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No singing, just voiceovers. We pick up in the hospital where a teeny Sofia is in the NICU, and Callie is in her room trying to open her clenched fingers. Callie's all pissed that she can't see her baby, and Cristina is the least supportive godmother anyway and just says the kid is ugly. But stupid April walks in all gaga and baby talk and sends Callie into some of the ugliest crying ever, and the residents cave and wheel her to see Sofia. One of the patients in Meredith's trial lied about some pre-existing condition, and when the queen of post-its finds a post it from Adele in Richard's pocket that says "This is Richard. Richard is your husband," she begs to get Adele into the now-vacant spot. I'm thinking Adele should really have tattooed important info like that on herself, Memento-style, because post-its are easily lost. There's also a race for chief resident, and Alex decides to help Arizona bring sick babies from Africa here to give them surgeries. Remember, when Arizona abandoned these needy children? Yeah, neither do I. Alex is also dealing with a barely recognizable Doris Roberts, who is a bitchy patient with some long-term disease.
When baby Sofia is five weeks old, Callie is pissed because she still can't pick her up, so she fires yet another physical therapist. Stark is still all pissy at everyone, basically, because April won't have sex with him, so he basically lashes out at everyone, including Karev, who he deems incompetent. But then when Callie and Sofia need simultaneous surgeries, the heartless man lets Arizona in to watch, and doesn't even freak too much when she's on the phone narrating the events to Mark, who is doing the same about Callie's surgery. Can that be sanitary? Alex, meanwhile, bullies his bitchy patient into donating money, but just as she agrees, she croaks. Teddy (who is still on this show!) is visiting Henry, but only after her real dates flop. So he's basically sloppy seconds, but dining well on her leftovers.
Almost two months later, baby Sofia is now 12 weeks old and Callie's picking her up and Bailey's ready to kick them out of the hospital for overstaying their welcome. Callie can't really cope with the outside world, but Bailey smacks her upside the head and tells her that's the deal with being a mom. Meredith sneaks into the pharmacy and switches the paperwork so that Adele can definitely get the meds (guilt over Ellis sleeping with Richard or some shit) and nearly gets caught, but doesn't, but you know she's gonna feel hella guilty when the other patient dies. Alex almost screws up the African exchange program he's got going on, but he gets a last minute reprieve from dead bitch lady. And though Arizona was all excited about it and basically tracking the movements of the African patients, she leaves the hospital with Callie, Sofia and Mark without even stopping to say hi and check on them. Also, Teddy (who really is still on this show, they totally swear) breaks poor Henry/Noel's heart by having a date that goes well. This is almost unacceptable… except that it is Hot Trauma Therapist, so we'll give her a pass on this one.
And in 12 weeks, no one else in the hospital has any sort of life-changing events or dating happenings. Not buying that, at all. -- Angel Cohn
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Mere's back to voiceover duty this week, but it's hard to concentrate on what she is saying when we see Sofia Robbin Sloan Torres, one week old and 1 lb, 1 oz, in her tiny incubator hooked up to an even tinier ventilator. As she holds up a tiny hand, Mere says something about the importance of response time.
Like daughter, like mother: Callie is holding up her own hand and glaring fiercely at the loose fist while Bailey, Cristina and Arizona cheer her on. Finally, she manages to nearly straighten her fingers. She and the docs are thrilled but after a moment her face goes from happy to defeated. Arizona comforts her while Bailey gently reminds her that they are just trying for small goals right now; it's clearly not the first time they've had this conversation. Bailey is checking on Callie's impressively long incision when Mark comes in with the most recent pictures of Sofia and good news about how she kept breathing through the night. Sofia also apparently has a brain bleed, but the good news is that it's not getting any worse. If I may mix metaphors -- talk about taking your silver linings where you can find them. Mark's pumped to hear that Callie straightened her hand out, and everyone's happiness is super genuine about these little victories, but Callie is obviously already sick of it. She wants to see Sofia, and Bailey has to remind her that she can't do that until she's mobile and her infections are gone. She starts to tell Callie she'd let her see the baby if she could, but Callie pouts and turns her head away, so Bailey leaves her to her little tantrum. Cristina also tells Callie that she knows Bailey would let Callie see Sofia if she could, and she's rewarded with a fist and an ever-so-slightly raised middle finger. Cristina is impressed and congratulates Callie on flipping her the bird before leaving her friend alone in her hospital room. Mere tells us that even though you're surrounded by all sorts of doctors and other folks, recovery is a solitary, lonely business.
