Title: Dirty Little Secret

Chapter: 1

Summary: Caroline Forbes is a lot of things. Neurotic, controlling and insecure being top of the list, but one thing she is not is stupid. So she knows that something is seriously up with childhood friend (and occasional enemy) Tyler Lockwood. She's determine to figure out why all the sudden he's acting as if he's seen a ghost and why he looks at her all the time with a heat she doesn't understand. As she digs deeper, she finds out about a whole new world she didn't knew existed and- despite her lack of knowledge- how she's part of it. Mostly AU.

Author's Note: Well, I've been struggling with whether or not to write this and in the end (obviously) the story won. I'm probably taking on way more than I should, but hey, I do better under a lot of pressure. Forwood is my favorite VD couple besides Delena and I don't think there's enough fics for them, so I decided to do something about it. Tell me what you think. (;

Tyler Lockwood was staring at her yet again. She was at her locker talking to her boyfriend Matt about football or work or something. Oh, she didn't know! She was too distracted by said boyfriend's best friend staring at her like some kind of stalker. He'd been doing that a lot lately and it was starting to grade on her nerves. Like, seriously! She's dating his best friend! And yeah, Tyler was the school renowned dick and player but she didn't think he would hit on his best friend's girl. Wasn't that against, like guy code or something? Did guy's have a code? Hm. She wasn't sure.

Anyways, this was getting out of hand. He's been staring creepily at her for over a week now, and while Matt hasn't noticed, she sure as hell has. At first, she blew it off with the explanation of she was imagining things and she seriously should consider deflating her ego. But then it kept happening and happening and happening until she realized that a.) she wasn't losing her mind and b.) Tyler Lockwood was, in fact, staring at her.

She really started noticing it after the disastrous Masquerade Ball two weeks ago. Major Lockwood (Tyler's mom; she had taken over for his dad, who died a month ago in a car accident) threw a lot of parties and balls and the Masquerade was easily one of the most popular. Who wouldn't want to dress up and put on a mask? It was mysterious and sexy and fun. Anyways, so tons of people showed up and the first few hours went by without a hitch, but after that, it went downhill. Caroline, Tyler, Matt and a few other kids from school were in a small office, goofing off and talking. Everything was fine until this girl named Sarah, who was more than a little drunk, kept hanging off of Tyler, being obnoxious and overall making an idiot out of herself. She kept trying to get him to take her to his bedroom and "show her a good time" but he refused. She kept trying and trying until finally, Tyler got annoyed and told her to get the hell off of him and go sober up. She had gotten pissed and tried to slap him. Her friend grabbed her and tried to get her out of the room, but Sarah started freaking out. Tyler tried to pick her up and carry her out of the room, but she grabbed a pen off the desk and attacked him. Like, literally attacked him. She stabbed him in the shoulder with the pen and tried again, but he shoved her off of him. She fell and hit her head on the desk. They thought it had just knocked her out cold, but on further inspection, they realized she wasn't breathing. They tried to revive her but it didn't help. She was dead.

Everyone in the room was questioned about what happened. Everyone told the same story. She went insane and attacked Tyler. He pushed her, she fell and hit her head. It was self defense. Tyler didn't get into any legal trouble, but you could tell how messed up he was by the whole thing. Tyler was a dick, but he wasn't a monster. He felt horrible for being the one responsible for taking a girl's life, even if it was an accident and in self defense.

She'd been trying to cut Tyler some slack because of everything, but he was really started to get on her nerves and freak her out.

"Earth to Care, are you listening?" Matt asked, bringing her attention back to him and away from Tyler. He looked slightly annoyed and a little worried at her lack of attention. Sure, she was a little out there, but she usually didn't blatantly ignore him.

"Sorry!" she exclaimed. She shifted her weight to her other foot and forced herself to stop looking at Tyler. "I'm just a little…distracted. What were you saying?"

"You've been acting really weird the last few weeks," he pointed out, his blonde eyebrows scrunching together over his blue eyes and a frown forming on his lips. "Is something going on?"

Oh, nothing. Its just your asshole of a best friend won't stop looking at me and its seriously starting to give me the creeps and if he doesn't stop soon I will Mace him so you may want to-

"Care!" Matt exclaimed, annoyance leaking into his voice.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" she said, pushing a stray piece of hair out of her face. She grabbed her History textbook out of her locker and slammed it shut, hoping Tyler would get the message that she was so not in the mood for his creepy staring today. But in her moment of annoyance, she didn't think of the fact that Matt just might think its him she was sending her warning to.

He stepped back from her and his annoyed look turned into a pissed off one. "Caroline, what is going on with you?"

