"Why is it always my house?" Joyce sighed to herself as she stared down at the unconscious demodog lying in the trunk of Quinn's car. Hopper, Sarah, Steve, Will, and Eleven all stood huddled around her.

"Is it dead?" Hopper asked before poking the demodog's back leg with his hand. He grimaced when his fingers made contact with the slimy skin.

"No, just unconscious," Sarah answered. "But we need somewhere to keep it."

"Keep it?" Joyce asked, her nose scrunching up in disgust. "Why?"

"To study it. It's like the demogorgon Steve and I came across. It's...different," Sarah replied.

"And where do you intend to keep it?" Hopper asked with a raised brow. He had a sense of what the answer might be but he wanted to hear it for himself.

"I was wondering...if maybe...we could keep it here...in your shed..." Sarah said slowly. She highlighted the end of her sentence with a forced smile.

Hopper and Joyce just stared at Sarah in bewilderment.

"I don't think it's dangerous," Sarah quickly added. "It had the chance to attack us and it didn't. I think it's just...scared."

"What if it gets out of the shed?" Hopper asked. "We've been able to keep the residents of Hawkins in the dark before but it's getting more and more difficult to explain these things away."

"If it escapes, I'll find it and kill it," Sarah said with a straight face and a serious tone. "I promise."

"And we'll help," Eleven added. Steve and Will nodded in agreement.

"I just need some time to figure out what's wrong with it. I think it's the key to finding Malcolm and defeating him before he can recreate the Upside Down."

Hopper looked to Joyce for her answer.

"Why is it always my house?" Joyce muttered to herself again. She took a deep breath and looked Steve, Eleven, Will, and then Sarah in the eyes. "Fine. But I'm not feeding it!"

While Sarah, Hopper, and Joyce worked out the details, Steve caught sight of Quinn at the end of the driveway, sitting on a large rock and staring down at her hands. He strayed from the car to join her, not even having realized that she had left the group.

"Hey," Steve greeted her quietly as he approached her. When she didn't respond or even look up at him, he scratched the back of his neck and said, "I promise we'll find a way to get the smell out of your trunk."

Quinn's head snapped up towards Steve with a fierce glare. Steve tried to offer an apologetic smile but it wasn't well received, so instead he knelt down next to Quinn and took her hands in his own. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know it's a lot to take in. But you don't need to be afraid because I'll keep you safe. I promise."

"How long have you known about all of this?" Quinn looked Steve straight in the eye and asked. "All the creepy-crawlies and superpowers and shit?"

Steve opened his mouth to answer but quickly shut it when the words wouldn't come. Quinn pulled her hands from his.

"I'm not scared, Steve," Quinn said. "I'm angry."

Steve remained silent.

"You didn't think that I deserved to know?" Quinn snapped. "First, the long-lost secret love and now this? It just makes me wonder what else you're hiding from me!"

Steve stared down at the ground before he slowly sunk his butt onto the pavement. He pulled his knees up close to his chest and hugged them with his arms. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment of silence. He tried his hardest to look her in her eyes but his vision kept gravitating anywhere but. "I thought that if I kept you in the dark that I could keep you safe."

Quinn laughed in disbelief. "I thought that you knew me well enough to know that I can take care of myself. I mean, for fuck's sake, we're engaged, Steve! And you can't even tell me the truth!"

"Would you have believed me?" Steve snapped, finally unable to hold in his feelings any longer. "We haven't seen one of those things in ten years and nobody with 'superpowers' lives in Hawkins anymore! I had no proof! If I had told you any of this without you seeing it for yourself you would have thought I was nuts!"

"You have no idea how I would have responded because you didn't even give me the chance!"

Once more, Steve found himself at a loss of words and Quinn didn't wait around for him to find them.

"Unbelievable," Quinn muttered to herself as she pulled herself up off the rock she was sitting on and headed back to the car. Sarah, Hopper, Joyce, Will, and Eleven had already moved the demodog out of Quinn's trunk and into the shed so Quinn hopped in the front seat and started the car while she waited for Steve to join her.

After a few moments to think, Steve finally pushed himself to his feet and slowly meandered towards the car. But before he could get in, he locked eyes with Sarah, who was rounding the corner from the backyard.

"Everything okay?" Sarah asked once she noticed the sullen look on Steve's face.

"Yeah, fine," Steve answered with a half-hearted smile before opening the passenger door and clambering inside.

Sarah watched from the spot she was standing as Quinn's car backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the dark street. Once she could no longer see the red glow from the tail lights, she turned to join the rest of her family inside.

A few days passed and Sarah was still no closer to figuring out the demodog. She spent virtually every waking hour watching the timid creature through the small, grimy window of the shed, noting its every movement and change in behavior. But she didn't learn much. It spent most of its time curled up in a ball under the work bench and it barely ate any of the leftovers from dinner that Sarah tried to feed it. The few times she opened up the shed and cautiously approached it, it backed itself into the farthest corner with its tail tucked between its legs.