Doris Roberts is guest-starring this week, though she looks almost unrecognizable; it appears the makeup team modeled her look after Skeletor. She is dying of lung cancer, and the makeup team has really made me believe it. Alex and Owen are trying to convince her to stop smoking but she just yells at them both that the infection she has is their fault, and refuses to listen when Owen tells her that her cancer has spread. She's prone to bragging about how much money she has and how she could sue the pants off of Seattle Grace, but methinks her bark might be bigger than her bite. She certainly gets the choicest lines of the episode, yelling at them that the hospital is a "third-rate crap factory" and she wants to go home. Alex is tired of the verbal beatings and begs Owen to just discharge her, but as Owen is a professional he of course won't do it. He tells her that her white blood count has to be at an acceptable level, so she asks him what that is -- a 2, and she's currently at 0.8 -- and then immediately starts to try and negotiate the number down to a 1.5. When the doctors don't play along, she gives up but asks for a wheelchair so that she can go outside for a cigarette.
April is still working in peds and Stark is still handling her rejection as gracefully as you might imagine -- when she starts to talk to him about a patient he just ignores her and walks away. Meredith sees this and teases April that she broke his heart, but gives some credit since no one thought he actually had one in the first place. April leaves as Richard walks up and he and Mere both awkwardly ask each other how their trials are going. Mere has a new patient that day, while Richard has picked Avery to assist him. Mere asks after Adele and Richard says that she's all right, but he takes off his coat as he heads to his office and a Post-It flutters to the floor without his realizing. Meredith tries to call after him but he doesn't hear, and she finally looks down and heaves a sad sigh when she reads the note.
Alex finds Arizona gazing at some x-rays and after he takes a glance, he marvels at just how messed up the patient is. It turns out to be a child on whom Arizona was supposed to operate the week in Africa, but she can't go now on account of her having her own sick baby and fiancée in Seattle. Alex suggests flying the kid out but Arizona tells him there's too much red tape and it's too expensive, adding that there's also at least a dozen more kids that could use the same help. She's trying to find a doctor in Africa to fill in for her but for now is upset because she made a promise and now has to break it.
Cristina is back in Callie's room, where the patient is grumbling at having to wait a few more days before she can try sitting up. As they chat Cristina admits that she and Teddy had a falling out over Callie's surgery, and Cristina claims that she's now giving Teddy some space. I'm not sure if she's trying to just sell that BS to Callie or if she's also trying to convince herself that it's true, because it seems more to me like Teddy is "giving" Cristina her own "space" by just straight-up refusing to put her on any other cardio cases. Hey, whatever gets you through the long, surgery-less day. She asks Callie what she needs, and Callie tells her dead seriously that she needs to see Sofia. Cristina tries to diffuse the situation with her usual charm, telling Callie that right now her baby is mostly tubes and wires, but that what you can see looks like a featherless, beakless chicken, so Callie should wait until she's cuter. Callie observes that Cristina is the worst godmother ever, but Cristina just points out that Callie was the one to pick her. Touché. It distracts Callie a little bit but then April runs in to gush that Sofia opened her eyes, and she's so excited that she doesn't notice Callie starting to cry as she babbles. April is horrified when she realizes she didn't take a picture and then more so when she sees Callie sobbing, and Cristina shoves her out of the room to get pictures as fast as possible. Something in Callie snaps, and she grabs the bar above her bed and tries to pull herself up and she cries that she's missing Sofia's life, and that if the baby dies then she will have missed everything. She may be a terrible godmother but Cristina is a good friend, and she tries to soothe Callie and to keep her from busting her incision right back open by pulling herself up.
Meredith and Derek are working on another Alzheimer's patient, Ed, who is hooked into the now-familiar halo for his familiar-but-still-horrifying awake surgery. His pulse starts to go up and then alarms start to ring as he yells, "Not again!" Derek and Mere jump into action and start doing chest compressions as Mere wonders what on earth just happened.
