It had been one hundred years since Caroline Forbes had last stepped foot in Mystic Falls. She remembered the day as clearly as yesterday - the last day she truly felt anything. She could remember the smell of petrichor in the air as her mothers' body was lowered into the damp soil of the family graveyard. The town's sheriff had died of old age in her bedroom, an amazing feat for one in power of the vampire ridden hell-hole.
There was something about being here in the same town she had been born, that made Caroline feel alive again in a way she hadn't in so long. She'd spend a century away from all of the drama of her Mystic falls life; traveling and finding herself as more than a beauty queen and socialite. She hadn't spoken to Elena, Matt, Tyler, or Stefan in at least twenty five years, finally relieving herself of the crushing obligations of their friendship. Walking these streets brought back a longing for human life she had forgotten. Though she and her friends had experienced and endless stream of horror and drama, she'd never felt more human than within these city limits.
There is something about being away from a place that will make you forget how much you loved it all. And there is something about going back there that brings back the strangest sense of longing. Of all the things Caroline could long for within the city, her forbidden tryst with Klaus Mikaelson was the most intense.
She checked the watch on her wrist, noon - early of course. A typical trait of the female. Caroline was known to have a brilliant sense of how to arrive everywhere neurotically early to then silently obsess over every small detail of whatever she happened to be waiting for. She would see Tyler again today. She wondered how he'd been faring without her. How his life had changed without their endless doppelganger drama.
Two hours to go.
Here she was, in the town she'd grown up in, died in, hurt in, and learned how to live in. The place she felt love for the first time. She had never loved since Tyler Lockwood. There was a sense of coldness in her that she couldn't comprehend when it came to falling in love. She had tried again and again as the years went by to no avail. Such is life. She'd figured she'd had her true love and lost it, leaving her empty and jaded permanently. As she wandered aimlessly through the forest she found herself in a familiar spot. This is where they were together. Where he asked her for a confession and she complied. She confessed and they had a moment she'd never quite let go of. He told her he'd intended to be her last love, yet he'd never tried to find her since that night. She thought about going to find him, years after she'd learned to forgive him his crimes and committed a few of her own. Her pride kept her from him. She never wanted to admit she was empty without his endless torment. Being in this spot brought back all of the compartmentalized feelings for him. It was like a rush of realization - she needed him.