Recently on ER, Elizabeth told Nathan she'd be failing him. Eric, who'd been AWOL from the Air Force, got arrested at County General and shouted bitterly at Abby as he left.
Abby Lockhart nibbles tensely on her nails while Michael Gallant talks on the phone with some military powers-that-be who might help her locate Eric. Gallant spells out "Wyczenski" in the military alphabet -- you know, "Whiskey, Yanni, Cacophony, Zenith, Enigmatic, Nefarious, Saliva, Kryptonite, Ignominious." Gallant seems stymied by his inability to get through to people in the know, and drops the I'm With The Family card. "They don't talk to family members," Abby hisses. Gallant refuses to lie for her. "I just want to know where he is!" Abby yelps. Out of the corner of her eye, Abby notices a smart-assed young guy harassing a bearded homeless guy -- named, appropriately enough, "Bearded Homeless Guy" -- played by the actor who was crazy Mr. Heckles on Friends. Abby bolts to separate them, and is aided by an incoming John Carter, who helps her escort Mr. Heckles to his own seat. Carter has just been up at Great Lakes looking for news about Eric; he exposits that Eric spent the night in the brig there before being transferred back to Nebraska. Since that's where he's based, I'm not sure why it's such earth-shattering information. "He might as well be in Manila," Abby brats. Gallant triumphantly hangs up and announces that he got a phone number, but Abby snaps that it's a number she's already tried three times. Poor Gallant looks crushed that he wasn't of more help.
Abby throws up her hands and decides to go to Nebraska right away, because she's always wanted to go to Manila. She marches into the doctors' lounge while Carter trots behind her making plans for them to hop a midday flight the day. Abby refuses. She wants it now, Daddy. "My shift started five minutes ago," Carter says. "I can't dump it." He says it as if there's no way Abby will go without him. Abby isn't buying it. "You don't have to come," she shrugs. "You can't go alone," Carter says, taken aback. "I usually do this by myself," mutters Abby Lockhart, Seasoned Heroine. Carter suggests that she take Gallant with her. "Yeah, that's exactly what I need. A med student," Abby snorts. Carter points out that to them, he's but a lowly med student, yet to the officers on base, Gallant is a hot piece of tail in olive pants. Abby ignores Carter's prattle and rudely snaps, "Can you call me a cab?"
Outside, Abby hurriedly gives Carter some instructions -- she wants him to pack some t-shirts, socks, and underwear. "Make sure you pull from the top," she warns. "Those are my respectable ones." What, the crotchless crack-flosser is too sexy for men in uniform? Perhaps Abby should consider her audience, and the amount of success she might have if her undies-to-skin ratio is tiny. As she staggers up to the cab, Gallant appears with a dry-cleaning bag dangling from his fingers. "Uniform," he says. Carter grins smugly that he thought it might help Abby's cause. He's all proud that he thwarted her admittedly short-sighted refusal to bring Gallant. "You don't have to do this, Gallant," Abby sighs. "Never been to Omaha," he smiles casually. Carter slides a textbook across the top of the cab so that Gallant can study for a major exam while traveling. Abby turns to Carter with a wry grin, figuring that Gallant shouldn't risk failing his rotation because of her family. That would be yet another way Abby's family could make viewers miserable. Carter quietly informs Abby that his flight lands at 11:30 the morning. Abby stares at him for a second, and the merest hint of affection creeps into her eyes. "Thank you," she says, but it comes off way too grudging to be truly grateful; she hugs him gingerly. "See you in Nebraska," he whispers. We see Abby hug Carter tighter for a second before letting go, staring at him again, and ducking into the cab. Carter taps on the window, and the car putters away.
As Carter ambles back inside, the camera shifts upward for an overhead shot of him staring in wonder at the tiny snowflakes drifting from the sky. But on this show, it can't just snow. It has to The Great Sweeps Week Weather Crisis. A weird twinkly music-box tune plays as we see time pass; the window outside the ER frosts, the snow continues to fall, and when Carter re-emerges in daylight, he stops short: the ambulance bay is blanketed by at least a foot of snow, a lone rig almost buried in place. The Jarring Chord of Dude, Where's My Rig? slams us into the commercial break. We fade to black wondering why absolutely no ambulances came to County all night to disrupt the enormous cake of snow.
Nathan stands rooted to the floor outside the men's room, unable to will himself inside. He must've heard about all the unflattering camera angles that have been perpetrated in there. "Come on, come on," he urges his foot through gritted teeth. Carter wanders down the hall on his cell phone and holds the door open, gesturing for Nathan to lead the way inside. Nathan shakes his head. "I could be here awhile," he admits. The camera pans around Nathan as the door swings shut; Mr. Heckles drifts into the background spouting math theorems. He doesn't really have a point in this episode; he just shows up all hot with the axioms and Pythagoras and the alphabetic erotica of Poindexters everywhere. This is enough to impel Nathan's funky limb to hightail into the bathroom. "You okay?" Carter asks him casually. Nathan limps to the urinal. "It's worse when I wake up," he shrugs. They banter about the snow -- It fell! A lot! They're trapped! -- until Carter's cell phone rings.
