First Snowfall

S09E08

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.