"Hello, Jim," Diane greeted her ex-husband. A warm smile sat on her face but a sadness shone in her eyes.

Hopper's eyes couldn't leave Diane and his mouth was still stuck in an "O" shape. The last time he had seen her was right after Sarah's "death" and he didn't think that he'd ever see her again, especially not like this.

"Mom, what are you doing here?" Sarah asked, taking a step closer to Diane.

"We need to talk, Sarah," Diane informed her, her hands nervously alternating spots over each other.

Before Sarah could ask Diane what they needed to talk about, Hopper spoke instead. "No, we need to talk. What are you doing here, Diane? How did you get in? How did you know that Sarah was here, or even alive for that matter?"

Diane stepped aside to display the shimmering golden rift that cut through the wall behind her, seemingly answering all of Hopper's questions at once.

"You're...you're like her..." Hopper stammered, his eyes opening even wider as he glanced between Diane and Sarah. Sarah moved to rest a hand on Hopper's arm to comfort him but he subconsciously shrugged it away. There was a lot going on his head and he couldn't sort out what to think or feel. Instinctively, anger took the lead. "So you've been lying to me all this time?"

"Jim..." Diane began to say when Hopper cut her off.

"No, don't 'Jim' me!" Hopper shouted. "I want to know what the hell is going on right now!"

Diane looked to Sarah and Sarah took the lead. "Dad, I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you sooner, I just didn't know how..."

Hopper turned to Sarah and she could see the pain and betrayal in his eyes. She dug her fingernails into her palms to prevent the pool of tears gathering beneath her eyes from spilling over. She had to remain strong. He deserved answers.

"After I defeated James, mom found me," Sarah began to explain. "She took me back with her to the Diagonal, to our...home..."

"Home?" Hopper asked, his head jerking in confusion at the word.

"Mom and I aren't...from this dimension," Sarah continued. "Well, not fully, in my case, anyways."

"So you've been with her this whole time?" Hopper asked, finally clicking the puzzle pieces into place. Sarah nodded her head. "But what about New York? What about Bill and the baby?"

Sarah looked to Diane, indicating that it was her turn to explain.

"It was a lie," Diane said with a quiet sigh, her eyes falling to the floor in front of Hopper's feet. "I had to get back to my dimension but I needed you to move on from me. To continue on and live your life. I'm sorry, it was a terrible thing for me to do to you and I understand if you can't forgive me."

"But we talked on the phone!" Hopper replied, once more raising his voice.

"I have somebody who can open up lines of communication between dimensions," Diane explained. "It was part of the illusion."

Hopper took a moment to consider what he was going to say next before asking, "So what can you do? Make those glow-y rift things behind you?"

"No," Diane answered with a small smile. "That's somebody else's doing. Somebody who can find tears between dimensions...My ability allows me to see all the possible outcomes of my choices."

"Hold on," Hopper said with furrowed brows once the realization hit, his volume slowly raising and his face growing redder. "Does that mean that you knew about Sarah's cancer being fake and about her being abducted by a crazed scientist to be experimented on like a fucking lab rat? Does this mean that you knew that she was alive and you never told me?"

Before Diane could respond, a new presence joined them in the hallway and captured their attention.

"Is everything okay back here?" Joyce asked, peeking her head around the corner after having heard the commotion. Her eyes immediately landed on the strange woman that was standing at the end of the hallway and a look of confusion spanned her face. "Oh, hello. Who is this?"

"Hello, I'm Diane, Sarah's mother," Diane greeted Joyce with a warm smile.

"Oh," Joyce gulped, seeing the connection after looking between Sarah and Diane and wondering how she hadn't realized right away. With their golden hair and bright blue eyes, they nearly looked identical. "Nice to meet you. I'm Joyce."

"My wife," Hopper added, his glare still fixed intently on Diane.

"I've heard many great things about you from Sarah," Diane informed Joyce as she tried to ignore Hopper's searing stare.

"Dad, maybe you should take Joyce into the kitchen and explain, and mom and I will talk," Sarah offered, grabbing Diane by the arm and leading her into Jonathan's old room.

