Many trials and many deaths have followed Meredith Grey and Derek Shepard in their clinical trials. On top of it all, Meredith is really putting her best efforts into therapy - trying to get "whole" again. She admits to the therapist that she actually witnessed her mother's death. She watched as her mother took a scalpel and slit her wrists on their kitchen floor. Her mother told her not to help her, so Meredith waited until after she passed out before calling the police, for fear she'd get into trouble. She had saved her life, but her mother didn't want to live.

Back in the hospital with Derek, the two doctors go in to meet their next brain tumor patient for their study, a young woman with her parents. Soon after, their other patient, a young man about the same age appears at the door. Evidently the two young patients know eachother - and quite well. The young man comes and greets her with a kiss while the parents look uncomfortable. Evidently the two met at another hospital while having treatments done. They've fallen in love and the parents are concerned because they don't want their daughter to fall in love with someone who may die. their fear is that she won't fight to stay alive. When the mother confronts Meredith about finding another room for her daughter, Meredith lies and says there are no other private rooms available. The young man, who is visiting, starts seizing and Meredith rushes to help him.

Meredith, then, runs into Nurse Rose out at the nurses station and Rose drops a file on the floor. As she helps pick it up, rose tells her, "You intimidate me a little, not that you're an intimidating person, it's just that the legend of you and Derek, it's intimidating." She also happens to mention that Derek is selling his land - the land that he has blueprints to make a house with Meredith on, he's selling it. Meredith looks at her and tells her assuringly, "There's no legend." The flustered Rose is a little consoled.

George O'Malley tells Meredith that Chief Webber needs to meet with her or Derek and she says she'll talk to him. When she finds him he tells her that after 11 deaths, they're shutting down the clinical trial at midnight. He tells her they can do one more patient today, and that's all. then we're back to therapy to discuss her mother's death. Meredith insists she's not mad about the whole thing, the Chief did what he had to do and her mother did what she had to do. Then who is she angry with, the therapist asks, but Meredith doesn't know. "You're angry with the chief, you're angry with your mother, you're angry with yourself. . .the answers are right in front of you." She's reliving them every day in this hospital.

She meets up with Derek to tell him about today being the last chance. She suggests they try to get both in before the midnight deadline put on them. Derek asks her, "Are we going too far here. . . these are people's lives. . . is my ego too big here?" "Your ego is just the right size," she tells him, "We can do two." "Two patients," Derek ponders, "bends the rules without breaking them, you'll clear it with Chief?" "Yah."

As they walk past the young woman patient's room where she's trying to walk without the use of her left side. They help her into a wheelchair and she tells them she just wanted to see Jeremy (the other patient) one more time before he went to surgery. They help get her read and she tells them that she wants to "BE" with him, you know, "be" with him. Then she asks, "You've done it before, right?" Caught off guard, Derek says, "With each other?" and Meredith says, "Well, he's done it and I've done it. . ." "Is it magical," the young woman asks. Derek says, "Yes," Meredith says, "It can be," then Derek finishes, "with the right person" and he glances at Meredith as only McDreamy can. The next thing you know, the two are standing in front of the patients closed door, keeping watch. Derek says, "I've never in my life got a patient laid, much less two patients." "It's really sweet," Meredith tells him, "they're so in love . . . it's all new and fresh and exciting." Derek admits,"i've never been a fan of new. I like to know the person- their body, what makes them moan. . ." Then the worried parents appear asking where their daughter is. Derek fumbles for words, but Meredith is quickly able to give them an excuse and whisks them away for some more paperwork to be done.

Back in the patient's room Derek and Meredith ask how it went. The young man says, "It was amazing." Then it's time for him to go into surgery and the two start saying their goodbyes. The young woman tells him, "You changed my life, Jeremy, you made it better, you made it brighter, full of joy and if I die. . ." she breaks off and he finishes, "Don't you dare die! We're not finished yet. I'm not finished loving you." And then he's off to his surgery. While prepping in the O.R. Meredith asks Derek, "Can't you feel it? The majesty of life-saving?" "When did you become an optimist," he asks her. "Selling your land?" she asks knowingly. "Trying to move forward, " is Derek's reply. The go into the surgery ont he young man, but they lose him. Derek is really upset and storms out of the O.R. He throws their victory champagne in the trash. They go to talk to the young woman about her surgery. Derek doesn't want to do it anymore, but Meredith explains how they've learned from Jeremy's surgery and have adjusted accordingly. The mother says that she wants to take thier daughter home because she doesn't want to lose her. The patient tells her, "you won't [lose me] because I'm not finished. . ." and she insists on the surgery. She knows she'll die anyways eventually. "Please do the surgery today," she begs Derek. Once they leave the patient's room Derek is really upset, though. He is mad at Meredith for pushing her into the surgery. "We can't do it, she's a kid," Derek tells her. "She's a kid who's gonna die without the surgery," Meredith retorts. "She'll die with the surgery," Derek says, " That's what you and I do together. We kill things over and over and over again. We've killed 12 people and now because of you, I will kill a thirteenth. When this surgery is over, we're done. I don't want to work with you, I don't want to see you, I don't want to talk to you. We're done." And he leaves Meredith standing there alone.

