Bailey's plan for getting the residents to stop trying to kill one another is to force them to work together to save a patient's life -- this is the "Gunther" plan. "Gunther," though, doesn't refer to the patient but rather to the doctor who ultimately rises up and acts as leader to make the group work as a team. At first, it looks like it will be Cristina but then she winds up accidentally sticking Alex with epinephrine meant for the patient and he passes out cold. She has to go care for him (and they find out that he has a heart arrhythmia that caused the fainting, so it was ultimately a good thing to learn) and once she's gone Jackson surprises them all by rising up as the Gunther. This makes Mark finally start to respect him a little bit and look forward to them working together, despite the fact that Jackson is still with Lexie.
Teddy gets totally freaked out when Richard moves up Henry's surgery; she's deliriously happy with him and as it turns out she's totally not a cool doctor wife but rather a regular old mess like the rest of us when a loved one is under the knife. Richard finally has to kick her out of the OR when she starts to melt down, but Henry's surgery goes like a dream, with Bailey actually doing the procedure. She had no interest in observing the surgery with all of the Gunther action going on, but Richard insisted and managed to get her to operate on a mouse and then lead the operation on Henry without even realizing it. It turns out that this is so he can put her name on the clinical trial, so that it can move forward when he's dismissed from his job. Knowing that Meredith messed with the trial to help Adele made him desperately want to help her somehow, and ultimately he decides to tell the Board that he's the one who messed with the trial, and that Meredith was just covering for him. When Derek hears this he is aghast but the Chief won't back down, and when the two of them are alone and able to talk freely, Richard basically rips him a new one, asking when he's going to stop punishing his own wife for making one mistake caused by good intentions.
As it turns out, Meredith didn't sneak out of the hospital -- she just snuck to the basement and hid for four hours while Janet and Derek got increasingly angry (Derek) and freaked out (both). She finally contacts Cristina, who is happy to finally be able to implement some sort of plan to help her best friend. She finally sets aside her grudge against Alex to rope him into helping with said plan: Cristina brings Derek and Janet to an exam room where Alex is checking out Zola for some flimsy reason. Meredith says that she got freaked out that something might be wrong and forgot her phone, so she had no idea they were trying to get in touch with her. Alex then gives Zola a clean bill of health. Derek finally decides to go along and at least pretend to not hate Mere but Janet already set wheels in motion after all the morning's lies and so she has to take Zola away while they are re-evaluated as potential parents. Derek goes so far as to tell Janet that Meredith is the best mother in the world, but Zola still has to eventually leave with them. Derek hasn't fully thawed to his wife yet so he takes off too, and it's left to Alex to literally help hold Meredith up without her husband and daughter.
Cristina and Owen, at least, take steps to try and patch up their own relationship. After he has time to think about the lecture he got from Meredith, and sees how Danny loved his wife enough to cut off her leg even after a giant argument, he finally decides to talk to his own wife. He seems ready to accept her for who she is, and he offers to take her to her appointment. She finally breaks down and sobs after all of the stress but then they go, and once there he holds her hand through the procedure.
Episode two starts up immediately, and Mere tells us that when her mother left her father, she didn't tell him what she had done until they were on the other side of the country. "In those days it was called 'family troubles.' Today, it'd be called 'kidnapping.'" While Meredith is off having family troubles, Janet is desperately trying to get a hold of Derek in surgery. A snide nurse replies to Janet's pleas by informing her that everyone thinks they have to talk to the brain surgeon urgently. Her attitude is kind of like the female Derek: humorless and unwilling to help anyone out if it doesn't suit her personally. She finally tells Janet that she'll let her know when Derek calls back.
Bailey and Callie chase down Richard to talk about the Gunther but he's as interested as he was when Bailey tried to bring it up the first time -- he essentially ignores them and tries to talk to Bailey about his clinical trial and some info that he sent her regarding that. He has a surgery later that day to implant another device and wants her to observe, and he's definitely not going to let a Gunther stop her from participating despite her strong protests. Bailey finally gets a word in and explains that the fifth year residents are in danger of actually killing one another or, let's face it, a patient, especially given the earlier surgery mix-up. Richard refuses to let her do it but when she suggests that Callie can supervise, he seems to agree just to get her to stop talking about it. He then reminds Bailey that she has to be there for his surgery at 4.
