Now that the baby has arrived, Mary no longer seems possessed by the devil and Meredith and Lexie watch through the window as she and Clay cuddle with new baby Emma. In ten years, the number of Emmas running around is going to equal the number of Jennifers that I knew when I was growing up, when everyone had to tack on at least their last initial to know who the teacher was actually calling on in class. Meredith explains to Lexie that Mary has a butterfly tumor, so called because it is in both sides of her brain. Lexie thinks it was fairly selfish for a woman to choose to have a baby when she knew she was going to die, but Mere's not worried about this for Little (Future) Orphan Emma's well being -- she got Mary's scans and wants Lexie to take them to Derek so that he'll have an interesting case. Lexie has no interest in doing so and points out that Meredith is using her to get around the "no talking about neuro" rule but Meredith just counters that if Derek is happy and inspired, he'll probably stop yelling at Lexie. Meredith is a regular medical Cyrano de Bergerac. Or, if we're talking about my Jennifer-heavy school years and the movie that was a must at every slumber party, she's Steve Martin in Roxanne.
Cristina runs down Alex in the hall and tries to talk him into trading surgeries, but he already knows what's up and thinks she just wants an easy case. Teddy walks up behind them and hears them arguing, so Cristina very maturely tries to tattle on him that he said her service is easy. This just leads to another conversation about Alex's less-than-stellar record which he again blames on "dud patients." He and Teddy walk in to meet their patient and lying in bed is the Six Million Dollar Man himself. I guess when he got all those bionic limbs they forgot to reinforce all of his aortic valves, so he now needs open heart surgery to fix one. Today, Col. Steve Austin is going as "Chuck." Chuck is sporting silk pajamas, like you do when you're in the hospital, and gets worried as Alex describes the surgery. It turns out, though, that he's less worried about the procedure than he is about the scar -- he is a playboy of the senior pool scene and he thinks once he has a scar the ladies will suddenly see him only as unhealthy and will also figure the sex will be bad. Alex tries to argue but Teddy cuts him off and tells Chuck that they will see what they can do.
Lexie accosts Derek by the elevator and before he can actually strangle her for not having found the requested article she pulls out Mary's scans and shouts, "Look! Butterfly tumor!" The sprawling tumor is enough to make Derek forget about Lexie and a smile starts to grow on his face.
Cut to Mary's room, where Clay can't really wrap his head around what Derek is saying, since they've seen lots of surgeons and all have told them that surgery would likely put Mary into a coma or kill her. Derek tells them that he just wants to take a new scan, and Mary is all for it and manages to convince Clay to at least let her do that though he's not happy about it. Seriously, isn't it amazing that they have seen so many surgeons but happened to skip over the world-renowned brain surgeon that happens to work where they live?
April, stressed (as usual), stretched too thin, and desperate for help, grabs Meredith to assist her with mouse research. Cristina is hanging out in April's office, doing research on Tyler's surgery and feeding a piece of confiscated doughnut to a Mouse Q who doesn't know that he's diabetic and it might kill him. April does, though, and in her harried state she can only shriek and grab his cage away from Cristina. When it comes out that April wants Meredith to run some tests on Q, Cristina thinks April is just giving her grunt work while Mere points out that grunt work or no, Bailey hates her and holds her responsible for Richard losing this trial so would never, ever let her participate. April answers that this is why she'll be doing it in secret, and Cristina says what we are all thinking: this is the worst idea she has ever heard. When Meredith agrees, April realizes that she's again facing residents who just blow off any of her orders and so she takes what Alex said to heart and switches up her approach. She puts on a strange, deeper, kind of growly voice that sounds like it might hurt her throat after a little while, honestly. She threatens that if Meredith doesn't do this, she'll make her life hell, putting her on call every night and assigning her only the most disgusting patients. Meredith doesn't get scared but she does agree to do it, maybe just so April stops her "mean" voice, and Cristina actually seems a little bit impressed. When April asks if Meredith really agreed just because she changed her voice, Cristina warns her to leave before she can embarrass herself more, and April does. Cristina's phone then goes off and she leaves to go answer her call of duty. Mere asks suspiciously if they have talked yet but they seem to have just replaced talking completely with sex. Cristina still isn't interested in talking and points out that Meredith has her own issues, spending her fifth year delivering babies and playing with mice. Meredith has no comeback for this, and Cristina skips off to her husband.
Callie is back at work on Tyler's neck and is having some trouble getting the cage to fit. Mark is in the OR and asks if she needs help, but she tells him she's fine. Cristina has become a surrender monkey and immediately suggests that they do the fusion instead. As they argue, Arizona runs in to discuss dinner with Mark; there's a crisis since no one has time to go to the butcher! If looks could kill, Callie would have vaporized them both over her surgical mask. She finally yells at them to shut up about dinner and declares that she's closing Tyler back up so that she can come up with a new, non-fusion solution. Between Mark's elation that this now gives him time to go to the butcher and Cristina suddenly displaying less spine than even Tyler has, she might just need time for her blood pressure to lower a bit before she gets back to work.
With Mary's scans up in 3D on a screen in the room, Derek talks to them excitedly about how her tumor is different from any others he has seen before: it has smooth edges, so would be easier to cut around. Mary, cradling Emma, stops and asks Derek if he's really saying what she thinks he's saying. If he's saying he wants to go dig around in her brain with a sharp implement, then yes! Mary is elated but Clay is wary, and Lexie's telling them that Derek is great just isn't enough to cut the mustard. They start to argue and finally he yells "Emma," just like she yelled "brain tumor" earlier. Her face falls, knowing that this means he's serious. He's terrified that she might die and Emma wouldn't even have the promised six months with her mom. He pleads with her, and as she sadly looks at Derek we crash to commercial.
Meredith is working hard on her mouse research when Alex comes in, but she doesn't seem upset and admits she would be annoyed that April dumped the work on her but it turns out she's good at it. She also shows Alex the secret snack drawer she discovered and, well, everything is better with snacks. Personally, though, I'd rather have Brenda's snack drawer in The Closer because hers is filled with chocolate and other unhealthy delights while April has peanuts and granola bars and the like. April comes in and has the gall to moan at how messy Mere has made her office, so Mere points out that she's doing this to help April and orders her to get a healthy mouse. April moans about how she can't pull a mouse out from under Bailey's nose which makes Alex mock her voice once again so she puts on her creepy deep voice, congratulates Mere on a job well done, and leaves to go get a healthy rodent. Cristina comes in and moans about her case, asking the others what would happen if she took her name off of it. Alex thinks she should do it and then mentions the TAVI procedure, which Cristina immediately tells him is a giant risk. Lexie then runs in to tell Meredith about how she finally got Derek to look at the scans and he can get the tumor, but they aren't doing it because Clay is too nervous and convinced Mary not to. Mere asks her questions about how she tried to help and when she realizes that Lexie might not have been super convincing, she gets up and leaves to fix things, mumbling about how she has to do everything herself. Over on the sofa, Alex looks over Cristina's shoulder at her phone and compliments her on how hot the texts are. Coming from Alex, that's high praise from a master.