The Cottages decide that House needs to see this in person, so they bring themselves and Lane's X-rays -- the earlier one showing the possible mass and a later one showing that it's gone -- to House's hotel room. In bed, House takes a look while Hooker #4 waits patiently with her ridiculous 60s hairstyle. Martha asks him how many prostitutes he's been with since his hotel stay began. "All but one. She did my taxes," House says. Why would Martha want to know that anyway? Or think House would answer her question honestly? Come on. House comes up with a diagnosis that hadn't occurred to the Cottages: intermittently swollen lymph nodes. He and Hooker #4 high-five each other in celebration while Martha frets over how if House is right, then Lane must have an infection and testing for that would mean doing a spinal tap, which is not a good idea when he's still recovering from his skull fracture. Chase says they could stick a needle in Lane's brain instead, and House says that sounds fine to him. It doesn't to Martha, who says that's just as, if not more, dangerous than the spinal tap. House gets rid of her by saying he just wants the Cottages to leave because "stuff is going on" underneath the sheet. Hooker #4 grins proudly. Martha spins around and looks out the window, scandalized.

Lane might be an idiot, but he's smart enough to wonder why his doctors want to drill through his skull to look for a mass that isn't there. Taub says there was so a mass, and since it's now gone, they need to drill into Lane's skull to find it. Martha, meanwhile, takes this opportunity to awkwardly ask about Lane's relationship status, like if he has a wife or a girlfriend he'd like them to call to be here with him. Lane says his family is in Oklahoma and thus can't, apparently, be reached by phone, while his rodeo friends have already moved on to the next location. He doesn't say he has a girlfriend, which Martha takes to mean there isn't one, and she says "aw, that's too bad" very cheerfully while placing her hand on Lane's pillow in an attempt to flirt.

In the OR, Martha is allowed to have anything to do with this surgery despite the fact that she's just a med student as Taub prepares to drill. He takes a second to make fun of her for liking Lane, and again says he really wants to know what attracts her to him. Why does he care? Martha says she doesn't know. Taub starts to drill, but then Lane goes into respiratory distress. Unable to get a breathing tube down Lane's throat, Taub does a quick and successful tracheotomy. Lane's life saved, all the OR nurse can do is comment that someone totally farted. She who smelt it, dealt it, OR nurse. Martha checks to see if Lane crapped himself in all the near-death excitement, only to find that Lane's feet are the source of the bad smell. Supposedly, it's a terrible smell, but no one noticed it until just now, so I don't get it.