Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

When Elena told Caroline that Stefan had made a deal with Klaus to give him ten years' service in exchange for Damon's life, Caroline felt like bursting into tears on the spot. But she didn't. Instead, she held her head high and vowed to be the rockiest of rocks for Elena.

"Ten years? Unlikely," Caroline scoffed with forced bravado. "We'll track him down and have him back in ten days."

"I don't know about that," Elena replied grimly. "But I know that I'm not going to stop until I find him and bring him home."

"You're not alone in this, everyone will help. In fact I'm going to call my mom right now and get her to keep an eye out for police reports involving strange animal attacks."

"Thanks, that means a lot," Elena said softly. "Damon is already on the case, I think he wants to find Stefan even more than I do, if that's possible."

"We all want him back, we all need him back," assured Caroline, her confident resolve faltering slightly.

"Now that Jenna's gone I just don't know how to face everything without Stefan."

Caroline rushed forward to give Elena a bone-crushing hug, determined to ease her friend's pain any way she could.

After Elena left to find Bonnie in the hope of tracking Stefan down via a locator spell, Caroline felt like she couldn't keep it together anymore. Her mentor, her vampire yoda, was gone without a word. What was she supposed to do, how was she supposed to cope?

Caroline started running without any real thought as to where she was running to, but she soon found herself standing in front of the Lockwood mansion. She supposed it made sense in a weird kind of way; she did feel a lot better after Tyler comforted her over her breakup with Matt, and at the same time she kind of wanted to hit him for starting all of this with his accidental bite.

She didn't want to risk getting stuck engaging in pointless chit chat with Mrs Lockwood in her current mood so she used her vampire skills to hoist herself up the outside of the house to Tyler's window.

"Caroline, what are you doing?" Tyler laughed as he saw her and came to open the window. "Is it vampire prank day or something? I have a front door you know."

"I just needed to see you," she replied, biting her lip and blinking furiously to try and stop the tears from falling.

"Hey, what is it? Is this about Matt?"

"No….Stefan's gone," Caroline blurted out. "You accidentally bit Damon the other day so he handed himself over to Klaus for ten years in exchange for the cure."

"Are you serious?" Tyler asked quietly, slowing moving backwards towards his bed and sitting down. "I don't remember anything, I never meant to bite him I swear."

"I know, but it doesn't bring Stefan back."

Tyler buried his head in his hands and Caroline immediately felt guilty. She knew it wasn't his fault, that he had no control over his actions when he was changing. It was just easier if she had someone to blame.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, walking over to put her hands on his.

"It just seems like once again my actions end up hurting you in some way," he mumbled, avoiding her gaze.

"What's done is done," Caroline responded softly. "I don't mean to sound selfish but I need you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start feeling sorry for me because I don't know what I'm going to do."

Tyler lifted his head quickly and held her gaze, and she finally let the tears fall.

"Hey…..shhhhh," he said gruffly, pulling her down next to him and wrapping his arms around her.

Caroline buried her head in Tyler's chest and cried until she couldn't cry anymore. It felt like forever, but in reality she supposed it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes.

"Look on the bright side at least I'm wearing pants this time," he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Shut up!" she sniffed, smacking his chest playfully. She was not going to dwell on their semi-naked cuddle session the other day, not one bit. No good could come from remembering how hard his abs were or how big his biceps were. That line of thinking was strictly forbidden, as it would only lead to awkwardness.

"Actually, now that I think about it you should probably get naked this time to even the score," Tyler smirked. "Come on, I'll help you unbutton your shirt if you like."

"Tyler!" laughed Caroline, giving his chest a harder smack this time. "You're being such a guy."

"Well in case you hadn't noticed, I am a guy."

Oh, she'd noticed, she'd definitely noticed. But no…forbidden thoughts so she wasn't going there.

""You may be a guy but right now I need you to get in touch with your inner girl and comfort me properly."

"Caroline, I don't have an inner girl," Tyler chuckled, lightly stroking her arm. "You're going to have to give me some directions."

"If Bonnie and Elena were here they'd bring me some ice cream," she suggested hopefully.

"Does that even do anything for you anymore?" he asked curiously.

"It doesn't taste as good as blood," Caroline conceded. "But ice cream is always comforting, I think its in girl DNA."

"Weird," he smiled, withdrawing his arms from her and standing up. "I'll take a look and see if we have some in the kitchen."

In the short time Tyler was gone Caroline couldn't help but have a quick sticky-beak around his room. This was the first time she had ever been alone in here alone and her curiosity got the better of her.

Caroline crawled over towards the head of his bed and leaned over to pull open one of his bedside drawers. The first thing she saw was a porn magazine and she giggled as she picked it up and leafed through. He seemed to have a thing for very well endowed blonde ladies, which she supposed was better than finding something gross like midgets or pregnant chicks.

Caroline opened the next drawer and discovered that it was his underwear drawer. Tyler had a mixture of Armani boxers and boxer briefs and she picked up a pair of silky boxers and ran her fingers over the material. She was about to continue her exploration when…

"Caroline!" Tyler shouted indignantly. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Um, I was just looking for a tissue," she offered weakly.

"And you mistook my Armani for a Kleenex?" he asked sarcastically.

"Excuse me, I'm upset remember, you can't yell at me," she replied haughtily.

"It doesn't give you the right to act like a creeper," he muttered.

Caroline decided a subject-change was in order so she gave him a winning smile.

"It looks like you had success with the ice cream," she said brightly. He had two bowls of vanilla ice cream, one with chocolate topping and the other with strawberry….no hang on.

"Is that blood?" she squeaked. "Did you put blood topping on mine?"

"Yup," he said proudly. "I figured it was an awesome way to make your comfort food even better."

"You can't…I can't…where did you even get it?"

"I just sliced my wrist a bit," Tyler responded casually.

"What!"

"Relax, its no big deal," he shrugged. "You know I heal fast, the cut's already closed over.

"I can't just drink you blood," Caroline said incredulously.

"Why? It's not like you're attacking me for it. I gave it willingly and it didn't even hurt. What's the big deal?"

Caroline didn't really know how to respond to that. She supposed he had a good point, plus it smelt pretty damn tempting.

"Alright, hand it over," she ordered.

Tyler sat back down beside her on the bed and gave her the bowl, and they both dug in.

"Oh my god, this amazing," Caroline said dreamily. "It's better than an orgasm."

"Maybe you haven't been doing it right then."

"Tyler!"

"Sorry," he laughed, not sounding very sorry at all.

"You're not supposed to be acting like a guy remember," she chided.

"Well don't talk about orgasms then," he returned.

She glared and gave him another smack on his chest.

"Okay, I'll behave," he promised.

"Good."

"But just so you know, next time I come over I'm rifling through your underwear drawer.

"Tyler!"