"John!" Abby shouts into the phone. Oh, praise to the Jeebus child, she knows his name! Abby is calling Carter from Eric's base in Nebraska, standing in front of a loud hangar. "You were right -- Gallant's a fast talker," she shouts over the noise. Carter asks if she saw the news; he bellows twice into the phone that they got three feet of snow in seven hours, and in turn we learn that no one's confirmed Eric's presence on the base. Meanwhile, Nathan is trying to wash his hands, and both are trembling. Keeping his body still, Nathan's eyes dart around furtively, then he snaps his right hand over his left. Carter spies this out of the corner of his eye. "You all right?" he mouths. Nathan nervously insists that he is.
An angry Air Force officer screams at Abby to get off the phone. Gallant, trotting beside him, repeats the request a little more gently, so Abby quickly signs off and snaps the phone shut. Gallant is wearing a beret. If it was warm, he wouldn't wear much more. Prince and I would see to that. Gallant moves protectively to Abby's side. "The office issued us a visitors' pass and suggested we look for you in Hangar 12," he explains. Officer Pissy snaps that they're staring deep into the belly of Hangar 13. "Oh," Gallant exhales. "'Oh' what?" sneers Officer Pissy. "'Oh, sir'...sir," Gallant says awkwardly. Officer Pissy waxes rhapsodic about how funny and popular Eric is. "Unfortunately, he didn't feel much responsibility toward his squadron or the Air Force," he sighs. Abby begs to know whether Eric's there. "I just came off a seventy-two-hour live-fire exercise short one air-traffic controller," Officer Pissy barks. "If he was..." Abby throws up her hands and blurts that she can't believe Officer Pissy hasn't been informed. "[He has] bipolar disease. He's manic," she rants, grabbing a skeleton from the family closet and winging a femur at Officer Pissy. He looks surprised. "Wherever he is -- wherever you've lost him -- he needs help!" Abby barks, beating Officer Pissy with a shinbone.
Everything's quiet at the hospital because no one's plowed the ambulance bay. Lily is on the phone with Lydia, so obviously, neither of them is among the three senior nurses Carter supposedly fired. That plot got dropped like Luka's pants. "It's so quiet," breathes Erin Harkins, wigged. "Isn't it freaky?" Susan Lewis grins, making her way to Carter's side. "Trying to rent a snowmobile?" she giggles. "Considering it," Carter says. "Can't even get them to answer the phone." Erin bounces over and chirps that the rack's clear, triage is empty, and labs are pending on all current patients. "What do I do now?" she jiggles. Carter shrugs. "Go play in the snow," he says offhandedly. Erin looks confused, then turns on her heel and skips away. Susan suddenly spies Elizabeth Corday entering with a bundled baby. "Ella!" Susan exclaims happily. "I'm soaked to the knees!" Elizabeth pants. "All I did was walk from the El." Carter's head jerks up at news that he could hop the El train out of town and back into Abby's heart.
Abby sucks down a cigarette. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," Gallant warns her lightly. Abby Knows Best is all, "Nurse this, boy." So Gallant casually nods over toward a tanker of jet fuel; still, Abby snarls and doesn't put out her butt. Brat. "Amy Lockhart?" calls out a friendly- but officious-looking young lieutenant. Abby whirls and corrects him on the name; he introduces himself as Lt. Ottenson -- no idea if that's right; my closed-captioning is broken and I couldn't find the character's name anywhere -- and explains that Eric hasn't officially been charged with anything. "Is he acting combative?" Abby asks hurriedly. "I don't know, I haven't seen him yet," Ottenson apologizes. Abby demands to see Eric, and learns to her frustration that he's not there. "He was transferred to base hospital Saturday morning," Ottenson says. Abby tenses and suppresses her urge to beat the ottenson out of him.
Carter marches out of the ER. A snowball beans him in the head; a contrite Erin freaks, eyes big as planets. "I thought you were Malik," she gushes. "Do I look like Malik?" Carter wonders, amused. Malik trots up behind Erin. "Sorry, man, you ain't that good-looking," he grins, thwacking Erin in the head with what looks like an ice ball and clearly tickled that his balls are flying at her face. "What are you doing?" Carter asks. "You told me to play in the snow," Erin panics, looking afraid that Carter's about to bust her for goofing off. "You can't let him outflank you like that," Carter advises kindly, sauntering off on his way. Erin snaps into action and, geeked by the ball warfare, ducks to make another snow missile.
