House

A woman, Hannah, is trying to get to sleep with no success. She goes down to get a glass of wine and the next morning her roommate goes down to find Hannah has overdosed on sleeping pills.

House is dozing in the office away from home (and Wilson) when Cuddy interrupts him with Hannah's case – she hasn't slept in 10 days. House is skeptical of her claim until Cuddy explains even the sleeping pills didn't help. Cameron is griping about Foreman writing about a case she was working on when House interrupts. Cameron is more concerned about Foreman's supposed theft of her article while House suggests an optical disease that is disrupting signals to Hannah's brain.

Cameron tests her optic nerve and Hannah dozes off for 10 seconds in the middle of the test, but has no memory of it. House wants to stress her brain by keeping her entirely awake and the staff take shifts waking her up. Then she starts bleeding rectally and they have to give her a painful colonostomy without sedating her. In the middle of the test she starts bleeding from the nose.

The test of the nasal blood shows nothing and Cameron and Foreman feud over potential diagnoses. House notices she got a poison ivy rash about the same time Hannah stopped sleeping, and orders a treatment for Wegener's granulomatosis. House orders initial treatment then goes to see a clinic patient, Mrs. Ling, who wants birth control pills for her PMS. House concludes she has a cold and the daughter Anne is trying to get the pills.

Cameron confronts House about not signing off on her article and he points out she has high expectations. Chase and Foreman administer the test but Hannah goes into rapid-eye movement without realizing it. It disproves House's diagnosis and it's back to DDX where House figures the treatment for her poison ivy suppressed her allergy to the dog her girlfriend Max gave her a month ago. House goes ahead and allows a scratch test and Cameron asks Hannah if she had an allergic reaction – Hannah eventually cops to it and admits she's tired of Max and is secretly planning to break up with her. Hannah complains about back pain and Cameron discovers purplish bruises from internal bleeding. Foreman announces that the tests show her liver has shut down but they can't get a transplant without knowing it and Hannah only has six hours left. House approaches Max and Hannah and gives them the facts and Max volunteers her liver to give Hannah time to get diagnosed.

Now that they have 36 extra hours, and House overrides Cameron's concerns about the ethical dilemma. They have no choice but to run as many tests as possible. House goes to Cuddy to get permission for the transplant and feels her out on the ethical issues without actually saying anything and she goes along with it rather then let Hannah die. Cuddy does what she can to convince Max of the risks but she's willing to go through it with the woman she loves.

Meanwhile, Cameron puts pressure on Hannah to tell Max. Wilson visits House to give him grief about how both the articles were good from different sides, and he feels Foreman should have told Cameron. House dismisses Wilson's concerns while Cameron gets Hannah and Max alone together before the operation. House realizes what's up and interrupts them to sedate Hannah. Cameron points out House wants Hannah to keep quiet so Max can prolong her life and he can solve the puzzle. The surgery goes ahead while Cameron tells Cuddy about the article and they're interrupted when Max's heart stops. House tells Cameron to get to work with her patient, Hannah, and stop worrying about Max.

Max recovers and the tests prove negative for cancer, mushrooms, etc., and they have to turn off the immuno-suppressant drugs to get a clear reading on what her problem might be. Mrs. Ling and Anne are back and Mrs. Ling got her daughter's birth control pills. House tells Mrs. Ling her daughter is taking birth control pills (demonstrating his mastery of Mandarin) and leaves the family to fight it out.

House finally figures out what's going on – he reveals nodes under her right arm that demonstrate she has the Black Plague. She got it from fleas carried by the dog she was given, and their treatments blocked the plague from fully manifesting. They order treatment while Cameron finds out that Max knew about Hannah leaving her all the time, and figures donating the liver might get her to stay out of guilt. Cameron apologizes to Foreman and suggests they both apologize, but Foreman points out they're not really friends, just colleagues, and he doesn't have anything to apologize for.