She sighed and hitched her bag over her shoulder. "Nothing," she lied. She contemplated telling him about Tyler, but decided against it. As much as she wished Tyler would stop, she didn't want to put a kink in their little bromance. She ran a hand through her hair and tried her best to smile. It came out more as a grimace. "Look, Matt, I'm fine. I'm just a little stressed. I'm trying to plan the car wash fundraiser and Tiki is on my ass about it, and there aren't enough people signing up and-"

Matt was accustomed to her babbling by now so he did what he usually did to shut her up. He gave her a quick kiss on the lips and a boyish grin that made her melt inside. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry. If you want, I can help with getting people signed up."

While her explanation for being so distant and out of it was kind of a lie, she really did need help with getting people to do the fundraiser. She gave him a million watt smile. "Thanks, Matt!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. "You're a life saver!"

He blushed and shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "I guess," he said, bashfully.

"No, you are," she assured him. The one minute bell rang and she sighed. "Listen," she said. "Can you talk to Stefan at practice today about being a volunteer? I'd talk to him in History but…" But she didn't want to endure him and her best friend making "You're my soul mate" looks at each other. She was happy for Elena but come on, no one wanted to see that!

Matt nodded understandably and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll see you later," he said and began jogging down the hall in vain hope of making it to his Algebra class in time.

Resisting the urge to look to see if Tyler was there, she turned on her heels and sauntered down the hall to her History class. Before she was halfway there, the tardy bell rang and she sighed. Cursing underneath her breath, she quickened her speed and nearly ran to class.

She arrived to class just a few seconds late but of course, Mr. Tanner had to climb down her throat about it. Mr. Tanner was the biggest dick ever and no one liked him. He thought that he knew everything and he was never wrong. His ego would put even Tyler's to shame, which was hard to believe. He was also the football coach and he had a very hard time separating coaching from teaching. And even when he was teaching, it felt like he was preaching at you more so than teaching.

All hail the mighty Mr. Tanner….

"Miss Forbes, why are you late?" he asked, giving her that shit eating grin that made her want to spray her perfume in those beady eyes of his. Why was he smiling, anyways? Wasn't he scolding her? Oh, wait, she forgot to add sadistic asshole to that long list of things she couldn't stand about him. He enjoyed yelling at people. The prick….

She resisted the urge to flip him off and headed to her seat beside Elena, who was giving her a sympathetic look. Pu-lease. Caroline was use to dealing with pissy, egotistical people. She was head cheerleader after all.

"Because Mr. Tanner," she said, sweetly, "I was tending to a little problem."

"Yeah," an obvious voice she knew belonged to Cody Abram, an obvious football player with a big mouth and no brain, said "Tending to Donovan's little problem."

The class laughed and Caroline just rolled her eyes. Turning around in her seat to glare at the big headed boy. "Cody, you really shouldn't be talking about little anything," she said, rolling her eyes. She wasn't the only one who heard the rumor about his ahem, little Cody.

The class erupted in laughter and he glared at her, heat rising to his cheeks and she flashed him a smile. "Don't dish it if you can't take it."

"Bitch," he muttered underneath his breath.

She rolled her eyes. That'd been one of her nicknames since middle school. It wasn't exactly something that could be used to insult her. "Ouch."

"Alright, alright," Mr. Tanner said, annoyance leaking into his voice. "That's enough. Miss Forbes, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tend to your 'little problems' when you should be in my class."

"Yes, sir," she said, putting extra emphasize on the word sir, just to prove that while the word was respectful, she respected him about as much as a dog that spent its free time sniffing crotches.

He narrowed his eyes but otherwise ignored her smart ass tone. He walked to the board and wrote down a range of page numbers and underneath that, a long list of question numbers. After he wrote down the ridiculously large amount, he turned back to the class and said, "Read these pages and then answer the questions in complete sentences. If you don't finish, its homework. No talking."

After a hour and a half of that torture, the bell finally rang and she happily skipped out of the room, heading off to cheerleading practice. But of course, she had the worst luck ever because who did she literally run into? That's right. You guessed it. Tyler Lockwood. She made an oomph! sound as her chest smacked into his. She wobbled on her heals and the only reason she didn't fall flat on her butt was Tyler's strong hands wrapping around her upper arms and steadying her.

"Careful," he said, still holding onto her arms though she clearly wasn't falling anymore. His hands were hot, like he had a fever.

She yanked her arms out of his. "Thank you," she spat at him, the last week of staring overweighing any chance of gratitude she felt towards him.

He raised an eyebrow and his brown eyes gave her a quizzical look. "What's wrong with you, Forbes?" he asked, looking her over in a way that made her blush and remember that the v neck of her orange dress was a little lower than what dress code stated was okay.

"Look, Lockwood," she said, sneering his name, "I don't appreciate all the creepy staring and clearly you're forgetting that I'm your best friend's girlfriend. Lay off, okay?"

His eyes narrowed just the smallest amount and he scoffed, as if she was insane. "Deflate that ego of your's," he said and she resisted the urge to gasp at his words. It was like he had quite literally stolen them from her mind. "And sorry for not letting you fall."