On his way out, Carter bumps into Luka Kovac, who has skied to work. On downhill skis, so that can't have been terribly quick or fun, but hey, he gets to look manly and overpaid. Luka asks if Abby found Eric. Carter explains importantly that he's en route to Midway to sit there and wait for the airport to re-open so he can go to Nebraska. "She's already there. She left last night," Carter adds. Luka studies him. "You didn't go with her?" Luka asks. "I had a shift," Carter says. "I sent Gallant with her." Luka cocks an eyebrow. "Yeah?" he asks. "Why?" Carter retorts, starting to get a little defensive. He wants to throw down, but he's intimidated by Luka's giant pole. Ski pole, that is. Luckily, this stops before they whip it out and golden-shower each other to death in a shockingly literal pissing contest. Susan shouts that they've got multiple traumas incoming; a drunk driver plowed into a family that was building a snowman. "Where's Weaver?" Carter asks. No go -- Weaver's car is stuck, and Susan points out that it's going to take a while for her to cane her way through the snow. "I thought we were closed to ambulance traffic. How's anybody going to get here, anyway?" Carter pouts, frowning and stomping back to the hospital while mentally adding another chapter to his autobiography, Nobody Knows The Trouble I Seen.
Cut to Elizabeth and Nathan in the elevator, preparing to meet a MedEvac copter. She gives him instructions on how to behave and what to watch for if the wind is disorienting. She then helps Nathan don his yellow slicker. Slowly, Nathan's left hand starts trembling again. "You have a tremor on the left," Elizabeth notices suddenly. "I only noticed it on the right. Have you had symptoms on the left before?" Nathan ascribes it to stress and sleep deprivation, as always, but Elizabeth gently suggests that his Parkinson's is progressing. "My rotation's almost over," he snaps. With an air of sympathy, Elizabeth wonders why he puts himself through such insane shifts at the hospital. "Please don't treat me like I'm dying," Nathan says testily. "Can we just go get this patient?" The doors open. "Stick with me and stay clear of the tail rotor," Elizabeth yells. You know, if they'd wanted to cut off someone's arm and had it be relatively in-character, as opposed to Romano's careless moment, this would've been the time. Nathan's dyskinesia could've caused his arm to shoot out and come off. Okay, fine, that's a little insensitive, but at least it wouldn't involve turning Romano into a dumb-ass. That's an unforgivable sin. Nathan's body stalls at the lip of the elevator, and you can see in his eyes that he's praying for one last burst of momentum; he gets it.
Ottenson, Gallant, and Abby drive to the base hospital while the former exposits that Eric's coherent and has to go up against a Rule 706 Sanity Board at noon. "Up against?" Abby frets as they get out of the car. Ottenson explains that it's a formality that will help him avoid a court martial, but might result in his getting a medical discharge. They enter the hospital in step with one another, and Abby bolts right past her mother Maggie (Sally Field) without seeing her, too busy freaking that nobody bothered to call and get a family history. "If he'd asked...I'm sure someone would've contacted you," Ottenson says tiredly. "You can't count on him. He's not thinking clearly," insists She Who Shall Not Be Incorrect. Maggie stands abruptly. "Abby," she calls out. Abby stops, takes a second to process what she heard, and then slowly turns around. "Hi," she says, stunned, searching her mother's face for the crazy, or for bits of the set dangling from the corner of her mouth. "The doctor's in with him now," Maggie says as Abby blinks. She does a lot of blinking. We fade to black wondering if this is because Maura Tierney is conducting contract negotiations in Morse code.
Ow, there's a bright light in my eyes. I would move toward it, but that would take me right to Elizabeth, and...no. She's examining Toby, whose mother and brother Matt are the two other drunk-driver victims. The father was spared because he was inside searching for a carrot to use as the nose. Imagine that -- a vegetable being used for good and not evil. Poor Toby isn't having a good day. "His brain is mush," Elizabeth deduces. "Tell me the drunk driver died on impact," Susan grunts. But Elizabeth is distracted by Matt's arrival door in Trauma Yellow; she's about to go to him, but the mother joins them in Trauma Green. "She jumped in front of her kids and the truck hit her straight on," the paramedic says. Elizabeth stares at her, moved, not understanding the concept of the selfless impulse. "Please, save my boys," the dying woman croaks. "Save...my boys." Luka decides to take control here. His boys are just fine, thank you. Elizabeth whirls into...
...Trauma Yellow, where Carter is helping Matt, who's conscious. Which sucks, given that he's undergoing a whole lot of what doctors and other ER professionals refer to as "medical hoo-ha." Carter reports the presence of massive chest contusions and a whole horde of shattered ribs. "He should be dead," Carter marvels. Um, Carter? The kid's awake. He can hear you. You're going to ruin Christmas if you keep this up. "He would be if his mother hadn't jumped in front of him," Elizabeth intones.
