"Shit," Sarah said after the information about the possibility of another Upside Down settled in. Destroying the first one had already taken everything out of her and then some, how would she destroy another? As she was contemplating this, a new thought struck her. "Well, I guess that explains the demogorgon."

"The demogorgon?" Diane asked, confusion furrowing her brows.

Diane's confusion perplexed Sarah. If Diane could see the outcomes of Sarah's actions that meant that she already knew that Sarah would face off against the demogorgon. Was it something to do with the foggy visions she had mentioned?

"Steve and I came across a demogorgon earlier tonight," Sarah explained, pushing aside her concerns about her mother's abilities for the moment. If what Diane said was true, she had bigger things to worry about.

"Steve, huh?" Diane asked next, her brows raising and her lips turning up in a small smile.

Sarah shot Diane a knowing look before responding, "It wasn't a date. He's engaged."

Diane's smile immediately fell and she reached out to place a hand on Sarah's arm. "I'm sorry," Diane said in an attempt to comfort Sarah.

Sarah looked into Diane's eyes for a brief second before looking to the ground but her eyes were pulled back by something she had initially missed. There seemed to be a disconnect between the look in Diane's eyes and the frown on her face; they didn't match.

"There's still something you're not telling me," Sarah said slowly as a scowl overcame her face. She pushed herself away from Diane until she was sitting at the opposite end of the bed.

"I--" Diane began when Sarah cut her off.

"No, this is just like you!" Sarah snapped, abruptly standing from the bed as she felt a familiar rage begin to boil in her chest. She paced in front of Diane, waving her arms in the air angrily as she continued to shout. "You tell me just enough to keep me satisfied, to keep me ignorant of the real truth! What aren't you telling me? What's going to happen?"

"Like I said, my visions have been foggier lately. I can't see the coming events as clearly--" Diane tried to explain but Sarah waved her answer aside with a shake of her head and a roll of her eyes.

Sarah continued to pace as she tried to calm her anger. Once she felt like she was capable of speaking without yelling, she said in a steady tone, "I think you should return to the Diagonal now."

A hurt look crossed Diane's face that Sarah tried to ignore. An instinctive feeling in Sarah's gut wanted her to feel bad but she had been through this with her mother so many times before and she was sick of it. Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from Diane.

Sarah had mostly come to terms with the way Diane's abilities worked, but it still angered her every time Diane kept stuff from her. She didn't want to admit that her anger was a cover for something else: fear. Because if Diane was keeping things from her, that meant she was trying to protect her, which meant that something bad was coming. Something even worse than Malcolm and the Upside Down.

Diane slowly rose from the bed, standing a few feet behind Sarah. Her hand hovered in the air as she contemplated reaching out for her daughter, but ultimately it fell against her side in defeat. "I'm sorry, I really am," Diane apologized to Sarah's back. "And I know I've said that a lot, but there are certain things I still can't tell you because it will impact your future."

"Ten years later and that's still a really annoying excuse," Sarah retorted over her shoulder.

Diane bit her lip before speaking again. "I know it's hard and I know that I still haven't proved that I deserve it, but you have to trust me," she said.

"Why?" Sarah snapped, still facing away from Diane. But what Diane said next caused her to finally turn around and look her mother in the eyes.

"Because it's the only way that Steve survives."

☆ ★ ☆

"I can't believe her," Hopper growled as he paced back and forth in the kitchen. Joyce's eyes traced his movement as she watched patiently from the table. "She leaves me twenty-four years ago and now she just reappears in my house and she's what, an alien or something?"

"I don't think she's an alien, Hop," Joyce responded gently. Hopper ignored this.

"And she lied to me, lied to me about everything! About herself, about our life, about our daughter!"

"I understand your anger, I really do," Joyce said, trying to catch Hopper's frantic line of sight. When she was unsuccessful, she stood from the table and grabbed his face in her hands, forcing his bright blue eyes to stare into her own. "You know Lonnie, he may be Will and Jonathan's father, but that doesn't mean that he's immune from being a piece of shit. I was angry at him for the longest time, but that anger only hurt myself and my boys. As hard as it is, you've got to learn to forgive Diane and move on. For Sarah's sake and for your own."

Hopper took a deep breath as he felt the anger slowly drain from his body. Anger had always been a driving emotion in his life, but as he aged, he could feel the fatigue winning over. His body ached, his mind ached, his heart ached...He was just so tired; tired of being angry.

Hopper placed his hands over Joyce's, slowly pulling them away from his face and cradling them in his grip. A small smile shone beneath his moustache as he stared down at Joyce. With another deep breath, he said, "You're right."

"I thought you'd already learned that by now," Joyce smiled back with a mischievous gleam in her eye.

Hopper's and Joyce's heads moved closer to each other as they leaned in for a kiss but they were interrupted just before their lips could meet.

