Summary: Shep and Raul are done with a shift and about to go get breakfast when they’re sent to help out at a fire. Susan’s also up early and looking ahead to a big day of making moves to adopt Susie. Shep and Raul go to the site of the fire, an apartment building; explosions keep going off and people are coming outside on fire. A woman begs Shep to go in and get her kids, since she could only make it out with one. Raul tells Shep to wait for firefighters to arrive, but Shep goes in anyway.
Mark has taken off his wedding ring but feels weird about it. Doug notes that Jen definitely isn’t wearing hers, since she’s moved on to another guy. He reminds Mark that he asked why he wasn’t getting any action; wearing a wedding ring while trying to date is pretty dumb. Mark asks if Doug wants to hang out that night, but Doug has plans with his father. Carol takes a call from Dwight the paramedic about victims being brought in from a fire. She isn’t looking forward to having to take care of burn victims.
Susan meets with a social worker who tells her she has an advantage since she’s related to Susie. Chloe’s been gone for five months, and Susie’s father didn’t respond to any notices Susan placed in the paper trying to contact him, since the social worker thinks a judge will be fine with terminating their birthrights. Susan was expecting a lot more hurdles in the process, but it looks like she’ll be formalizing the adoption without any complications.
Dwight brings in the first burn victim, telling the staff that the fire and explosions were from a math lab in the building. Mark and Doug work on the patient like he’s anyone, but Carter has a lot of trouble looking at him. Lydia realizes that Shep and Raul’s unit responded to the fire, and it’s not clear whether both of them made it out all right. Doug volunteers to let Carol know, not that she has any time to find out if her boyfriend’s okay while the ER is dealing with multiple traumas.
After some chaos, Carol learns that one of the paramedics, either Shep or Raul, might be en route to the hospital as a patient. She goes outside to wait for the next ambulance, trying not to panic. Susan arrives and joins in the madness, though everyone has either been taken off for treatment or declared dead. Mark’s annoyed that she’s late, since Weaver didn’t tell him that Susan wouldn’t be in when Mark thought she would. Susan says she was somewhere important, and he says her job is important, too.
Paramedics bring in a kid they say was saved by someone from Shep’s unit. Shep is the hero, and he suffered some minor injuries when the floor went out from under him. Raul is MIA. Doug works on the kid with Riley the baby paramedic while Mark and Carol take care of Shep. He’s worried about Raul, saying over and over that Raul was right behind him when he fell through the floor. Jerry pops in to say that they found Raul, but he won’t say what his condition is.
Susan examines a firefighter who tells her that Shep and Raul went into the building without the proper gear. If they hadn’t, the kids they saved would have died. Doug’s kid is still in bad shape, thanks to carbon monoxide, and he’ll need to be taken to another hospital for treatment. Raul finally comes in, badly burned and having trouble breathing. He asks for the truth about his condition, so Mark tells him it’s bad. Raul is at least relieved to hear that Raul’s mostly okay.
Next door, Shep insists on being unstrapped from his backboard so he can go see his partner. Carol refuses, threatening to put him in restraints if he keeps fighting her before they’re sure he’s not badly injured. She agrees to go find out how Raul is while Shep is taken for x-rays. He asks her to tell Raul that he thought Raul was right behind him – Shep didn’t mean to leave him behind.
Mark tells Carol that Raul has burns on 85-90% of his body. In other words, things are really bad. Doug comes in to try to help, even though Mark, Benton, and Carter are all there. The burn-unit doctors are busy, so Benton volunteers himself and Carter to do a procedure. Mark rounds up Doug, Susan, and Carol so they can discuss some of their patients. They shake their heads at a missing mother who apparently left her kids to fend for themselves after her meth lab caused the fire.
Carol explains what’s happening to Raul while Benton and Carter do their thing. Carter is still having trouble, struggling to cut into Raul’s damaged skin while Raul is looking at him. He finally decides he can’t handle it, so Mark steps in. As a burn doctor finally arrives, Doug talks to a kid named Max, one of the kids abandoned by their mom. He doesn’t know where she might have gone. The burn doctor volunteers to tell Raul how bad his condition is, but Carol says she’ll do it. Firefighters line the hallway and give him their positive thoughts as he’s taken for treatment.
Well, well, well, guess who’s back? It’s freaking Chloe. Since Randi wasn’t around for all the drama, she doesn’t know that just letting Chloe go up to daycare without telling Susan she’s there isn’t a good idea. While Carol takes on the unfortunate task of telling Shep that Raul’s in bad shape, Carter tells Benton that he’s not sure he can handle taking care of burn patients again. Benton blankly says that he can. This is one of the worst situations they’ll have to deal with, and Carter didn’t get sick or faint, so he did okay.
The missing mom arrives with one of her kids, who she didn’t realize needed to come to the hospital. Mark, Susan, and Doug revive him, feeling little sympathy for the mom. Raul’s family arrives, but they won’t have much time to spend with him – his doctor thinks he won’t survive the night. Mark sends Doug off to the Bulls game, thinking that since he’s come so far with his father, he should see things through.
Carol tells Raul how bad his condition is, and he asks not to be put on a ventilator when he’s unable to breathe anymore. She assures him that the kids he helped save are going to be fine, thanks to him. He admits that he’s scared, and she tries to comfort him. Susan catches Lydia crying in the lounge; despite being a veteran nurse who’s seen multiple traumas over the years, sometimes she can’t handle all the emotions that come with her job.
Doug waits for Ray outside the game, but he doesn’t show. At the hospital, the nurses don’t want to go home yet, and the firefighters who battled the fire earlier don’t know what to do other than hang around the hospital. Lily invites them to get something to eat with the nurses. Susan finally learns that Chloe’s around and races to daycare. Doug gets tired of waiting for his father and leaves, disappointed by Ray’s absence once again.
Chloe hasn’t run off with Susie, as Susan feared, but of course her return is going to throw a wrench in Susan’s adoption plans. Carol goes to get Shep to take him to see Raul, but Shep blames himself for Raul’s condition. Raul wanted to wait for the firefighters and their gear, but since Shep went into the building, Raul decided to follow. Carol warns that Shep will regret it forever if he doesn’t go see Raul, as hard as that may be.
Doug tracks down Ray at a restaurant, where he’s dining with a woman named Karen. Ray claims that he left a message at the hospital that he would have to miss the game for a meeting. He would have been at the game if he could have. Doug’s smart enough not to buy the lies Ray’s been telling his whole life. Doug was at the game, and Ray was where he’s always been – somewhere else.
Ray says he can’t change the past, as if he’s trying to make the present any better. Doug blames his inability to commit on his deadbeat dad. Over the years, he’s turned into Ray. Ray reminds him that he’s 34 and can’t blame his life on his father anymore. It’s his choice whether or not to be responsible.
The firefighters and some of the ER staff share memories of Raul at Doc Magoo’s. Lily reveals that Shep is afraid of heights, so he always makes Raul do anything high up. A paramedic laughs that Raul’s Christmas present to Shep was skydiving lessons. Once they’re done with happy memories, things turn somber, and even the perpetually stone-faced Randi gets sad. Shep visits Raul and apologizes for the way things have turned out. And then Raul dies, but it’s off-screen, but this whole thing is really about Shep, so that’s not really a surprise.
Thoughts: The firefighter Susan examines is played by Michael Cudlitz. The burn doctor is played by Gregory Itzin. Karen is played by Marg Helgenberger.
Shep’s downward spiral begins…now.
Once again, County daycare’s security sucks, if Chloe can just walk in whenever she wants.
'90s Flashback 
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