Whatever happened, it didn't end well for Ed, who is wheeled out of the OR under a sheet while Meredith and Derek talk to Richard. He was fine before surgery and didn't appear to have a history of heart problems, so they have no idea what's up. Derek plans to file a report with the FDA, and Meredith wonders if the FDA could shut them down. In that ever-so-slightly haughty way of his, Derek declares that it doesn't matter, because he's going to shut the trial down himself until they can figure out what happened and why they didn't anticipate it.
After talking Callie down from her panic attack, Cristina goes off to find Dr. Stark; it seems she might not be the worst godmother in the world after all as she is trying to get him to allow Callie to see Sofia, thinking it would be good for both of them. Stark totally won't permit it until Sofia is off a ventilator and has an immune system. That seems fair enough, actually. He adds that he's all for mother-baby bonding but not when it might kill the baby. However, the sneering tone he uses when he spits out "bonding" seems to indicate that he finds the whole idea to be nonsense. He may have a heart now, but it still seems to be a tiny one that doesn't have much room inside for anything other than his own interests. With one parting shot about Cristina's doctoring skills he walks off, and we see that Avery has been witness to the whole scene. Cristina just thinks a moment, and then tells Avery she needs his help.
Since Ed's packet of maybe-medicine was never opened, Mere takes it back to the pharmacy and gets there just as the pharmacist is leaving. Mere tells her that she's got patient 122's packet (remember this for later, though you'll also hear it a few more times to make sure you don't miss it) and so the woman turns back to the locked door and REALLY OBVIOUSLY punches in the security combination to unlock it. I mean seriously, there might as well have been cartoon neon arrows pointing as she reached over, leaving a wide, clear line of sight for Meredith to see what the code is. Why not just write it on masking tape and stick it over the handle, if you're going to be so indiscreet about it? Once she goes inside we get a long shot of Meredith's overly-nonchalant face so that we have absolutely no doubt that she just happens to know the code now.
Henry is back this week, though he doesn't look so good. He opens the door to his apartment to let in Teddy, who is there to tell him if his symptoms are normal or if he needs to go to the hospital. She checks him out as he tells her his blood sugar is low but he has no juice, and then he finally actually sees how she looks -- which is smokin' -- and realizes that he pulled her away from a date. He feels awful but she assures him that he actually saved her from an awful date, and that she got out with the only good part of the night, which was the cannoli. Conveniently now he can use that to up his blood sugar, which should fix him right up for now. As Henry takes a bite of medicinal pastry he has her tell him about the date, and the two sit together all cute and eat and chat.
Alex walks in to Doris' room just as she is trying to light up a cigarette. He's horrified, though I suspect that's more because she could accidentally blow up the room and less because she might extinguish her own life in the process. She is, predictably, mad, but then she brightens up a bit as she asks Alex what her number is. He hems and haws but she browbeats him into admitting that it's actually gone down to a 0.6. She coughs, and as she struggles for breath Alex has a moment of pity and tells her he's sorry. She just spits that he should be, and he's worthless and it's all his fault, and then she screams at him to get out.
Owen is outside and asks how she took it, to which Alex eloquently replies, "Bitchy, because she's a bitch." Owen reminds her that she's also dying and alone. Lexie walks up while they are talking, her hair extra-dark and enviably glossy. Owen starts to leave but then turns back and asks Alex what his grand plan is for Chief Resident. Alex is caught totally off-guard and Owen explains that Meredith and Avery are on clinical trials and April is redoing the surgical checklist, and so he wants to know Alex's plan. After gaping dumbly for a moment, Alex shouts out the first thing that comes to mind: African kids. He thinks he can bring Arizona's would-be patients to the US for surgery. Owen knows he pulled this out of his ass but goes along with it as Alex insists that he's got a plan. Once he leaves Lexie echoes Owen's sentiment about pulling the idea out of his butt, but Alex doesn't have time to argue because Cristina comes by to ask if they are ready for something.
Callie is asleep but Cristina leans over her bed and whisper-orders her to wake up. Callie's totally confused as Avery, Alex, Lexie, April and Mere all follow in and start getting her bed ready for transport. As they wheel her down the hall they hear Bailey's voice and freeze, but Jackson saunters out and makes some lame conversation, getting Bailey to turn her back so that the others can sneak Callie across the hall. Bailey is so confused about why Jackson is asking her stupid questions when she's cranky and working late that she just gapes at him and doesn't notice a thing.