Abby and Maggie sit side by side, neither looking at the other. "Have you talked to him?" Abby asks. "Briefly, on the phone," Maggie says. Abby looks further away and draws a shaky breath before admitting that "it" is happening to Eric. "He showed up in Chicago with this girl he'd just met, and I knew he didn't have that much leave, but mostly I just...saw it," Abby exhales. Is this the same "it" that's been plaguing Joey Potter her whole life? "I just felt it right away," Abby continues. Maggie blinks hard as Abby goes on about how she should've called Maggie, but she panicked and ended up getting Eric arrested. Maggie tries to get Abby to relax, but she won't. "I needed to know, I had to know," Abby spits bitterly. "So I called here and I...got his medical records, and they had misdiagnosed depression. They thought it was stress." Maggie gulps. "We thought it was situational," Maggie says, getting up and pacing across the room, leaving a stunned Abby in her wake. "What?" Abby gapes. Maggie exposits that she made Eric see her doctor, and even he thought it was post-traumatic stress. Abby is wounded that Maggie knew all along, and she didn't. "Post-traumatic stress? Mom, you're bipolar," Abby hisses. "Do you even know anything about your disease?" Oh, says Abby the expert. She should be happier that Maggie seems so in control, but no, that's not about Abby and this situation can be, so poof, self-righteous rage wins. Maggie bristles but handles it well. "Yeah, Abby, I know a lot about it," she says levelly. She Who Rules the Roost demands to know why she wasn't told; Maggie tries to feed her a line about protecting her, but Abby's allergic to bullshit, so Maggie admits that Eric specifically did not want Abby to know. Looking punched in the gut, Abby sucks wind. Credit goes to Maura Tierney for the fact that you can see defiance give way to hurt in her eyes.
In Trauma Green, the boys' mother is totally messed up. Nathan says the father -- who I'll call Dodger after his character on China Beach -- wants to enter. "No!" shouts Elizabeth. Finally, someone talks some sense and keeps a family member from watching all this wacky death shit. They're going to have to crack the mother's chest. RibSpreaderCam must've cost this show a fortune, because they're using it ad nauseum. And I do mean that, because Dodger barges in at just this moment and barfs up a lung. Ah, sweet vomit. Where would we be without you? Now Dodger has sticky yellow puke residue on his mouth -- which, given that his mouth already looks like Steven Tyler's, isn't doing him any aesthetic favors. Nathan tries to shove Dodger into the hallway as Luka starts compressions and the machines beep away his wife's life. "Your wife is bleeding into her chest," Nathan yells. "The doctors are trying to save her." Dodger doesn't want to leave, though, even though he hears Luka say, "Her heart's empty!" Dodger is a sucker for the vomit comet. He wants to ride that puppy hard and put it away wet, but Nathan shoves him into the hallway to save me from having to write any more about this.
Chuny grabs Elizabeth for help in Trauma Yellow because Matt's rib may have punctured his heart and his lungs are, to use the technical term, totally whacked. Erin bounces around behind Carter saying things she imagines are useful. She's like one of those stress toys with sand at the bottom, where you hit it and no matter how hard your blow was, she bounces right back up, all willy-nilly and bushy-tailed. Someone should puncture her just once. Randi enters and shouts that Abby's on line two, but since there's a dying family on his hands, Carter smartly tells her that now's not the best time for reruns of The Abby Lockhart Show. Elizabeth says Matt's having a massive MI and she can't repair the coronary artery because it would be feeding a dead heart. Suddenly, she catches Susan's eye; Susan is wheeling a brain-dead Toby out of Trauma Green. Elizabeth stares back at Matt for a second, then dashes out into the hallway to chase her epiphany. Susan shares that Toby's basically a veggie salad at this point, so an inspired Elizabeth tells her to get a transplant team there right away.
Dodger spies Toby's gurney and brightens at what looks like his un-mangled son. Then he recognizes Elizabeth. "Aren't you working on my wife?" he asks, confused. "I'm working on your family," Elizabeth corrects urgently. She explains as carefully as she can that Toby is brain-dead; Dodger can't quite digest all this. Susan ducks into Trauma Green so that Elizabeth can spend a few more moments with Dodger. "Your other son, Matt -- his heart is failing," Elizabeth pants. "The artery that feeds it is severed. His lungs are bruised and filled with blood. His only chance is a heart and lung transplant in the six hours." She might as well be speaking Urdu for all the comprehension that's in Dodger's face. Elizabeth clearly explains that she wants to grab Toby's heart and lungs and hook them up in Matt's body. Dodger can't deal with this. He doesn't deal in innards. "This son is dead," Elizabeth says bluntly. "I might have a chance to save the other one." Dodger reels. Dodger is not an actor, he's a reactor. "No, he's just...save them both," he nods pleadingly. He's not ready to give immediate consent, and Elizabeth's needed door, so she grabs Nathan and urgently whispers that he absolutely must work on Dodger until he agrees to the transplant. Now, of all times, when his peer-pressure skills are most needed, Nathan decides Dodger isn't really ready to make this decision. "Make him understand," Elizabeth presses. "We just have one shot at his other boy."
