Baggage - Recap

House arrives for his therapy session with Dr. Nolan, who notes that he's late and appears absent-minded. The psychotherapist notices that House is rubbing his leg in pain and wonders if he's under stress, but House denies it. He tries to insist it's an ordinary week, but Nolan asks him to explain what happened.

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When House comes into the ER, Cuddy brings him over to examine a mystery woman with amnesia. House concludes she's a long-distance runner based on her expensive jogging suit and her high metabolism.

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Nolan wonders why House was in the ER, and House admits that Wilson threw him out.

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At the condo, Wilson approaches House and tells him that since Sam is moving in, Wilson wants House to move out. He offers to find House a new place, and admits that he doesn't want House going back to his old apartment and the reminder of his old problems with drug abuse and hallucinations.

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House tells Nolan that he's fine, but Nolan wonders why House isn't upset or angry. House rationally defends Wilson but Nolan doesn't buy it. He points out that House took the case without negotiating the matter with Cuddy, even though it was probably psychological in origins. House disputes that.

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House brings scans of the mystery woman's brain to the team and notes that there's physical damage to the brain that may have caused the amnesia. He figures out they can track her heart-rate monitor to the store near her home, and that he'll take the mystery woman there personally.

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Nolan notes that House usually avoids patients, and House admits that he wanted to avoid Wilson. When Nolan suggests he wanted to avoid going home, House explains that he already did.

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House returns to his apartment and discovers Alvie, his roommate at the psychiatric hospital, has moved in. Alvie explains that Immigration is looking for him in his old neighborhood so he decided to move in with House. Since he's broke in, he's repainted the House and sold House's belongings to pay for the paint. House orders him out.

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House explains that he took Alvie with him so he wouldn’t destroy House's apartment, but Nolan notes that he didn't need to have Alvie with him. He suggests that House needed a distraction, and wants to find out why.

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House and Alvie take the mystery woman to the running store and then start walking around, trying to see if anything stirs her memory. Alvie explains that he lost his birth certificate and can't prove he's an American, and when he forged his papers, they caught on and insisted he should go to a special hearing. Alvie admits he didn't go to the hearing even though House notes that since his mother was Puerto Rican, Alvie should be fine. Alvie notices a doughnut store and House realizes that the mystery woman must have gone there for calorically dense food. The cashier doesn't remember her name but has her husband's business card. They go to the address and a man, Jay, greets the woman as Sidney and embraces her. Sidney doesn't know who he is and stares at him in shock.

House talks to Jay while Sidney looks at her running trophies. He explains that Sidney is a lawyer and she deals with the stress by running. She insists that it doesn't sound like her.

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House admits to Nolan that Sidney was more comfortable with him than Jay, and Jay was picking up on it. Nolan suggests House might have found the artificial intimacy attractive or disturbing, but House insists she was only interesting.

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Jay notes that Sidney won a settlement for families that lived on an old methane field, and House speculates that methane poisoning might be responsible for her symptoms. Sidney is more interested in the fact that she used to surf. As they leave, Sidney collapses when her foot goes numb. She wets her pants and House realizes she's having partial seizures, and that it isn't methane poisoning.

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Nolan suggests that House diagnosed seizures because of personal feelings, and that he's afraid of his past. House explains that he went to the pawnshop to regain his past.

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At the pawnshop, House discovers that the owner has already sold one of his books, Approach to the Acute Abdomen. He ends up buying back his own property.

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Nolan wonders why House paid five times what his stuff was about. When House mentions that he doesn't like Wilson moving his stuff, he angrily hits the table and insists it isn't about Wilson. Nolan doesn't say anything.

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House and Alvie are playing Nerf football at House's apartment when Wilson comes by.

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House skips the next part of the story , insisting that Wilson was concerned and it was all boring.

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As they play, Alvie drops his mother's crucifix necklace. As he examines it, House tells him he set up an immigration hearing, but Alvie says he won't get a fair break and refuses to go.

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Nolan notes that it's interesting that House tried to help Alvie despite claiming not to have warm feelings. House responds by noting he only felt that way for a few seconds and then got distracted.

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Taub calls to tell House that they've kept the patients up for 12 hours but she hasn't had any more seizures. He lets House listen in as Sidney argues with Jay about how boring he is.

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House explains that Sidney had a wake-up call when she went to college and her brother died, and started practicing law. Nolan notes that since she doesn't remember the change, the change is gone. House thinks that Sidney is bored, but Nolan suggests that they're no longer in sync and Jay's attempts at intimacy are repelling Sidney.

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Sidney has breathing problems caused by fluid overload, caused by damage to the hypothalamus. House proposes cutting out the ailing part of the brain.