"Don't think for a second that this conversation is over," Hopper retorted before following Joyce into the kitchen.

"You shouldn't have come here," Sarah said once she shut the door behind them.

"I'm sorry," Diane apologized. "But I needed to get this information to you."

"What information?"

"It's time that I told you about the creator of the Upside Down," Diane said with a sigh, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and looking down at the floor sullenly.

Sarah quickly took a seat beside her, a look of surprise growing on her face. She had been trying to learn this information since she first arrived in the Diagonal, but her mother had always found ways to skirt around the topic. What had changed that she was suddenly willing to share it with her now? What had Diane seen?

Sarah remained silent, studying the reflections in Diane's eyes as she waited for her response.

"His name was Malcolm," Diane began. "He was a good man and a very powerful one. He had the ability to create things out of nothing; inanimate objects, animals, even people. He volunteered to come to Earth on the same research team as Adam and I."

Diane paused and took a deep breath before continuing. "Like many of us, he settled into his role quickly. He met a woman and fell in love and together they had a child. But also like many of us, he began to feel the draining effects of this dimension."

"Wait, can you even be here right now?" Sarah asked once she remembered why her mother had left Earth all those years ago.

"It takes many years for the effects to set in, but admittedly, I am already starting to feel weaker," Diane answered. A look of worry sparked in Sarah's eye but Diane quickly squashed it with a comforting smile and a pat on her hand. "I'll be fine. This is more important than my abilities. You're more important than my abilities."

Sarah flashed Diane a small smile and allowed her to continue with her story.

"When the others began returning to Helia, Malcolm refused to leave. He didn't want to abandon his wife and child but he knew they wouldn't be accepted in Helia."

Sarah opened her mouth to question this but closed it again when she remembered Amelia's initial attitude towards her. The Helians definitely had a bit of a superiority complex.

"Malcolm decided to create a new dimension. One connected to Helia where the Helian volunteers and their Earthly families could live together without their abilities being drained."

"Sounds like a nice place," Sarah commented.

"It was a beautiful idea," Diane continued with a sad smile. "But it was a dangerous one. While Malcolm was powerful, no Helian had ever accomplished such a feat before. We tried to warn him but he wouldn't listen to us."

"And he created it anyways?" Sarah asked. Diane nodded her head.

"He did," Diane confirmed. "And it went horribly awry. He attempted to create a mirror image of this dimension so that it would be recognizable to his wife and child, but he ended up creating a dark and sinister copy, consumed by darkness. Instead of creating animals, he created monsters; twisted and perverted creatures fueled by a relentless hunger. Instead of creating a utopia, he created..."

"...the Upside Down," Sarah finished Diane's sentence as a somber look settled on her features.

"Correct," Diane said with a small nod.

"What happened to him?" Sarah asked once the shock of the information had worn off.

"We believed that he had been consumed by his creation, his power fueling the dark dimension. He was never seen or heard from again."

Suddenly a thought struck Sarah and her eyes widened. "The power!" she exclaimed.

"The power?" Diane asked in confusion.

"In the Upside Down, James talked of a power that the demogorgons helped him to tap into," Sarah explained. "The power that he used to become the Mind Flayer. Do you think it was Malcolm's power?"

Diane sat in silence as she contemplated this, her pointer finger stroking her bottom lip. "It's possible..." she answered at last.

"But wait, why are you telling me all of this now?" Sarah asked, finally interjecting with the question that had been bothering her from the start. When Diane took too long to answer, Sarah followed with, "Let me guess, because of something to do with my future?"

Diane nodded her head with an apologetic look and Sarah rolled her eyes in annoyance at the persistent ambiguity of her life.

"It was also because I wasn't yet certain because my visions have been foggy," Diane added.

"Certain?" Sarah asked, her eyes snapping back forward from the eye roll in surprise. "Certain about what?"

Diane opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to garner the bravery to say what she had to say next. Sarah placed her hand on top of her mother's, squeezing it gently to provide her with some strength.

"I believe that somehow Malcolm is back," Diane finally spoke, her eyes staring intently into Sarah's. "And I believe that he aims to recreate the Upside Down."

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