Brassy and Corday walking outdoors. A distressed Brassy gasps, "I can't really -- run away -- can I?" Corday says, "You can delay, but not for long. Elaine, if you're worried about reconstruction, I can make an appointment with a plastic surgeon --" Brassy interrupts, "What will happen to it -- after you cut it off?" and Corday rather unsupportively tells her, "Now you're being morbid." Brassy asks, "Why? It's a part of me," and I hate to admit it, but if I had to face the prospect of a radical mastectomy, I'd probably obsess over my poor, lonely, diseased breast getting dumped into the incinerator like just so much garbage myself. Corday tells her that the breast will go to Pathology, "and then it'll be gotten rid of." "Just thrown in the trash?" asks Brassy, going on, "It's medical waste, and I'll have a blob of gel instead." She cries a little and touches her breast and then asks, "What will it feel like -- when I touch it? When somebody else touches it?" Corday tells her firmly that "lots of women have this type of surgery," and putting myself in Brassy's shoes again, I have to say that I wouldn't find Corday's statement particularly supportive or helpful. Brassy protests that "I can't imagine feeling anything, and if I can't, how will anybody else? I mean, how can I ever be with anybody again?" Corday condescendingly tells her that she can't "let this define" her, and Elaine weeps, "It's hard not to. I was happy with who I was," and she covers her face. Corday says, "That's exactly who you'll still be." Um, Elizabeth? Enough already with the platitudes, okay, because at the end of the day, you'll still have both your breasts, and Elaine won't, so leave the buck-up-little-camper routine to Dawson Leery. Anyway, Elaine composes herself and says she'd better come back in: "I may be vain, but I'm not stupid. Just -- can you do something for me?" "Of course," Corday says. "When you cut," Elaine whispers, "cut everything. Don't leave anything -- you cut it all." Corday looks at her pityingly.

Hawkeye tries to cheer Crystal up by telling her that sickle-cell sufferers don't get malaria, thus ingratiating himself folksily with Crystal and her parents. He prepares to release her, and Mark eyes the chart and asks Chuny if the labs he ordered over Hawkeye's head have come back yet. She says no; he tells her to let him know if they do.