She resisted the urge to stomp her foot and stick out her tongue like she use to do to him in kindergarten. Instead, she gave him a glare that could make anyone who was weak cry and crossed her arms over her chest. "You should be," she snapped, raising her chin in a "I am better than you" manner.

"How's this?" he asked, anger seeping into his dark eyes. "The next time I see you start to fall, I'll just let you fall flat on your ass. Sound good?"

"Just perfect!" she exclaimed before making a noise of disgust toward him and starting down the hall.

She seethed all the way down the hall. What a jerk! Did he have some nerve, or what! Here he was, pretending like he hadn't been staring at her for over a week and like everything was fine. Sure, she loved the attention but not this kind of attention. This kind made her feel weird inside. It made her feel itchy and uncomfortably warm. Speaking of warm, the spots where he had held onto her arms were still a few degrees hotter than the rest of her skin.

Great, she thought, he probably has some infectious disease and now I'm going to get it.

She heard the sound of footsteps behind her and for just a second thought it was Tyler, but turned out to be Bonnie and Elena. She slowed down so they could catch up with her.

"What happened back there?" Bonnie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Elena agreed. "You looked like you were about to rip out Tyler's throat."

Caroline sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "He's just acting weird lately."

"Well can you blame him?" Elena asked, always the compassionate, understanding one. "A month ago his dad died and then he accidentally killed a girl. He's probably messed up right now."

"He's messed up alright," Caroline grumbled more so to herself than to her friends.

"Not to mention his Uncle Mason is back in town," Bonnie said.

"Why would that be bad?" Elena asked, curiously, turning to the smaller, darker girl.

Bonnie shrugged. "His dad and uncle didn't have the best relationship. They rarely saw each other and from what I've heard, Mason only saw Tyler a few times in his whole life."

Okay, Caroline was so done nurturing Tyler's life long sob story. She had more important things to worry about. Like the fundraiser.

"Have either of you gotten anyone else to sign up for the fundraiser yet?" she asked, praying that they had.

"No," they both said, shaking their heads. Caroline sighed in defeat.

"I already asked Stefan to but he said he really, really didn't want to," Elena said.

Oh, he was going to even if Caroline had to tie him down and bring him there in his bathing suit. Matt would convince him though, so she pushed that thought from her head.

"What about Jeremy?" Caroline asked. Jeremy Gilbert was the poster boy for teenager problems, what with drug use and his black nail polish, but there was no denying the little sophomore was cute. If he would just lose the Goth clothes and stop chasing after Vicki Donovan (yes, Matt's older, much less mature sister), he would probably be just as popular as his sister. Most people cut him a little slack though, because about six months ago Elena and Jeremy's parents died. Elena still wasn't back to her old self, but she was coping better than Jeremy.

"I'll ask," Bonnie said, a little too quickly.

Elena and Caroline both stared at her, a question mark on their face. Caroline was about to ask if someone had a little crush on baby Gilbert, but decided against it. She needed to focus on the problem at hand.

"What about Damon?" Bonnie asked Elena, trying to get the spotlight off of her.

Elena shook her head, her face twisting in disgust. "Hell no," she said, firmly. "I'm not even asking him."

"Please Elena!" Caroline begged- not something she was known for. "Do you know how many girls will come if he's the one washing their cars? Think of all the money we'll raise!"

Damon was Stefan's older brother, who was beyond gorgeous. He had raven black hair, messily styled and these blue eyes that could make anyone melt. But he was also a huge dick and total player. He had tried to get into Caroline's pants more than once, and let's face it, if it hadn't been for Matt, he would have succeed.

"Fine!" she said, not looking happy about it. "I'll ask, but if he says no, I'm not going to try and convince him."

"Fair enough," Caroline said. "What about Jenna?"

Jenna was Jeremy's and Elena's aunt, who became their legal guardian when their parents died. She was still pretty young and more like an older sister than parent figure.

"She'll probably do it."

"Good," Caroline said, her mood improving just the slightest. The whole fundraiser thing would work out and they'd earn tons of money. Just thinking about it brought a smile to her face.

But the smile vanished the moment she saw Tyler walking into the locker room, getting ready for practice.

After cheerleading practice, she met up with Matt out on the football field, who had also just finished practicing. Thankfully, Tyler was no where in site so she relaxed. Matt jogged over to her, a goofy smile on his face.

"Hey," he said, hugging her. If she hadn't been so sweaty herself, she wouldn't have allowed him to hug her.

"Hey, did you talk to Stefan?" she asked, hopefully.

He nodded. "It took a lot of convincing, but he agreed."

"Good!" she exclaimed.

He nodded and took a long drink of water from his water bottle. "Oh, yeah," he said, "I asked Tyler too. He said he'd do it."

Oh you've got to be kidding me!

Just to clear things up, Caroline is human!

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