Author's Note.

Hey everyone! Welcome to my new story! I'm playing it a bit closer to the source material this time, with one important twist. Caroline is human. This story takes place after the high school graduation, in a slightly altered world. Caroline wasn't turned by Katherine at the end of season one, so she is still human and unaware of all the messes her friends get into. Klaus' original trip into mystic falls was the same, Elena was turned, Katherine has been around, Tyler is a werewolf (but not a hybrid) A few characters have slightly different roles, but for the most part, this story exists in a universe very similar to the one on the show.

(obviously, I own nothing)

In this alternate universe, Klaus gets into a bit of hot water shortly after he breaks the hybrid curse. This is where our story begins.

"...To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes..."

William Shakespeare, Hamlet

This Mortal Coil

When Klaus Mikaelson set his mind to something, he did it. There was no trying, no agonizing over it. He simply took what he wanted, by force if needed.

Right now, what he wanted was to take Bonnie Bennett's heart out of her chest and eat it.

The witch was running through the forest, kicking up leaves, spreading her scent in the easiest path to follow. She wasn't even smart enough to switch up her path to slow him. The people of the old world knew better.

He could see her, hair whipping in the wind as she picked up speed. She was calling on her magic, her spirits. Call all you want, little witch, they won't help you here.

Then she tumbled to the ground. It was almost too easy.

He slowed as he approached her, each step bringing him closer to her pounding heart.

"How foolish are you, running here?" he said.

Bonnie looked around and he waited for the fear to spread.

They were in the old Mikaelson estate. She had run to the overgrown lawn of his former palatial home. There were still servants of his here, living on the grounds, keeping things in order. He was certain the ground she was crumpled on was just above the catacombs of the cellar that stretched out between the main house and the smaller estate at the back of the property, connecting them.

"You're the reason who Elena's a vampire. You killed Jenna, and Mr Lockwood, all those people. We all could have died."

"You say that like I should care."

"Don't you care about anyone other than yourself?" Bonnie asked.

He was growing annoyed with her. The least she could do would be to cower in fear, beg for her silly little life. No, this one had to be proud.

"You have something I want." he said. "Give it to me, and no one gets hurt."

"Elena will still get hurt."

"I'm not going to kill her." he said "It's quite the opposite. I'm going to cram this cure down her throat and she'll be good as new. No more sad little orphan vampire. I just want her blood. I'll be decent about it. She'll get three meals a day, a roof over her head. All I want in exchange is a pint of her blood every so often."

"But she'll be a slave." Bonnie protested.

He shrugged. "I don't care."

"You will." Bonnie sneered.

He sighed. "Well, it seems you aren't going to be cooperative. So let's get to the fun part, shall we?"

He lunged forward to tear out her heart and a force knocked him back. She stood up, arms outstretched, muttering something sinister in latin.

The ground below him shook.

It crumbled.

His head split open on the floor of the cellar.

Klaus woke up confused. It had been many years since he had been down here. He looked around and made a note to reprimand whoever had been charged with dusting these shelved. By the look of it, they had been helping themselves to the wine as well.

He looked up at the tiny hole the moonlight shone through. As an original, it was easy for him to propel himself up and out, and it was a lot quicker than walking though to the main house and going out the front door. He shot up and crashed violently against thin air, falling back down.

He rubbed the back of his neck, puzzled.

Klaus made his way through the catacombs and into the main house. A few servants were gathered in one of the sitting rooms. They all jumped to their feet when he arrived, but he ignored them. He went straight to the front door, swung it open and slammed into the nothingness, bouncing back onto the foyer floor.

Frantically, he threw a chair out a window and tried that, but it was also blocked by some unseen force.

He tried every entry point. He tore at a wall to make a new way to escape, but that failed as well. He took the catacombs to the little house out back and tried the same. It was no use. He was trapped.

One year later

Caroline had fallen asleep as soon as the guest left. Her graduation party was nice and pleasant. It was really all she could have hoped for, as much as that little nagging feeling in the back of her head longed for something more. Elena and Stefan and Bonnie had all made time to show up, and not one of them left early for some mysterious reason. They all actually stayed for the cake and wished her luck next year at NYU.

She was so ready for her life to begin.

It felt like all of her friends had these secret lives they were always slipping off too, like they were all out doing fun things without her. She knew Elena and Bonnie had secret jokes. Stefan would look world-weary and never explain why. They would have injuries they couldn't explain. They would all have to slip away at the same moment for some mysterious reason.

They thought she was too stupid to see it. She was just a dumb blonde.

But she knew there was something she was missing. She just hadn't figured out what.

It didn't matter.

In two months, she would be moving into her dorm room in New York City.

She had never been there, not even to tour the campus. They couldn't afford the trip, and her mother couldn't take time off work.

But she applied on a hope and a dream of actually seeing the world, and she made it. She made in completely on her own merits, and it was the thing she was the most proud of. She had worked hard, staying up all night studying, joining every club and becoming its president. She was cheer captain and held her head high when the rest of the student government made jokes about how cheerleaders were all dumb sluts. She still won student government president, and raised the most prom money in this history of the school. In the end, she was the only one from Mystic Falls to be accepted to NYU, and she knew she wasn't the only one to apply.

There was only one thing missing from the perfect little graduation party, and it was the shrill ring of him calling out to her that woke her up out of a dead sleep.

Caroline sprinted out of bed to grab the phone ringing in her purse.

"Tyler?" she asked.

"Hey, babe. Sorry I missed graduation."

"Tyler, I talked to the guidance counselors, and they say you have just enough absences to disqualify you from graduating. I told you not to take another trip. But it's ok, I worked my magic and did a few favors, and eventually they agreed to give you your diploma."

