Title: Anger
Author: shineyma
Characters/Pairings: Caroline, mentions of Caroline/Tyler and Caroline/Damon
Rating: T
Word Count: 1,060
Spoilers: Up to and including 3x09
Summary: Caroline's angry. She just doesn't know why.
A/N: Guys, this is a problem. I literally cannot stop writing semi-angsty introspective Caroline fic. I think I need an intervention.
After Tyler leaves, angry and heartbroken (or maybe that's just her) Caroline stays sitting on her bed, mind racing. She's angry at him. She's so, so angry. She just doesn't know why. It's not just the whole vervaining-her-unconscious thing—she's been angry for longer than that. It feels like she's been angry forever.
So she sits and she thinks and she tries to figure out how long she's been angry and, more importantly, why. She traces their interactions backwards, starting with just now and going back until she remembers the last moment she wasn't angry.
She thinks of the night of the bonfire, standing in Ric's classroom and plotting against Stefan while Tyler looks on in confusion. She thinks of his incomprehension that they might not worry about making Klaus unhappy. She thinks of Damon, looking down at her with no sympathy at all, telling her to get a new boyfriend because Tyler has been sired.
She's been angry since she found out that her boyfriend is a slave to Klaus. She thinks that's understandable. It would make anyone angry. The problem is that she's not angry at Klaus (well, okay, she is, but it's a distant you've-hurt-the-people-I-care-about-but-we've-never-actually-met anger). She's angry at Tyler. She shouldn't be, though. It's not his fault.
She thinks again of Tyler's easy assurance that Klaus is a good guy, that they shouldn't fight him, that Klaus is to be obeyed. Then she thinks about Damon's short, straightforward explanation about siring.
Tyler. Damon. Tyler. Damon.
Oh.
She swallows reflexively as the realization hits.
Tyler's blank-faced obedience to Klaus has been eating away at her nerves, getting under her skin and making her angry every time she sees him. There's been a strange feeling in the back of her mind that she couldn't identify until now, and it only made things worse. Now she knows what that feeling was.
Familiarity. Recognition.
Tyler's loyalty to Klaus has been reminding her of her own slavish obedience to Damon back when they were 'dating'.
It all fits. The way Tyler hopped to to do what Klaus wanted, the way he didn't want to do anything Klaus wouldn't like, even the way he defended Klaus. She had done all of those things while she was with Damon—and even after, when she was with Matt, she'd more than once done something Damon ordered, never hesitating, never even thinking of disobeying.
She's not just angry at Tyler. She's angry at herself.
Caroline laughs humorlessly. Isn't that just so cliché? She's been angry at herself without knowing it, so she's been taking it out on her poor, innocent boyfriend.
(Mostly innocent. She hasn't forgotten the whole vervain-kidnapping thing.)
She fists her hands and remembers every instant of her 'relationship' with Damon, every instant of compulsion—from being compelled out of her fear to being compelled into obedience, every second replays in her head in surround sound and Technicolor. She remembers the way she felt every time he pinned her beneath him and his face changed—how fear had started to uncurl in her chest only to suddenly dissipate, leaving behind only an odd, breathless feeling.
She remembers how she'd done what he wanted, again and again, from party planning to attempting to steal from Bonnie to wandering all over town with a compass/pocket watch. She'd never been able to stop, never been able to resist him, and the only mercy was that for the most part she hadn't remembered any of it.
Until Katherine. Until she became a vampire and suddenly, in addition to pain and hunger and super-charged everything, she had months' worth of memories of terror and mind control.
She'd been angry at Damon, and reckless, and she'd taken him by surprise in the hallway. She'd taken advantage of the opportunity and shoved him, sent him flying. It hadn't been nearly as satisfying as a full on fight would've been, but she knew that the moment he recovered from his surprise she would be no match for him. So she'd taken her moment and then tried to push everything down.
But those memories are always with her, always eating at her, along with the knowledge that she may be strong now, but he's still stronger.
Her only comfort had been that there was nothing she could've done. Stefan had explained compulsion to her, how a vampire's mind reached in and messed with a human's, and that there was no way to resist. She'd taken solace in that, the knowledge that it wasn't just her who was helpless against Damon's will: all humans were.
Until the night of the potluck, when they found out that her father could resist compulsion. Could resist Damon's compulsion. She'd beaten Damon then, kicked his ass to save her father, using her anger as strength, but when she got home she hadn't felt strong.
She'd felt weak.
Her own father, the father whose blood ran in her veins (along with Damon's, and wasn't that a cheery thought), could ignore compulsion. His mind was stronger than Damon's.
Suddenly there was no comfort. She could've resisted. If she had just been strong enough, she would have been able to ignore Damon's orders. She would've been able to tell his secrets and get away from him. She wouldn't have defended him to Bonnie and Elena. She certainly wouldn't have let him out of that freaking cell in the basement. He might still be there, rotting away, if only she hadn't been so weak.
That's why she's been angry at Tyler. Because Tyler isn't weak. He's strong—one of the strongest people she knows. He should be able to resist Klaus' siring, the way her father could resist Damon's compulsion, the way she couldn't.
He should be strong enough to choose her over Klaus.
It's not the same thing, she tells herself now. Siring and compulsion are two completely different matters. She should call and apologize to Tyler.
But it doesn't work. Knowing something can't make her feel it (or stop feeling it) and she's still angry and betrayed and heartbroken.
She thought knowing would make things better, make things right. Instead, it only hurts worse.
Because she still can't forgive Tyler. She can't forgive him for being as weak as she is. He's embodying everything she hates about her human self, and she can't get past that.
She just can't.