Hey everyone! So now that it's summer vacation, I've come up with this drabble for you guys since I haven't updated Crazy Beautiful in a while. This drabble takes place in the time span after Tyler leaves Mystic Falls in 2x14 and before his return in 2x20. I wrote it to cope with his absence this season and to calm myself from my utter annoyance over the Klaroline hype :)) Hope you guys like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of The Vampire Diaries, because if I did, this season would have gone a lot differently.
"And I wish I could give you the cold shoulder
And I wish I could still give you a hard time
And I wish I could still wish it was over..."
"If it's the fighting you remember
Or the little things you miss
I know you're out there somewhere..."
If You Ever Come Back
The first piece of information Caroline gets in the morning is that Tyler has left town.
She doesn't know what to feel, so she feels everything at once. It's a series of anger, disappointment, annoyance, and exasperation. But eventually, when all those emotions clear, she feels emptiness. She can't understand why Tyler would just pack up and leave like that, and for a moment, she's at a loss on what to do. She tries texting him but receives no reply, and calls him only to get the beep telling her to leave a voice mail. She goes over to the Lockwood residence and comforts Carol, who has been reduced to a worried wreck. She asks about the note, asks her mother Liz about the search, and even considers asking Bonnie to perform a tracking spell for her. But by the end of the day, she's lying on her bed just as clueless as she was this morning.
Her night is spent tossing and turning. She wonders where Tyler could be, and she wonders if he's okay. With everything that goes on in Mystic Falls, abductions aren't unlikely, and she's worried of the possibility that he could have been taken by another werewolf, or another vampire. Yet, for some reason, she knows that's not the case. She can feel that he's alive and well, and it's the only thing that keeps her from running around the outskirts of town in search of him.
Everywhere she looks, something reminds her of him. She doesn't understand it at all. They'd been friends for how long? A week? Two? That certainly shouldn't merit him a memory at her every turn, but somehow when she's at the school courtyard she sees Tyler, when she's at the Grill she sees Tyler, and don't even get her started about how she feels when she's in the woods. That place has Tyler written all over it.
She doesn't talk about him with anyone, doesn't tell anyone how much she misses him, or that she even misses him at all. Her friends are too preoccupied with saving the world and whatnot to understand, and there's no way she could ever tell her boyfriend about it either.
Matt has been acting guarded and distant, but it's okay because so has she. The rekindling of their relationship has set them back to how they were before, yet it all feels completely different. The spark is fading and they both know it, but Caroline's never been one to accept defeat so she pushes their love forward, even if she's starting to question if there was any love there to begin with.
Caroline does everything she can to keep herself busy. She drowns herself in activities and focuses on her boyfriend, just like what she would have done when she was human. She tucks away thoughts of Tyler in a dark corner of her mind, and does everything she can to keep it there. It doesn't take long for it to become easy. She's Caroline Forbes after all. She doesn't have time to deal with a missing werewolf who she's supposed to be mad at anyway, so she makes an effort to set him aside, like how she always tries to set aside anything else that gets in the way of what she wants. And what she wants is for things to be normal again.
But at night she still finds herself thinking about him, about how he's doing and if he's happy. She finds herself wondering who he's with or how he's coping with his second full moon soon approaching, most of all, she wonders what could have been if she'd forgiven him. Would he have still left? Would she have gotten back together with Matt? Would they be dealing with the next full moon together?
She doesn't know the answer to any of those questions, but she does know that she regrets. Though her anger is justified, she regrets letting things end the way they did. What he didn't do for her and what he'd almost done to Elena was inexcusable, but bow that time has passed and her head is clear, she understands his point of view, how it must have been like for him to learn the secrets she'd been keeping. And now that she understands, she misses him even more.
So she resolves that if Tyler comes home—no—when he comes home, she'll be there, ready to hit him for leaving and hug him for returning. They'll smile at each other and be the friends that they used to be. She'll help him catch up on what he's missed at school and he'll help out with all her events to make it up to her.
Everyone believes that Tyler's gone for good, but Caroline knows in her heart that he'll come home.
