Thunder crackled overhead, the sky a mess of blue lightning that streaked back and forth like firing neurons. The glowing rift overhead continued to grow, slicing through stars and brightening the night sky but neither Steve nor Sarah gave it any mind. They were more focused on each other. 

"I--I'm still a little confused," Steve confessed, his eyes locked on Sarah's. "Why exactly are you out here?" 

"I could ask you the same thing," Sarah replied with a raised brow but a smile that was still just as strong. Her hands wrapped tightly around her shoulders as a stray breeze blew by and her body shivered. Now that all the adrenaline had worn off, she could feel her body again and all that came with it; the pain, the chill, the fatigue. 

"Why don't you get in the car? It's cold out," Steve offered, his finger clicking the button to unlock the doors. Sarah quickly rounded the car and scrambled into the passenger seat, shutting the door and the chill behind her. 

"So...Why are you out here?" Sarah asked, turning her head to look at Steve inquisitively. "Doesn't this road lead out of Hawkins?"

"Quinn told me," Steve answered bluntly. "Everything. About how she was a subject at Hawkins Lab and about how she was responsible for killing Mark. About how she lied to me, used me. I didn't know how to absorb it all so I went for a drive and well...now I'm here."

Sarah sat back in her seat, staring forward out the windshield at the darkened woods surrounding them. A mix of emotions washed over her; relief that he knew the truth but shame that she had played a hand in his pain. After a deep breath she said, "I'm sorry, Steve. It's my fault that you got sucked into all of this. Again."

Steve's head whipped around to look at Sarah. "Don't you say that."

"But, Steve--" Sarah began to say when Steve cut her off with a firm shake of his head.

"Stop, just stop. I don't want to hear it. I won't hear it. I won't accept any apologies because you have nothing to apologize for. Understand?" Steve raised his eyebrows, daring Sarah to argue with him.

Sarah opened her mouth to do just that when she realized that Steve was right. She had carried this guilt with her for all of her life, this shame that she was some harbinger of torment. But she was done with that, she was done with it all. There was no room for it in her happy ending. "Understood," Sarah answered with a smile. 

"We sure know how to pick them, don't we?" Steve joked, using this moment to lighten the mood. "First James, then Quinn...Maybe we should start a support group for terrible exes."

Sarah chuckled. "I think that might be a good idea. We could have the first meeting at Enzo's...Say, Friday at seven o'clock?"

Steve's face fell and with it, so did Sarah's. "About that..."

"Oh, it's...I mean, I understand if--" Sarah fumbled with her words. 

"That actually coincides with my other support group. You know, the one for victims of Carl Houseman and his laser eyes, so I think we'll have to move it up to tomorrow night."

Sarah moved towards him and Steve put his hands up to deflect the playful punch he anticipated but instead found her pressed against his lips. Within a heartbeat, they had melted together, their hands flying all over each other. The center console jammed into Sarah's ribcage and Steve hit his elbow on the steering wheel but neither even noticed. Steve placed his hands on the back of Sarah's head and pulled her closer, her golden hair tangled in his fingers, and Sarah's hand gripped his thigh tightly in response.

Soon the steam had turned the windows from transparent to opaque, the combined heat of their bodies transforming the frigid night into warmth and passion. Both had been waiting for this moment for ten years and both were consumed by it, unwilling to even allow a single thought of wasting it to cross their minds. In that moment, it was only them. Nothing else. Not the rift, not Diane, not Quinn, not everything that had happened up until then. Only them.

"Turn her back," Hopper demanded, his words emphasized by the click of his gun as he turned the safety off and pointed it directly at the back of Quinn's head. 

"Even if I wanted to, I couldn't," Quinn answered calmly, her body still. "I broke the rules."

"What rules?" Hopper took a cautious step forward, his gun still firmly trained on its target. Joyce positioned herself between Quinn and Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, and Max, her pocket knife held firmly in her grip.

"Living matter can only be turned into living matter, non-living matter can only be turned into non-living matter," Quinn replied as she pushed herself to her feet, her back still facing the group. "I turned living matter into non-living matter. If I were to turn her back, she'd be a corpse."

Hopper tried to hide his disgust, to remain strong, but glancing into the stone eyes of his ex-wife, the mother of his child, made him nauseous. His torso bent forward, his throat suddenly very dry as he held back the bile that was bubbling in his esophagus. He shut his eyes tight and took a deep breath as he waited for the feeling to pass. 

"She lied to me," Quinn said, her voice cut with pain and anger. "She told me that I was doing all of this to bring my father back. I killed for her."

When Hopper was able to stand upright again, he found that Quinn was staring directly at him. He spat into the frosty grass, both to rid his mouth of the rancid taste and to signify his opinion of her. 

"Where is Sarah?" Eleven demanded, pushing her way forward. Her hands were clenched into fists at her side, prepared to fight if she didn't like what Quinn had to say. "Where is my sister?"

"Don't worry," Quinn answered. "She's fine. But if you don't let me leave, if you try to cage me like those monsters at the Lab, I won't be able to say the same for you."

"We can't just let you walk away," Joyce retorted, her grip tightening on the knife. "You murdered someone and you put others in jeopardy."

Quinn's upper lip furled, her brows knotted. An all-too-familiar anger spread throughout her body; an anger that had followed her when her father had died, nipped at her heels when her mother had abandoned her, and walked hand-in-hand with her since the Lab had taken her. Her eyes bored into Joyce. 

"Um...guys?" Dustin's voice piped up, interrupting the tension that had joined them. The others looked to him, his finger leading their eyes upwards. Joyce was the last to see what Dustin was referring to. Unwilling to let Quinn leave her line of sight, she watched her, unblinking, until she noticed Quinn's eyes dart upwards. 

"She did it," Quinn whispered, her face a mixture of anger and awe. 