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House explains to Nolan that they had to cut out the amygdale to cure Sidney, costing her much of her long-time memory, but Nolan wonders what it has to do with House's problems. He reminds House that he's supposed to talk about himself, and starts reading a book when House refuses to do so. Disgusted, House gets up to leave, but Nolan notices a boot-shaped bruise on his arm. House claims he fell when he was drunk, but Nolan pushes the matter and House admits he picked a fight in a bar. Nolan asks why he got blind drunk and sought out a fight, and House admits he doesn't know. The psychotherapist figures that House was looking to punish himself for something he did, and wants to know what House screwed up. Nolan returns to the topic of Wilson.

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House gets Wilson to tell the pawnshop owner the missing book is contaminated with anthrax spores so he could pay to get its location. He then invites House to move back in, figuring he still needs someone as a roommate. Disgusted, House tells him to stop being so wishy-washy.

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Nolan asks why House was so hard on Wilson, and House figures that Cuddy put him up to it. She kept calling to check on House, supposedly to keep tabs on Sidney. House describes how Wilson and Cuddy met in a dark gloomy office to discuss how it was too early for House to go back to his apartment, and he'll slide back into drugs. Nolan wonders if that's their fears, or House's, and proposes a brighter scenario where Wilson blamed himself for not doing it properly. Taub comes in, much to Nolan's surprise since it's his imaginary scenario. House brings him in to end it because it's too sweet. Nolan insists that Wilson did it because he cares, while House figures they did it because they think he's a problem.

Nolan asks why House and Wilson are friends, and suggests that Wilson is a consolation prize. House leaps to his friend's defense and Nolan points out that House just claimed he was manipulating him. House finally admits he can say what he wants to Wilson and he won't leave. Nolan notes that Wilson won't be around as much and House figures that he'll eventually get divorced again and invite him back into the condo.

Nolan suggests that House is right and it isn't about Wilson, and asks what else he's been involved in that he'd want to punish himself for. The psychotherapist then asks if House has angered anyone else, and House admits it's been an ordinary week for him.

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House tells Jay and Sidney about his surgery proposal to remove the prion infection. Sidney wants to do it and insists that she's competent, but Jay refuses to let her lose her long-term memories. Before they can resolve the matter, House realizes that her heartbeat is irregular and explains that it's too late. He bluntly tells Jay that Sidney is going to die due to his actions.

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Nolan wonders why House was so angry at Jay, and House claims that Jay was an idiot willing to let his wife die rather then let her lose her memories of him. Nolan wonders who else he made mad.

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House tries to buy the book back from the man who bought it from the pawnshop. The man insists it's worth thousands and refuses to sell it. As House distracts him, Alvie sneaks in and steals the book. They go back to House's office, and Taub informs them that that they've put pacemaker plates in Sidney's heart. However, it's not helping, which means it's not prion infection, and it's spreading throughout her body. Immigration officials arrive and tell Alvie that he's being deported. They ask why he skipped the hearing, and Alvie realizes that House called them.

House goes to the hearing while the team calls to tell him that they're trying to stabilize Sidney without success. Alvie accuses House of betraying him, while House suggests Sidney has TB and orders antibiotic treatment and UV testing. House introduces himself as Alvie's doctor and gives them a DNA test, with a sample taken from the crucifix, confirming that Alvie's mother was in fact his mother. As they leave, House admits that he faked the DNA.

When House returns to the hospital, the team takes Sidney into surgery when she crashes. House notices something on her ankle under the UV light. It's a tattoo of a surfing phrase. He realizes that she tried to have it removed but only got the top layer. The ink in the skin was still there. Sidney was fine until she started long-distance running. It altered her immune system, causing the allergic reaction. They did a graft and cured her.

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Nolan points out that House was right and it was her past. He wonders if Sidney got her memories back.

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Jay treats Sidney as if they were meeting for the first time, courting her.

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Nolan realizes that the idea was House's, and that House has been thinking about the case because it deals with relationships. When Nolan points out that it involved House's relationship with Alvie, House notes that's not the case.

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House returns home and finds a note from Alvie.

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House tells Nolan that Alvie moved to stay with his cousin in Phoenix to duck Immigration.

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Nolan asks what happened next.

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House gets drunk and then goes to the bar to pick a fight.

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Nolan figures that it's all about relationships, and House isn't thrilled that Sam and Wilson have a relationship. House notes that everyone is moving in: Sam and Wilson, Cuddy and Lucas, even Alvie. Nolan focuses on Cuddy and looks up the author of House's book. He realizes it was written by Ernest T. Cuddy, her great-grandfather. House was going to give it to her as a housewarming gift, but Nolan figures that it's significant. He explains that House punished Jay because he was also going to lose a woman he loved. House thinks it all sounds pathetic and says he's done. After a year, he's no happier than he was when they started. He figures that Nolan can't do anything for him and walks out.

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