Episode Report Card Lauren S: B | 1 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT Into the Wild
By Lauren S | Season 9 | Episode 2 | Aired on 10.04.2012
The next however long is spent, we see, through a sedative haze where Cristina only registers blurry outlines and faraway voices. She can see that Bailey is taking care of her, and later, that the others are eating in her room as we already saw once from Mere's perspective. But their voices are muffled to the point where she can barely understand them.
A while later, the fuzz seems to have cleared although her behavior is still that of a vegetable. The interns have gathered outside the window, gossiping about her; one of Alex's conquests asks about her and Smash answers that all she does all day is stare and breathe. Cristina turns away from them as the girl comments that people talk about her like she's a legend, which causes one of the others to make a very bad joke about her now being an end table. He's admonished and quickly apologizes but Cristina finds enough energy to reach over, pick up a ceramic vase full of flowers from the bedside table, and hurl it directly at them, breaking the glass and probably loosening the bowels of at least a couple of them, instilling a healthy terror for when she surely returns to work in the great Northwest once again. However, we know from earlier that this still isn't enough to get her to speak just yet.
Eventually she is discharged and Owen takes her back to the firehouse where he puts her in a bath and gently sponges her back while he makes soothing idle chitchat about taking a leave of absence and learning how to roast a chicken. He assures her that she'll feel stronger eventually, at whatever pace she needs, and then when she's ready she'll be back in the OR working her magic. He assures her she'll never have to deal with a patient or their family again; he'll handle all of that for her. She remains totally still with her arms on the side of the tub and her head bowed when he asks if she's ready to get out but when he gets up to grab a towel, she slowly starts to speak. I have a very hard time believing she'd be discharged before she said a word but the look on Owen's face -- like he is trying not to startle a wild animal -- says that this is the first time she's uttered anything and her first words are a totally heartbreaking, "I can't." She straightens up just a bit as he assures her he will help but she doesn't mean physically, and slowly she starts to quietly talk about what happened.
The nutshell is that it was a living hell. She stayed awake for four days straight and mumbles that she remembers every single minute. This includes trying to keep the bugs out of Arizona's leg wound and trying to keep Mark alive even though he kept dying: "It was so annoying." All she wanted to do was sleep on him because he was warm, and everyone else was asleep, but she couldn't seem to do it. When the water ran out, she drank something that might have been jet fuel as well as her own urine. Owen sits down on the floor while she is talking so that he can see her face, but she just continues staring straight ahead, quietly talking in a monotone. She heard animals fighting and growling right near them and was sure that they were going to come kill everyone but when that didn't happen she finally realized that they were fighting over Lexie. At this point Owen breathes that he is so sorry, but he does a good job keeping the worst of his heartbreak off of his face so that he can be there for her. Tears start to form in her eyes when she tells him she tried to keep them off but she couldn't. She then repeats that she can't get out, but Owen assures her that she is out now. He kisses her and reassures her that he has got her but she finally turns and really looks at him and then sadly pleads, "Can't you see? I'll never get out." I also assume, based on her story and the fact that we haven't seen or heard about him yet, that Jerry the pilot didn't get out either.