While Meredith’s voice over talks about the oral boards, the attendings wish their residents good luck in the ambulance bay. A shuttle is waiting to take them to the airport. April is nervous that people will be late. Owen assures her San Francisco is only a short flight away, so there’s no reason to be nervous, yet she still starts crying. Her parents told her their whole church is praying for her, making her even more scared what’ll happen if she fails. He says they fight battles harder than this test every single day, because they are trauma surgeons. And they win, so she can dry her tears. He wants her to repeat after him and she has to mean it. “I am a soldier!” she yells after him.
As Arizona looks for Alex, Jackson does his best not to listen to Mark, who ends up giving him cash. Teddy is instructing Cristina on how to answer questions. A dead serious Cristina points out that it’s not helping to make her feel relaxed. She shares an awkward look with Owen and then gets on the bus as Teddy cheers for her.
Arizona is excited. Bailey says they all started off with so little promise that she feels like she’s witnessing a miracle. Arizona asks where Alex is, but Bailey says he’ll be there as she trained him right. “Where is Meredith Grey?” she then asks.
Meredith is in daycare, holding a sick Zola. Meredith questions if she should stay, but Callie says babies getting sick is part of life. She put hours of her life into training Meredith, so Meredith will not fail just because of all her mommy hormones. Derek tells her to go pass boards too. They’re all doctors able to take care of Zola. Meredith tells Zola she loves her and then leaves. Derek asks Callie to hold Zola for a minute, but she refuses as she knows the bug, because Sofia had it last week.
Alex is looking at Tommy’s chart in the NICU. He asks Morgan what’s up with his platelet count, but she reminds him he’s not his patient anymore. She says they’ve been fine the past few weeks without him, there’s no need to but in now. Arizona tells him to go outside now. She takes his luggage and instructs him on how to answer. They take off.
As April tells Meredith and Alex it’s not okay to be 23 minutes late, Bailey notices how Owen is staring at Cristina through the window. With the attendings seeing them off, the shuttle drives off.
Lexie is doing research for Derek’s service. Mark comes in and says he needs her. He’s doing a skin graft and stuck with an intern who thinks debriding the necrotic tissue is the title of a Nine Inch Nails album. She asks if he’s sure it’s not, but he’s not familiar with their latest work. She knows he’s just sad because Jackson is off to take his boards. He admits he and Jackson work well together, as they understand each other, like they used to. So he needs her. She says she has to finish the research. He regrets this, as he thought it’d be fun working together again. But if she’s busy… She says he should check out Nine Inch Nails’ new album, as it’s pretty fresh. He walks off and she can’t believe that she said fresh.
Nicole presents a car crash victim to Owen, Callie, and Bailey. They need Altman too. She comes in and Owen updates her. Ricky’s mother comes in, saying she has no idea what he was doing in the car. They ask her about allergies and heart problems. As Ricky deteriorates, Bailey takes the mother outside.
The residents have arrived at the Presidio Presidential Suites hotel, where the boards will take place. April bumps into a resident from Case Western Reserve and asks if she knows Ted Stevenson, head of trauma. He does. April says he offered her a job and introduces herself. He’s Kevin Banks, the guy whose job she took. He walks off. April says her examiner will probably hate her too. Cristina tells her not to psych herself out, but April claims 1 in 5 people fail. Jackson says it’s a just, they will be fine. Meredith takes Cristina apart and says Zola had the stomach flu. She thinks she has it too. Cristina says she can’t be sick right now, but Meredith is obviously not feeling good. April comes over, suggesting to register and get lunch after, when Meredith throws up. April goes back to panic mode when Cristina tells her it’s the stomach flu.
The other four residents feel betrayed because Meredith didn’t say anything. They tell Meredith to stay where she is while they go register. Cristina will take care of Meredith. In the line, Alex calls Robbins to suggest liquid ventilation for Tommy. Suddenly Catherine appears. She knows Jackson doesn’t want to see her before the boards, but she’s an examiner and has three sessions tomorrow, so she may not be able to see him tomorrow. She wanted to say good luck, and she brought something for him. He knows what it is, and says he’s good without it. She replies she’s in room 809 in case he changes his mind. Alex asks if she brought his binky, but no. It’s his lucky pencil. He’s used it for all his important tests. So it’s kinda like his binky.
Cristina gives Meredith her registration packet to fill in. While Cristina says about 20 of all the residents present are screwed, Meredith says she has to puke again. Cristina flees as Alex tries to reach Arizona again.