Teddy finds Cristina sitting in the ER and gets ready to let her have it for sitting down on the job, but Cristina gleefully explains that Bailey paged her 911. Her intern is doing the chest tube instead, "Because it's intern's work." She quickly realizes this isn't what she was supposed to say and she starts sucking up that she's loving this teaching from the ground up but oops, oh well, she has to respond to a 911 page. She's mercifully saved by Henry, who walks up to see his wife. Teddy moans to him about how her good mood has now vanished. Cristina does have a particular gift for sucking the cheerfulness out of a person like a bloodthirsty leech. It turns out his is the islet cell surgery that Richard is doing that afternoon; Richard had an opening and offered it to Henry, who is excited to have his surgery performed earlier than expected. Teddy's obviously thrown off by this development but Henry's so used to surgery that it's nothing, and he tells her he'll call her once he's situated in a room and saunters off as casually as if he's about to go have a beer and watch a football game.
Derek is now operating on Nicky; his already awesome mood is made even better by his pager continuously blowing up. He of course just treats this as an annoyance rather than a sign something might be wrong but when the nurse says it's about his baby, he finally takes notice.
Bailey, having won her Gunther, gives the residents the bullet about Susannah and her underground amputation. Not only is one leg gone, but her abdomen is pulverized and her pelvis is likely crushed. Bailey tells them that they will have to work together to assess and repair her injuries. April's mind is just about shot because she actually asks, "In the OR?" Bailey tells her no, in the Jiffy Lube. Good gravy. Callie is there to supervise but she'll only step in, they are told, if they are killing the patient. What if their bickering kills the recapper? Will Callie step in then? No? I still have both my legs? Fine, then. Bailey warns them to not screw this up like they have everything else lately. She directed this at the whole group but April chooses to take it personally.
Owen is trying to examine Danny but Danny keeps trying to leap off of his gurney to go see his wife. Don't underestimate the strength of a man whose wife is in peril (and who just had to chop off said wife's leg) -- Danny nearly manages to make it up twice. But one also shouldn't underestimate a surgeon who used to be in the Army, and Hunt manages to pretty quickly convince Danny that he's not going to win any sort of strength battle and he eventually stays put. Danny is desperately worried about Susannah hearing about losing her leg, and Owen gently promises to check on her and bring back a full report.
I imagine that he's going to do some careful editing in said report, though, since the residents aren't doing anything other than holler at each other about what she needs and why their treatment suggestion is best. Bailey stops Owen from going inside and has to explain to him what a Gunther is, sort of: it's a type of team-building exercise that is implemented when the residents can't work without ripping each other's heads off, and it seems to really help. Callie helpfully adds that the only time it doesn't really work is if they kill the patient, which did happen one teensy little time. Owen can't stand to see the woman whose leg he finished amputating in a pit being treated like a medical experiment but Bailey blocks his entry and finally gets him to stand down by telling him the Chief said it was okay. Owen is appalled as the doctors yell at each other over Susannah's broken body. Cristina is adding an extra element of difficulty to the proceedings by refusing to listen to any single word that comes out of Alex's mouth. Alarms start to clang, and Bailey unconvincingly assures Owen that the doctors are just finding their groove.
Finally, they run her into the OR and on the way, pass Derek who is trying and failing to get a hold of Meredith. After getting her voicemail for presumably the gillionth time, Derek sees Cristina sprint past and asks where Meredith is. Well, "ask," might be soft-pedaling a little bit, as it's more of a demand with a courteous question mark at the end. He doesn't seem concerned in the least that Cristina is busy with a dying patient, and doesn't appear to believe her when she lists all of the places that she has been and Meredith has not. Derek winds up hollering at a nurse to page Mere yet again.