I'm so bored of Abby complaining. Here's another scene where she moans and groans about not being told anything, like military information is some big national-security secret or something. Personally, I don't blame them for trying to keep the terrorist of misery out of the loop. Gallant makes all these cute overtures, offering to pick up food for Abby and Maggie, but She Who Is Selfish cuts him off and pats him condescendingly on the lapels. I want to smack her for disrespecting his torso. "You came here to help me get on base, and I got on base," she says. "Thank you. Now you should go." Gallant doesn't think he needs to, but Abby argues this at every turn. "This is my family," she says quietly. "You should go." And he disappears, just like that -- the shot moves slightly, he's no longer in it, and then poof, he's gone. I can't believe Abby didn't even so much as hug Gallant or offer him anything other than "I'm only thanking you so you'll get out of my face" gratitude. At this point, I'd be buying him chocolates and flowers and nibbling on his ear. Is that wrong?
Ottenson appears. "Can I go in now?" Abby asks expectantly. "He asked to see his mom," Ottenson says uncomfortably. "Only his mom." Abby's gutted once again. "Does he know I'm here?" Abby asks. Ottenson affirms this. "And he doesn't want to see me?" Abby asks in a tiny voice. She crumples inside a little. Maggie promises to put in a good word for her and leaves Abby alone to lick her wounds. Maura Tierney does some weird duck-lipped pout thing, like she's about to quack herself into a tearful hissyfit.
Meanwhile, Dodger's wife is sliced wide open, which is usually not a good sign this early in the show. "He's getting consent?" Susan asks, nodding toward Nathan's furtive and fevered discussion with Dodger. "He's trying," Elizabeth nods. "Comes in handy, I guess," Susan observes. "He's good at talking patients into stuff." The mother goes into arrest; door, Matt's in v-tach. Elizabeth tears off her gloves and tells them they can stick a fork in the mother; she's done.
Matt's getting shocked. They dope him up with all kinds of stuff, but he's not responding. Nathan staggers inside. "I got it," he breathes. "I showed him the EEG." Matt's heart is still struggling to find its rhythm. "Get the brother upstairs," Elizabeth orders Nathan. "I need that transplant team now." Suddenly, Matt's heart stabilizes for a second, and Elizabeth decides that this might be their only safe window to get him up to the OR. Carter's understandably a little nervous about this, but Elizabeth points out that their options are limited here. They are getting close to half-time, and every second of non-advertiser blowjob time counts.
Outside, Dodger sweetly puts his hand on Toby's face. "I'm here, kiddo," he whispers lovingly. "It's not gonna hurt." Aw, that's so sad. Usually the tertiary medical drama does nothing for my heartstrings, but Dodger's bumming me out. Luka watches the mother flatline. Elizabeth rushes Matt's gurney toward the elevator. "You gotta make this work," Dodger pleads. "You promised me." Elizabeth looks worriedly at him as the elevator doors close, leaving Dodger alone with Nathan and Toby. Dodger wipes his prodigiously sweaty forehead and sighs. "It's okay, baby," he tells Toby. "You're gonna help your brother, okay?" Nathan watches this with sad eyes. Dodger suddenly snaps his head up. "Bring him in to my wife," he says. You know, it's so funny how "in to" versus "into" can change a sentence. The first time I wrote that, it read, "Bring him into my wife," and it all felt uncomfortably Star Trek. "She's got to say goodbye," sniffles Dodger. Nathan hangs his head, fairly sure that Dodger's day is about to become a long, painful, non-Austrian version of So Long, Farewell, but without singing nuns or moppets. We fade to black feeling pretty damn sorry for Dodger, yet pretty damn sure that he, Steven Tyler, and Patrick Ewing all descended from the same half-evolved Neanderthal family.
Shirley helps herd the gurneys into OR-2. But before they get there, Matt crashes into v-fib again and the paddles are dead, so Elizabeth bolts into the OR, grabs two paddles, stretches them into the hallway, and shocks him back into a safe heart rhythm. Then the camera follows her as she sprints into the scrub room and washes up while someone puts a hairnet on her. This scene is very well blocked; all her marks must be very precise, and she hits them all. "Where's my transplant team?" she screams. Carter, in the OR with Matt, wants to know what to do. Elizabeth gowns up and tells Shirley to prep Toby door; she's going to get things going until the transplant team shows up. Where's My Scalpel in A Minor plays as Elizabeth grabs the knife and whips up a batch of Fillet of Matt. Through a series of quick cuts, we see the prep procedure's different stages; finally, the transplant doctors rush inside to take the helm. "And I thought I had a snow day," the doctor grins. Elizabeth and Carter leave the OR, but turn to watch. "Wow," Carter breathes. "Yeah," Elizabeth nods. "WOW," Carter repeats, this time with more awed emphasis. "Yeah," grins Elizabeth, glowing. It's really kind of cute. It's been a while since Elizabeth got excited about her work.
Maggie and Abby pace through the hospital. "He can't hide from you," Maggie is explaining. "You saw him manic, and he hasn't accepted it yet." Abby confirms that Eric's taking the medicine. "Not by choice," Maggie clarifies. "That could take time. He's emotionally exhausted, and he's scared. Try not to be confrontational." Abby shoots her a withering look. "I've got this down, thanks," She Who Shall Not Be Instructed snits. I want to slap her. Yeah, Maggie's not always this clear, but when she is, hello, I'd say she's the current expert on how a depressed person wants to be treated.
