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.