She doesn't notice him immediately after she pulls into the parking lot, she's too busy trying to fight off the despair that has been threatening to consume her since last night when her mother had come into her room at exactly 12:00 AM singing happy birthday and showering her with hugs and kisses. Yes, Sheriff Elizabeth Forbes greeted her daughter's 18th birthday with a song and loving gestures. Oh, there was a cupcake too. She had offered to take the day off and take Caroline out for some shopping and then finish with a nice dinner but Caroline had declined the offer despite her mother's enthusiasm and her own appreciation at her attempt to make Caroline happy on her special day.

For the first time in her life, Caroline was not in the mood to celebrate. Not even her own birthday. Why? Well partly because there was no longer anything to celebrate. She might look alive but she was very much dead. She'll be stuck in the body of this seventeen year old forever. She's come so far and she already feels so much older than she actually is. There are so many things that she'll never be able to do; so much she'll never be able to have because she'll always be too young. Because she's dead. She hate it but she can't stop thinking about it.

Then there's the other reason. His latest actions have actually made her question if the boy that she knew is still there or she he is completely gone. He stands up a little straighter as their eyes meet and takes a few steps towards her car even though she quickly breaks their eye contact. She's feeling so many emotions towards him right now and none of them are good. Sadness, guilt, anger, betrayal, loss. She feels like she's lost him. When Elena had told her what Tyler had almost done to Jeremy and what had happened to Alaric, Caroline had found herself speechless and actually wondering if what Damon had told her was actually true.

- Flashback –

"So how do I fix him?" She asks Damon as she looks up at him, expecting a response along the lines of 'Oh he'll snap out of it in a week or so' or 'Well, just give him this herb.' What she doesn't expect to hear is:

"Get a new boyfriend."

She can't help the sound that comes out of her then as she stares helplessly up at the older vampire.

"Wh-what?"

Damon frowns down at her, his face completely serious as he locks his eyes with hers. When he speaks, his tone is monotone and devoid of all of his usually snarkiness and sarcasm. And she knows that he means every word of what he says.

"Caroline, that's not Tyler anymore. He's gone. This boy is nothing more than an extension of Klaus's will, a puppet on a string, an eager little puppy that will do anything to please its master."

-End Flashback-

She had refused to believe it then despite his weird behavior that day. And she had gone on telling herself that Damon was wrong. That the Tyler she knew was still there. But it was like she had received a hard punch in the gut when Elena told her what had happened to Jeremy and Alaric. She had cried. Still, she can't bring herself to give up on him. All she needs is for him to tell her that he's at least willing to fight against this hold that Klaus has over him. She needs something to let her know that the Tyler she knows – her Tyler- is still there. That he's not gone. He can't be gone. She can't handle that. Her feelings are overwhelming her again and she can barely keep them at bay. Part of her wants to cry and scream, the other part wants to hit him and another part of her just wants to run away and hide. She has to know that he's still there and that's what makes her get out of the car as he approaches her with an expression of apprehension and guilt.

But at the last minute she loses her nerve. She's too scared to find out the answer. If Damon is right, she doesn't wanna find out.

"I can't talk to you." She breathes out and she tries to walk past him but he quickens his pace trying to get her to stop and listen.

"I know you're upset with me but I-" she doesn't miss the sadness and desperation in his voice but her own feelings are too powerful right now for her to acknowledge his right away.

"Upset?" she interrupts, no longer able to control her overflowing mixture anger and hurt.

"You almost got Jeremy killed." She can feel the tears sting the back of her eyes and the slight burning in her throat as she recalls the looks on Elena's faces every time she had to burry someone else that she loves. Jeremy is the only family Elena has left. Her desperate need to know if the real him is still there takes over as she continues.

"And before you ask me to understand or to support you, can you at least tell me what you're planning to do about your sire bond to Klaus?"

The tears are dangerously close to spilling over as she looks into his dark eyes. She wonders if it's just the sun or her own teary eyes making his chocolate brown orbs seem to glisten like that.

He looks into her eyes and his voice seems a little choked when he responds.

"There's nothing that I can do about it, Caroline. That's the point." He doesn't sound casual and blasé about it anymore. He looks and sounds like a man who has been condemned to some horrible punishment and that he's accepted it. Caroline presses her lips together as the lump in her throat grows and opens her eyes a little wider in the hope that she can keep the tears at bay as he continues after a deep breath.

"I just wanted you to know that I understand why you can't be with me." She knows that he had been mad at her before. It seems that all of his anger is gone. He knows that what he did was wrong.

"Even though I wanna put you first, before anyone, I can't. I'll never be able to and I'm sorry." She's never heard him sound so emotionally hurt as he does when he says this to her.