Maggie and Abby enter Eric's room. He's sitting placidly on the bed, clad in his uniform and looking absolutely adorable. "Hi," she says timidly. "Were you expecting a straitjacket?" he says without a smile. Abby tries to make conversation about his hearing, but he's not really into the small talk. "You wanted out anyway, right?" she asks lamely. "Yeah, it's all a ploy," he deadpans emotionlessly. Silence. "You know I love you, right?" Abby asks, with the desperate loneliness of a big sister clinging to her baby brother. "You know that," she repeats, shaky. "I was worried about you because I love you." Eric bitterly adds that she thinks he's crazy. "Truth is, I was having a pretty good time," he insists. Abby coughs uncomfortably. Maggie wisely watches in silence. "I want you to come back to Chicago with me," Abby begins gently. Eric's bitter laugh catches her off-guard. "That sounds like a lot of fun," he snarks. "Maybe you could call the MPs again." Abby gapes at him and lectures that he's seen this disease before and he knows how horrifying it will be if he doesn't stay vigilant with the medication. "Abby, she's right there," Eric scolds her, nodding at Maggie. "I know she is," Abby spits. "She'll tell you. Mom, tell him...Tell him, Mom!" Maggie simply gazes at her daughter. "Mom, tell him," Abby orders one last time. Maggie silently picks up her coat, pats Eric on the shoulder, and says, "I'll be in the waiting room." A disgusted Abby watches her go.
"What the hell, Abby?" Eric asks, annoyed. "Yeah, what the hell? You called her?" Abby rants, bruised. "It took me three days to find you and...you called her, the most unreliable, undependable person in our lives?" Eric snorts at the notion that Abby thinks she's so dependable. "To you, I am," Abby chokes in anguish. Eric sets his jaw. "Sorry. I have to apologize to poor Abby," he snarls. "Poor, poor Abby. My career's over, and she doesn't get to be the savior again." I find myself agreeing with him here, even though I think he's in major denial. Abby feels way too entitled to other people's pain. "You need help, Eric, and Mom screwed up the first time you went to her," Abby wheedles. Eric insists that he is fine, and that he didn't go to Maggie at all; she thought she saw something and dragged him to a therapist. Ottenson interrupts before their fight can progress. Eric's due at his hearing.
The drunk driver who hit the Snow Family Robinson drools and drawls while Nathan examines him grudgingly. "Get me something for the pain, brother!" he shouts. Nathan looks like he'd enjoy an impromptu appearance by the Raging Fist of Dyskinesia. Sadly, all he has now is his sass. "All that alcohol wasn't enough, brother?" Nathan spits. Asswipe slurs that he only had one beer. Yeah, right. In the car, maybe. Elizabeth coldly takes over the examination. "Did you do it?" Nathan asks. "Ask me in six hours. The transplant team's working now," she replies. As Nathan lists and jerks to one side, Elizabeth notices a seatbelt contusion on Asswipe's stomach. "Safety first," Nathan grumps. Because he is a sweet, tactful soul, Asswipe points at Nathan's twitching and asks if he's got Tourette's. "They let you be a doctor like this?" he gawks. "Only with patients they don't care about," Nathan fires back. And suddenly, the world loves Nathan again. Asswipe can't fathom that he just got dissed. Asswipe is so blitzed that words don't actually penetrate. "Do you know what you did?" yells Nathan. "You killed a whole family." Asswipe pshaws that he hit a snowman. "They were making a snowman, you jerk!" Nathan screams. Elizabeth sends Nathan away before he whips himself into a Tazmanian Devil tizzy and spins through Asswipe like a power saw.
Eric climbs into a Jeep with one last petulant glance at Abby, who's watching through the window. "You have to give him time, Abby," Maggie insists. Abby turns angrily. "Now you speak?" she growls. "Now you have an opinion?" As Maggie tries to argue that Eric can't feel like they're ganging up, Abby stalks away, deliberately putting a wall between herself and her mother so that she can flip Maggie the bird. Abby insists that she wasn't pushing him; Maggie begs to differ because she heard Abby pushing Chicago as a living option already. "I'm not so sure he should be hospitalized," Maggie posits. "That's not really your decision," She Who Shall Rule All She Beholds snarks. "Is it yours?" Maggie retorts pointedly. I hate when Maggie reads my mind. Abby explains, as if to a seven-year-old, that the drugs are what make Eric appear normal. Maggie gives her a look that says, "And you think I'd be having this conversation if I wasn't just as hopped up?" Instead, she says, "I know the pathology, sweetie. And yes, the easy thing would be to try to commit him." Abby snorts. Maggie insists that Eric has to accept the disease first and learn to accommodate it. Abby counters that until that time, he needs to be watched and force-fed his meds or he'll stop taking them. "You always did," she jabs. Maggie can't deny this. She inches toward Abby, who is quietly starting to cry. "Trust me on this," Maggie whispers. "It's like AA. It's got to be his decision." Ooh, and Abby's been so great about AA. I love it when Abby's hypocrisy does a striptease right in front of her face. "I have been living with this disease my entire life," Abby hisses. "Please don't lecture me." Oh, gross, she did NOT just imply that she's been handling this longer than Maggie has. Yeah, yeah, sorry about your childhood, Abby, but you're not the only person to whom shit happens. Strap on a jet-pack and get the fuck OVER it. "You've never been inside it," Maggie points out. "What is that? Inside it," Abby frowns, wiping her eyes petulantly. "Like you two have some sort of special bond now because you're both inside of it." Maura Tierney again does a great job here. You can feel that she's watching her bond with Eric erode. She and he were a united front, and now, he's crossed onto Maggie's side, and she's alone, and whether or not she should feel that way, she does. Nice acting. Maggie calmly reminds Abby that things can't revert to the way they were, and there's no quick fix for this -- Eric's got to wage this battle for the rest of his life. Abby blinks hard. "Emmy clip," she is saying to her agent.
