Meanwhile, Charlie asks Ross to be her guardian, and Charlie's mother, whose former boyfriends have abused Charlie, agrees, claiming she can't control her daughter. Ross refuses. To protest cuts in their overtime pay, the nurses call in sick. Hathaway gets temporary employees and closes down part of the emergency room. However, a deathly ill patient from West Africa needs treatment. The doctors worry that he might have the highly contagious ebola virus. Jeanie is willing to treat him, helped by Dr. Greg Fischer (recurring guest star HARRY J. LENNIX) from Infectious Diseases, who discovers that the man has malaria.

Fischer invites Jeanie to look at the stars with him through a telescope. She mistakenly thinks that he is homosexual, but when he kisses her she realizes her mistake. She tells him that she is HIV positive. Meanwhile, Greene overzealously courts Marquez, who wants to let their romance develop more slowly.

When a homeless man dies in the emergency room, the overworked Hathaway takes responsibility for giving him the wrong blood. Due to the lack of nurses, Weaver and Greene don't think it is important to report the incident, but Hathaway insists.