Arizona ignores his call. Tommy has another problem with his bowel, which will require surgery again. Morgan consents, but Arizona says they already removed part of his bowel and there’s a very good chance he won’t make it through another surgery. Morgan points out they’ve said that before a lot, so she wants to have the surgery anyway.
In the OR, Teddy proposes Owen opens up Ricky’s abdomen while she preps him for the cardiac procedure. Owen disagrees and they start arguing, but Bailey says it’s a good compromise, so Owen agrees to let the nurses prep Ricky for both procedures. As Teddy and Owen go scrub in, Callie tells Bailey to page her when she’s needed. She doesn’t want to be in the OR with the two of them as they hate each other, creating a cold and tense situation. Bailey has to be in there with them for the next 8 hours, so Callie says the entire hospital is counting on her to tame them.
April and Jackson are still studying, but Alex says they’re screwed if they don’t know it by now. Besides, Jackson’s get his magical pencil to see him through. They mock him and Cristina asks if it can also stop April crying. April apologizes, but she just realized it all got very real. As Cristina goes to check on Meredith, Arizona finally answers Alex’s call. He asks about Tommy and Arizona says they’re gonna operate in a few hours. Alex hangs up and tells April and Jackson he’s got to go back to Seattle. He leaves, making April even more nervous.
Derek calls Meredith, who tells him she was napping. She asks about Zola. Derek says there’s nothing to worry about, but Meredith can hear her daughter crying. Derek walks away from Zola and lies to Meredith that she stopped crying. Meredith lies too, saying she’s feeling great. He starts talking to her about job opportunities for next year as he picks up Zola. Zola starts pushing buttons on his phone and accidentally stops the call. Someone knocks on the door. It’s Cristina, wearing a mouth mask and carrying supplies to treat Meredith. She got the IV and fluids from other doctors in the hotel. Cristina gets ready to place the IV and says she’ll be out of this room in 60 seconds because of all the viruses.
Teddy’s finished up. Owen hopes it was all worth it. Callie comes in to check up on them. Owen says they’re almost done, but he suggests she ask Altman too, because she usually disagrees with him. She needs to check the final position of the graft, so yeah, she disagrees with Hunt. Looking at Bailey, she says she wouldn’t want to interrupt during the fixing of problems they all need fixed and that she’ll come back later. Bailey says there’s room to stay, but Callie refuses.
Mark sits down with Lexie and tells her about the idiocy of his intern, the future of medicine. Lexie says they’re not all hopeless. Mark admits he’s blessed with Avery and they agree on his qualities. He asks what happened between the two of them. However, he gets paged by his intern before she answers. To be continued, he says before leaving.
Much to her surprise, Alex enters Arizona’s OR. He can’t stay in the hotel doing nothing, but Arizona says there’s nothing for them to do. Almost the entire bowel is necrotic, there’s nothing to be done. She’s closing.
April and Jackson are in the hotel bar. She keeps thinking about how they’re all falling apart, but Jackson tells her to concentrate on her own game. She says she’s a soldier and they agree that the two of them are still standing. At another table, Kevin and a friend are laughing at them. April tells Jackson what happened as Kevin comes over. He claims to apologize. Kevin’s friend says he’s quite drunk, while Kevin says April can probably offer something that he can’t. Jackson tries to ease the situation, but Kevin keeps talking about possible sexual favors and asks April if that’s how she got the job. She then turns around and punches him in the face. Jackson then tries to protect April, but Kevin punches him in the face. “Wanna go?” Kevin asks Jackson. “Yeah, bitch, I wanna go!” April yells before jumping Kevin to punch him.
Jackson pulls April off of Kevin, but the fight continues verbally until Richard interferes. He says anyone still present within 30 seconds will be barred from the test, so almost everyone leaves. Jackson tries to explain things as April asks Richard what he’s doing here, but he asks them the same thing. He thought they were here to prove that the considerable amount of money that was put into training them wasn’t wasted. That their dreams of becoming surgeons won’t vanish in a puff of smoke tomorrow when they can’t answer to a question, because instead of getting a good night sleep, they were too busy getting engaged in a barroom brawl. April and Jackson then quickly leave, laughing.
Arizona explains to Morgan what happened and tells her that Tommy won’t survive. Morgan thinks there must be more they can do, but Alex comes over and says they did it all. She breaks down and he says he’s sorry. He takes her into her arms to comfort her.
