- Secrets from Ellis Grey's past come to light when Meredith watches old videos and reads through her mother's journals. Meanwhile, Maggie rocks the hospital with an unexpected announcement; Alex gets new responsibilities and Callie focuses her attention on the Veterans' project.
- Meredith watches some old video footage of her mother giving a talk where she discussed how audacious she was in medical school. Meredith realizes that her memories of her mother are different than others' might be. Later, she's talking to Derek about how he's pressuring her to justify his staying in Seattle instead of going to D.C. She says she's done feeling guilty and measuring her accomplishments against his.
We flash back to 1983, where Webber and Ellis are sneaking around and having sex. Ellis tries to convince Webber to leave Seattle.
Back at Grey-Sloan Memorial, Stephanie is surprised to see Alex back at the hospital, where he was hired back as a pediatric surgeon. Stephanie tells Alex that Arizona told Bailey the vote for the board spot he didn't get was unanimous. Alex was told it was close.
Hunt and Bailey are upset about news that Pierce is leaving. Bailey wants to take the lead on a "full-court press" to convince Pierce to stay.
Amy Shepherd busts into an O.R. and tells Pierce she can't quit. Pierce doesn't want to explain it. Their patient, a man named Roy, is worried that he's paralyzed.
Webber and Meredith talk about Pierce, but he knows Pierce won't listen to him. Meredith says she can't remember her mother being pregnant in the Spring of 1983. She asks Webber to find Ellis' journal from that time. Meredith runs outside to help a girl named Nadia, who appears to be pregnant and says she hurts "everywhere."
Nadia tells the doctors she's 10, and Alex uses an ultrasound to figure out she isn't pregnant, but has a mass the size of a soccer ball in her stomach. Meredith tells Stephanie to get the police and Child Protective Services involved.
Amy somewhat awkwardly forces Derek to work with Pierce on Roy, suggesting that Pierce talk to Derek about "anything."
Webber reads through Ellis' journal and recalls her "audacious" move to name a new surgical method after herself. He gives the journal to Meredith.
Bailey tries to convince Webber to talk to Pierce and he angrily tells her he can't do anything about Pierce's decision to leave.
Derek talks up Pierce but when Pierce suggests that Meredith has probably told Derek something, she realizes he has no idea what she's talking about. Pierce suggests he talk to Meredith. They check Roy's reflexes and Derek says he's paralyzed. Pierce is upset for a moment, then decides she's going to "fix it," with an open-heart surgery.
Meredith asks Webber if he remembers an arguing he and Ellis appeared to have a carousel when Meredith was a child. He says he doesn't remember. He then flashes back to a conversation he and Ellis had about leaving their spouses. She was ready to do it, but he wasn't.
Pierce works some magic on Roy's heart, having realized that he was paralyzed because his aorta wasn't getting blood to his spine. She's created a "side road" for the blood flow, and Derek is impressed. Jo asks Pierce to take her with her wherever she goes next.
Alex confronts Meredith about Bailey saying the vote was unanimous, and she says she didn't want to give him a pity vote. She thought Bailey's speech was better.
Roy starts to wake up after surgery. He's asked to wiggle his toes, and he can do it.
Meredith and Alex take a 7.8-pound tumor out of Nadia's stomach. Alex has also noticed a complicated Dutch braid in Nadia's hair, meaning someone cared enough to fix her hair nicely but not enough to get her medical treatment for her tumor.
Webber watches while Alex and Meredith try to figure out why Nadia is bleeding. He flashes back to a moment when he and Ellis were operating in a similar situation, and Meredith wind up trying the same technique -- and it works, just as it did when Ellis did it. Alex is amazed. Webber flashes back again to the moment he promised he would tell Adele he was going to leave her. Just then, the chief told Ellis that her "Grey Method" made the short list for the Harper Avery Award, something a resident had never done.
Derek finds Meredith and tries to apologize for having compared her to her mother. She says she doesn't want to live under the weight of his disappointment and encourages him to go back to D.C.
Meredith flips through the journal and finds what looks like a blood stain. She remembers watching her mother's wrists bleeding, calling 911 as a child and reporting that her mother tried to kill herself.
Meredith comes out to the lobby to meet the CPS representative, but finds the woman who first alerted her to Nadia. The woman turns out to be Nadia's mother, who tearfully explains to Meredith that she's an undocumented immigrant and was fearful of bringing her daughter to the hospital because she didn't want them both to be deported. Meredith listens and says nothing.
Derek comes and finds Pierce and asks again about her decision to leave. Pierce finally tells Derek that Meredith is her sister, and that her birth parents are Ellis Grey and Webber. Derek is happy and gives Pierce a hug, telling her it's nice to meet her. His hug is a little too long, and Pierce finds it strange. But he smiles as he tells her she shouldn't leave.
Bailey comes to Webber again and asks what the deal is with him and Pierce. Bailey asks if something happened between them. Webber finally confesses that Pierce is his daughter -- his and Ellis Grey's. Bailey is excited, relieved because he thought he'd had sex with Pierce. Bailey urges webber to talk to Pierce. Webber then flashes back to a conversation he had with Ellis when they talked about how they would've had a great life together, with a family.
Webber comes to Meredith and admits he lied when she asked about the carousel. He admits he remembers everything he and Ellis said. He tells her about the pact he and Ellis made about leaving their spouses, and he says he was jealous of her Harper Avery nomination. He says he "ruined it." We ten flash back to the moment near the carousel when Webber told Ellis he wouldn't leave Adele and left Ellis crying. Meredith remembers that Ellis then took her home and tried to kill herself.
"We would've had a whole other life," Meredith says. Webber says everything after that was his fault. He says, "I'm so sorry."
"I'll be you are," Meredith says.
Meredith comes and talks to Ana, Nadia's mother, and says she told CPS she made a mistake. She introduces her to lawyers from the hospital who are going to help her.
Alex forces Arizona to admit she didn't vote for him for the board. She says she needs to step back from pediatric surgery if she's going to make her fellowship work, and he's the only person he can trust to fill her shoes.
Derek finds Meredith and tells her he's calling a halt to the fight for the moment. He calls for a truce and then brings up that she has a sister. He says she has to let him know about things like that, and asks her if she's OK. She finally starts talking about moving to Boston, "hiding out" in an apartment, her mother crying a lot, and her mother's water breaking. She heard a baby cry and she heard her mother cry, and they went home and her mother's belly wasn't big anymore and everything went back to normal. "And I have a sister," Meredith says.
Derek tells her Pierce is nice and a good doctor.
Meredith stops Pierce as she's leaving the hospital. She tells Pierce she can go if she wants, but she'd like to show her something if she has a minute. She pulls out their mother's journal, in which Ellis wrote "obsessively." She shows Pierce some pages from around the time when she was born.
Webber sees them going through the journal together and watches for a bit before stepping into the elevator.
We finish by going back to Ellis' video-taped talk, in which she discussed winning her first Harper Avery Award. She dedicated it to all the women surgeons who would come after her.
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