In season 5, they first believed Audrey was dead. Mara had taken over Audrey's body, and doing so had killed Audrey. Soon figuring out that Audrey was still alive, Audrey convinced Duke and Nathan that they needed to talk to her as if she were Audrey, so it'd be easier to come back. With Audrey dying in Mara's body, one of the troubles Duke released caused Audrey and Mara to separate into two different people. Not long after, however, Audrey started to get sick for unknown reasons. They believed at first she was troubled, but Charlotte realized that Audrey was dying because of the split. Audrey couldn't survive on her own without being in Mara's body, so she was going to die. Charlotte was the only person with the means to merge them back together, and Charlotte was going to make Mara the predominant mind in their body. Audrey was willing to sacrifice herself in Mara's body if it meant that Mara was going to be a better person, but Charlotte at the last second made Audrey the controller of their body. Towards the end of the season, they decided to make a new barn to destroy the troubles. In order to do that, however, they needed to sacrifice someone's love. They had originally wanted to sacrifice Croatoan, but he didn't love anyone, so they decided to sacrifice Audrey instead. A while after the sacrifice, she came back with a new personality. Her name is Paige, and she had a baby boy named James. Nathan stopped his car to help her after her car wouldn't start, linking back to the beginning of the series. In the barn Vince said that she couldn't come back as Audrey so she chose to come back as someone new so Nathan could fall in love with her all over again.