The others then wheel Callie up to a window, and April and Alex run inside and pull on pink gowns. They lift the blinds and then wheel over Sofia's incubator. Only then does Callie seem to get what is going on and she smiles and starts to cry as she sees her baby for the first time. The others move away to give her some privacy and she manages to lift one finger to the glass, like she's stroking her beakless chicken, and tells Sofia tenderly that she's banged up too but they are both going to be fine. Sofia then actually turns her tiny head like she can sense that her mom is there.
Meredith finds Derek in his office and discuss Ed; it turns out his family opted not to say anything about his history of heart problems. Derek seems more sad than mad and defends that they did it because they needed to get in the trial. He tells Meredith to re-screen everyone else while they wait to hear back from the FDA, and he's going to work on finding a new patient 122. Meredith suggests Adele but Derek thinks she's not progressed enough to be a good candidate. In reply, Meredith shows him the mystery Post-It that fell off of Richard's sweater that morning. It says: "This is Richard. Richard is your husband." (Punctuation added by me for clarity.) Meredith's face is concerned, while Derek just looks resigned and even sadder than before. Working on an Alzheimer's trial certainly isn't for the faint of heart.
Sofia is now 5 weeks, 2 days old and a robust 2 lbs, 8 oz, and appears to be breathing on her own.
Arizona is coaching someone else to try and breathe -- Callie's physical therapist, who is having a fit over how uncooperative and insulting Callie is. Arizona tries to calm him but Callie snarks that he's a wuss and Arizona should let him go, so the guy happily takes his leave. Callie is struggling to hold up a ball as Arizona reminds her this is the third therapist she's gone through this month, but Callie informs Arizona that they don't push her hard enough. They start to argue with Arizona again reminding her that she's recovering from a traumatic brain injury, but Callie just points out that Arizona wants her wife walking, not wheeling, down the aisle at their wedding. What Arizona wants, though, is just for Callie to be healed. At that moment Callie drops the ball, which is the last straw. She yells and kicks over her walker, and then after a moment of trying to compose herself she admits the truth behind her fervor: everyone can hold the baby but her, and the baby won't put her life on hold until Callie gets better. Arizona quietly says she's sorry, and at Callie's request goes to get the balls for her to keep working.
Alex, meanwhile, seems to have taken a liking to his African Kids Plan, and he's going through a mess of papers on a table while trying to tell Stark about it. Stark looks as if he's getting a whiff of some particularly pungent fertilizer as Alex tells him they have 8 patients from 3 countries already lined up. The problem is that while he's excited, he's a total unorganized mess who can barely find his own notes and Stark isn't one to award points for enthusiasm. He tells Stark that he's got a bunch of surgeons lined up to work pro bono but Stark isn't impressed and just asks how Alex is planning to pay for all this. He of course already knows the answer, but lets Alex dig himself a little deeper, saying that he would take care of the "logistical crap" if the hospital could then fund everything. Stark of course shuts him down, and Alex mopes that he should have known Stark would do that. I actually agree with Stark when he cuts Alex off and says that he's not allowed to paint Stark as the bad guy when he comes in with a totally half-baked, unorganized plan. But he's Stark, so he then takes it too far as he tells Alex that there are people who can do thinks like this, but Alex isn't one of them.
Doris' face may look as ill as a person can look, but she's got some sassy, fire-engine-red fingernails. Alex goes in to help roll her over and the two exchange more biting insults, but as she moans about suing them and all of her piles of money, Alex has an idea. She's highly skeptical when he pulls up a chair and announces that she could donate her money to a good cause. He tells her about his plan to bring over the kids from Africa but when he mentions needing at least $100,000, she scoffs at him and tells "Sally Struthers" to get lost. Unfortunately her rant causes her to start coughing and Alex gets the oxygen mask and helps hold it to her face so she can breathe and live another day to keep insulting him.
Meredith and Derek are discussing Adele, whose score on the Alzheimer's test is much lower than last time. Derek points out that the upside is that she can now be in the trial, but Mere is worried at just how fast she is declining. She suggests slipping Adele some of the medicine on the side but Derek is adamant that he doesn't want to do anything that could jeopardize the trial and additionally, their careers. He tries to console her a bit by admitting that the thought had already crossed his mind.