Nathan treats a queasy little girl who needs a basic work-up. As he goes to put the ear scope in, though, he twitches and it shoves inside her aural canal a little harder than he intended. The girl shrieks and starts bawling loudly, embarrassing Nathan and alerting Weaver to the problem. "I don't think I really hurt her," he covers pathetically. "Then why is she crying?" snarls the mother. Frustrated, Nathan slaps the scope into Weaver's hands and ignores her orders to finish the work-up. He rips off his gloves, casts them to the floor, and stomps off in a blue fit.
Dodger sits on the floor of Trauma Green, slumped against a cabinet. His wife's open body lies lifeless on the gurney. It looks like there are wasted gloves lying on the floor near him, which is sort of repellent and spoils the sadness of the moment. Elizabeth peers inside and gently tells him that the transplant team is buzzing away on Matt's re-lungification. "When will you know?" he asks. "It's a delicate procedure, especially on children," she hedges, offering to take him to the upstairs waiting room. But Dodger can't leave. He then gives a stirring rendition of the If Things Hadn't Gone Awry monologue, moving Elizabeth to the point that she enters the room fully and lets the door swing shut behind her. "You made the right decision," she whispers. "The only one you could." Dodger, broken, shakes his head in disbelief at the tragedy of it all. "It may not seem like it, but, um, I know what you're feeling," Elizabeth begins gingerly. Bitterly, Dodger refutes this. "Actually," Elizabeth says, her eyes filling with tears, "my husband...his name was Mark...he died." Dodger's face contorts in shared grief. "My God, I was about to say last year. It was only six months ago," Elizabeth chokes. She has already emoted more than she ever did during his actual death. That's the tragedy of Mark's life -- everyone seems to like him in retrospect and not in the moment. Except me. I don't like him either way. ["Me neither. It's like we're soulmates!" -- Wing Chun]
"I tried to pretend once Mark was gone that I could pull myself up, continue like normal," Elizabeth continues. "But it doesn't work like that. You can't run away from it. It's like...this big relentless wave that you have to ride." She bites her lip as Dodger watches her, rapt. "But I'm riding it," she adds. "Somehow, you hold on to what you've lost and you find a way to go on without shutting off. It's not easy, but you do it." Aw, this is kind of sad. She reminds Dodger with shining eyes that, one day, he'll look at Matt and see all the wonderful things that live on in him, rather than the pain of what's missing. She delivers this with a bizarre beaming smile that isn't at all suited to Elizabeth, but I guess this is her emotional turning point. It's just that she's making it with such gusto, she'll get whiplash. "He needs to be okay," Dodger whimpers. "I need him to be okay." He's doing a great job, too. He's not in hysterics, but he's visibly squiffy, and even though I'm terrified of his semi-evolved ape jaw, I kind of want to hug him. A tear trickles down his face. "He will be," Elizabeth avers, reaching out and clutching Dodger to her chest. He sobs into her shoulder, and we fade to black feeling sorry for Mark that this man's getting more affection from Elizabeth than he ever did.
Nebraska. Eric's lawyer explains to Abby that there wasn't enough evidence to prove that Eric was mentally incompetent. "[Eric] demanded due process," he explains. Abby worries that he won't stay medicated; the lawyer lets her in to see him in his tiny little cell.
Eric stares straight ahead. He really must not like Abby's new hair. "You requested a court martial?" Abby asks point-blank. "I was done in less than thirty," Eric shrugs. "The worst they'll do is discharge me, maybe a couple weeks of confinement." Abby can't believe this. Eric insists that he didn't hurt anyone or break any laws or act irresponsibly, except for the many ways in which he did both of the latter two things. "I just needed a change," he sighs. "You went AWOL," Abby reminds him. "That's between me and them," Eric replies. "They want me to say I'm crazy. I'm not going to say it." Abby sits down and rubs her forehead while Eric reminds her that Maggie was crazy, and he's not acting anything like Maggie did. "You can say it all you want," Eric wheedles. "I'm not her."