In surgery, Teddy is almost done while Bailey sees they’ll have to remove the spleen completely. Suddenly, there’s a leak from the graft. Owen blames Teddy, but she says leaks are common. She and Bailey come up with a fix and Bailey asks Hunt for assistance, but he claims his head is not in the game, so leaves them to it.
Richard sees Catherine in the hotel. They hug and he says he’s replacing a doctor who fell ill. He thought he’d be spending the entire day looking at nervous and sweaty residents, but seeing her is a real improvement. She sure hopes so.
Cristina knocks on Meredith’s door again. She tells her not to open it, as Cristina doesn’t want to breathe her air. She just wanted to know if she needed something. Meredith’s good, but it’s worse when she lies down or stands up apparently, so she sits down, hanging her IV bag on the doorknob. Cristina sits down too at the other side of the door. Meredith thinks Zola will hate her, as kids need a mother to lay on top of when they’re sick. Cristina then says Owen slept with someone. Meredith confesses she knows because Owen told her, thinking she had already told her. Meredith says he’s a pig and that she deserves better.
April and Jackson get off the elevator, both excited about what April did. April is suddenly very confident, they’re gonna kick this test’s ass, like they kicked Kevin’s ass. She’s a soldier! He doesn’t know what that means, until she suddenly kisses him. She’ll stop if he wants her to. He keeps reminding himself she’s a virgin, so he’s really surprised she’s kissing him. She says that is because she followed rules she set out as a kid when she envisioned her future life, but now she’s a different person. Something feels really, really good, so it can’t be bad. She assures him it’s okay and they continue kissing. They get in her room and close the door.
Over dinner, Catherine tells Richard she’s holding him responsible if Jackson doesn’t pass tomorrow. Richard tells her not to worry about Jackson. He kept his head down and is in good shape. Catherine asks about Adele. Richard says he hasn’t seen her in a while, as it seemed to confuse Adele more. He thinks it’s the right thing, as Adele is happy. She says that at their age, you don’t think you’d have to grow up anymore.
Callie comes back in the OR. Teddy doesn’t even pay attention, as she’s ranting to Bailey about how Owen is the problem, obstructing patient care like that. Bailey walks up to Callie, who says she had 8 hours. It’s on Bailey to fix things, as Teddy will listen to Bailey. And Callie organized ladies’ night so it’s her turn now. Teddy meanwhile says she can’t work with Owen if he’s going to fight her on every single thing. Bailey now steps in and says he was not fighting her, he disagreed with her on a course of treatment. That is something doctors do, but she doesn’t see him as a doctor anymore. She only sees him as the man she blames for the death of her husband and Bailey says they all know that that was not his fault. However, he’s accepted that blame because he thinks it makes her feel better. “He’s not fighting you, but you keep fighting him,” Bailey says. Callie encourages her to go on. Bailey says he lost her, his best friend, and he’s now probably losing his wife too, so his whole world is falling apart. Bailey hopes blaming him helps Teddy, because it sure isn’t helping Owen.
Alex explains to an emotional Morgan how they will take Tommy off life support. She’s ready. He takes the necessary steps and she can hear her son breathing. Alex says the breathing will slow down and eventually his heart will stop. It may take minutes, or hours. She sits down and holds him, the first time she’s ever actually hold him without the tubes and junk. Alex wants to give them privacy, but she asks him to stay. He sits down with her.
Lexie bumps into Mark, and he asks if he’s the reason they broke up. He asks if he makes her uncomfortable, she replies he doesn’t. It’s great, he says, because this is nice. He missed talking to her. He missed her, and she confesses she missed him too. Just as she wants to tell him why she and Jackson broke up, he says they don’t have to talk about that as it’s none of his business. They can be friends who don’t talk about that stuff, ever. She agrees, but as her friend, he advises her to tell Jackson if she’s not over him because they seriously are great together. She thanks him.
Richard and Catherine are still talking, now about their teaching styles. He claims he’s watched her moves, but she replies flirtingly that she may have a move or two that he hasn’t seen. Their meal is over, but she’s not tired in the least. He asks if she wants him to get the check, but she holds a waiter and asks for it.
They enter Catherine’s room, kissing, and they start taking off clothes. Richard starts doubting as she lies down on the bed, but she kisses him, having him down on the bed moments later.
April and Jackson are kissing. They agree it was great. She’s even glad they did it. She’s fine, but tired now. They agree to get some sleep. He’ll go to his own room so they can get some sleep. He asks once again if she’s okay. She is. He kisses her and says he’ll see her tomorrow. As he leaves, there seems to be some regret in her eyes.