If all the lung cancer and Alzheimer's wasn't depressing enough, now Sofia is suffering from heart failure and she needs surgery ASAP. Arizona has been trying all of the hospitals but no one is available, and Stark tells her that while he is fully aware she doesn't like him, he's her only real option and he at least has done the procedure before. He then tells her that she's not technically related so Sofia, and her hackles go right up until he finishes his thought, which is that there is no ethical objection to her being in the operating room to observe. She's shocked but totally touched, and April quietly smiles to herself that people are seeing that somewhere, deep down, Stark has some gooey insides. Well, semi-soft, at least. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it full goo. Sadly he's still not feeling quite so charitable about her and when she asks about prepping the baby, gripes that he's stuck with her.
Meanwhile, Callie is pushing Cristina through the hospital on a gurney, and even though it seems to be a bit of a struggle and she's sweating a river, she's grinning and decides she can do one more lap. It turns out that Cristina is her new physical therapist, mainly because Cristina will listen to Callie. Translated, it means that Cristina will let Callie do whatever she likes. As she rides along Cristina is looking at Teddy's charts and griping about all of the surgeries she is missing, but claims that by reading the charts she is just preparing herself for when Teddy comes crawling back to her. As they ride past Mere Callie orders her to jump on too, and Mere fills Cristina in on Adele's situation. They run into Lexie and Alex who are having an argument about his trying to get money out of his dying patient. Alex, of course, doesn't care about the sketchy ethics of it all if the money winds up doing some kids good. Callie is struggling a little, but she's got her face screwed up in determination when Arizona comes up and shoos all the others away. She tells Callie that Sofia needs surgery, which freaks Callie out. But what freaks out Callie even more is when she's struck with a pain in her stomach and realizes that she's bleeding through her shirt. She faints in Arizona's arms while Arizona yells for some help.
Bailey is handling Callie's surgery, and Cristina is helping out and beating herself up for not making Callie stop; considering she seemed to be paying extremely little attention to Callie while she "worked out" I'm surprised at how utterly sincere her distress seems to be. Bailey assures her that she has been telling Callie to slow down for weeks, but that she just refuses to listen. Mark is also in the room, on the phone talking to Arizona so that they can update each other on the simultaneous surgeries. Stark tells Arizona that her talking is distracting but it turns out that he just wants her to be quieter, not to hang up. If Arizona's mouth wasn't hidden by her mask, my guess is that it would be gaping open at this display of honest-to-goodness humanity.
Alex has managed to get his hands on photos of the sick African children, and he's sitting in Doris' room showing them to her while she complains loudly. He just keeps holding up different pictures, each one cuter than the last, pretending to have them beg for help until she finally tires of it completely and begins to yell at him and threaten his job. Alex continues with the pictures while she tries to call a nurse, and then she finally hollers at him to get out, and that she never wants to see his face again. It sounds like she's actually serious this time, and he leaves.
Mark narrates Callie's surgery, which is going perfectly. Sofia's surgery is unfortunately not going so well. Somethingorother rips, and Stark works away urgently to try and fix it. As Mark demands to know what's happening Bailey and Cristina look up at him as he turns and bolts from the room.
He finds Arizona crying in the hallway and he imagines the worst, but it turns out she's too scared to be in there. He goes inside and then comes out and fetches her; inside Stark tells them that Sofia almost bled out but he fixed her up and now everything looks great.
Lexie seems to have inherited Doris from Alex, but it turns out that Doris missed her sparring partner and has Alex paged to come help roll her over instead of Lexie, the "ham-fisted twit." He goes to help her but then stops, thinks a moment, and tells her it will cost her $100,000. Lexie is aghast and tries to tell Doris that he's joking, but then Doris counters with an offer of $50K. Lexie watches them go back and forth and looks like her brain might short-circuit with all of the flagrant rule-breaking and inappropriate conduct going on in front of her. Alex doesn't back off the $100,000 figure and informs Doris that he's not negotiating. She sneers at him that he shouldn't pretend to be smart, and he sneers back that she shouldn't pretend to be poor. I don't think that's what she was doing so much as fully admitting to being a miser, but it doesn't make for as witty banter. She coughs into her oxygen mask and then finally agrees, ordering Alex to come and roll her over.