Nathan may not have learned surgery at County General, but he did learn the practice of pouting up on the roof. Elizabeth finds him up there; she's bundled up, but he isn't. Okay there. "You okay?" she calls out. "No symptoms," he laughs bitterly. "Perfect timing, huh?" Elizabeth approaches and hands him an envelope containing his evaluation; without looking at it, he shoves it into his pocket. "There's no middle ground with you, is there?" marvels Elizabeth. Nathan spits that the disease is going to cripple him. "Just when I learn how to deal with another symptom, it progresses," he sighs. "I expected...time. Time to figure out if..." Nathan pauses. "Time's gonna kick my ass," he finishes. Elizabeth can't believe he's just going to give up. "Isn't that what you wanted?" he asks. Damn well looked like it for a while there, but Elizabeth insists that, no, she's just that bitchy to everyone. "I wanted you to recognize your limitations," she says gently. "I thought you were trying to prove something. But you probably saved that little boy's life today." As Nathan listens impassively, Elizabeth credits him with connecting to Dodger at a time when no one else could, and guiding him toward making the right decision. "Any idiot can suture a wound and put in a chest tube," Elizabeth says. I wish Erin were listening. "You have a gift, Mr. Nathan. The gift of a physician," she stresses. "It's up to you to decide if you want to share that gift, and then find a way." She turns and leaves, then stops for a second. "By the way, I keep my promises. I failed you," she says lightly. Nathan watches her go with a glow of respect in his eyes. Unless that's burning hatred. Whatever. They're both fiery.
A plane soaring overhead transitions us back to Nebraska. Abby plops down on the hospital steps, where Maggie already sits, and hands her a soda. "All they had was Diet Shasta," she says. "They still make this?" Maggie grimaces, staring at the can. "I hope so," Abby giggles. Hee. Silence. Abby finally tells Maggie that she's probably going to have to testify, and that she needs Maggie to stand beside her on this and keep Eric out of the brig. "I'm with you," Maggie promises. Abby looks sad. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm just scared for him, and I'm angry. I'm angry at you for having to do this again and you didn't do anything." Maggie knows better -- she calls Abby out for being angry at her for giving Eric the disease in the first place. "I know you feel like a mother to him. Why shouldn't you? You practically raised him," Maggie says. "But I'm his mother and I gave it to him. I gave it to my son. All I can do now is...try to be his mother." Abby nods. Wow, Sally Field made it through an entire episode without devouring everything around her. That's rather unusual. They must've told her up front that Cheadle's getting the Emmy™ push this year.
As Maggie excuses herself to go find them a hotel room, Abby's cell phone rings. "Did you find him?" Carter asks. "Yeah, I found him," she sighs. "They might court-martial him, but I found him." A car pulls up near Abby as Carter asks what all she told them about his illness. "They already knew," she sighs. "Long story." As a figure gets out of the car, we hear Carter ask how Abby's holding up, but we're not just hearing him through the phone -- he's there, exiting a rental car, standing before his girlfriend. She looks up, snaps her phone shut with a gleam in her eye, and rushes into his arms, sobbing and thanking him profusely for understanding that she does need him and appreciate him. Oh, wait, no, that would have been what happened on any other show. Actually, she just looks at him with an expression blanker than Nathan's surgical future. God, I'm sick of the enigma of Abby and Carter. Does she like him? Doesn't she? I don't care, as long as the writers pick a side and make Maura Tierney play it.
Nathan strides confidently back through the ER to his former patient, the little girl whose ear he savaged with a scope. "I never finished checking Kylie's ear," he tells everyone. The mother is wary, but Nathan promises not to hurt Kylie; he's wheeled over a monitor and tells Kylie really sweetly that she gets to hold the scope and play doctor. Kylie is totally geeked, and sure enough, Nathan sees on the monitor that Kylie's got an ear infection from cleaning her ears with Q-Tips. He banters with her, and it's cute, and Elizabeth overhears enough to know that she doesn't have to have a Weavus -- or even a friendly temperament -- to change people's lives. She politely grabs Nathan and escorts him upstairs for a final treat.
"I toil for hours, and you're the one to do the honors," the transplant doctor tells Nathan when he arrives in the OR. Nathan is confused, but he's all scrubbed up and ready to help. Elizabeth smiles as he gingerly grabs the open-heart cardioversion paddles and places them on each side of Matt's newly installed heart. "Clear," he says, awestruck. The heart starts to beat when they shock it. "His brother will always be with him," Elizabeth coos. Nathan, moved, breathes, "Wow." The heart continues to beat. It'll have that pesky new-heart smell for a couple months, and it doesn't come with a warranty, but otherwise it's good to go. We fade to black wondering if this is the last time we'll ever see Don Cheadle, and whether he'll remember us fondly and sign our yearbooks and have a great summer, staying sweet and not ever changing. TTFN, Don Cheadle.