Dustin and some of the other party members had taken to calling it Dart Jr. despite Sarah's protests to give it a name. She didn't want to get too attached in case she actually did have to kill it but she often found herself slipping up and saying the new name. Today was one of those days.

"Here, Dart Jr., Dart Jr.," Sarah called into the shed from the open doors. She spread her legs out and held her arms out wide to cover the opening in case Dart Jr. decided to escape. He had tried once already but thankfully Sarah had been able to catch him with a portal before he made it too far. She neglected to tell Hopper this because she wasn't ready to part with the beast yet. Not while she was still searching for answers.

"I've got leftover pork chops," Sarah called again. She spotted Dart Jr.'s tail sticking out from behind a plastic sled that was propped up against the wall and slowly moved towards him.

Dart Jr.'s snout, or whatever one would call the opening to his infinite rows of teeth, slowly stuck out from behind the shed when he caught a whiff of the meat in Sarah's hand. Sarah stood still as she waited for him to timidly approach. Dart Jr. made it within a foot of Sarah's hand when a loud noise from outside frightened him and sent him careening under the work bench.

Sarah sighed in frustration. That was the closest she had been able to get to Dart Jr. since locking him in there.

"Sorry!" a voice called from outside the shed.

Sarah poked her head around the door to find Quinn re-righting a bucket that was laying in the yard.

"Quinn," Sarah said as she stepped outside the shed to greet her with a look of surprise on her face. "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry to arrive unannounced yet again," Quinn responded with a sheepish smile. "I knocked on the door first and your sister told me that you were around back. I was just wondering..."

Sarah studied Quinn's features as she waited for Quinn to continue speaking. There was a strange spark in Quinn's eye that glinted whenever it caught the sparse rays of sun that cut through the cloudy sky and her lips twitched nervously. Sarah had never been good at reading people given that she had spent a large portion of her life alone and Quinn proved to be more difficult than most others.

"I was just wondering," Quinn repeated herself. "if perhaps I could see the demo-thingy again? I keep imagining that I've dreamt it..."

"Sure," Sarah answered, stepping aside to allow Quinn room to enter the shed. "He's under the work bench. He won't hurt you but I wouldn't get too close."

Quinn took a moment to compose herself before she slowly stepped inside the shed, careful to tiptoe around the clutter of tools that Dart Jr. had knocked to the ground during his brief time living in the tiny space. Once inside, she lowered herself until she spotted Dart Jr. tucked away in the back corner.

"He's actually kind of cute," Quinn said after studying him for a couple minutes. "You know, in his own creepy way."

Quinn took a step closer and Sarah was surprised to see that Dart Jr. didn't scurry to the opposite corner.

"Is that his dinner?" Quinn asked, pointing to the pork chop in Sarah's hand. Sarah nodded her head and passed the meat off to Quinn.

Sarah watched in amazement as Quinn held the pork chop out towards Dart Jr. and Dart Jr. climbed out from the shadows to take a bite. His maw peeled open and he gently latched onto a corner of the pork chop with his teeth. When he had a good grip on it, Quinn let go and he retreated back into the corner with his meal. Dart Jr. devoured the pork chop in only a couple bites, his tail wagging the entire time.

"H-how did you do that?" Sarah stammered in surprise. In the last four minutes, Quinn had been able to accomplish more than Sarah had in four days.

Quinn just shrugged. "He may be from another dimension or another planet or whatever, but creatures all kind of act the same. You just need to be gentle and quiet to gain their trust. He reminds me of the dog I had growing up, Cooper. We rescued Cooper from a shelter and he acted just like that until we learned to approach him on his terms rather than our own."

"Huh," Sarah said with a click of her tongue.

Quinn stepped down from the shed and Sarah shut and locked the doors behind her.

"You seem to be handling this all very well for just having had a bunch of crazy thrown on you," Sarah complimented Quinn as she clicked the lock into place.

"Thanks," Quinn smiled. "I know a normal person would probably be freaking out a lot more but I've never exactly been a normal person." Quinn stopped to chuckle. "I don't know, it just feels like a part of me always knew that there was something more out there. Kind of like finding the key for a door that's been locked forever. The door has always been there and you know that there's something more beyond it, you just don't know exactly what."

Sarah nodded her head in understanding. She had never been in Quinn's shoes but what Quinn said made sense. While Quinn had grown up on one side of the locked door, Sarah had grown up on the other; both unable to understand or access what was on the other side. Until now.

"Has Steve told you any more about the Upside Down and Hawkins Lab and all that?" Sarah asked.

Quinn pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. "Steve and I haven't really been talking," she answered slowly. "I'm still mad at him for lying to me."

"For what it's worth, he wasn't doing it to hurt you," Sarah replied. "He may not have gone about it the right way but I know he did what he did because he believed it would keep you safe."

