I wrote this before 2x19, so yeah. Also, I speculated and created minor character backstory. Oh. And I love Matt, but this is not a happy fic for him. Anyways, I haven't really written Forwood much(especially lately) and I miss them, so I wanted to get back in the swing of things in time for Tyler's return.
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A mini-Caroline Forbes giggles at something that some kid says, and for the first time Tyler Lockwood thinks she's not just another annoying girl. She has a pretty smile—though you won't drag that out of him, no matter how hard you try because . . . he's a boy, she's a girl, and she has cooties, duh.
But he kind of smiles anyway, and thinks it's cute—no, wait, anything but cute—that she gives her juicebox to the little boy sitting next to her when he spills his own. Before anyone knows what's happening she demands that they have a dance, and pairs them off quickly and firmly.
They're little kids, that's not really their thing, but Caroline manages to get twelve under-ten year olds to cooperate with her plans. She may be one of the youngest ones there, a mere seven years old(Tyler is barely older than her), but she takes complete control without anyone even seeming to be annoyed by it.
It's at this point that Tyler Lockwood realizes that Caroline Forbes is a formidable opponent—and more importantly that she's really nice. And she has a good heart.
That's all he realizes for a really long time, because he proceeds to get distracted by school, sports, and eventually girls.
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Caroline's first kiss is during a party—totally seven minutes in heaven style, and she just grabs the boy's shirt without paying much attention and goes for it.
She never does anything halfway, something her 12 year old counterpart isn't particularly bothered by. She's thirteen, but she's okay with that too.
She's a little drunk—because people in this town don't pay nearly enough attention to how much their kids party and drink. Though really, Caroline points out, what else are they supposed to do? It's Mystic Falls, and most of them don't actually have much to do besides twiddle their thumbs and think of far off futures that may not even amount to anything at all.
Caroline isn't thinking about that right now though, not anymore. Right now she's pressing herself against Elena's little brother's lips, and thinking about how he kind of tastes like cherry chapstick.
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She loses her virginity to Tyler Lockwood—something neither of them actually remember. Too much booze, a dark room, and a mistaken identity(something they both realize later, but never manage to get to the bottom of)—all seem to make knowing nearly impossible.
After that they go down different paths—she drinks a little less, focusing more on her studies, on pretending her dad hasn't left her mother, and on crafting the perfect college application. He gets good grades—not great—drinks too much, has a lot of casual sex(narrowly manages to avoid a few STIs, but only because protection is one of the few things he's actually responsible about) and takes up football, something that turns him into a Big Man on Campus.
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It's kind of funny, actually.
She's a Forbes, he's a Lockwood. She's the head cheerleader, and he's a football player, and yet at no point do they make a move toward one another. Instead they both reject their parents in their own way, and go from there.
Instead they have the weirdest friendship, born of way too man society parties, a mutual respect, and the fact that Caroline may be a bitch sometimes, but she's got a great sense of humor and always manages to make Tyler smile—though the rest of the time they pretty much ignore each other.
They don't spend much time together at, or outside of those parties, so they aren't quite friends. Or maybe they are, it's rather hard to tell.
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Her first real boyfriend is some guy from the year above them—he's cute, but he's kind of stupid, and Caroline doesn't have time for that, she quickly moves on.
She throws herself into extracurriculars, even more so than she had before, and she likes it. She likes the power, she likes feeling in control.
She kind of hates that she's always competing with Elena Gilbert for everything, for everyone's attention, but she can't help herself. Elena always comes out the winner though, even though she's kind of just as much of a bitch as Caroline. But Elena has the perfect family, the perfect boyfriend, and everyone loves her.
No one loves Caroline.
Her dad barely even calls, and her mom doesn't care. But she has Bonnie—and sometimes Elena, depending.
Mostly it's just Caroline though, and she never really gets used to that.
But then Elena's parents die, and Caroline feels her heart break for her frenemy, but doesn't know how to handle that. She doesn't know how to say she's there for her, that she kind of gets how it feels, so instead she always says the wrong thing, and Elena just seems to take it in stride, because she has bigger things to deal with than Caroline's issues.
