Here's to Future Days

'''"When something begins, you generally have no idea how it’s going to end. The house you’re going to sell becomes your home, the roommates you were forced to take in become your family and the one night stand you were determined to forget becomes the love of your life. We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning for the future, trying to predict the future, as if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow. But the future is always changing. The future is the home of our deepest fears and wildest hopes. But one thing is certain when it finally reveals itself. The future is never the way we imagined it."

- Meredith Grey '''

 is the twenty-third episode of the fifth season and the 101st overall episode of Grey's Anatomy.

Short Summary
Izzie spends some time with a fellow cancer patient while contemplating whether or not to undergo a risky surgery, as Mark is ready to take his relationship with Lexie to the next level and a patient makes Owen reassess his place at Seattle Grace.

Full Summary
Derek was smiling in the morning because he figured out how to remove the tumor from Izzie's brain. Newlyweds Alex and Izzie walked around the hospital and Izzie introduced Alex to her friends in the cancer ward.

Hunt told Cristina about a good session with his shrink, but he still hadn't spoken with her about his mother, who lives just a few hours away and still thinks Hunt is in Iraq. A soldier who'd heard about Hunt came in with a mysterious pain in his leg. They didn't know what to do and he asked the doctors to cut it off and fit him with a prosthetic so he could get back to Iraq. Callie didn't want to cut off a healthy leg.

Arizona wanted to pull Bailey into pediatrics to treat another patient, but chief pulled her aside and called himself Santa Claus before introducing her to the 'Da Vinci,' a high-tech surgical system used to perform surgery robotically with extreme precision and optimum patient safety that is very new, and very very expensive. Sloan hinted to Lexie that she should move in with him to a new condo, but she essentially shot him down. Sloan decided to take such a leap because "life is short -- look what's happening to Stevens."

Derek told Izzie about the surgery he wanted to try, but there was a risk that she could lose her memory. Dr. Swender, Izzie's primary oncologist, was against it and while she and Derek argued, Izzie closed her eyes and day dreamed about sitting on the beach with Denny. She talked with him about having kids with Alex. Izzie wasn't sure whether to have the surgery. She wanted Alex or her friends to decide for her, but they refused.

George asked the soldier guy why he wanted to go back to the war. He said the guys in Iraq were his real family, the only people who understood him. Swender showed Cristina some X-rays of a patient who had five surgeries for a brain tumor and several treatments the mets disappeared. Dr. Swender told Cristina that Izzie should be patient with her treatments. "Surgeons like to cut but sometimes there's a better way," Swender said. Bailey played with the new "Da Vinci" like it was a video game. The chief told her about another doctor who was doing single-incision gall bladder removals through a belly button and she could try it.

Cristina showed Meredith the results Swender showed her from the brain tumor patient. Derek walked in and said nothing.

Derek put the right side of Izzie's brain to sleep and asked her to remember some flash-card images (dog, plane, and house). Izzie couldn't remember the cards. Then she couldn't speak Mereidth's name. Izzie began to look scared when Meredith asked her if she knew who Alex Karev was and Izzie couldn't respond.

After the test, Swender and Derek continued to argue and left the decision to Izzie, who now had all her faculties. Derek and Alex walked out of the room to discuss it and when they left, Meredith closed the door and told Izzie, "You are not having this surgery."

Alex asked Derek to talk straight with him and asked him, "What if it was Meredith?" Alex wanted Derek to tell him what to do. Derek said he would ask her to have the surgery.

Meredith, meanwhile, told Izzie how she couldn't remember things during the test. Meredith told Izzie about Swender's patient. She again told Izzie not have the surgery. Izzie talked to a patient, Alison, who had 15 surgeries and decided that was enough. Then, the I-L 2 worked and she no longer has her brain tumor.

Callie talked to Charlie the soldier about how risky cutting off his leg could be. He told Callie not to bother trying to scare him because nothing scares him any more.

Bailey successfully performed the single-incision gall bladder removal. Arizona realized she'd be on her own for the ped patient. Bailey was going to do another surgery with the new "Da Vinci" after lunch. Arizona got mad at the chief in a bizarre way that included crying. She said it was wrong for the chief to lure Bailey away from pediatrics with a robot. Arizona vowed to fight the chief and win. "Good luck," he said with a laugh. Alex went to Izzie's room and learned that Izzie decided not to have the surgery. Alex got upset and yelled at Izzie, telling her she was having the surgery because Derek said she should.

Derek was yelling at Cristina for being unprofessional and interfering with Izzie's treatment, but Meredith walked in and admitted she was the one who told Izzie not to have the surgery. Derek turned his anger toward Meredith, saying that as his resident she needed to go back in and change Izzie's mind, "because this tumor will kill her."

Hunt pulled Cristina into a room and told her his work in Iraq isn't done, so he's decided to go back. Cristina left. Charlie told George and Callie he was in Iraq because he was trying to help people and it was his job.

