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The episode starts with a montage of Alex working at the Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic (most fans didn’t even know if this clinic still existed until Bailey mentioned it a couple of episodes ago), since, for the time being, he is not permitted to so much as pick up a scalpel. His boss at the clinic is Timir, a nurse, who doesn’t seem to like Alex very much.
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Amelia becomes insecure and obsessive about how little she knows about Owen when she finds out that he goes to church.
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Riggs asks Meredith to hang out, and says that they could just casually run into each other at a movie or something. He thinks that since he let Maggie down easily, he and Meredith should be in the clear. (Um, does he forget that he told Maggie that he’s not ready to date anyone?? With that logic, Riggs has a lot to learn about women.)
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Jackson tells Ben about how he and April have been taking turns getting up with Harriet, but since April is still recovering, so when April gets up with Harriet, Jackson gets up too, and then April feels guilty, so she also gets up when Jackson is up with the baby, so both of them are very under-rested.
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Owen is complaining to Meredith about Amelia. Meredith tells him, “She’s yours now. I’m not taking her back,” but then lets him vent for the rest of the elevator ride. When they get to the roof, a helicopter is unloading a husband and wife.
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Alex tells Timir that he needs to leave for an hour this afternoon, but that he can be back by close. It’s vaccination day, so Timir tells him that he can’t leave. They will be swamped by people who need immediate help, as opposed to the elective surgeries that can be rescheduled that Alex is used to. “Figure out your life on your own schedule,” Timir says.
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Daniel and Polly, the married couple from the helicopter, had been hang-gliding. It was Daniel’s first time up there without an instructor, and he wanted Polly to go with him. When Meredith checks on Daniel, he tells her that he can’t feel his legs. Meredith tells him that she is going to run a spinal x-ray and for him not to be alarmed. Daniel clarifies that he has been a paraplegic for three years.
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In the clinic, Alex helps a man with an infected abscess that ‘smells funny.’ He tries to give the patient an I&D, but Timir scolds him and tells him to page surgery, since Alex isn’t authorized to use a scalpel.
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As chief, Bailey tells DeLuca that while the court proceeding is going on, he is not permitted to talk to anyone about it within the walls of the hospital. DeLuca retorts that no one will talk to him anymore anyway.
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Amelia asks Owen how old she was when her father died. He answered that it was when she was five, which is correct. Amelia responds, “See, you knew that. But your dad died too, but I have no idea when or how.” Riggs walks in and says that Owen was almost ten years old when his father died, upsetting Amelia that Riggs knew but she didn’t. Later, Amelia continues with her quest of finding out things about Owen. She asks him why he joined the army. Owen tries to get her to calm down and says they have their whole lives to learn these things. She tells him that it’s scary and that there are things he doesn’t know about her that he might not like.
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April has an appointment with Arizona, so she comes to the hospital six hours early and put Harriet in the nursery in order to sneak off for a nap in an on call bed. Stephanie is in that on call room, and April rants to her about how her baby never sleeps, and how she’s a guest in Jackson’s house and isn’t comfortable there. Stephanie tells April that she needs to stop talking because she needs her sleep too.
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Timir tells Alex to treat this underage alcoholic/binge-drinker named Emma by hydrating her, giving her a pamphlet, and sending her on her way. The clinic is fast paced. You treat them and then clear the bed so you can help more people.
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Meredith and Riggs side against Owen on a call about Polly’s surgery. Meredith says that there is no clinical reason for surgery. They should wait and see before they cut into Polly, who is currently stable. Riggs agrees that waiting makes more sense. Owen doesn’t think they’re making the right call, but it’s two-against-one.
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Arizona admires how nice DeLuca looks now that his face is healed. She asks him a bunch of questions about things like the court date, and DeLuca says that the Chief ordered him to not talk about it at work.
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Maggie and Amelia meet Meredith in the clinic for lunch, who is there to eat lunch with Alex. Alex has a bunch of AA pamphlets to give to Emma. Amelia, an alcoholic, comments that when you’re addicted to something, a piece of literature isn’t going to make you stay away. Maggie asks “what if you’re an alcoholic and a bartender” and therefore cannot stay away, comparing alcoholism to her thing for Riggs and having to work with him in cardio. Amelia says to count to five, and if that doesn’t work, remove yourself from the situation. Timir walks in, annoyed that Alex is eating, and tells him to get back to his patients.
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Alex tries to give Emma a pamphlet about teenage alcoholism, believing that she has been coming in to get rehydrated after partying too hard. Emma says that that isn’t true, and that she can just tell that her body needs the hydration to feel good. Alex gives her a lecture about how she needs to get help before she goes from alcohol to drugs. Webber walks in and yells at Alex for treating Emma that way. The two walk off and it’s revealed that it was a ruse. Webber thinks that Alex’s harshness was well-done to turn him into a common enemy for Webber and Emma.
