Title: Never Again
Author: jibertyyay
Chapter: One-shot
Word Count: 1667
Rating: T
Pairing: Forwood
A/N: My heart is still aching from the goodbyes. I like to think the writers have something beautiful planned in the future to bring these two back together. Hopefully, this makes my fellow forwood shippers feel a little better.
She didn't want to go to Prom. The dress had been hanging in the back of the Tyler's old closet for months, along side all the things that he hadn't taken with him when he fled Mystic Falls. She'd wanted to call him and ask him where he was, what he was doing. She wanted to hear his voice so badly but she knew it would just make it that much harder. She'd found herself dialing the number to his cell a million times. One time she actually pressed send and it turned into a dead end. The number was no longer in service. They said distance was supposed to make the heart grow fonder but she was sick and tired of the distance. She just wanted to be with the person that she loved. She hadn't stopped loving him for a minute since he left.
Klaus had tried his best to convince her to give up on Tyler. She tolerated him for the sake of a united mission in the weeks after Tyler left but there was no forgiveness in her heart. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that she believed he had any remorse at all. They'd done everything that they could there. He had to go to New Orleans. He didn't intend to come back. He looked her dead in the eye and told her that he was giving up. He told her that he knew that he'd never be the man that she loved and he was sorry for making the one that she did leave. He wished her luck finding him again. He'd been sincere and for the briefest of moments she saw the man she thought could have been so much more than a monster if he'd just taken the other path.
She wanted to go looking for Tyler after that. More than anything in the world, she wanted to find him and bring him home where he belonged but she couldn't leave her mother alone in Mystic Falls. That was why she hadn't left with him in the first place. She'd promised she'd graduate and she'd do all the normal things that humans did. She couldn't leave her mother there to be killed because of her own selfishness. She was going to go after graduation. She'd come up with a plan. Waiting was killing her. Putting on a dress and going to prom like the whole thing was okay just wasn't right. She looked flawless in her dress but she couldn't muster a smile despite the best attempts of Stefan and Matt. She'd agreed to tag along with Matt as friends.
She spent the majority of the night on the verge of tears. Half the songs reminded her of Tyler and those that didn't were reminders that if he'd been there they wouldn't have left the dance floor. They should have been prom queen and king. They ought to have had some obscene limo ride and a special dinner at the Mystic Grill. They ought to have plans to go back to the mansion when everything as said and done. She didn't have to have sex with him. She just wanted to touch him, kiss him. She was desperate to hear his voice. He was haunting her like a ghost. She was squeezing her cup of punch hard as the anger, grief and longing washed over her again. The red liquid staining her hands and the table clothe underneath. She didn't notice until she felt Stefan's hand reaching to take it away from her. Her blue eyes looked up and the whole table was watching her like a hawk.
"We're going to dance," Stefan announced getting up and extending a hand. He shot a glance at Matt as if to ask if it was okay. Matt just nodded, giving him the okay to steal her away to pull her out there leaving Elena at the table with him. Caroline felt like a total zombie as she was tugged toward the dance floor. Her body was there, her mind was anywhere but. She wanted to leave she knew no one would let her. She had two modes these days. The zombie depressed one and the overzealous, control freak busy body who was always doing or organizing something lately. At the moment with nothing to do but let all the plans she'd made with Tyler come back to her it was the zombie mode. She moved to the music gracefully even if her body didn't want to move unless it was bury itself in Tyler's bed and try and pick out the scent that was fading more and more every day.
Stefan spun her a bit, trying to get her to laugh or smile or have fun. She wasn't buying it though. "We all know how hard you're trying to be strong," he told her quietly. "I know that it's been a hard couple months. We miss you, Caroline. It's not like every one hundred and sixty something years that I find a friend like you and I need her back. We've all noticed it though and you've sacrificed so much for us this year. I'm sorrythat I was so wrapped up in all the Elena drama that I failed to see what I was doing to you. You could have been enjoying those months with him instead of looking for that stupid cure."
"I chose to help you," she told him eyes opening, gazing at his from dancing distance. The blue was darker, older and sad but they were still her eyes. "I chose to protect my friends and my mother. I chose to stay a million times over running away with him when I could have. I shouldn't have let him go." Her voice was cracking. She could feel the tears starting to overflow. She didn't like letting them see her cry. She didn't like letting anyone know just how broken she was about all of this. "Tyler and I both made decisions and at the end of the day we can't change them. I love him. I'm always going to love him and maybe I'll graduate and spend the rest of my life looking for him in vein. We're immortal though and I will never-"
That was when she lost it. The tears were openly pouring now. Stefan clutched her into his shoulder and let her sob it out. Crying was healthy. His hand moved into her blonde hair to stroke it as if to give her some sort of comfort. He'd had plenty of time to learn how to deal with emotional women. "I have to tell you something," he started after a long moment. There was a sharp intake of breath as his eyes searched the room for something. "Damon hasn't been looking for Katherine to deal with her. He found her earlier this week. Apparently, she found Klaus and shoved the cure down his throat. His bloodline is broken. He'll live his remaining days as nothing more than a werewolf. That's beside the point – he was about to kill her when she said she knew something of value."
She felt a hand tap her shoulder. She didn't even have to look back to know who was there. "Can I cut in?" he asked. She practically crumbled at the realization that he was really there, turning around so fast and collapsing into his warm, muscular arms that she practically knocked Stefan to the ground. Every word he'd just told her was lost now. All that mattered was what had been found and she was sobbing openly into his chest just like she had before he'd left. "I wanted to come find you," she sobbed into his chest. It was unreal. She could barely believe he was actually there. It was so surreal because she'd wanted him there since the minute he left. Now he was back. He wasn't some desperate illusion in her brain.
"No thanks for retrieving Wolf Boy," she could hear Damon mumbling nearby. Followed by the sharp smack of a hand into his shoulder and what sounded like Elena saying something like, "Let them have their moment." Caroline was too far-gone, clutching him. She was pretty sure she was couldn't let go. She could never let go. There was no way in hell that she would. She'd not cared about prom. She'd not cared about the dress or anything else. She'd used to think those things were what mattered. At the moment, the only thing that mattered was that he was there. He was alive with his lips buried into the top of her head.
"I never went far," Tyler confessed into her hair, clutching her just as tightly as she was clutching him. Everyone else in the dance floor had disappeared in her head. "I watched you from a distance. I was ready to come back and die if anything happened to you. I would have never let anything happen. I had to make sure he was really gone though." She could hear the roughness in his voice like he was struggling to not lose it himself right then and there. "Never again. That was the last time I'm ever saying goodbye to you," she mumbled to him. She was pretty sure she couldn't live through losing him again. "Never again," he repeated, lifting her face to make her eyes met his. There lips pressed against each other and every organ in her body felt alive again. None more so than her heart, which hadn't felt like it, beat in weeks and there is was thudding harshly against her chest again.
When he pulled away and moved to one knee, she knew it was true.
They'd never say goodbye again.