"What's going on?" Eleven asked from the doorway, Will standing by her side. "Are we still watching the movie?"

"Yeah," Hopper responded after scratching the back of his neck awkwardly and taking a step back from Joyce. "We've just had an impromptu visitor."

"Visitor?" Will asked. "Who?"

At this moment, Jonathan's bedroom door opened and Sarah walked out into the hallway, accompanied by Diane. Once Eleven saw Diane, she immediately recognized her from the pictures in Hopper's old boxes and a smile overcame her face until she noticed the look on Sarah's.

"What's wrong?" Eleven asked.

Sarah paused at the end of the hallway before she entered the kitchen, her face still stuck conveying a mixture of emotions. Her eyes locked into the ground at her feet as she felt incapable to meet Eleven, Hopper, Joyce, or Will's glance. They had lived relatively peaceful and happy lives in the ten years that Sarah had been gone, and now when she finally comes back, they're all in danger again. It was hard for her not to see the correlation.

Taking a deep breath, Sarah forced her eyes to travel upwards until they connected with Eleven. With a serious look and a sullen tone, she said, "It's not over."

☆ ★ ☆

"I'm once again starting bets for how long it takes Steve and Sarah to end up together," Dustin announced to Mike, Max, and Lucas as they sat around the tiny table in the Wheeler's basement. He was met with a series of groans and eyerolls. "What?" Dustin asked innocently.

"He's got a fiancée, doofus," Max retorted, letting her hand fall from her chin to the table with a loud slap.

"Yeah, but engaged isn't married," Dustin countered with raised brows.

"You've got to give it a rest," Lucas added. "It's over. They're over."

"I don't know," Mike piped up from his side of the table, causing the other three to snap their heads towards him. He had been unusually quiet all night, something that everybody else had picked up on but nobody addressed. They were sure he was thinking about Eleven.

"What do you mean 'I don't know'?" Lucas asked.

"Well," Mike started and then cleared his throat. "he thought she was dead, right? That doesn't mean that he doesn't still have feelings for her. And if two people are meant to be..."

As Mike's words trailed off into the air, an uncomfortable silence descended upon them. Max, Lucas, and Dustin all shared a glance, mentally pleading with each other to speak first. After a prolonged stare-down, Max became the unfortunate candidate.

Max gave Lucas and Dustin an intense glare that made them slightly cower in their seats before turning to Mike and pressing a warm smile on her face. "Yes..." she began, trying to choose her words carefully so as not to upset Mike. "but sometimes 'meant to be' doesn't mean forever. Sometimes the people who are meant to come into your life are only meant to be there for a short while, and then a new person who's 'meant to be' comes along."

"Y-yeah," Dustin added after Max elbowed him in the ribs for back-up. "Like Steve has Quinn and Sarah has Carl Houseman."

The uncomfortable glances shifted to bewildered stares as Max, Lucas, and Mike turned to look at Dustin.

"Carl Houseman?" Max inquired, her brows knit tightly together in disbelief at what she had just heard.

"Yeah," Dustin replied slowly, equally confused but for different reasons. "Steve told me about him. He's Sarah's boyfriend."

"You're both idiots!" Max sighed, smacking her hand against her forehead.

Dustin looked to Lucas and Mike for help but he found that Lucas had buried his face in his arms on the table top and Mike was shaking his head with his mouth set in a grim line.

"Dustin," Lucas said, lifting his head up to catch Dustin's attention. "Say the name out loud again."

"Carl Houseman," Dustin stated simply, his brows still locked in a confused furrow.

"Slower," Mike said.

"Carl Houseman," Dustin repeated, slightly slower, but still just as confused.

"Dude," Lucas sighed with a shake of his head. "Car...l...House...man. Car, house, man."

It still took Dustin a few moments to register what his friends were saying to him, but when he finally got it, his mouth dropped and his eyes widened. "Son of a bitch. She gave him a fake name!"

Max, Lucas, and Mike all nodded their heads, but they weren't quite prepared for what Dustin would say next.

"That means her boyfriend is probably a spy or something..." Dustin added as his own delusional realization settled upon him. "Oh god, Steve doesn't stand a chance."

Another wave of silence passed over the Wheeler's basement before Max broke it. "Alright, that's enough stupidity for the night," Max announced with a slap of her hands against her legs as she stood from her chair.

Lucas and Mike slowly followed suit, trudging up the stairs one after the other and leaving a perplexed Dustin alone in the basement.

"Wait, guys, come back!" Dustin shouted up the stairs from his seat at the table. "This is the first time the party has all been together when there's not danger! We've got to celebrate!"

The only response Dustin received was the slam of the basement door and the flick of a light switch as he was bathed in darkness. One word escaped the quiet he was left in:

"Shit."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★