As the darkness continued to press down upon the cabin, Sarah's first thought was to call the Byers' house to check to see that everyone else was okay. The tinny ringing from the other end echoed in her ear as she anxiously twirled the phone cord in her fingers. Pick up, pick up, pick up, she silently urged in her head. On the seventh ring, she finally heard a voice.

"Hello?" Eleven's voice answered from the other end.

"Thank God." Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah..." Eleven answered slowly. "Why wouldn't we be? Did something happen?"

Surprised, Sarah pulled the phone away from her ear for a split second to double-check that what she was seeing out the window was correct. She confirmed that there was still darkness, ash, and fog before returning to the conversation.

"You don't see the Upside Down out your window?" Sarah asked in confusion.

"No...It's cloudy out, but it looks pretty normal to me..." Eleven replied, her voice equally confused.

"Who's all with you?" Sarah asked next, skipping past the thousands of questions that she had about the Upside Down. There were clearly some things that she needed to figure out.

"Your mom left, but Will is here, and Joyce just got home."

"Just, keep everybody there..." Sarah informed Eleven. "I've got some other calls I need to make."

Sarah waited for Eleven to signify her understanding before hanging up. Her hand hovered over the keypad as she tried to summon the next number she was going to call, but she quickly realized that she didn't know it.

"Does anybody know the number for Steve's office?" Sarah asked, turning to Hopper, Adam, Jonathan, Nancy, and Barb.

When everybody shook their head no, Sarah silently cursed under her breath.

"Wait, I think I might have one of his cards in a kitchen drawer or something," Hopper mentioned, heading for the kitchen to begin his search. After turning out three drawers, he finally found what he was looking for.

Sarah took the crumpled and slightly stained business card from Hopper, holding it firm in her grip as she dialed the corresponding numbers on the phone. Once again, she waited anxiously for the other end to pick up.

"Hello, Harrington Real Estate, how may I help you?" Quinn's voice answered.

"Quinn!" Sarah practically shouted through the phone. "Is Steve with you?"

"Yeah, he's back in his office," Quinn answered. "Do you want me to patch you through?"

"No, it's okay, I just need to know that you guys are all right."

"Yeah, of course," Quinn answered. "Why? Are you guys all right?"

Sarah ignored Quinn's question to ask her own. "So it's not dark and foggy outside your window?"

"No..." Quinn replied slowly. "Should it be...?"

"What the hell is going on?" Sarah mumbled quietly to herself, but Quinn was able to hear her through the phone.

"Where are you guys? Do you need us to come get you?" Quinn asked, concern leaking through her voice.

"No, we're fine," Sarah lied. "Totally fine. Just forget that I called."

Sarah hung the phone up before Quinn could respond and turned to meet the confused stares of the other cabin occupants.

"Why would you tell her that we're fine when we're clearly not?" Nancy asked.

"Because there's no sense in dragging more people into this when we don't even know what's out there," Sarah answered.

"You think it's an illusion or something?" Jonathan asked, bouncing a nervous Barb on his knee.

Sarah bit the tip of her thumb in thought. "It's not impossible, but I haven't met anybody who can do that besides James..."

"And yourself," James reminded her. She ignored this.

"So then what?" Hopper asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the kitchen counter. "Malcolm recreated the Upside Down, but only around the cabin?"

Sarah wandered over to the window once more, pressing her hands around her face so that she could see through the foggy glass, but she wasn't able to see much more than shreds of some trees. There was only one way to know whether or not what she was seeing was real, so she took a deep breath and headed for the door.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Hopper asked, beating her to the door and standing in front of it to block her from leaving.

"I'm just going to open it to see if it's actually real or if it's all just in our heads," Sarah answered, trying to snake her arm around Hopper to reach the door knob.

"What if something gets in? Like a demodog, or a demogorgon, or one of those new demo-nightmares?"

"I'll be quick, I promise," Sarah answered.

After an intense stare-down, Hopper finally stepped aside. Sarah quickly pulled the door open, peeking her head around the frame to see outside. She was disappointed to find that what she had seen out the window matched what she was seeing outside the door. She coughed up fog and ash as she brought her head back inside and shut the door, locking and dead-bolting it just to be safe.

"Well, it's real," Sarah informed the rest of the group with a sigh. Worried groans answered her in response. As if to provide further proof, a high-pitched howl echoed from outside.

"How are we going to get out of here?" Jonathan asked.

Sarah glanced over to the couch where Mark was still unconscious. Next she looked to little Barb, who stared up at her with inquisitive eyes. It was looking like a portal was the only answer. "I can open a portal back to the house," Sarah answered. "But we'll have to figure out a way to contain this."

"Once we're through--" Hopper began to say when Sarah cut him off.

"I know, I know," Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes. "Answers."

Hopper gave a curt nod and waited silently for Sarah to open a portal to the Byers' house. Once the whirling circle of light was complete, they each stepped through one at a time, with Sarah going last. Adam and Hopper carried Mark through, setting him on the couch once they reached the other side. Once the portal was closed, their eyes all darted for the windows, and they were relieved to find no ash, fog, or darkness.

"Are you guys okay?" Joyce asked, entering the living room from the kitchen once she heard the portal open. Eleven and Will both joined at her side.

"Yeah, we're fine," Sarah answered. "But we've got a problem."