Teddy finds Richard to ask him why he moved up Henry's surgery, and she's not satisfied by his answer that there just happened to be an opening. She is totally paranoid that something must be wrong since he was rushed in, and none of Richard's assurances help her at all.
Bailey then comes up, very unhappy to have been paged away from the Gunther proceedings. She's even less happy when Richard opens a door to reveal all of his lab mice. The look on Bailey's face as he tells her she needs to spend time with the mice is fantastic, it's like... well, it's as if someone just told her that she had to leave an amazing surgery so that she could implant a device into a mouse. The Chief introduces her to skinny little Mouse T, and assures her that once she's given T his implant, doing the procedure on a human is going to feel so easy, with all that glorious space to work with. She gives him a scowl that would turn most other doctors to dust, but he's unmoved by it and orders her to go get some gloves and get to work.
Danny comes out of the CT and Owen tells him he's got a little bit of blood in his brain, so he's going to have Derek the Genius come offer his vaunted opinion. Danny is still obsessed with when they will tell Susannah about her leg and Owen has to gently impress that right now, she is in surgery and her leg is the very least of all of her problems. But, he says, she has an incredible team working on her. He repeats, slightly wistfully, "Really. They're... unbelievable." Danny's got a possible head injury, so fortunately he doesn't read into the very deliberate use of such a broad descriptor.
The Unbelievables are still arguing and have not made a single cut since everyone thinks everyone else is wrong in how they want to start the surgery. The yelling, dear God, the YELLING. Up in the gallery, Mark walks in to watch the circus now that the ER has quieted down. He has no idea what a Gunther is so Arizona finally explains it completely: the word refers to the doctor, not the patient. When they have to work together like this, eventually one person will emerge as the leader. The name came from a quiet doctor named Gunther who, the first time this little exercise was done, shocked everyone by taking over. Mark can't help but disparage Avery some more, sure that he's not going to be the leader. Arizona thinks Karev could do it if he wasn't universally hated. Mark is sure it's Cristina, but Arizona considers April a dark horse, and the two decide to put a friendly $50 wager on it. I love these two getting along together! Or maybe I just like the little oasis of people just being cool and friendly. I'm sure they'll hate each other again sooner than later for some reason that may or may not be valid. Bailey walks in and gripes about having just performed surgery on a mouse, but they all stop talking and lean in as once again, all of the Alarms O'Death start to blare down below.
Callie has been trying to play it cool with her sudoku but she looks upstairs and asks rather desperately if this is where she steps in. Bailey shakes her head and then, as they watch, Cristina reaches for a blade and makes a cut in Susannah's chest, forcing the answer to the question of where to cut first. Whether they like it or not, the others now have to go along with this course of action.
While Henry is all ready for his surgery, professional that he is, Teddy still doesn't believe that the only reason he was called in was because of a chance opening in the schedule. Fortunately for their marriage, Henry thinks she's cute when she's nervous. She decides to leave but first sits down on the bed and begins to tear up as she tells him how happy he has made her and how much she loves him -- it all sounds very much like a deathbed farewell and Henry calls her on it. She's now succeeded in making him a wee bit nervous and finally realizes she needs to really, truly, just leave the room. Richard heartily agrees with her decision.
Derek has calmed down enough to be able to look at Danny's brain scan, and he's not concerned. I am glad that they didn't decide to give the poor guy some sort of brain bleed so that just as (if?) Susannah wakes up he tragically bites the dust. That would just be too unfair after he had to saw off her leg. Owen asks Derek how things are going and Derek tells him that Mere has disappeared with Zola. Owen tries to convince him that there's probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for this but it sounds pretty hollow. When he warns Derek not to assume the worst, Derek actually gives him a fairly rational answer as to why he's jumping to the worst case scenario -- It's because lately, the level of Meredith's insane behavior "defies explanation." While I will give him (grudgingly, mind you) that Mere has now racked up a decent list of not the wisest decisions, I would also like to point out that it's not hard to figure out WHY she has done every single one of those things. And having her husband act like the Crown King of Jerkwadia is only exacerbating everything. But, Derek hasn't taken personal responsibility for much of anything up to this point, so why expect him to change now? I paused this scene to type something and hilariously, it stopped on a shot of Derek with his eyes closed, lips pursed, and nose in the air that just so perfectly captured his essence, it was spectacular. Owen knows that Mere has done some crazy things but he reminds Derek that with both her and Cristina, they can sometimes surprise their men. Derek just heaves a sigh, not willing to consider that there might be any surprise this time.