Webber goes back to talk to her. Emma is complaining about Alex. Webber is trying to be ‘good cop,’ while not believing that Emma isn’t an alcoholic. He brings up when he started AA, and she figures out what the two of them are trying to do. She tries to leave. Webber touches her arm, and her shoulder dislocates. She says for no one to touch her, as she pops her shoulder back in place. It’s clear that this isn’t a new thing for her.
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Maggie walks into the room where doctors look at x-rays and scans, and Riggs is in there. She counts to five and then removes herself from the situation, saying she’ll come back later.
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Meredith wheels Daniel down the hall. He talks about how he and Polly were engaged when he had his injury that left him paraplegic. He’s relieved to see that Polly is okay, but when Meredith checks on her, she realizes that Polly’s stomach is filled with blood. They rush to the OR. Owen is pissed because Meredith and Riggs had both argued that surgery wasn’t necessary, even though Owen believed otherwise.
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Bailey asks who is responsible for the incident with Emma. Timir says it’s not the clinic’s fault. Bailey points out that Alex works for the clinic. Webber says the girl appears to be fine. When Timir and Webber walk away, Alex asks Bailey for help getting Timir to let him leave for a meeting with his lawyer. Bailey says that she already helped Alex get this job, and that he needs to figure this out on his own.
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Jackson continues complaining to Ben about April, and April complains about the same things to Arizona. April wakes up every morning to make coffee for Jackson before work, no matter how tired she is, because she is trying to be a perfect house guest. Trying to be polite makes the atmosphere at the house uncomfortable. Ben tells Jackson to talk to April about it. Arizona tells April that her incision has healed, and she can move out of Jackson’s house and come back to work, if she wants.
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Alex paged surgery for someone to come consult on the abscess, and Jo is who was sent down. She’s upset that Alex is having her do his scut, but he explains that he isn’t allowed to do it himself. Timir starts being rude and reminds Alex to not go near Emma again, so Alex takes off to meet with his lawyer. He gets on the bus, and is staring out the window when he has a realization.
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Alex comes back to the hospital to show Webber Emma’s charts. Webber is reading through her symptoms, and then says, “Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?” He has only seen this a few times in his career and says they’ll have to run tests, but that if Alex is right, he might have just saved her life. Alex tells Webber that he needs to tell Emma about this diagnosis. Timir will be mad that his authority was overruled if it comes from Alex. Webber feels uncomfortable taking the credit, but it’s better than Emma not getting the help she needs.
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Back in the clinic, Webber explains Elhers-Danlos Syndrome to Emma. It’s a hard thing to diagnose, but she did a great job paying attention to what he body needs and coming into the clinic for hydration. Emma starts crying, relieved that she wasn’t just crazy.
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Post-op, Polly asks Owen when her anesthesia is going to wear off because she can’t feel her legs yet. Her spine got damaged around the L4, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Owen yells at Riggs over making the wrong call. Meredith worries that she did make the wrong call, and asks Riggs if he had sided with her just because the two of them are involved. Riggs assures her that this wasn’t something anyone could have seen coming.
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Jo tells DeLuca how she also isn’t allowed to talk to anyone about the court case in the hospital either. They decide that if they’re both not supposed to talk about it, how would anyone know if they talked about it with each other.
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Daniel is nervous about seeing his wife. She hadn’t even wanted to go gliding in the first place, so he feels it’s all his fault that this happened and that guilt is killing him. Meredith tells him that he needs to be there for Polly. Polly is going to need him. She reminds him that this is not the worst thing that could have happened. Polly’s still alive, and that’s what’s important. Meredith says, “You guys love each other. You can say anything,” and this seems to resonate with Owen.
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Jackson comes home and April is on the couch with a sleeping Harriet. He tells her that he’s going to go watch the game, and April, trying to be a good guest, offers to try to take Harriet into a different room, since the TV in the living room is the largest one in the house. Jackson snaps and says that he can’t keep walking on eggshells in his own house. He asks April what she wants to do, and she says move out. After a cute moment with Harriet, Jackson admits that he doesn’t want April to move out, and she says she doesn’t want to either.
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In bed, Owen says to Amelia, “You know you can tell me anything.” She opens up about how she had once loved this man very much, and they loved doing drugs together. One morning, she woke up and he had ODed. Owen the tells her about the time he had choked Cristina in his sleep due to his PTSD. Amelia asks if they’re okay and if their children will be okay. They decide not to wait to have children.
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Meredith decides that she can’t have a repeat of today, where she questions her medical decisions and Riggs’s, and she lets him know that. She can’t do her job when she’s thinking about what he’s thinking about her. She suggests that they be colleagues, and Maggie walks up when Riggs is saying “I don’t see why we can’t be friends.” He plays it off as if he had been talking about himself and Maggie, since things have been weird between the two of them. Maggie thanks Meredith for talking to him.
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Meredith goes to the clinic to meet up with Alex before driving home. She asks him how the meeting with his lawyer went. Alex lightly says he’s going to jail. Meredith points out that he’s in a good mood for someone who think they’re going to jail. He caught a one-in-a-million case today with Emma, so he’s feeling pretty good.
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