XXXX
She isn't quite sure why she starts to do certain things. She has these weird missing chunks of memories, but whenever she thinks too hard, everything seems to blur.
She just focuses on how cute her new boyfriend Damon is—despite the fact that she'd wanted Stefan first, and he'd chosen Elena, like everyone always does.
He's a vampire, she knows in some weird part of her mind.
He feeds on her. It doesn't bother her, but then again, he doesn't let it bother her, so there's that.
She's never felt so powerless in her life.
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One day it's just over. There's that stupid necklace that she gives to Bonnie, and then suddenly she has to get the necklace back, and she's ruining her friendship to do it.
She hates Damon for that.
He says she's useless. Stupid.
She gets really drunk, and that dulls the pain, and she sits down with Matt and Tyler. She knows Tyler, and kinda knows Matt.
And she's drunk, she just wants someone to care about her—if only for a little while.
XXXX
Matt is nice.
At least, he kind of is. He's broken, but they are all. She falls for Matt before he's even completely over Elena, something she hates herself for but can't control.
He has to rationalize being with her, and she hates that. She hates that she's always the second choice, that no one ever just wants her.
She gets over that though, and kind of feels like Matt likes her too . . . and it's nice to be liked.
XXXX
She dies.
She becomes a vampire, and it's the strangest feeling in the world. Suddenly she's this neurotic vampire, totally on can feel everything, she's hungry all the time. All the voices in the world seem to scream at her—even though she knows she technically can't hear them all it feels like she can sometimes.
She kills someone, and she wonders if she'll ever forgive herself. She wonders if Bonnie will ever forgive her.
Thankfully she has Stefan and Elena. She hates that having them means being around Damon—she hates him. She feels violated—body, mind and soul.
When she gets home after Matt breaks up with her she takes a long shower, and tries to wash away the pain, as if that's somehow possible and it will just go away.
It doesn't. It's part of her now.
She feels so incredibly sad . . . and it just hurts.
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Tyler brings her back to life—in the weirdest sort of way, because he kills someone.
She gets that. And she sees automatically how much it hurts him, and all she can do is feel for him.
When he confronts her, when everything gets out in the open, she can't help herself.
She feels like he gets it. And he does, kind of.
And she starts to care about him, though she isn't sure why. It might be the history, the similar circumstances, and the fact that he's so afraid.
All she wants to do is make him feel better.
She wants to soothe the ache away . . . and that allows her to heal, weirdly enough.
She misses Matt, misses him all the damned time, but when she's with Tyler, she misses him less. She just feels like Caroline. She doesn't need anyone.
But Tyler needs her.
It's nice to be needed.
XXXX
"Are you getting naked?"
She doesn't quite grimace . . . but she feels a bit of a thump, which startles her.
Dude. He's attractive, something she hasn't let herself notice in a while, for a lot of reasons, but now he's here, being mildly snarky and shirtless . . . and that's all she can notice.
He's turning. She focuses on that. On being there for him, because he needs her.
He tells her to leave, and she knows she should, but she can't.
It's not like a trainwreck, it's not like she can't look away, because this starts to hurt her to watch.
She cries around the same time that he does. She sees his pain, and wants nothing more than to soothe it away, but that's not how it works. All she can do is stay, so she does that.
At first it's from afar, but then she's there, right next to him, holding him.
This is one of the most terrifying, horrific moments of either of their lives, and she does not leave him.
She stays until she can't anymore, until staying means she dies—and she's not stupid enough to do that.
But it aches. It aches inside of her—she wonders if she'll ever be able to look at Tyler again the same way—she hurts for him.
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When she comes back, he's there, just lying there. She holds him again—not like a mother holds a baby, but how one person holds someone so delicately and yet firmly because that person means so much to them that they can barely think straight at the idea of them in pain.
She wants this to be okay, but it isn't.
She vows never to let him do this alone—which is kind of ridiculous when she thinks about it later.
She doesn't change her mind though, or tell him. She's not pitying him, that's not what this is about. But she knows how he can be, how hard it is for him to open up, and she is not going to be the reason that he has to go through this alone.