Teddy retreats to the gallery and is having trouble making sense of what is doing on below. Bailey makes conversation by mentioning that she's observing Henry's surgery but this only makes Teddy freak out more; she doesn't believe Bailey's casual explanation that the Chief just loves an audience. Teddy has just a hint of hysteria creeping into her voice as she wonders what is going on, but Bailey doesn't take the bait and assures her that if anything happens with Richard she'll be right there to help out. The cutesy music playing assures us that everything really will be okay, and that Teddy is just overreacting like a regular old wife, which is something Bailey points out to here. Well, the wife part. Presumably, she can't hear the whimsical soundtrack to confirm that this is the comedy portion of the episode.
Teddy finally gets a bit distracted by the surgery below when she notices that Cristina has taken the lead. Arizona hands over her money to Mark and heads out while Teddy starts to moan that this is absolutely the worst thing that could have happened when she's trying to teach Cristina some humility. Bailey just comments that Cristina is a racehorse, so what can you do? At that moment Susannah's heart stops, and after they use the paddles Cristina calls for a shot of epinephrine. As soon as it is handed to her she reaches in and sticks what turns out to be Alex's hand, which was also in Susannah's chest cavity. Cristina knows this is bad and that something seems extra wrong, and she tries to get a stunned Alex to look at her. He turns towards her, but then he passes out cold on the OR floor. The residents all jump up out of their chairs in the gallery and Bailey takes back what she said about Cristina being a racehorse.
Callie and Cristina are tending to Alex, whose heart doesn't appear to be beating, but they have no idea why since that shot shouldn't stop a healthy person's heart. While they try to take care of that little sitch, Jackson takes over Susannah's surgery with April assisting. Bailey and Teddy walk in and get ready to help out but he tells them in a very professional voice that he has things under control and that it would be too many cooks in the kitchen if they jumped in now, so he's asking them to stay back. Bailey's eyebrows rise well up over her surgical mask, but it seems to be an impressed raise rather than a doubtful one.
Down on the floor, once Cristina shocks Alex he comes to with a lurch, and his first breathy words are, "You crazy bitch! You almost killed me!"
Derek and Arizona are talking; he still can't find Meredith and even went so far as to have an intern call all of the emergency rooms in the city to make sure they weren't hurt or dead. Arizona realizes that he's not at his charming best and offers to talk to Nicky's dad alone, but Derek claims he's fine and sweeps into the room before she can protest. He gives Jerry the news rather tersely that they repaired the fractures in Nicky's spine, and Arizona takes on the role of Good (or at least Sympathetic) Cop and adds that now they are in the "wait and see" part. Jerry wants to see him but Derek bluntly informs him that the boy is in recovery so he won't be allowed in. Jerry's too upset to realize he should be a little bit offended at Derek's manner, and he muses that he can't believe that he and Nicky were just walking down the street having a funny conversation and holding hands when suddenly Nicky just slipped away. He asks rather desperately how one gets through the day knowing that their child could just disappear? Oy, well I feel bashed over the head now. Derek can't take this man voicing his very deepest current fear and abruptly excuses himself, essentially cutting Jerry off. Arizona's unimpressed by this display and apologizes, then tells Jerry that they are going to figure out a way to let him see his son.