So... does Teddy actually still work at the hospital? Because Cristina hasn't seen her in a month, and from what we've seen this hour she appears to spend her time on bad dates or making house calls to Henry. This night finds them talking on the phone until she gets to the front door and they can continue to be cute in person over a foil dish of leftover pasta.
Meredith is working on a computer when an elated Alex walks by and tells her that drinks are on him after work, since he just scored himself a cool hundred grand. Meredith is almost as appalled as Lexie but Alex just grins and tells her that good things come when you break the rules. He gets a page and his face drops; he starts yelling, "No!" and sprints away and into Doris' room just in time to hear Lexie call her time of death. He actually goes to the woman's body and shakes her shoulders but she's really, truly, all dead. He cries about losing the money, but Lexie can't seem to work up much sympathy for him, especially when she sees him call Doris a bitch for the last time.
Mere finds Adele sitting in the waiting area and walks over to say hello. Adele explains that Richard is finishing up and admits that he doesn't like to see her go home alone. Everything sounds normal, and Mere asks if she can sit down a moment. Adele seems slightly on edge at this and finally, when Meredith asks her how she is feeling, things start to get a little bit weird. She asks if Meredith really wants to know and Meredith says she knows it is hard, at least from what she knows from her side of things. But while Meredith has been talking about Alzheimer's, Adele has been talking about forbidden love. She cries that she thought she could handle it and that it would get better... but she then starts to plead with Meredith, asking if she is in love with Richard. Meredith is shaken to realize that Adele thinks she is Ellis and therefore in the throes of an affair with Adele's husband. She tries to tell Adele that she's Ellis' daughter but Adele doesn't react and finally Mere just assures her that Richard is all hers. Sorry, folks, I've got nothing remotely amusing to say about these scenes. They are positively heartbreaking. This episode as a whole really isn't going to go down as one of Grey's Anatomy's feel-good hours.
Sofia reaches 12 weeks old and 5 lbs, 8 oz, and has turned into an absolutely adorably, wriggly, cuddly baby. I think my ovaries just kicked into double-time. Callie finally has the strength and coordination to pick her up and they look like they could be any new mother and baby at the hospital. Bailey walks up to visit them and Callie fears that she's going to be sent back to bed, but Bailey actually wants to send her home. Callie looks so flabbergasted that Bailey has to quickly warn her not to drop the baby. Now THAT would make this officially the most depressing episode ever. Fortunately, Callie's grip is firm. She's confused and honestly a little bit afraid but Bailey assures her that she's doing well and can hold the baby, so it's time. Callie finally lets herself be happy but after a moment of cooing to Sofia about their going home she realizes that Bailey was actually only talking about her.
Finally, someone realized that an Airstream shouldn't be parked across five parking spots in a hospital parking lot, and Alex has just enough time to grab his papers before the police tow it away to make up for all the unpaid parking tickets. Interestingly, they leave the wooden front stoop just sitting in the parking lot, and Alex doesn't seem to care about it, either. Is it really a good idea, leaving an obstacle in the middle of the lot where presumably sick and injured people are going to be shuffling? Doris may be too dead to sue, but someone else might not be.
Richard is wheeling Adele down the hall; it's the day of her Alzheimer's trial surgery, and fortunately today she recognizes Meredith and has a good time having Richard fuss over her. After the nurse takes her away to get her ready, Meredith tells him the schedule and assures him not to worry. When she turns to leave, Richard calls after her and thanks her genuinely for everything that she's done. Mere tries to brush it off and tells him that it was just circumstances changing, but Richard won't let her get away with that and reminds her that she was the first one to catch the problem and that she looked after Adele from then on. She's starting to stoop a little under the weight of all the... is it guilt she's feeling? I'm not sure why, since she really was the person to do the absolute most for Adele from the very beginning. Is it the Ellis confusion? Is it that she wouldn't let Derek compromise the trial and let her in earlier when she didn't quite qualify? Whatever it is, though, it's powerful, and she looks nauseated as Richard tells her that he's realized all he wants is to be with Adele, and Meredith has given him the best chance to be able to do that.