"Did what?" Hopper asked, the nose of his gun faltering towards the ground as his eyes flickered between Quinn and the glowing rift above his head. The others stood frozen, their chins pointed to the stars as they tried to make sense of what they were seeing and when it had came to be. Surely, they would have noticed something so large and imposing much sooner. 

But the longer they stared at it, the more their memories jumbled together into a blur of things that were and things that weren't. Will vaguely recalled seeing something golden in the sky on their drive to the park but part of him was convinced that it had just been lightening. A fleeting vision of a giant crack splitting the stars in two after she stepped out of the car struck Max from her subconscious, but it was immediately replaced with memories of darkness, only to emerge again and then disappear again like the rapid shuffling of images in a picture show. Mike clutched his head in pain, a headache simultaneously striking him and the others as they tried to sort out their memories. 

"What is that?" 

"That," Quinn began. "is what the Upside Down was supposed to be."

"One thing at a time," Joyce said, her hand pressed firmly against her pulsing forehead and her eyes once more locked on Quinn.

"Agreed," Quinn replied, her eyes narrowing. 

Joyce shot a glance towards Hopper that carried an unspoken plan of attack. Hopper blinked in understanding, quickly raising his gun back toward its intended target. But not quickly enough. What once was solid in his grip became malleable; what once had been warm from the body heat it had absorbed was now freezing. Hopper glanced down in shock to see that he was no longer holding a gun, but snow packed tightly into the vague semblance of a gun. His weapon melted, dripping between his fingers. 

Quinn smiled as she wiped away the blood pooling under her nose. "Did you already forget that I'm a mind-reader?" 

Stoked by anger, Joyce took her opportunity. She charged at Quinn but she was stopped when a strange feeling prickled in her toes and crept up her feet; or more accurately, a lack of feeling. Joyce froze in shock and the longer she remained frozen, the more immobile her body felt. "I-I can't move," Joyce whimpered in pain. "My foot."

The others glanced to the ground where Joyce was standing and gasped in shock when they saw a thick layer of bark coating her shoe and stretching up towards her ankle. Joyce was slowly turning to wood, her left foot rooted into the ground. 

"I don't want to do this," Quinn explained, wiping away another splash of blood. Desperation was seeping through into her voice now, making her words wobble and her eyes prickle with tears. "And I know you don't either. I can see it in your head. Over these past few years I've come to consider you all as friends. So please, just let me go and I promise I'll never return to Hawkins. You'll never see me again."

And then Quinn was flying through the air. She landed on the ground with a sickening snap ten feet back from where she had originally been standing.

"Leave her alone!" Eleven shouted, her hand outstretched and a stream of blood flowing down her face. 

Quinn's face contorted in both pain and rage, her cheeks burning bright and shining from the layer of tears that coated them. But she was unable to get back up; both because her left leg was broken and because her limbs were being held down by Mike, Max, Lucas, and Dustin. During the commotion, they had rushed to keep her contained while Will tended to his mother. Once Quinn hit the ground, the change seemed to stop, but it had still managed to make it to Joyce's knee. 

Quinn struggled against their grip, trying her hardest to break free. She locked into their eyes, willing her abilities to change them into insects; something small and weak that she could crush under her heel. But the pain emanating from her left leg, which had grown worse with the pressure being applied to it by Mike, was too much. She couldn't focus, she was stuck. 

With Quinn restrained, Eleven approached, her hand held out firmly before her. The two held each other's unyielding stare until a loud shout made them blink and break eye contact. 

"ENOUGH!"

All heads snapped towards the source: Sarah, with Steve standing by her side. Eleven's arm slowly lowered to her side and Mike, Max, Lucas, and Dustin loosened their grip on Quinn as Sarah approached. Quinn yanked her arms away from them and immediately cradled her left leg. 

As she neared them, Sarah's eyes landed on the statue her mother had become and her face too, cemented. With furrowed brows, lips held in a tight line, and a stony stare, Sarah's attention fell to Quinn.

"It's done," Sarah said, her voice quiet but firm. While her eyes were locked with Quinn's, she was speaking to everyone. 

"So what, are you going to kill me?" Quinn sneered, her trembling lip giving away the fear hiding behind her eyes. 

"No."

"What then?" Quinn demanded. She pushed herself up despite the pain it provoked. "Lock me up? I'd rather be dead!"

A beat of silence passed before Sarah answered, "You'll get exactly what you deserve."

Quinn sat in silence, unable to move and unable to speak another word. 

"Sarah," Hopper caught her attention by resting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Joyce...her leg. Can you fix it?"

Sarah nodded her head and bent down to examine Joyce's leg. She brushed her fingers gingerly over the rough bark that had replaced Joyce's skin, all the while focusing on controlling the atoms that comprised it. The process went more quickly than it had with Mark, and within a minute Joyce's leg and foot were once more made of flesh. 

"And Diane..." Hopper continued once Joyce's leg was back to normal. "Can you fix her?" 

Sarah glanced at Hopper, unable to hold his line of sight for long. Her answer instead was to approach the statue of her mother and to study her in silence before saying, "I told her I was done with her and I meant it. She may not have known exactly what was coming in the end but she knew exactly what she was doing up until it."

Hopper accepted her answer without saying another word. 

Sarah studied Diane's stony eyes and for a brief moment she almost felt trapped by them, but then she felt the warmth of Steve's fingers intertwining with hers and she was reminded that everything was okay.  

"Okay, now that the whole Quinn situation is dealt with, what exactly are we going to do about that?" Max asked, her finger pointing up towards the giant rift looming over them. 

"Good question," Steve agreed, rubbing at the kink that had formed from craning his neck back too far. 

A determined smile spread across Sarah's face as she stared up at the new dimension she had created. "We go through it."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★