Remorse (House)

"Remorse" is the 12th episode of the sixth season of House. It aired on January 25, 2010.

The team takes on the case of 27-year-old Valerie (Beau Garrett), an attractive business consultant experiencing intermittent episodes of excruciating ear pain. House is intrigued by the fact that she is very attractive, while her husband is not, and agrees to take the case.

The team establishes the fact that her ear pain was caused by superventricular tachycardia. While treating her, the men on the team are charmed by Valerie's beauty and personality, with only Thirteen looking beyond the superficial and trying to discover a link to her illness. Thirteen finds out the missing link by spending half an hour asking Valerie about what she loves and hates during an fMRI. During this test, Valerie's brain bypasses the emotional centers and she uses the language sections of the brain to answer the questions. It shows that Valerie is, in fact, a psychopath. After hearing this analysis, House is even more fascinated by Valerie. Valerie admits she drugged her co-worker with Valium to get him fired. She had been sleeping with him every Thursday; in exchange she got credit for his best work. She claims she is the same as other people except she can admit it to herself. Valerie develops brittle bones and her arm breaks just from Thirteen turning her arm over. Tests show this is caused by kidney failure.

Throughout the differentials, Thirteen and Foreman continuously bicker even after the team has settled on a diagnosis. House tells them to "have sex, fight, or quit," as he is tired of their pointless bickering.

After some questioning from Thirteen, Valerie's husband finds out she was not attending landscaping classes on Thursdays as she claimed. Valerie threatens Thirteen with legal action if Thirteen does not keep quiet about her secret. Cuddy removes Thirteen from all patient contact for her own safety whereupon Valerie accuses Thirteen of sexual harassment. Thirteen storms into Valerie's room and yells at her, but Foreman takes Thirteen into another room to talk to her. He tells her that either Valerie complained anonymously, in which case it would go away eventually, or she complained under her real name, in which case the team would back up Thirteen and it would go away. He tells her to calm down. He also apologizes for firing her, and says he hopes they can work together again. Then he is paged because Valerie develops problems with her liver, causing blood to back up into her esophagus. Taub thinks it is primary hepatic fibrosis, so the team starts her on steroids.