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She's not even really thinking about telling him the truth. Everything else just seems so much more important, but then he looks at her.
He looks at her like he sees her.
No one has ever looked at her like that before, not even Matt. Maybe even especially Matt.
Tyler looks at her like she's the most precious, beautiful, amazing person he's ever seen before.
She tries not to think of it like that but then he kisses her—it's so soft and perfect, like a thank you. But then he looks at her, and she wants to melt, and then he kisses her again and she kisses him back, and she loses a bit of her heart to him in that moment.
But then she pulls away, because that's terrifying, and this isn't going to work, and Matt—god, Matt.
She can't.
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She smiles when she sees him. She starts to ramble about how their kiss can't mean anything—something she's been trying to convince herself—but then he's pushing her against a car, and she sees his eyes.
He looks hurt, and feels betrayed.
She feels her heart break, because she wouldn't have done this to him, but it's not like these are all her secrets. They don't belong to her.
He hates her anyway though, and she just wants to cry.
So she goes back inside, and cries before readying herself for everything that is to come.
XXXX
Being shot is an odd experience.
It's painful, and it's like dying over and over and over again.
She hates that.
This guy just shoots her, and she cries, and she's in a cage, and she feels like some sort of animal, and suddenly nothing in her world makes sense anymore and she just hurts.
Tyler. Matt. Damon. Katherine. This douchebag with way too many bullets.
For a brief moment she just wants it all to end.
XXXX
Stefan and Damon care.
Elena cares. Bonnie even cares.
People love her.
Tyler . . . Tyler betrayed her.
She tries not to cry. Fails.
She decides it's too much, that she honestly can't handle this, and tells Tyler that they are not friends, that his apologies mean nothing to her.
She hurts.
Stefan comes, and his kindness almost makes her dissolve into tears again, but then Bonnie and Elena are there . . . and she doesn't feel alone.
It's nice. But she feels like a part of her heart has been ripped out, and she's never going to get it back. Which is ridiculous, she tells herself, because it wasn't like she was in love with Tyler.
She wasn't. But she definitely might have been falling.
XXXX
She distracts herself. Tyler leaves, which makes it easier, though she's angry at him for leaving. Or maybe for not saying goodbye. Or maybe at herself for caring, she can't really tell anymore.
She distracts herself with Matt.
She sings to him, and he loves her.
She almost feels whole, but then everything is a disaster.
And he thinks she actually had something to do with Vicki dying. That hurts, it hurts so much, and she just doesn't know why she even thought this would be okay.
Eventually he asks her to erase his memories. She does.
She realizes it's never going to be the same with them—and there's a part of her deep-down that wonders if it were ever really that wonderful.
She doesn't want to think about that though, so she puts on a smile, and repairs her relationship with him, and ignores her doubts.
XXXX
The dance is fun, kind of. But then Bonnie almost dies, and everything is a mess because they're pretending that she is dead and that's just—she doesn't know.
She does know that she irrationally misses Tyler.
She hates herself for that.
XXXX
Tyler thinks Jules is a bit of a bitch, but he kind of needs her right now, she's teaching him things about himself that he needs to know.
One day he gets a phone call. "Mom?" It's weird, because he'd told her not to call. And she usually doesn't, because she usually doesn't care enough to do so.
"Bonnie Bennett is dead," she says.
It's the strangest thing.
"Oh," he replies. Speechless, practically, beyond that tiny syllable.
"I just wanted to call you, to make sure you're okay." She sounds like she's been crying, and he realizes for the first time that she might actually care.
"I'm okay," he says softly. His mind is going a million miles a moment. "I'm coming home soon," he says, before he even realizes that he's decided.
"You are?" she sounds hopeful.
"Yeah."
He is.
She might hate him, but Caroline needs him. And even if she doesn't(and she probably won't) . . . he wants her to at least have that option.
XXXX
Caroline looks so incredibly sad. There's something strange about it, but then again everyone is being strange. He looks around, before anyone sees him at the funeral, and he's grateful that no one knows he's back in town yet. Except his mother.
Matt is being awkward, and Elena, Stefan, Damon . . . then again, they're always awkward.
