surfaced too quickly, and then, like a bigger idiot, boarded a flight. He’s now in a cabin pressurized a 8000 feet above sea level and his arrhthmia is making it impossible for him to decompress. Tell the pilot to dive until we can club baby seals out the window.

Keo hurries toward the cockpit.

House: And drop the O2 masks!

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Back in the hospital….

Fran is doing better, Chase having figured out that the poison from the other house was being leaked into her own through this old conduit system. Her cat, who she loved a lot, died.

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Back in the plane…

the plane is now on the ground.

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Back in the hospital…

Wilson (on the phone): Hi, Robin? this is, uh, Dr. Wilson, Fran’s doctor, James. (beat) It looks like she’s going to be okay. Yes, it is… (then)… I was wondering if you were coming back in to visit again?

Off Wilson…

Exterior Hospital, night…

Chase and Cameron exit the hospital.

Cameron: Nice catch.
Chase: thanks
Cameron: I think even House would’ve been impressed.
Chase (distracted): I don’t know about that.
Cameron: And idea on how you’d like to celebrate?

Chase stops, looks at her.

Cameron: What?
Chase: this… isn’t really what I want…
Cameron: (taken aback): Oh, Okay, well, we don’t have to–
Chase: — Marry me.

A beat. Then Cameron breaks out laughing. Wrong move…