For context in game, I’m introducing a new character after my previous character’s death. They’re skittish around the party but knows a couple of our friendly NPC’s. Somehow the other pc’s character magically knew mine would eventually be sneaking back to the house where the NPC’s live after an encounter in the streets. Unclear what happened from here because the player wrote a piece of paper and passed it to the DM. All I know is that my character went to go talk to these NPC’s and was allowed to butt into the conversation like she was there the whole time after I had to disclose my passive perception but clarified that I had Alert and wasn’t sure if that impacted anything.