At a high-level campaign fundraiser, up-and-coming Senator Tom Wright becomes violently ill. Vogler pushes House to take Wright's case and dangles a new incentive in front of him: deliver a speech on behalf of Vogler's pharmaceutical company and save his whole team without firing one. House examines the senator finding that the symptoms point toward AIDS, a condition that would squash his career and presidential aspirations. But House refuses to settle for the easy answer. And House ends up giving the speech, but it doesn't go quite as Vogler planned.

During a meningitis outbreak that overwhelms the resources and staff of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, House singles out a 12-year-old patient whose symptoms are similar to but not quite right for the disease. House, Foreman, and Chase must devise ingenious ways and locations to treat the girl's delicate condition in the middle of the chaos and make an unexpected discovery. Meanwhile, House asks Cameron to come back to her job, but she has one requirement that he might not be able to meet.