"I don't want the money," House shouts again, but the fire flees his face and body a moment later, replaced by a calculating chill. His attentions are not focused outward, but inward. She's wrong. She doesn't know him, and she's wrong about him, and he can prove she's wrong.

"Don't come off at me like I'm some kind of Nietzsche wannabe," he says, voice all tumbling gravel. "People who really want to kill themselves," he says, "Just kill themselves." And House would rather be seen as someone making a reckless cry for assistance than somebody who fails, even if that failure is in choosing when he wants to die.

"It was a race. I was thinking that I'd like to win it, and also, you cheated."