A common theme of this week's Grey's Anatomy was how change, even good change, can hurt and leave you shaken and hesitant, reeling from the ground shifting beneath you. The storm which descended upon Seattle in this episode taxed the professional limits of these surgeons and underscored the intensity of their shifting personal relationships as well. Once the storm had cleared some tentative beginnings had been forged and some tearful goodbyes were being said as well.
Early on, Owen Hunt and Cristina Yang prepped her patient and his son for transfer to another hospital. Cristina urged Owen to discuss his personal attachment to the boy and its impact on the structure of their relationship. Cristina had grown keenly aware of the glimpses she'd had of Owen's need to parent through watching him tend this child. Owen remained unwilling to extrapolate his focus on this child to the larger issues of their relationship. In these scenes both the love and the tension between them was palpable.
Throughout the day Owen and Cristina were pressed into service as surgeons when hospital conditions complicated emergency surgeries and weather conditions brought in a steady flow of trauma patients. Owen, along with several colleagues, evacuated families from an accident-damaged school bus under tight time constraints, while Cristina operated in a darkened OR when the hospital's generator malfunctioned.
Cristina found Owen in an on-call room as the storm began to clear and pressed him further to discuss their differences regarding the issue of children in their relationship. Owen reiterated his love for her yet found himself at a loss for words when she asked him if he believed a life with her in the absence of children could be enough for him. That Cristina had prefaced the discussion by ensuring he knew how much she loved him, made the scene all the more tender and sad. As she exited the room they both struggled with the realization that they loved each other deeply yet it may be better, at least temporarily, for them to part so that Owen would have the freedom to explore what he wanted from life.
Elsewhere in the hospital: Meredith Grey had a very complicated C-section and follow up surgery which got Miranda Bailey back into the OR; Callie Torres caught onto the fact that Arizona Robbins had been unfaithful with a visiting surgeon and the two ended their relationship; Alex Karev finally shared his feelings with Jo Wilson and she reciprocated; April Kepner begged Jackson Avery to give her a reason not to marry her fiance; and Richard Webber was unconscious in the basement due to the bad combination of a faulty generator and standing water from the storm.