Since his injury, Chase has been avoiding House and his work at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, instead undergoing physical therapy and what Foreman calls his "night-time version of it".
Still on crutches, he is persuaded by Foreman to return to clinic duty, where he encounters a postulant complaining of sudden-onset left shoulder pain.
The patient's foot goes numb, and a round of team diagnostics leads to the conclusion of vasospasm and prescription of calcium channel blockers, which prompts a seemingly-full recovery.
Their conversation in bed is interrupted by her suddenly developing a swollen neck and tinnitus, indicating a carotid artery dissection.
Despite the team's opposition, House backs Chase as the best surgeon available to perform the emergency surgery, and the patient pulls through.
With the addition of liver failure to the patient's symptoms, the team diagnoses lymphoma; House apologetically cuts off Chase's attempts to find a less-lethal conclusion.
Breaking the news to the patient, Chase reveals that he left the seminary after he was caught sleeping with the groundskeeper's wife, and admits that he has always struggled with faith.
House finds Chase researching near-death experiences and chides him for selfishly attempting to deflate her hopes, even if they are in his view a delusion.
Even still Chase goes to give her a presentation he has made on 'noradrenalin and near-death experiences' but throws it in the bin after he sees Moira praying in her bed.