"That's great, Care."

She frowned at his lack of excitement. Didn't he know she just saved his life? Again?

"Ty, why didn't you call earlier?"

"Care, You know when I visit family there's no cell reception. We're out in the mountains."

"Yeah, I guess. But you missed the whole last month of school. You missed graduation, and my party. You missed prom, Tyler."

That was the worst offense. He had promised her all year that he wouldn't be away for that. She was the head of the planning committee, the decorating committee and she organized all the fundraisers. Yet on the day of the prom, Tyler couldn't make it. He couldn't even call her to say that he was going to miss it. She just had to do what she always did. She got her hair done, put on the perfect dress, and held her head high.

She had a good time, although it stung every time a slow song came on and she had to lean against the wall as all her friends paired off. Everyone was watching and whispering. Caroline Forbes, the smartest little idiot alive, unable to see everyone moving on from her.

"Care, it's just a dance."

"Just a dance?"

"I don't want to get into this again. I was just calling to say that I'm on my way back."

"You are?"

"Yeah. Care, I'm coming back. I'll be there by morning. I promise, I'll be there all summer. I won't leave until you have to go to NYU."

Caroline Forbes set her phone back down and looked out her window at the stars. Everything was going to be ok. Finally, everything would be just perfect.

Tyler took a shortcut through the old Estates. The Estates were a series of crumbling mansions that were spaced out several miles apart in a vast stretch of nothingness and overgrown forest. Several generations back, this is where all the wealthiest families in the area lived. His own grandfather had owned one of these homes. Now they all stood in disrepair, half of them abandoned, the other half occupied by delusional old men who clung to their former glory.

With a sputter and a pop, his car slowed to a halt.

He tried restarting, but it didn't work.

With a groan, he got out and opened the hood of the Escalade.

It was a fancy car for fancy boys who liked to play at being men.

Tyler Lockwood may have gotten dents in his and mud on the tires, but it was still a spoiled rich boy's car, and he was still a spoiled rich boy looking at the engine. He had no clue what he was looking at, only mimicking what he had seen other men do. He waited for something to look obvious, but eventually he gave up. He didn't understand how to fix a car. He had people for that.

He decided to call triple A, after all he was only a few hours away from Mystic Falls. Let them deal with the car. Caroline would be happy to drive him around until he got it fixed. In fact, she would love him not having a car. Controlling his ability to move about town would be his girlfriend's dream.

The full moon wasn't for anther few weeks, and if he needed to escape he could still lock himself in the old cellar.

It would all be fine.

He tapped on his phone and it refused to cooperate. No signal. Of course.

He flung the stupid thing across the deserted street, sending it skittering across the pavement and crunching against a rock.

Tyler knew someone was in one of these houses. Not all of them were abandoned. Some had feeble old men living in them, probably with beautiful nurses caring for their aching bodies. A few may have groundskeepers staying full time. He trudged down the road, looking for the nearest estates. The first one he passed, ironically, was his own families. Lockwood Estate. No one had set foot in that place for ten years. There wouldn't be so much as a working phone inside. They had gutted the place when Grandpa died and used the money for a trip to the Bahamas.

He trudged along, it was two miles before he reached the next monstrosity, towering in the night. The palatial Fell estate was pitch black and a quarter mile behind a barbed fence. He managed to find an opening in the fence, a place where the bars had bent, and he made his way through. Tyler trudged through the weeds and overgrown grass. He finally made it to the door and knocked. He tried the bell but it didn't make a noise. He knocked again and again, louder each time. Nothing. This one was abandoned too.

He begrudgingly made his way back to the gates, each step a frustrated stomp into the ground. He was too caught up in his frustration to hear the hiss of warning.

There was a sharp pain and he screamed into the abyss. He looked down to find a snake clamped onto his ankle. He knew from the look of it that it was venomous. No, no this could not be happening.

He hadn't had the experience of being bitten since he had become a werewolf, but he wasn't sure if the wolf healing would do anything to save him from a deadly bite. Quite frankly, he didn't want to wait and find out.

It was with a new sense of urgency that Tyler ran the next two mile stretch. He was gasping for breath and he could feel the poison seeping into his body and he took each step on blistered feet. There was another home within sight, this one up on a hill, higher than all the others. It was the largest one in this place and an involuntary shudder went through him as he remembered his grandfather's stories of those who used to live here.

Mikaelson.

There were lights on.

Someone was there.

They could call him an ambulance and this would all be over.

He ran at a full sprint through the open gate, up the lawn, to the front door.

He didn't even stop to knock. He twisted the handle and it opened.

Tyler staggered through the foyer. He shouted out to anyone who could hear him.

Then he saw the warm fire in a cozy sitting room. If he could just rest.

He sat down in a chair. The world was swirling. The poison was setting in.

A person flashed in front of him.

He felt a tug as he was tossed out of the chair and slammed on the ground.

He coughed and blood came up.

This was the end.

A young man's face was before him.

"Werewolf." the man said.

Tyler nodded, not bothering to deny it.

He sniffed and tried to figure out what the man was, to have such strength. Not a witch. He smelled like another wolf. No. A vampire. No. A wolf. Which was it?

"You're wounded, dying." the man said. "Something natural, it seems your healing abilities are no match for it. But what?"

Tyler pulled on his pant leg, revealing the bite.

"I thought Werewolves could beat a snake bite." the man said. "Perhaps you can, it will just take longer than healing from a knife. If you can hold out until the full moon, your wolf form will heal your human body. Or perhaps you won't heal. Nature finds a way to take what it wishes to take. Without the loophole I hold, you'll die."

"Help me." Tyler said.

The man smiled wickedly.

"No."