"I'm so sorry." He seems to have realized that this sire bond is too high a price to pay for his imagined freedom from the full moon. Caroline had thought that he had less freedom than ever before but she doesn't focus on that now. This is Tyler. Her Tyler. This isn't Klaus talking. It's Tyler. The real Tyler. He's still there. He's not gone.

"Just wanted you to know that." And she can feel the pain in his voice and she now knows that it's not the light playing tricks on her. He's actually holding back tears. His voice is shaking and all she can do is nod because she isn't able to speak. He might still be able to think for himself but it doesn't matter because Klaus has control over him. Klaus is always going to be a wall between them. But she can't just say nothing. She has to let him know that she does understand and that she still cares about him.

"I'm sorry too." She can't say more than that or she knows she'll fall apart right here in the middle of the school parking lot in front him the same way she had after he had walked out of her room a few nights before.

He grunts back what she thinks might be a sob as he pulls a small black pouch out of his pocket. He holds it out in front of him and fidgets with it for a moment before he takes her hand and pushes it into her palm squeezes her hand with both of his. He manages to force a smile as he looks into her eyes and whispers out.

"Happy birthday." She only nods because she can't speak now because the lump in her throat is too large and her vision of him is blurry as she continues to fight back her tears but his birthday wish brings a genuine smile to her face even as she feels her heart breaking.

With one last sorrowful look he walks away and she doesn't want to watch him melt into the crowd so she looks down at the bag in her hand, her curiosity peaked as she feels cool metal through the netlike material. She easily undoes the ribbon and dips the contents of the pouch into her hand already able to tell what's inside. She thumbs one of the charms on the bracelet as she holds it and she feels her face scrunching up as she takes in a breath to keep herself from crying.

Although this time it doesn't work and a sob escapes her as she looks at the gift in her hand. She looks up just in time to see Tyler falter in his step as then come stiffly to a stop not too far away. She knows that he's heard her. Ever so slowly, he begins to turn his head back to look at her but then he suddenly stops before he's turned enough so that they're eyes will meet. And then, without looking back at her, he starts walking forward again at a much brisker pace. Caroline watches him until he pulls open the door and disappears into the school building. It's only then that she realizes that there are hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

She steals a quick look around to make sure that no one has noticed her as she brings a hand up to wipe the tears of the left side of her face. The fabric of the bag scratches against her cheek and she realizes that she needs to stop squeezing the bracelet in her other hand so hard or she will break it. She loosens her grip on it ever so slightly as she turns back to her car. She's never skipped a full day of school before but she doesn't care at all. Not today.

She can't be here.

She high tails it out of the school parking lot but she can't drive very far with her tear filled vision.

She pulls into the empty parking lot of a warehouse not too far from the school and turn off the ignition before burying her face in her hands, the bracelet still clutches between her fingers as she tries fruitlessly to hold back her sobs. She's not going to cry over Tyler again. She is not going to cry over a bracelet. But as she pulls her face out of her hands and holds the present in front of her she only cries harder.

He didn't just walk into a store and buy this. She had realized that as soon as she'd seen the C and F representing her initials hanging in the middle of the chain. No, he went and chose these charms for her. He selected each one himself and probably had the chain sized for her wrist. How he managed to do that without taking her to the jewelry store, she has no idea but as she unclasps the bracelet with shaking hands and then finally manages to stop her crying enough to hook it back after it's on her wrist five minutes later, her suspicions prove to be true. It fits her perfectly.

She wipes the tears out of her eyes and hold her arm up in front of her to examine her shiny new accessory in the sunlight. There are eight charms on the bracelet. In the center are her initials, which each have three small rhinestones embedded in them. There's an open heart and a crown on either side of the letters along with a tiny figure of a girl in a ponytail and a megaphone. She takes in a shaky breath as she gently fingers the last two charms. One is a football helmet and the other is a key.

The last time she had been with Tyler before Rebekah has shown up and dragged him off so that Klaus could turn him into a hybrid, Tyler had told Caroline that he loved how big her heart was. Back in elementary school and throughout half of middle school, Caroline had always dressed up as a princess every Halloween. She was the head cheerleader and she loved to shout cheers at the top of her lungs at every game until her voice started to go. Homecoming was Caroline's favorite school event and the morning after he and her mother had rescued her from the jail cell of doom that her own father had locked her in, Tyler had told her that she was perfect just the way she was and that she held the key to his heart. Each and every charm is a representation of her. It's possibly one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone has ever given to her.