Meredith and Cristina are now lying on the ground on the opposite sides of the door. Meredith says Cristina can come stay with her now that Alex, April, and Jackson have moved out, but she doesn’t want to. Meredith asks if Owen will move out now that they broke up, but Cristina says they can’t just break up anymore now that they’re married. Meredith thinks Derek used a great attorney for his divorce, but Cristina doesn’t want one. Meredith brings up Owen did cheat on her, but Cristina says this is different than her and Derek as Owen didn’t fall in love with the other woman. He screwed someone, one time, when he was drunk. Cristina claims that if she did that, and she believes she could (to which Meredith seems to disagree), she wouldn’t want Owen to leave her for that. Everything is not perfectly right or wrong. “Say it,” Cristina says, and Meredith then says she and Owen got married awfully fast. Cristina begs Meredith to be on her side. Meredith is on her side, but it’s like Cristina is defending him and Meredith doesn’t know they’re supposed to feel. “He’s my husband, this is a marriage,” Cristina says. She sighs and says she wants to leave him. That means she would be gone, so she’s going to take the job at Stanford or Columbia. Meredith says Cristina would be leaving her too then. Cristina says she can go to the Brigham, but probably not, Meredith says. Cristina then would leave her too, indeed. There are phones, Cristina says, even though they both know she hates phones. Meredith instructs Cristina to put her hand under the door, and she pats it. Cristina cries in silence.
Morgan is still holding Tommy, who suddenly stops breathing. She says she’s not ready yet as she cries. Alex comforts her while she keeps on telling Tommy she loves him.
Arizona finds Alex and asks about Morgan. He snaps and asks if whatever she wants to nag about can’t wait. No, because she needs him as her peds fellow next year, so she needs him to pass her boards and he can’t pass them unless he takes them. He claims he needs to stay with Morgan, but Arizona says Morgan needs to get by without him right now. He was her baby’s doctor, and that’s all. She’ll make sure Morgan will be okay. Alex says the test is in less than three hours already. Arizona says she’s never see him give up on a patient, so asks him not to give up on this. He objects that he’ll never get there in time. “Try!” Arizona says.
Meredith is woken up by the alarm she set. On the other side of the door, Cristina is up too. Meredith is feeling worse. Cristina orders her to get up and open the door. Meredith does so, but immediately throws up into the bin. “Now, that’s the last time you throw up,” Cristina says. Mind over matter. She can do this.
Jackson knocks on the door of his mother’s room while saying she was right. Richard, dressed in a bathrobe, opens the door. Jackson apologizes, saying he thought it was his mother’s room. Richard thought he was room service, but it’s not a problem. Richard closes the door. Jackson checks the room number again, but it is room number 809. He knocks again, but this time Catherine, dressed in Richard’s shirt, opens the door, holding his lucky pencil. She gives it to him, wishes him good luck and closes the door smiling. Once it’s closed, she and Richard agree Jackson’s traumatized for life.
Derek is talking to Zola, who is dressed in bumble bee costume, about how everyone in their family is a survivor. Lexie comes home, after finishing his research all night. He explains Zola’s thrown up on all of her other clothes, so that’s why she’s wearing the bumble bee costume. Lexie sits down next to him and says that Mark said that he misses her. But she misses him, she really, really misses him. He thinks that she still loves Jackson. She tried to tell him that she doesn’t, that she still loves him, but she opened her mouth, and nothing came out. “And everything is terrible,” she says, breaking down in tears as Derek comforts her.
Teddy walks up to Owen and says that Cristina texted. She’s about to go in. She’s feeling good and she’s ready. Teddy thought he’d want to know. She then walks off.
An entire hallway is filled with dressed up doctors. They’re called into an hotel room one by one. While Meredith’s voice over says that their entire life has led to this moment, Jackson sits down next to April and wishes her good luck. She’s clearly not feeling good about what happened, but it’s not him. It’s Jesus. She was a virgin because she loved Jesus, and now he hates her. April is called into a room. Jackson too, only seconds later. He accidentally drops his lucky pencil when he shakes his examiner’s hand, and the examiner accidentally breaks it by stepping on it. He apologizes and Jackson follows him into the room, leaving his lucky, broken pencil behind.
Meredith and Cristina are the last ones left. Mind over matter, Cristina reminds her. They’re both called into their exam hotel rooms. While the voice over says that after all the studying, all you need to do is to show up, another door opens. A woman steps into the hallway and calls Alex’s name, but he isn’t there. She goes back inside and closes the door.