"I know," Quinn sighed. "And I know that I'm being too hard on him. I guess I'm just not used to being protected by anybody but myself. After my dad died, my mom pretty much gave up on being a parent to me. I guess I reminded her of him too much. I've been taking care of myself ever since."

"I'm sorry," Sarah apologized. She was starting to realize that she may have more in common with Quinn than she originally thought. She understood what it felt like to have to look after yourself. Even after her memories came back, it was hard for her to fully trust Hopper. She still felt like she had to do everything on her own. But in time, it got better.

"Nothing to apologize for," Quinn said with a solemn smile and shake of her head. "She was a shit mom, but I wouldn't be the woman I am today without her." Quinn paused to wipe away a small tear building in her right eye. "But enough about me. Do you have a good relationship with your mother?"

"It didn't start out great," Sarah answered with a sigh. "Like you with Steve, I was mad at her for keeping secrets from me. But over time I've come to learn that she's just trying to protect me and that sometimes I need to let her."

"Is she like you?" Quinn asked, emphasizing the word "you" to mean "powered".

"Yes," Sarah replied with a small chuckle. "She has abilities."

"What are they?" Quinn asked, her eyes widening before she quickly added, "If you don't mind me asking."

"She can see every outcome of her choices and as a result, every result of my choices as well."

"Yeesh," Quinn said, faking sympathy. "You can't get away with anything then, can you? She's like 'Super Mom'."

"It does make things a lot more difficult," Sarah laughed.

"I still can't believe that you have superpowers!" Quinn shouted giddily, her voice echoing around the yard. A bright blush appeared on her cheeks. "Sorry, that was much louder than I was anticipating."

"It's okay," Sarah once more laughed.

"I was always such a fan of comics as a kid. I especially loved the X-Men comics with Professor X, Phoenix, and Scarlet Witch. And you're like them! A superhero!"

It was Sarah's turn to blush. "No, really, I'm not."

"That's what superheroes say," Quinn said with raised brows and a knowing smile. Her smile suddenly dropped when her eyes caught sight of the time on her wristwatch. "Oh shit, I've gone over my lunch break. I've got to get back to the office."

Sarah offered Quinn a wave as Quinn turned to head back towards the front of the house but Quinn stopped just before she could round the corner.

"One more thing," Quinn called out.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say thank you," Quinn said. "For letting me join the team. Aside from Steve, I haven't had a lot of friends in my life."

"Well you've got a few more now," Sarah responded with a smile.

☆ ★ ☆

After Quinn left, Sarah went back inside to resume her Trouble tournament with Eleven. The popping of the Pop-O-Matic echoed around the house like a shotgun as Sarah and Eleven went back and forth taking their turns at rapid fire. They were so absorbed in their game that they nearly missed the new sound that joined the space: a knocking at the front door.

"Loser gets it," Eleven said to Sarah with a triumphant smile.

Sarah rolled her eyes and pushed herself to her feet from the hardwood floor. When she opened the door she was surprised to find a 10-year old girl standing on the other side.

"Hello, miss," the girl greeted Sarah. "I was just wondering if you've seen my dog, Ralphie. He's a black lab with white paws and a white splotch on his tummy. He ran away from our house a couple days ago and we haven't seen him since."

Sarah shook her head solemnly. "No, sorry, but I promise I'll keep an eye out for him."

"Thanks," the girl sniffled, trying her hardest not to let the tears building in her eyes overflow. "Here's a picture and our phone number in case you see him."

The girl handed a poster to Sarah with a picture of the aforementioned Ralphie positioned dead center. She could tell that the little girl had made the poster herself because it was written in crayon and there was a small drawing of a stick figure family at the bottom.

"Who was that?" Eleven asked after Sarah bid the girl farewell and shut the door.

"Neighbor girl, I think," Sarah answered absentmindedly after the question registered with her. For some reason, her eyes wouldn't leave the poster and the picture of the dog. Something about what Quinn had said earlier popped back into her mind although she couldn't quite determine how it was connected.

"Something wrong?"

"Cooper," Sarah muttered to herself as the gears in her mind continued to turn until suddenly, something clicked. "Hold on, I'll be right back."

"What about a rematch?" Eleven called after Sarah but Sarah was already out the back door.

Sarah's eyes locked onto the shed as she rushed towards it. She grabbed the key from her pocket and fumbled it into the lock, throwing the doors open the second the lock dropped to the ground. Dart Jr. looked up at her from under the work bench where he appeared to have been sleeping.

Sarah took a deep breath. If her intuition was right, then she had just solved the mystery behind Dart Jr. and the demogorgon.

"Here, Ralphie," Sarah called into the shed.

Sarah watched with bated breath and a pounding heart as Dart Jr. crawled out from his sleeping spot and approached her with a wagging tail.

A smile broke out across Sarah's face. "Good boy."

★ ☆ ★ ☆ ★