Sam finished explaining what he'd seen to Dean as he drove, determination on his face as he mulled over the new information.
"Are you certain it was her?" He finally asked. "Are you certain it was Kylie?"
"I only saw her for a few moments," Sam said. "But I heard her voice. And I watched her. I'm certain she's alive. I'm certain it was her."
"Where has she been?" Dean asked. "Why hasn't she come back? She abandoned us to the CIA, and just abandoned us in general. What was she doing with those witches?"
"I don't know, but I think… I think she saved my life." He said. "They were trying to bring back the witch you killed. She… She made sure they couldn't, and afterwards stabbed the witch you shot. I think she even made sure you could get to us to help." Sam held up some sticky notes he'd found. "These two were in Rowena's handwriting," he held up the "STAY" and the one explaining what had happened to him. "But these others," he held up four. One for the trunk, one for a weapon that Dean wasn't supposed to use, the witch-killing bullets, and the correct gun. "This is her handwriting, Dean. It had to be her there."
"Then again, where has she been?" Dean asked. "What was she doing there?"
"I don't know." Sam looked at his phone. "I've tried calling her number, but it's disconnected. Same for the one we got from Diana."
"But Diana is Kylie." Dean added.
"And that's what the witches were calling her, too." Sam added. "It's the new name she's going by. I don't know why, but… She's hiding. She's hiding and trying to figure things out and she… She's avoiding us, for some reason." He said. "Are you certain you didn't see her outside?"
"I don't remember seeing her at all." Dean said. "Then again, I don't really remember much until after Rowena put my head back on straight."
"Do you think she could've been there?"
"I don't know, and honestly, I don't know if I want to know." Dean admitted. Sam was about to ask why, confused and hurt, but Dean started before Sam could speak again. "Look, let's face facts. She's been gone for almost a year now, right? A year that she's supposed to have been dead. If she was alive that whole time… What would Cas think, man?" Dean asked. "If she's been avoiding us, avoiding Cas, what would that do to him if he learned? And why in the hell has she been avoiding us for that long? Does she even remember who we are?"
"It looked like she did." Sam said. "It looked like she knew exactly who I was."
"Then if she knows who we are, why hasn't she told us she's alive?" Dean asked.
"We did kind of point guns at her, more than once." Sam pointed out.
"Still, why wouldn't she?" Dean kept up. "If we sat down and talked with her about it, doesn't she think that we'd understand?"
"She may not." Sam said. "Think about it. Would you?"
"Yeah."
"Bad example, then." Sam said. "But we haven't really been that nice to her, all things considered. Not recently. We've shouted at her. We've threatened her. We've shown we don't trust her because she's a witch." With each thing Sam rattled off, he felt worse and worse. "We've been cruel and absolutely awful to her. Why would she even want to come back and tell us? Maybe she was there with us, hiding, to see if she actually could or not."
"That sounds way too complicated." Dean answered. "And just… just way too much right now without a beer or two. How's that sound?"
"Fine." Sam agreed. "We'll let it rest for now. But what about Cas?"
"We don't tell him." Dean answered. "No use giving him false hope if there is none."
"What do you mean, false hope?" Sam asked. "Kylie is alive! We all saw her back with Rooney, and then I saw her again with the witches!"
"Yeah, and is she in the car with us right now?" Dean asked. Sam didn't have a good answer for that. "No, and do you wanna know why? Because if that was Kylie, then she doesn't want to be here with us for whatever reasons. If she was with Cas, he would've called and told us. She's keeping her distance from all of us." Dean cast Sam a sidelong glance. "Do you really think that we should tell Cas that hey, his dead fiancée is actually alive, but she's been hiding from him and everyone else for reasons unknown and we have no idea how to find her?"
"Fine." Sam conceded. "We leave it be."
"If Kylie wants to come back, she knows where to find us." Dean said. "But for now, I think it's best if we leave her be to do whatever she thinks she needs to do."
"What if she's in trouble?" Sam asked. Dean let out a small huff of air.
"Then we hope she'll call." That was the only answer he could think of. He didn't know what else to do.