"I heard," Joyce replied, a look of concern clouding her eyes. She picked up Barb, who had stumbled over to her, and held her closely to her chest.

"All right," Hopper announced. "You know the deal, Sarah. Answers."

Joyce, Eleven, and Will all stared in confusion as Sarah crossed her arms over her chest uncomfortably.

"Come on, it won't be so bad," James said. "I'm sure they've missed me."

"Answers about what?" Eleven asked curiously, her eyes darting between her father and her sister.

"Answers about how she was able to turn him back from being a monster," Hopper answered, gesturing to Mark on the couch. Seeing him now for the first time, Joyce, Eleven, and Will all gasped in surprise.

"It's--I--" Sarah stammered, trying to find the proper place to start. She began to bounce from foot to foot anxiously. After a heavy sigh, she began. "It happened after I sent you guys back to Hawkins. I was weak and James got me. He began merging me with the Mind Flayer."

Sarah paused as her eyes glanced around the room to catch everyone's expressions. Hopper was standing with his arms crossed, his face set in a grim line as he listened closely. Adam stood beside him, his eyebrows raised at the sound of his son's name. Jonathan had his arm around Nancy, holding her close to him as they stared at Sarah with a newfound curiosity. Joyce, still holding Barb, stood next to Will, a similar look of concern etched onto both of their faces. Last, Sarah looked upon Eleven, who watched her with a small smile that encouraged Sarah to keep going.

"After I tapped into Malcolm's power, I was able to destroy James and the Upside Down. I thought that was it," Sarah continued. "But I was wrong, James wasn't gone. Not entirely."

"Keep going," James urged her.

"They're going to think I'm crazy," Sarah thought back.

"Not with the proper proof."

"What are you talking about?"

"Project me," James answered. "You have my ability to control reality, to control what others see. Do what I did when you rescued me from the Upside Down."

Sarah nodded her head and took a deep breath. This would be her first time using this ability, but she had been having a lot of firsts lately. What was one more?

To aid her in the process, James appeared next to her and Sarah locked eyes with him, willing the others to see what she was seeing. His smile nearly distracted her as she worked and she couldn't help but let a small smile flicker across her face for a brief second in response. When a collective gasp echoed around the room, she knew that she had been successful.

"As I was saying," Sarah addressed the room with a nervous smile. "He wasn't completely gone. Just as part of me had merged with him, part of him merged with me."

"And now she has my abilities, such as controlling the reality before you right now and controlling the atoms of a monster to rearrange back into a man," James finished.

Before anybody could have a chance to respond, the front door flew open and Quinn and Steve both stumbled inside.

"We came as quickly as we could after you called, we went to the cabin first but the cabin--" Steve began to say as he gasped for air and rested his hand against his beating heart.

"We know, come in," Hopper informed them. Their faces turned red as they slowly shut the door behind them and scrambled inside, before turning white upon seeing the three new strangers; one unconscious on the couch, one standing next to Hopper, and the other beside Sarah.

Steve's focus zoned in on the stranger standing next to Sarah as he tried to place why he looked so familiar. The thick brows, dark eyes, pale complexion, and curly brown hair...Steve had seen it all before. It took a moment, but once he grasped onto the answer he threw himself at the man in a rage of fists and feet. "You son of a bitch!"

"Steve, he's not really there!" Sarah shouted, pushing herself between the two before Steve could land any of his punches.

Steve allowed Sarah to push him away, but his intense glare wouldn't leave James, who gave him a smug smirk in return.

"Been holding onto that one for a while, have you, Steve?" James said.

"You tried to kill me!" Steve shouted back, his face as red as the fire flickering in his eyes. "You tried to kill us all!"

Quinn watched in silent confusion, grabbing onto Steve's arm to hold him back once he was within reach.

"Steve has a point," Hopper agreed with a deep frown and furrowed brows. As he took a step towards James, Sarah moved to put herself between the two. He looked like he wanted to take a swing himself and she was sure he would if she let him. Part of her almost wanted to, but there were more important things to tend to at the moment.

"Listen, I don't like this situation any more than the rest of you, but there's nothing I can do about it," Sarah informed the group. "And with his abilities, I may be able to stop Malcolm."

Murmurs of anger and confusion speckled the silence that ensued until James broke it.

"Well, if it isn't dear old dad," he said, his eyes pointing directly at Adam.

"Oliver," Adam greeted him, his eyes shining with a mixture of every emotion known to human beings.

"Oh, please, don't call me that," James spat, his face creasing in anger. "You weren't even around to give me that name."

"All right, that's enough of a family reunion," Sarah said before either could speak another word. "We've got more important shit to deal with. Like, how we're going to contain the Upside Down. Any ideas?"

The only response Sarah received was silence, along with a few coughs and the shuffling of feet.

"I don't think we'll have a good idea until we go take a look for ourselves and establish its perimeter," Hopper answered at long last.

"It looked pretty big," Quinn informed them. "We weren't able to get very close to the cabin before the fog choked us out."

Sarah glanced around the room, making a count of everyone in her head. Excluding the unconscious man and the toddler, it didn't seem to be enough. They would need more people if they were going to successfully scout the perimeter before anything got out. With a sullen face, she walked over to the phone and picked the handset up off the mount. She didn't want to put any more people at risk, but Diane had said she'd need them.

With a sigh, she announced, "Looks like we'll need to call in the cavalry."

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