Izzie talked to Alison about her fight with Alex. Meredith told Cristina that Derek had a right to be mad at her about how she told Izzie about her options. They got a page and walked into the cancer ward to find Izzie pumping Alison's chest. Alison was unconscious. Hunt, George and Callie were performing the amputation on Charlie. Hunt and George had to convince Callie one last time that they were doing what Charlie wanted. She starting cutting.

Cristina and Swender were operating on Alison and Cristina said, "So much for I-L 2." Swender got upset, saying that nothing was a guaranteed cure for cancer and that Alison lived for almost two years longer she was expected to.

Sloan explained to Lexie that he was asked her to move in with him. She said she'd love to eventually. In, like, 10 years. Sloan was thinking more like one year. Lexie asked Sloan if he was asking her to marry him. They decided, both laughing, to end the conversation. Bailey was giddy from another surgery with the "Da Vinci," then she told Bailey that her ped surgery went well, too. She told Bailey to stop by when Arizona gave the kid's family the good news, so she could "see the joy."

Meanwhile, Swender and Cristina were giving the bad news to Alison's parents, who were told that Alison would likely not come off her ventilator.

Izzie went back to her happy place with Denny, but George showed up because she paged him. She asked him what she should do. He told her the back-and-forth was just fear and that she'd already made her decision when she decided to fight the cancer. Izzie went to Derek and told him to do it. "You can cut into my brain again," she said, telling him she didn't want to end up on a ventilator. She was going to sign a do not resuscitate order (a DNR). Alex got mad at Izzie for signing the DNR. He reminded her how crazy it made her when Denny signed his DNR. She said she didn't want to live if something went wrong in the surgery. She said she didn't understand when Denny signed his DNR, but now she does. She told Alex, "If it comes down to it, just let me go."

Meredith saw the whole scene and said, "I always thought it would be me," meaning she thought she'd get Alzheimer's like her mom and forget everyone. She asked Derek to go to City Hall with her the next day so they could get married. "I don't want to spend another day not married to you," she said.

Cristina told Hunt she didn't want him to die.

Callie told Bailey she cut off a healthy leg. In the same room, Swender was lamenting the fact that her "miracle case" was on life support. Bailey took them to pediatrics so they could "see the joy," and reminded them of why they do what they do. Swender and Callie both smiled on cue.

At an Army recruiting center, an employee knocks on the recruiter's door and tells him there's a doctor who said he needed to sign up immediately. Cut to a door opening and we see that Hunt went his mother's house and brought Cristina with him. He told his mom, "I'm home," and they hugged. ‎ "Congratulations, doctor," the recruiter said. "Welcome to the Army." He reached out to shake the doctor's hand. It was George, who shook the recruiter's hand and said, "Thank you."

Main Cast

 * Ellen Pompeo as Dr. Meredith Grey
 * Sandra Oh as Dr. Cristina Yang
 * Katherine Heigl as Dr. Izzie Stevens
 * Justin Chambers as Dr. Alex Karev
 * T.R. Knight as Dr. George O'Malley
 * Chandra Wilson as Dr. Miranda Bailey
 * James Pickens, Jr. as Dr. Richard Webber
 * Sara Ramírez as Dr. Callie Torres
 * Eric Dane as Dr. Mark Sloan
 * Chyler Leigh as Dr. Lexie Grey
 * Kevin McKidd as Dr. Owen Hunt
 * Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd

Special Guest Star

 * Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Denny Duquette

Guest Stars

 * Kimberly Elise as Dr. Swender
 * Jessica Capshaw as Dr. Arizona Robbins
 * Zach Gilford as Charlie Lowell
 * Liza Weil as Alison Clark
 * Debra Mooney as Mrs. Hunt

Co-Starring

 * Webster Williams as Alison's Father
 * Chelsea Taylor as Alison's Mother
 * Jon Rowland as Alison's Boyfriend
 * JF Davis as Recruiting Officer
 * Brock Cuchna as Recruiting Clerk

Notes and Trivia
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 * This episode's title originated from the song , originally sung by Thompson Twins.
 * This episode scored 16.58 million viewers.
 * Although aired together with Now or Never, Shonda Rhimes has commented that this episode was not meant to be a two part finale.
 * Sometimes this episode is incorrectly called "Here's to the Future".

Quotes

 * Cristina: (to Owen) God, it doesn't matter how good you are. Or how hard you work. You can do all the research, you can master all the latest techniques, I mean you can be the best. You can be the best surgeon in the world, but your patients are still gonna die. 'Cause the next day, or the next month, or the next year, you know they're just gonna get hit by a car. Or find a mole on their back. There's nothing you can do about it. (looks at Owen) I don't want you to die.


 * Owen: I realized the reason why I haven't told my mother I'm back is because part of me is still over there. I made a commitment to the army that I wasn't able to fulfill. If my unit hadn't been destroyed. I would still be there. So, no wonder I can't sleep at night, or look my mother in the eye. No wonder you and I, we can't move forward. My work there isn't done. Until it is, I have no business being here. So, I've decided to go back.