Alex has been loaded on to a gurney and is still hollering at Cristina not to touch him as they wheel him out of the room. The other docs all stand to one side and marvel that Avery turned out to be the Gunther. Of course, now that he shows some promise, Mark has decided he's not so bad after all and calls out a mildly condescending offer that he's there if Avery needs him. Avery gives him a thin thanks but Mark's off in his dream world, where Avery is Robin to Mark's Batman, and he doesn't notice Avery's lack of enthusiasm as he crows that they will be great together.
Bailey rushes into the OR where Richard is waiting for her, and she's surprised that he didn't just start already since Lexie is there and could help. Richard tells her that he wanted her to be there, and that she's actually going to be assisting rather than observing, because this is a teaching hospital and you're never too old to learn! She's totally confused but he finally gets her to stop talking, get up on her stool, and start operating.
After Susannah's surgery is over, Mark is riding high on Avery's success and spending his time needling the others, especially Cristina. She asks Avery how it went and he tells her that while they'll have to eventually go back for more repairs the major problems were taken care of and he hopes she will now pull through. Teddy walks up and asks how Alex is -- Cristina tries to put a positive spin on it and say that they found out that he had an underlying arrhythmia (which is why the epi stopped his heart) but he'll be fine. She then sees Teddy's face and realizes that's not what Teddy really meant. With a lot of effort, she admits that she was moving too fast and made a mistake. She spits the words out as if they are made of poison. Teddy just asks, "You think?" Cristina is saved by her pager and takes off.
She walks along in the basement corridor, looking at doors until she finds the one that matches up to the info on her pager. Confused, she opens the door to a dusty old room crammed with old supplies and sees Meredith playing with Zola. Mere looks up and says, worried, "I think I stole a baby."
Cristina is not normally known for finding the bright side in things, but she is known for her mad problem solving skillz -- skillz she has wanted to deploy all day. she immediately starts doing what she does best -- making a plan. Well, she begins to think of excuses, at least. She starts concocting a story that Meredith just took Zola to take a nap, "in a very odd location," and failed to answer her phone for an hour. Many people these days find all the technology intrusive, and it's not that unusual to not answer her phone or pager. Since Cristina was caught up in surgery, she didn't realize how long Mere was actually gone and Mere quietly corrects that she actually has been gone for four hours. During this whole tense conversation, Zola is sticking out her tongue and making cute little baby cooing noises -- I think the best plan is to stick her in front of whoever is mad and she'll just distract them with her irresistible baby powers. They'll forget they were even mad in the first place! Cristina is pretty horrified when she hears how long Mere was gone but finally concedes that people make mistakes, like how she almost killed Alex earlier. Mere is equally horrified to hear it but Cristina brushes it off and says he'll be fine, then orders Mere to stay there and that she will fix this. It's almost just what Derek said earlier, only caring.
Taking advantage of her position as a surgeon and almost flaunting the rules about family members in surgery, Teddy goes in to the OR to see how Henry's procedure is going. She's aghast to see that Bailey is helping rather than observing, and starts her panicked tirade once again, demanding to know from Richard what is wrong. Richard is good and sick of this, and he ultimately orders her out of the OR.
Alex is eating yogurt, chilling in his hospital bed, when Arizona comes to check on him. He asks about Nicky and Arizona tells him that he's okay for now, but then changes the subject back to Alex and how he needs to make up with his friends. He's not interested, but Arizona points out that no one has his back and that now that is now both a professional as well as a personal problem for him. The thing is, someone does have his back, and that's Arizona. But she's tired of worrying about him and just wants to get back to working with him again. Alex finally slumps, his bravado draining away, and angrily pushes his food away like it's the yogurt's fault he's in this mess in the first place.
As Cristina waits for the elevator the moment she has been wishing and hoping for arrives, but at exactly the wrong time: Owen walks up and tentatively asks if she wants to sit down and talk. The elevator arrives and Cristina very seriously tells him that she wants to so much, but that she has to do something that can't wait. She pleads with him to believe her -- for Cristina, this is about as sincere and desperate as she's ever going to get -- and promises that she's not a terrible person who doesn't care. She then gets in the elevator while Owen sadly droops.
