Picking up just after where the last episode left off, Lexie is feverishly trying to stop Nick"s bleeding, which eventually she sort of does, at least enough to have him grab the phone and get help. Unfortunately he keeps bleeding on and off again, and after a moment where they think everything is fine, he begins again and has a stroke. Despite the doctors" efforts in surgery, he dies. Ray the paramedic is fortunately luckier, and after some rather kick-ass treatment on Meredith"s part, they get him stable enough to get him out of the ambulance and into surgery. The Chief tells her she did an awesome job even though she admits afterward that she was scared, and some pep talking of sorts makes her realize that being scared might mean she really wants to make things work with Derek?it made sense at the time, I promise. She goes and tells Derek, scared but happy, that she doesn"t want him seeing other people, only to be met with his not-so-happy face. You see, Rose managed to use her three semesters of computer science to fix the ultra-amazing brain-operating machine, with just a little bit of help at the end from Derek, and after having a moment, they tentatively make out in the scrub room. So once again, Meredith is going to have her happiness and confidence dashed.
Alex gets busted when -- DUH, finally! -- Mark happens to look up to see what Alex is staring at in the gallery and recognizes Ava. As if this weren"t bad enough, when Mark has to run out of surgery to help Nick, the patient bursts something and nearly dies. When Alex is at home with Ava later, she wants to talk about how bad his day was (including that he"s now suspended for a week for sneaking her in to the gallery), but he gets angry that she"s showing up while she"s still married. And after yelling at her that he"s sleeping with Lexie and that Ava"s not there to talk, they get down to the sex. Whatever turns you on, I guess.
In another surgery rife with complications, Bailey has one setback after another with Mr. White Power, making her later and later to meet Tucker. She keeps sending George as a go-between and he has to relay some really awful things from one spouse to another, including Tucker saying that it"s all over. But a tiny bit of good comes of all of it when Bailey closes up at the end of surgery and manages to sew the patient up so that one cannot recognize his fetching swastika anymore. While she"s recovering afterward, Cristina comes up and tells her how angry she is that Bailey used Cristina for the color of her skin, especially at the expense of her working with Hahn, and Bailey is left to just sigh. Instead, Izzie works with Hahn, who berates her for being too caring a person, leaving Izzie to get reamed by the wife later for not bringing her the promised updates while her husband was in surgery. Hahn, however, later realizes that she might need to be a bit more caring, and after saving her patient so that he can be with his kids, she sucks up her pride and invites Callie and Mark to drinks.
At the very end of the day, Cristina comes across a dejected Lexie and sincerely tells her that she was brave and did a great job with Nick. Lexie is still despondent, though, and finally admits that she has literally no one right now. So Cristina decides to bring her home and after a few uncomfortable moments, Meredith accepts this and the three of them bond with dancing and tequila, eventually joined by George and Izzie so that aw, most of the gang is back together again.