House

House tends to a man, Vince, with a swollen tongue and a temperature of 103. Foreman isn't concerned and prepares to take off when a man comes in, identifies House, pulls out a gun, and shoots him. House stares up at the man who deliberately aims and shoots again,

House wakes up two days later to find Cameron at his bed but he's more interested in the patient with the swollen tongue. The shooter is brought in – he was shot by a security guard. House staggers out to visit Vince but Cameron figures they've got it under control. House then goes to Cuddy and reveals that his leg pain feels better, even without the morphine. House assumes something went wrong with the surgery.

House then wakes up the shooter and asks why he tried to kill him. The man says he wanted House to live and suffer. House responds by turning off the man's morphine. Foreman and Chase are doing a biopsy which triggers a seizure, and the staff go to House. House tells them to do a lumbar puncture but Foreman warns against the risks. Chase notes that the patient is now in more danger and House agrees with him.

That night the shooter reveals House treated his wife, who lived. But the man notes he'd told House he had an affair but it had nothing to do with his wife's illness and House told her about the affair anyway. The shooter reveals she then killed herself over the news.

House goes out and checks in on Vince and meets his wife Judy. Judy knows about House from a friend he treated and isn't that impressed. House wonders why the attractive Judy married the relatively homely Vince and asks if she had an affair. She tells him she's always been faithful. The lunbar puncture goes well but when they roll Vince over, they see he's bleeding into his eye, which pops out of the socket. At the same time House starts bleeding after he tears out his stitches.

They put House back together and he spars with the shooter over his affair – the man reveals his wife killed herself in their garage. House then goes out for a taco lunch to discuss the case, orders some tests, and when he mentions the wife Judy, Cameron reveals Vince is a widower.

House is talking with Wilson and wonders if "Judy" was a hallucination. House still is worried that the surgery caused neural damage and then confronts Cuddy, asking why a surgeon administered ketamine and put him in a disassociative coma. Cuddy reveals she ordered the treatment as a chance to give House back his leg, but he's upset that she did so without his approval. Cuddy questions him about neurological symptoms and House denies anything is wrong.

They don't find with the tests and House wonders if blood in the lining might be causing the fever. Chase concludes the tongue is connected to the lymphatic glands where wastes might be discharging. The shooter challenges House on Chase's diagnosis, noting that House might be getting dumber. Vince is back out of post-op but the recent surgery didn't help. Chase takes Vince to the bathroom where he starts bleeding from the groin.

House considers the new symptom and first suggests kidney issues, incorrectly. Then Foreman suggests testicular cancer and again House is worried that he has brain damage because he missed that. Wilson suggests House wants a reason to be unhappy and defends Cuddy. House wonders why Wilson is defending Cuddy and figures out Wilson knew about Cuddy's plan as well. House confronts Cuddy and Wilson and angrily slugs Wilson. And then House realizes he hallucinated the whole thing, he's back in his bed, and the shooter taunts him.

The staff report the tests are negative and House tries out his new legs and then wonders how he got to their meeting – he doesn't remember how they got from the ICU to the hallway. House then goes to Cuddy and takes himself off the case, admitting he's blacking out. But Cuddy then confirms House's previous "hallucination" and determines that now he's hallucinating. He's back in his bed, as the shooter looks on.

House has lunch with the shooter at the taco place and wonders what is and isn't a hallucination, although he's pretty sure it's a hallucination at the moment. The shooter suggests he just keeps tossing out suggestions and his team will correct him if he's wrong. House questions the basics of the biopsy and suggests they do surgery but Chase believes that will kill Vince. House comes up with a way to do the surgery using a robot and uses Cameron to demonstrate it to Vince. The demonstration is successful and House tells Vince he has no choice.

House is back in bed going over the tests and the shooter taunts him over the lack of meaning in his life. House hallucinates that he's in a car with Judy as she committed suicide, then turns with a tear in his eye and apologizes.

House goes into the surgery room and points out the staff never pulled him off the case, and never challenged him on any of his theories. House confronts them and then tries to stop the surgery. He thinks he needs to push the hallucination to its limits and tries to operate on Vince, cutting into him and killing him. Everyone looks on in horror…but then a bullet falls out of Vince's hand. House picks it up then wakes up to realize he's being rushed to E.R. after being shot. House tells them to tell Cuddy to administer the ketamine.