April is hanging out with a still-unconscious Susannah and marinating in self-pity. She tells Jackson she wants to stay so she doesn't wind up messing up this case like she messed up everything else. Oh April. Growing a spine would solve so many of your problems, and would make you a way more interesting character to recap. Jackson tells her she did awesome but she pouts that she wasn't the Gunther, and worries that she's going to get fired. Jackson points out that she certainly won't after just one day, but that she'll just have to come back and try again. I have to wonder if a tiny part of her would be relieved to be fired and not have to do that, actually.
Over in Henry's surgery, Richard says it's finally time to implant the device, and then hands it right over to Bailey to do. She's surprised and not totally interested -- in fact, she finally starts to wonder if Teddy was right to be suspicious that something is terribly wrong. Don't worry, everyone, the Silly Soundtrack is tinkling in the background, so we know that this is funny and not actually potentially bad. Bailey gets a brilliant idea and asks if Richard is drinking again. Oh, the hilarity! He tells her that he wishes it was that simple, and then has her get on with it. As she gets down to it she gets caught up in the brilliance of the little device and how it works, and forgets about the Chief's weirdness as she marvels the wonder of medicine. Richard congratulates her on a job well done and then orders her to close up and walks right out of the room. Bailey is left speechless for a second time that day, and Lexie's eye-acting over her surgical mask says that she is surprised too.
Cristina marches into Alex's room and much to his surprise, orders him to get out of bed. Alex isn't interested in doing anything she says, especially after she nearly killed him, and he's not impressed when Cristina claims that finding the arrhythmia probably saved his life and she'll run an EKG later to make sure he's okay. Arizona's words clearly had time to sink in because Alex finally hollers at Cristina that he made a big mistake but she's supposed to have his back, and that his friends there are the only people he has. He's holding his sheets up to his neck as Cristina tries to rip them away and it's almost comical except that what he's yelling is deeply sincere. He finally yells that he screwed up but Cristina has to forgive him. She answers dismissively fine, he's forgiven, but she needs him to get out of bed. He's so shocked at her response that he does then get up.
Derek gets paged to a conference room where the Chief is sitting with Larry Jennings, the only Board member we've ever seen. I hope he gets, like, a double vote since he seems to be the only one who does any work. Derek thinks he's in the wrong place but they assure him that they paged him and when he admits he doesn't know where Meredith is, Larry just says that they will fill her in later and has Derek shut the door. Richard is very serious and since we aren't being bashed in the face with a lively soundtrack, it seems that this is a serious situation. Larry tells Derek that Richard confessed that he's the one who messed with Derek's trial, and that Meredith was just covering for him, trying to protect him. Richard adds that he's very sorry that he's the one who destroyed the trial. Derek is not at all happy to hear this and has on his extra prissy angry face and his arms crossed tightly with rage.
Larry leaves the meeting and the door isn't even closed when Derek starts whisper-yelling at Richard, demanding to know what he's playing at. Richard shout-whispers back that he's protecting Derek's wife, what is Derek doing? Well said, Chief. Derek insists this is wrong and Richard finally asks what on earth Derek is doing to her, when all she did was try to save both him and Adele. He asks Derek angrily when is he going to stop punishing her for doing that? Derek seems surprised at Richard's reaction, since this very notion has been this far totally inconceivable.
After Henry's surgery, Teddy is still anxious as she checks him out, despite the fact that everything seems to have gone totally fine. She finally admits that she lost it and got kicked out of the OR, and then gets in bed and cuddles up to him to make a big confession. She admits that while she thought she'd be all cool and calm whenever he had surgery, she's actually a blithering basket case just like any regular wife would be. She thinks this is awful but he thinks it's endearing, and then reminds her that he's got a chronic tumor condition so he's always going to be looking at quite a lot of surgeries. She admits she'll be a mess for each one, and he absolutely beams at the thought and they start making out. I think of Henry kind of as Denny 2.0 -- the really good-looking, good-natured patient in love with one of the doctors. Please, Teddy, don't cut any lifesaving wires on this one!
