Who: Tyler and Caroline What: Caroline dreams of Tyler leaving her When: Early September, before the plot Where: Caroline's room Ratings/Warnings: Pretty low/none Status: Complete
1College was different than Caroline had been expecting. It was just her and Elena. Bonnie was supposed to be with them - a loss that Caroline wasn’t sure she would be able to get over. It was always the three of them, in the dreams at least. In real life it just seemed to be her and Elena lately. But that bond was still there, they would both always be her best friends.
Bonnie wasn’t the only one missing though. So was Tyler. And that was by choice. He was free to return to her, but he hadn’t yet. Giving excuses for when he was going to join her at college, always putting it off. Caroline didn’t get it. They could finally be together so what was he waiting for?
And then there was Bonnie’s funeral. That brought Tyler back. At least he had finally shown up for her. But he was different. He was distracted, it didn’t seem like he was truly back. The night of the Monster’s Ball she got her answer.
”Saty! Be the love of my life! Love me more than you hate him!”
“I’m sorry, Care. I can’t do that.”
And then Tyler walked away. Even after Caroline practically begged him to stay, warned him that this was his it. If he left there would be no more surprises, no more second chances, they’d be done. And Tyler still left. His hatred for Klaus outweighed his love for her - and that was a horrible feeling.
Caroline was left alone to sob in her dorm room. Only that wasn’t the only place she was crying, she woke up from her horrible dream, her eyes wet with tears, apparently she had been crying in her sleep as well.
It wasn’t necessarily that Tyler was a light sleeper, but with his super hearing, Caroline’s quiet sobs cut right through his sleep and he woke up, still a little groggy. “Caroline?” he said, looking over at her. When he saw that she was crying, he moved to wrap his arm around her shoulder so he could pull her gently against his chest. “Hey, what’s wrong? Dream?”
Caroline was still wrapped up in her dream a bit. It her hurt and anger at Tyler. So when he put his arm around her she pulled away, sitting up in the bed sheets pulled to her chest. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Caroline asked wiping the tears from her eyes not realizing how illogical she was being right now. Her Tyler hadn’t done anything to her. “How could you chose Klaus over me?!”
Tyler brought his arm back to himself, resisting the urge to just try harder to wrap it around her shoulders. That probably wasn’t going to help the situation right now anyway. He grimaced a little when she mentioned Klaus. He knew she’d get to that dream eventually, but he had been hopign that he’d be better prepared for it when she did.
“I didn’t,” Tyler reminded her, gently. “I wouldn’t do that here. That’s one of my biggest regrets from the dreams, Care.”
Caroline frowned as his words sunk in, realizing she was being unfair. Her Tyler was right here next to her. He wasn’t out on some kind of crazy vendetta that would probably end with him killed. Caroline softened just a bit, even though she still couldn’t get the image of him walking away from her out of her mind.
“I just don’t get it,” Caroline said still frowning, though she did manage to wipe the rest of the tears from her eyes. “Klaus was gone. We could finally have our happily ever after.”
Tyler bit his lip, and decided not to mention that neither one of them got their happy ending - unless someone counted the fact that he wound up forever in the afterlife with the girlfriend he had treated like absolute garbage before he’d fallen for Caroline, but no matter how he spun it, it just didn’t seem like a very happy end.
“I… the me in my dreams, at least… he couldn’t let Klaus go like that.” All the love he’d felt for Klaus when he’d been sired had turned into hate, and that draw had been nearly as powerful as the sire bond itself had been. Maybe it was the fact that, in order to break the sire bond, he’d had to think about how much he hated Klaus while deliberately breaking every bone in his body hundreds of times, whereas here it had been a simple matter of just turning off his humanity. The fact that Klaus had murdered his mother and had taken everything from him, even attempted to take Caroline, hadn’t helped matters. There had been a part of Tyler that had hoped he’d finally finish Klaus off, but most of him knew that there was no way he would be able to. No, his dream self had almost been hoping that, if he couldn’t end Klaus, Klaus would at least end him.
He couldn’t tell Caroline that either.
“I know it’s hard to understand, but he couldn’t help it.”
Caroline slowly nodded. What Tyler was saying made sense at least. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. Especially with how fresh the dream was. Caroline begging Tyler to stay, telling him this was it, his last chance. And he still chose to go. Because of Klaus. It wasn’t all that different than when he broke up with her because of Klaus here. Only in the dreams it was actually Tyler’s choice. Where here it had been something Klaus forced him to do.
“He had a choice,” Caroline reminded Tyler. And yeah there was a bit of bitterness in her voice because all of this was bringing her back to a bad place.
Tyler had the unreasonable urge to argue with Caroline about that. That she didn’t know what it was like to feel hatred so strong that it was all you could think about. Before he could say anything though, he swallowed it. He knew why Caroline was so upset about it. Tyler hadn’t been in the right, no matter how much the hatred had burned in him.
“It’s not a choice I’d ever make here,” he assured her instead.
“So if Klaus suddenly decided to move away,” (wishful thinking.) “You wouldn’t follow him? Try to kill him?” Caroline knew he hadn’t done quite as much to Tyler here as he had in the dreams. Tyler’s mom was still alive for one, thankfully. But he had still done a lot. Like ruin their relationship, force Tyler to kill, barely blinked an eye when Caroline was dying. And even though Tyler had pretty much already said as much, Caroline still needed that bit of reassurance. Needed to hear him say it again.
“You love me more than you hate him?”
“I would count our blessings,” Tyler assured her. If Klaus decided to move away, it might very well be the happiest day of Tyler’s life. All he wanted now was to Klaus to get out of his and Caroline’s lives for good. He definitely wasn’t after revenge, or anything close to that.
“There isn’t even a comparison, Caroline. I love you more than anything I could possibly feel for him.”
“Okay,” Caroline finally said wiping the last of the tears from her eyes. She supposed that was going to have to do. She couldn’t hold Tyler accountable for something that he did in the dreams. It wasn’t fair to either of them. “I love you too,” she finally said. “I’m sorry I yelled.”
Tyler kissed her forehead, smiling a little. “It’s okay,” he said. “Just… try to remember that I’m not that guy here.” At least, he tried not to be. His dream self had made a lot of mistakes, and Tyler didn’t want to make any of them.