Tyler just knows that he doesn't want to take his eyes off Caroline.
He'd fallen for her, he'd told Matt. At first he'd tried to convince himself that it wasn't true, but even now, standing there, watching her, he knows it is.
She's so incredible.
He watches as she looks around, then stands still as her gaze eventually lands on him. It's like she'd sensed him and his thoughts about her.
She's a little far away, but he can see numerous emotions cross her face.
Pain. Surprise. A weird sort of happiness.
He walks closer. "I'm sorry," he says. "Bonnie was an amazing person." The best part is that it's true.
The worst part is that she's dead.
"She was." Caroline smiles slightly. "The best."
He nods, even though he disagrees. She's the best.
He can't even mentally kick himself for that degree of sappiness. "I'm sorry," he says again. "I came back—I came back when I heard. Because I—I needed to be here."
She nods, almost as if she understands. She doesn't, not really.
Not until he takes her hand and squeezes it.
He needs to be here for her.
He says something to that effect and her eyes widen.
There's nothing really to say to that.
XXXX
Matt kind of goes crazy. "You lied to me."
Caroline looks at him in shock. "We did what we had to do. You know we never meant to hurt you."
It's just the three of them, and it's scary how angry he is.
"I told your mom everything," Matt says.
"What?" Caroline looks stunned, much like someone has punched her in the stomach. "No." She doesn't believe it.
"Yes," he seems almost pleased with himself. "I did what I had to do."
He smiles. He takes out a stake. "You know, it didn't take a lot to figure out that the stake thing is true. I had to make sure, you know. I knew I wouldn't get a second chance."
Caroline looks at him in confusion as he lunges towards her, screaming something about Vicki, and moments before he ends her, he falls over.
Dead.
Caroline looks up to see Tyler standing there, looking down in shock, because he's just killed his best friend.
He's never going to forgive himself. And neither will she.
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Love is complicated, she decides.
It's hard, and impossible, and it's supposed to be worth it.
Matt had never loved her.
That's the only conclusion she can come to.
And when she stares into the eyes of his best friend, she realizes that this is really complicated.
He sinks to the floor in shock, sobbing.
She moves over slowly, gingerly, and wraps her arms around him, crying too.
She has no idea how to handle this.
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It's the day of the full moon before she even really notices that it's coming.
It's the day after Matt dies—and she gets Stefan and Damon to handle his body, because otherwise she doesn't know how to handle it.
It's also a possible day of the sacrifice. But no one bothers to fill her in on this sort of thing so when she wakes up in a cage with Tyler and Elena, she really doesn't know how to handle it.
She realizes that Tyler is in chains, and then she realizes what that means.
"Elena—" She shakes her friend, and gets her to move away, because the full moon is coming.
Tyler starts to grunt, and the pain awakens him. "Care—"
She smiles sadly and pats his back, "Yeah, I'm here."
Soon after everyone shows up, and it's an epic battle, but she can't do anything except sit around and watch Tyler be in pain.
Bonnie kills Klaus, and she sinks to the ground, and Caroline just hopes she's okay.
She is. And Caroline breathes a sigh of relief before hugging Tyler's body to herself.
Tyler is near the entrance to the cage, though he can't get to the other side where Elena is waiting.
He's turning, and pushing her away, and suddenly she's at the other side of the cage, just watching him turn.
They all realize that they can't get them out of the cage until the transformation is done, and they sit there and wait.
Caroline cries, and Elena holds her.
It's a long night.
XXXX
When the sun rises, everyone is speechless, but then Caroline is running towards Tyler, holding him tightly, crying, saying she's never going to leave him again, and everyone realizes that they've missed something.
"I still—I'm still mad."
"I know."
"I love you though," her voice wavers.
"I love you too," he says. "That's why I left. I just—I love you. You're so incredible, I can't imagine how anyone could not fall for you."
Everyone just watches, they're part of some weird emotional moment, a love confession.
It's not the sort of moment you ruin with reality.
They don't realize that it doesn't matter—that Tyler and Caroline have had their fair share of the harshness of reality, and now they are a team, they have chosen each other.
Reality has nothing on them.