Bailey watches them from the hallway and makes a joke about them when Callie walks up but Callie is in no mood, and tells her that something happened with the Chief.
Cristina, brilliant evil genius that she is, leads Derek and Janet down the hall to where Meredith is standing nervously outside an exam room. Derek angrily demands to know where she's been and Meredith apologizes; they then see Zola inside, and Alex giving her a quick check-up.
Owen gives Danny an update that Susannah's surgery went as well as it could have. Danny leans back, relieved and seems finally able to relax a smidgen for the first time since the ordeal began. He admits to Owen that they were fighting right before it happened, but Owen convinces Danny that she'll forgive him since he saved her life. Danny isn't entirely sure that it will stick -- he thinks that as time goes on, she'll remember why she got out of the car in the first place and they'll go back to that place. Owen offers a different scenario: they could both decide to forget about it and move on, pretending it never happened. I think you stop after forget and move on, because pretending it never happened might leave it somehow festering and able to pop out unexpectedly one day like an alien out of a space miner's stomach. Danny's not sure if this will work either but Owen thinks it can't hurt to try. He obviously thinks this might be the way to go with his own wife, too. Danny actually asks him if he's married but immediately apologizes for prying; Owen assures him that it's fine and actually says that yes, he is. He sounds a little bit surprised about it, but not upset at the idea.
Bailey storms into Richard's office like a tornado, yelling at him for throwing his career away for, "that damn girl." Richard is incredibly calm about it, though he does get increasingly frustrated at the fact that she doesn't want to actually listen to his side of things. Bailey yells that the FDA certainly won't let him continue on with his trial, but he hands her a report and tells her to read it. She rants and raves about how he's throwing this brilliant trial away until she reads, on the cover of the report, that she is now listed as the principal investigator. Richard tells her it's hers now, since he has no pending trials with the FDA. So Teddy was right, he really was rushing Henry in to surgery, though not for any reasons remotely close to what Teddy feared.
Alex is also the picture of calm as he explains that in Zola's weekly blood test he saw some results that were a little bit off and so he wanted to investigate. Derek and Janet are a tough audience, both stony-faced with their arms tightly crossed. But Meredith jumps in and says that she was so worried she must have forgotten her phone when she rushed Zola in -- I mean, when a doctor says you need to bring your baby then you forget about everything else! Especially the actual pending adoption of said baby and how you really need to be on call for your case worker, sure. Meredith also points out that she had to turn in her pager and so never got the pages, which I think is actually one of the only 100% true things she's said all day. Derek demands to know what Alex saw in the test results, like he's daring him to lie -- he seems so angry that he forgets that what Alex does now is potentially going to help Derek's cause. Alex talks about an elevated white blood cell count, but that when he ran some tests everything was totally fine and it was either some sort of stress reaction or even just a fluke. Zola is cooing and playing with Alex's badge as he tells this, and I'm so charmed I almost just zoned out of the rest of the scene. Derek finally manages to swallow his rage and realize that maybe Meredith isn't the devil put on earth just to wrong him -- at the very least, he seems to realize that he needs to play along here and that this whole situation was designed to help them. He agrees that they were right to worry and congratulates Alex on catching it. Cristina gives the tiniest of nods, satisfied that this played out just how she wanted it to. Mere, though, still looks tense and terrified about what might happen.
When Janet goes to make some calls, Derek actually willingly stays in the same room as Meredith while they wait to see what will happen. Alex apologizes to Mere, telling her he never meant for all this to happen, and she accepts it. He and Cristina leave the room, and Meredith and Derek finally have an actual conversation. He is still angry, but at least he listens to what she has to say after he accusingly points out he has no idea what she was thinking. Mere tells him honestly that she panicked at the idea that they could take Zola away, and she just needed time to hold her daughter and think about how everything had gotten so screwed up. Derek finally looks at her, rather than just at Zola, and Mere tells him very seriously that he should take Zola because Janet's problem is just with Meredith, and the only important thing is that the baby not be taken away. She can live with that situation if that means Derek gets custody. He replies by telling her that she's not fired, and with a bit more than a hint of accusation in his voice he says that Richard is taking the fall. Meredith is appropriately horrified and doesn't want him to do it but Derek orders that she'll absolutely let him do it if she wants to keep her baby. He orders her to let Richard protect her. Well, someone has to, don't they, Derek?