She loves the sound the charms make as the they clink against the silver chain but at the same time it fills her with a sadness like no other. These charms are all she'll ever be. Caroline being the overachiever that she is, had planned to go off to a great super smart college in some big city somewhere and come back with a nice degree to put up on her living room mantel after she graduated from that huge college and moved back home to Mystic Falls. She wanted to fall in love and live in a house with a white picket fence and have two point five kids and become an important member of the Mystic Falls Historical Society. All of that is gone.

She can't have the house with the white picket fence because who in their right mind sells a house to a seventeen year old? She'll never have the two point five kids or even a kid for that matter because she can't get pregnant. There's always been some kind of supernatural walls between her and every guy she's come across in the last two years. Her mother, Elena, Bonnie, Matt, they're all going to get older day. While she stays exactly the same. One day they're going to die. She won't even be here when that happens because soon enough she'll have to leave town or let the whole town know that she's a vampire because make up will only help for so long in making her look older. She is not aging. She will never get older. She will always look the way she does now.

The car horn lets out a loud honk in the silence as Caroline grips the steering wheel in front of her and presses her forehead against it as she breaks out into uncontrollable tears. She doesn't try to stop them and there's no one around to hear her and she doesn't bother to try to keep quiet as she sobs.

Hours later, after her tears have dried on her cheeks, Caroline pulls her face away from the steering wheel that she has had it pressed against for who knows how long. She starts the car and glances at the clock to see the number 2:43 staring back at her. She had pulled into the school parking lot at exactly 8:00 A.M. She takes in a deep breath and pulls her thermos of blood out of her bag. Normally, she'll pace herself but she's extra edgy today and so to calm herself down she drinks the whole thing in a few gulps. Feeling slightly better, she pulls out her make-up bag and she touches her make-up from earlier in the morning up so that she doesn't look like she's spent the entire day crying her eyes out.

As she's putting her things back into her bag the charms clink against each other and Caroline pulls out her phone and starts a text message to Tyler, wanting him to know that his sweet and sentimental gesture has been the only thing she likes about this day but just as she's about hit send she stops. He had only walked away this morning when he had heard her sniffle because he knew that they can't be together. Not as long as he's sired to Klaus. It's too dangerous. A clean break would be best. She knows he's hurting just like her and she doesn't want to add to that. And so, instead of the green button on the left, she presses the red button on the right and blinks back some fresh tears as her phone lights up with a notification. MESSAGE SAVED IN DRAFTS

She's not going to cry and ruin her make up again. She just wants to go home and curl up in her bed. She raises her arms up one more time and shakes it slightly so that her super vampire hearing picks up the chink of the silver charms one last time. She isn't sure why this bracelet is comforting her so much but she already feels extremely comfortable with it on her wrist. As she looks at it, her mind brings up an image of Tyler's handsome face and she finds herself smiling. Tyler is being strong, she should be too. Tomorrow. Today, she just wants to be alone ( If you had told her this time last year that she would ever find herself wanting to be alone on her birthday she would have laughed until she could no longer breathe). There is one person she wishes she could spend the day with. She wishes she could be with Tyler. Just for today. But she can't. It'll only make things more complicated and more difficult. This is already so hard, why make it harder?

So she drives home, planning on changing into her pajamas and just going to sleep but Bonnie, Matt and Elena aren't having that. She tries to protest but they're being so sweet and she doesn't have the heart to kick them out of her house just so she can wallow in her misery especially when they're doing their best to cheer her up. She goes along with Elena's weird and somewhat creepy idea and finds herself glad for it as Elena holds the cake up in front of her and asks Bonnie to light the candles.

Caroline finds herself smiling again as the flames magically come to life in front of her wait for her to wish on them.

There are so many things she could wish for. There's so much that she's been hoping for with all the drama that Klaus ahs brought into their lives. But one thing resonates more than any other. She touches one of the charms on the bracelet as her thoughts lock on him again. A boy she wants to see tonight. A boy she wishes could be free.

Tyler.

She blows out the candles.

AN: This is what happens when my beautiful OTP gets put through the ringer once again. Poor Tyler! My heart broke for him in this episode and I'm sure I didn't do justice to Michael Trevino's phenomenal acting in this episode with my writing but I did my best. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get over how that "I love you" was ruined though. I had been waiting for that for so long and then they ! Stupid Klaus! I love him but I hate him for ruining that for me! And for Tyler and Caroline too. It's just not fair. It'll be ok though. They'll pull through. Tyler and Caroline are endgame =) Anyway, was it just me or did Klaus seem weird obsessed with the bracelet Tyler gave to Caroline. I'm pretty sure he knew that it was a birthday gift from Tyler or else why would he touch it when he said "I love birthdays". Anyways, Klaus can like Caroline all he wants. He can even court her, I actually wouldn't mind seeing that as long as she lets him and everyone else know that Tyler is the one for her. Forwood forever!

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