Alex seems to have somehow managed to make his project work despite Doris' death, and the kids are arriving that night. He's running around a little manically, assigning each doctor a child and handing over a folder of information on each one. He freaks out when Cristina and Jackson seem to have forgotten about the whole thing, but Lexie looks happy for him and appears to chalk up his behavior to general nerves. Arizona then walks up and gives him a huge hug, congratulating him on making this all happen. When she walks away, Lexie watches as Alex's face falls and he frantically runs to a garbage can to vomit. He then meekly admits that he is in tons of trouble.
It's not clear how the ball started rolling, since he only had a couple of hours of thinking he had the money from Doris. But however it did, it rolled all the way to Fraudtown. Lexie is looking at piles and piles of bills while Alex moans that he had just asked people for things and that they actually said yes; he paid for as much as he could until he maxed out his credit cards, and then he started telling people he'd pay them when they arrived, or that they could just send him the bills, or the like. He thinks that he couldn't just say sorry, there's a lack of funds, so the dying kids need to stay at home. Lexie, on the other hand, thinks that is just what he could, and should, have said. Seriously -- why was he asking for things? Was it because of the pressure of the Chief Resident race? Or was he really the fastest mover and shaker at the whole hospital, who started putting this plan in place the second Doris dismissed him from her room with a promise of money? Lexie continues to gape at the bills and she points out "You've actually grifted people!" He declares that he can't do this, and while Lexie's back is turned, he up and flees the room. This is why he went to med school and not business school, I guess.
With Adele's surgery looming, Mere is still thinking about Alex's gloating -- she wasn't privy to all of his financial horror, so she's still under the impression that crime pays handsomely. As dramatic music swells, she walks up to the pharmacy door and punches in the code she learned a few weeks back. Once inside, she grabs packet 122 and tries to read what's inside but when she can't, she hides it inside her lab coat and goes to an exam room to hold it up against one of the x-ray viewing light panels. (What? I'm certain that's the official term.) That does the trick, and she sees, sadly, that Adele is scheduled to receive the placebo. She sneaks it back into the pharmacy and starts to leave, but then the devil on her shoulder whispers something so she pulls out packet 123 and heads back to the exam room. Patient 123 is scheduled to receive the actual medicine. She stuffs the packet back inside her coat and scurries out, but she winds up bumping into Alex and he tries to give her the info on her African child. She wants him to hold on to it for a moment but he tries to make her take it and in the ensuing tousle, the packet slides down to the floor. Alex is shocked and asks her what she is doing, but she coyly just says she's working. He's totally serious, though, and asks her again. Seriously, when Alex Karev thinks you are doing something ethically questionable, you are in some extra-deep shit.
She's saved, though, when Lexie runs up to give Alex an envelope that just arrived from an attorney. Alex figures he's busted, and as Lexie tries to argue with him Mere is able to slip away back to the pharmacy. Inside, she quickly pulls out the offending placebo from envelope 122 and switches it with the goods from envelope 123, so that now Adele is going to be receiving the medicine. Now, isn't this way more obvious than just slipping Adele the medicine on the side? I mean, at least that way there's a CHANCE you might not get caught. But as the FDA keeps a close eye on everything going on in the study, there are going to be some serious questions asked when they realize that those particular numbered patients didn't get what they were supposed to. (Also: why are these envelopes not sealed? I know the packet with the actual medicine and the placebo/active information is sealed, but it seems that it would be a good idea to have an extra layer of security. You know, just for this kind of situation.) I get that she wants to help, but this is only going to end in tears. Tears, or suspended medical licenses. Or very likely both.
She walks out to find Lexie and Alex arguing -- Alex doesn't care about the letter since he assumes it's just more trouble and he finally tries to rip it up, but Lexie stops him by yelling that it's a check for $200,000 from Doris' estate. Wow, I guess she works as fast as Alex does and changed her will lickety-split after their non-negotiation. Alex actually starts to cry with happiness as he calls Doris, "that bitch," super affectionately. Lexie beams as she watches him. Are we setting these two up again? I'm suspicious.
A nurse brings in envelope 122, and when Mere pulls open the info to reveal that it contains the active agent, Derek lets out a happy little exclamation. Meredith tries to pretend she's glad, and her mask is fortunately hiding most of her face, but her body language is radiating guilt. More dramatic music swells as Derek injects the stolen medicine into Adele's brain.