Owen wheels Danny to Susannah's room -- she's awake, scared, and desperately happy to see him. She was afraid because she didn't know where he was, and is obviously confused about what happened. Danny just holds her and promises her that he's not going anywhere. Honestly, I do think that once someone saws off your leg to save your life, you do find it pretty easy to put aside the arguments you were having before that. Owen watches the happy reunion and wanders off to go find his own wife.
She's giving Alex an EKG and while she can't resist poking him hard in the chest with one of the nodes, they clearly are on their way back to being, if not friends, then at least comrades.
Jackson brings a now-calm Bailey back in to get more of a proper introduction to the mice. He gets her up to speed on what is going on with all of them and mentions that he's only been off the project for a couple of weeks -- so these events really are pretty immediately after the season finale, then. He teaches Bailey the drill, and she allows herself just one moment of disgust that it had to be mice, didn't it. But then she's ready to learn and take charge of this thing.
Jerry sits by Nicky, still asleep, and puts the Silly Bandz back on his boy's fingers and then holds his hand.
Mark, Callie and Arizona have gathered with Jackson and April outside Zola's exam room, watching Janet on the phone. None of them want to believe that Janet could take the baby away but all are obviously scared. Cristina comes out of the room and sees Owen there; he nods at her so they walk down the hall and into the stairwell to talk privately.
Once inside they look at each other for a long moment before he admits that he knows she hasn't had the abortion yet. She has tears in her eyes but tells him that she didn't change her mind and mercifully, he gets that. He finally admits that he knows her well enough to realize she isn't someone who changes her mind. But, he asks, she'd cut off his leg for him, wouldn't she? Cristina points out that she wouldn't botch the job like Danny did -- she'd leave a nice clean stump so that he could have a prosthetic leg one day. She doesn't mean it to be funny so much as she means it as a defense mechanism as she looks absolutely defenseless and terrified of what might happen . Owen chuckles and shakes his head, which seems to be him giving in and recognizing that this is the girl he fell in love with and it's true, she's never going to change. He asks her when her appointment is, and she looks at her watch and tells him it's right now. He takes a deep breath and then says, "Let's go." She starts, takes a breath, and then breaks down into racking sobs with the release of all of the pain and heartbreak she's had the past few weeks.
Janet finally hangs up her phone and goes back into the room. The others all watch and Callie says that it's going to be fine, but clearly none of them really believe that.
Janet reminds Derek and Meredith that all sorts of questions came up today about things like, oh, their relationship and Meredith's employment. Derek helpfully adds that Mere got her job back and that it was just a misunderstanding. Janet replies that Mere then disappeared. Derek lamely tells her that was a miscommunication too. For a guy who was convinced earlier that he was the one who could talk their way out of this mess, he's not doing a terribly impressive job here. Janet finally tells them that she knows it's a huge deal to bring a baby into a relationship and that they were bound to have some hiccups, but that the shitstorm that blew in today was just too much and she sent up a lot of red flags. She's trying to smooth everything over now but since everything is in motion, it has to play out now that they have all of these questions about Meredith. Derek, shockingly, announces that Mere is the best mother a child could have, whose only flaw is that she loves Zola and Derek so much that she would do anything for them. Janet does seem to understand but she tells them that social services has to reevaluate them and until they do, Zola can't live with them. She's sympathetic, but she is also clearly exhausted from being yanked around all day by these two. She gives them a minute to say goodbye to their baby.
Lauren S is a writer and gal-about-town who lives and works in Atlanta and she will go to sleep happy tonight now that Owen and Cristina are reunited. She wants everyone to know: "The views expressed in my recaps and anything else I might write on TWoP are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer."