Tyler felt empowered. He stood up to Klaus. He thought that he had no control over his choices. He thought that if Klaus told him to jump he would have to say how high? And up until then he had, but the moment that Klaus told him to put Caroline in danger, there was no second thought. The words were coming out of his mouth before he even realized what he was saying, and who he was saying it to.
"I'm not hurting Caroline"
Tyler wanted to run to Caroline, and tell her everything- that all of the pain and fighting that they had been through in recent weeks was for nothing. That no one and nothing could control him, not when it came to her. She was the one thing that he knew he could control his emotions for. There was no one who could ever convince him to hurt her. He could put her first, before anyone else. But he knew that given the state of their relationship, that he could not just run charging in and say, "the problem is fixed, let's pick up where we left off". If he had any chance of salvaging their relationship, then he had to be rational and level headed about it.
But as soon as he heard his phone, he had hoped it would be her. He had to calm himself, and realize that he was probably just getting his hopes up. But when he read the text, he could no longer control himself. He rushed downstairs and tore out of the house without a second thought. It was a miracle that he made it to the woods without killing himself or anyone else. He had not driven so recklessly since he first got his license, and had gotten into that car accident with a telephone pole. Yes, he had been drinking that night, but that part was omitted when he explained what happened to his parents. It would not look good if the mayor's son got a DWI the weekend he was licensed to drive, and Tyler knew that he would pay for that.
He finally arrived at the woods. He made sure to take a deep breath before walking into the mausoleum. As he approached the dank structure he could hear his friends laughing and seemingly having a good time. Then he heard it. The sound that always set his stomach aflutter and the sound that gave him the strength to get through those horrible nights of agonizing pain, where every bone in his body would break and then rearrange itself to allow for those horrifying transformations. Her laugh. Caroline's laugh, and a huge grin spread across his face. He could not help it, it was an involuntary reflex. He had no idea what he was going to say, he just knew he was glad that she wanted to see him.
They walked into the woods together, and that is where he told her what he had been dying to say for so long now. This was the first time he uttered the words he never thought he would say to anyone. But with Caroline it didn't seem so scary. He told her he loved her, and the next thing he knew they were kissing, and for a moment everything was ok. He could breathe again, they were together, and everything would be fine. Their relationship was so easy to slip back into. And for those few minutes Tyler was in heaven. He never knew it was possible to be so blissfully happy.
He backed her against a tree, and began to kiss her sensually along her neck, and then it happened. He he bit her. At first he was confused, he didn't know what was happening, and it seemed as if he was an outsider watching the events unfold before him. He had no control over himself. It was as if someone else was inside of him, guiding his body, his mouth to do this to Caroline. In that moment he hated himself more than was humanly possible. All he could think was, this must be some kind of bad dream, this cannot be real. And then he saw her face, and the way she looked at him. The anger in her voice when she told him to get away from her was something that would haunt him until his dying day. And he knew that this was not a dream. This was real. The thought that he had the willpower to deny Klaus, his sire, the man who delivered him from the hell of being a slave to the moon, that had been the dream.