By Lauren S
Christmas wedding bells are in the air, but Bailey is trying desperately to silence them. Ben really wants a winter-holiday-themed wedding for the two of them but she isn't interested in having a big wedding for her second go round. Fortunately, she's got some actual medicine to keep her busy -- a patient she's had for years comes to the hospital to receive a new liver but as happens with lots of transplant recipients, he's been in this situation before and had everything fall through. The liver arrives but after they do the transplant the man's body begins to reject it and they realize that it's not going to work. When they tell him afterward he's at peace with it and concludes that it wasn't meant to be; that affects all of the doctors because he's one of those awesome people who actually deserves to have many more years ahead of him.
Cristina had been assisting with the surgery since there had been a cardio element and throughout the day Bailey saw her actually teach her intern as well comfort Smash (in her own way) after he broke down in tears at the patient's bedside. Combined with the fact that Cristina gave Bailey thoughtful wedding advice (if the wedding is important to Ben, just go with it since it's totally not something worth fighting over in the grand scheme of things), Bailey realizes and delightedly points out to Cristina that she changed while she was in Minnesota.
Cristina tries to deny it at first; she's still mad that Owen is so hostile towards her and they have a spat where he reminds her again that they want different things and each time they try to ignore that, it bites them in the ass. He's in the middle of a crappy day as well meeting with the lawyers regarding the lawsuit against the hospital. Richard warns him to be wary but Owen isn't worried and just marches in and tells the truth. Unfortunately, what he learns is that he was the one who signed off on the hospital switching their transportation contract to a cheaper company with a history of mechanical issues. A new Board member who had been in the meeting stands up, though, and assures Owen that they support him 100%. He finds this a little odd and eventually realizes that everyone's goal is to focus on his conflict of interest (Chief of Surgery who signed off on the new contract, married to one of the doctors suing the hospital who could benefit financially from his mistake) in hopes that the case will be thrown out of court. He calls them on it but they just calmly remind him that he signed a confidentiality agreement so he can't discuss this meeting with anyone, least of all Cristina. It's unfortunate timing that this is right when Cristina finally comes to accept that she has changed and she does want him back, so she calls him to the firehouse so that they can talk… and he declares that he wants a divorce.
April's period is late and she handles it with the same grating panic that's accompanied each step of her relationship with Jackson. They do a blood test since those results will be the most accurate and as the day goes on and they talk about it, Jackson realizes he's okay with it if the test turns out positive. Not only that, he is actually pretty stoked and as he convinces April that he's serious, he tells her that he'll marry her and they will have an awesome life together raising their child. She gets really excited at the idea too but then is even MORE excited when the test comes back negative and she exclaims at length about how they dodged a bullet. Jackson has finally had it with her comparing sex/life/etc. with him to fatal occurrences, so he tells her that it's over.
It's Arizona's first day back at work, and Callie and Alex are feeling extremely overprotective and quietly try to make sure that no one makes a big deal, mentions the leg, or does anything that might unintentionally freak her out. Their plan goes fairly well even though she does start to feel like something a little weird is going on, but at the end of the day and a long surgery standing for hours Arizona takes a wrong step and crashes to the floor. Alex shoos everyone else out of the room and runs to her side, thinking she's sobbing and embarrassed, but it turns out she's laughing at herself and can handle a lot more than he had thought. Callie comes home to find her happily playing with Sofia, and while she still seems terrified that Arizona's mood will change, she allows herself a smile and a moment of relaxation. She's not finding that relaxation at work since she keeps coming up with different possible procedures to try and fix Derek's hand and he keeps shooting each one of them down.
Meredith has a patient who turns out to have a nasty brain tumor but the new neuro guy declares that it's inoperable. She shows Derek the scans and of course he believes that he could do the surgery (if his hand was healed) so she uses that to convince him he needs to at least try to get it fixed. After Callie has spent the entire day doing yet more research he tells her to throw it all out, but that's because he wants to look for new solutions that might have a better chance of working. And he's going to want his hand in tip-top shape no matter what because it will help with all of the diaper changing and baby holding he will be doing since it turns out that MEREDITH is the one who is actually pregnant!