Sofia's parents are all gathered around her in the nursery, cooing over her intense cuteness, and Callie decides she doesn't want to go home until the baby can too. She figures this is going to be a while yet but Stark just nonchalantly says that Sofia can go too. April overhears and is witness as Stark tells them that normally he wouldn't allow it but since Sofia will be going home with three doctors, it's fine, and she just needs to pass the infant carrier test first where she sits for one hour in a carrier with no apnea or similar horrors. Mark runs to fetch the carrier and Arizona kisses Stark on the cheek and thanks him.
He walks over to the desk where April is working and she sneaks a look at him and tells him that people are now talking about how kind and compassionate he is, and how glad she is that they are getting to know the Robert that she got to know. Stark may be feeling charitable towards his patients but he doesn't want to hear this from April and he purses his lips and informs her that, "It's 'Dr. Stark." It stings her, and she immediately gets back to work as he walks away.
Henry is in his apartment lighting some candles when there is a knock at the door; it seems that he finally realized that he and Teddy were having her only good dates these days and he's ready to kick it up a notch. But when he answers the door and asks how her date went, it turns out that it's going awesome and that she's actually still on it and just came by to check on him and bring him some of the pasta he loves. He's embarrassed, and holds the door so that she can't see the set table. She still feels a little bit awkward but Henry insists she should go, and so she turns and skips happily away. Poor Henry closes the door and sighs in the candlelight. I think that Teddy might be a giant fool...
... but then she gets into the car with hot psychiatrist Dr. Perkins, who is back in Seattle. She thanks him for stopping and then he asks her what is , is he taking her home? They have a long, sexy kiss, and she answers that she might be taking him home. But honestly, does this woman still have a JOB? But then again, who cares when you're caught between two hot men who think you're the cat's meow?
There's an adorable shot of Sofia, looking tiny and slumped in her carrier while the adults all watch her and count down the last few seconds of her hour. She passes the test, and there's much rejoicing and picture taking and general gaiety from everyone except for Callie, who looks more nervous by the second. No one really seems to notice, though. Cristina is complaining to Owen about the Teddy situation and asks if Teddy even mentions her; Owen tries to avoid answering by commenting on Sofia's incredible cuteness. Cristina just blandly answers, "Its small features and oversize eyes trigger a hormonal response from humans. It's autonomic." As the adults all coo and clap, she finishes, "It's what keeps us from eating them." Owen just gives a shaky smile in response.
The celebrations continue as Callie continues to turn to stone and when the others are ready to go, she finally yells at them to stop and to put the baby down and get her out of the carrier. She proceeds to have a full-blown panic attack about taking Sofia away from the protection of the hospital and what might happen to her out in the real world. She's especially nervous about getting into a car, given what happened the last time they rode in one. Bailey stops her as she panics and claws at the straps of Sofia's character, and calmly tells her that the world isn't safe, but that she doesn't feel that way because of the accident but rather just because she's a parent. She promises that it will pass, at least mostly. Her tone and the truth of her words finally calm Callie down. Mere says that some wounds never heal, and you have to just adjust to a new way of living.
Later that night, Meredith and Derek are in bed and Meredith is doing the guilty, wide-awake, stare-at-the-wall-while-your-partner-thinks-you're-happy-and-relaxed thing. Derek wishes that he could tell Richard the good news about Adele getting the medicine, and adds that he hates keeping it from him. And then an anvil CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING AND KILLED THEM BOTH OMG. Okay, fine, not really, but it might have for Derek's ridiculously too-on-the-nose comment that makes Mere feel that much guiltier. Her VO continues that things might have changed too much and some people never go back to who they were before.
Lexie and Jackson are still at the hospital, and they greet the bus that arrives carrying all of the adorable, tiny African children in need or surgery. Alex holds one of the teeniest ones in his arms and seems as proud as he ever has as he calls out instructions to everyone.
Callie, Sofia and Arizona finally leave the hospital together to join Mark, who is waiting for them at the car with a huge smile on his face. The whole group of them seems to be getting along and happy, and may this hold for a while, please, please, pretty please. Mere wraps up her VO by saying that you might become a whole new person with a whole new life.