Back in therapy, Meredith is asked to recall what her mother's last words were to her. "She told me to be extraordinary. She said that she had failed, but that I should be extraordinary, that I shouldn't depend on anyone. 'Be an extraordinary woman, Meredith.'" So she became a surgeon just like her mother. The therapist insists that Meredith's mother was not really wanting to die and that Meredith has all the tools necessary to figure it out on her own. "You need to work this through, Meredith. I promise you that when you do, you'll be glad."

Getting ready for the next surgery, Derek is talking with Rose when she tells him,"I liked you better when you were saying boring science stuff." He starts, "I'm never good enough. No matter what I say or what I do. I never wanted to do this. This clinical trial is making me a failure. I fail her over and over and over." Rose corrects him, "You mean 'them.' When you say 'her' you mean 'them,' the patients?" and she leaves the room. He goes in to the patient and tells her, "You don't have to do this." The patient teasingly says, "Come on, what are you scared?" "Yes" he tells her very matter-of-factly. The patient gets serious, too, "Me too, so lets just leap, okay?" "Okay"

Meanwhile Chief is looking at the O.R. schedule and realizes that Derek has two surgeries scheduled. Evidently Meredith hasn't cleared it with him, but back after the surgery, the patient is still alive and Meredith and Derek are there. Derek decides to stay and monitor her. Meredith goes home and finds blood in the kitchen, which can only be stirring up bad memories (read about Alex and Ava next). She begins scrubbing. . . and scrubbing. . .

The next day, the Chief confronts Meredith about the two surgeries. She tries to blow him off and he gets firm, "Is that how you talk to the Chief?" "My mother tried to kill herself after you left, did you know that? Did you know that?" Chief is totally caught off guard, "I didn't know that, I'm sorry, I didn't know. . ." She interrupts, "She was a brilliant surgeon, how could you do that to her? She was a talented, gifted, extraordinary surgeon. . ." but suddenly she stops as if she's finally realized everything. She goes to her therapist and announces, "She didn't want to die - she was a talented extraordinary surgeon, she didn't want to die. If she had wanted to die she would have cut her carotid artery, she would have died in seconds. . ." "What did she want," the therapist asks. "She wanted Richard to come back for her." "And why didn't he come back" "Well, because he never knew about it and she was too stubborn to ask." "So what does that mean?" Meredith looks puzzled then says, "Well that part I don't know, could you just tell me for once." In the therapists wisdom, she says, "I can. It means that you are a gifted, talented, extraordinary surgeon, but the difference is that you can learn from her mistakes." And now Meredith understands, her mother wasn't talking about surgery at all.

She goes to check on her patient who seems to be doing well. She's looking at the scans of the girl's brain tumor with Rose. As she measures one from before the surgery and the one from today, she realizes that the tumor has, in fact, shrunk. The two are excited and Meredith tells Rose, "You have to tell Derek." Rose says, "No, you have to tell Derek, its the kind of news he'd want to hear from you. Congratulations on your major medical breakthrough. It's the stuff of legends." Meredith goes to find Derek.

Meanwhile, Derek is outside the patients room and sees her parents crying. He rushes in to find that the patient is alright and actually waking up. He smiles and leaves to go pull the champagne out of the trash and is looking for Meredith.

Meredith is at Derek's property, but he's not there. Derek goes to Meredith's house to find an empty house. Derek finds himself back at his trailer and something bright catches his eye out on his property. He sees Meredith out there with hundreds of candles lit. She's muttering, "Stupid, corny, idiotic, I can't believe I did this - stupid loser, son of a, I could be home instead of. . ." "Meredith," he says. "Where have you been," she yells, "I've been here waiting and waiting for you and I did this stupid thing and I was just going to tell you that," and she starts pointing at the shapes of the candles where she's mapped out their house together, "this over here is our kitchen, and this is our living room and over there, that's where our kids could play. I had this whole thing about how I was gonna build us a house, but I don't build houses because I'm a surgeon and now I'm here, feeling like a lame a** loser. I got all 'whole' and 'healed' and you don't show and now its all ruined because you took so long to come home and I couldn't even find that bottle of champagne," Derek holds it up smiling, not even caring that she's yelling at him, and asks, "Where's our bedroom?" She continues, "I'm still mad at you and I don't know if I can trust you. I want to but I don't know if I do, so I'm just going to try and trust you because I believe we can be extraordinary together rather than ordinary apart. . ." but she can't finish because he's kissing her. Then Derek tells her, " I have to go." Why? " In order to kiss you how I want to kiss, the way I want to kiss you, in order to do more than kiss you, I need to speak to Rose. I want my conscience clear so I can do more than kiss you. Stay here, don't move, wait for me." And he leaves her there standing in the field of candles to wait. . .

. . . until next season.

more from this episode. . .