A/N: Welcome to chapter 2! A huge thank-you goes out to everyone who read, favorited, followed and/or reviewed the previous chapter! You guys are the best!

I'd like to clarify though, just in case there's any misunderstanding—it was KIM that wanted to blast Klaus sky high and all that; Hayley just got blamed for it because Caroline didn't know WHAT she was up to, and jumped to the worst possible conclusion. (I needed a little extra something to motivate Caroline to act first and think later, and frankly I was surprised nobody thought of that plan back when Klaus was Public Enemy Number One!) Although, if y'all just hate Hayley for her personality, that's totally valid, lol. And no, there will not be any romantic Klayley—don't worry!

Now, without further ado, I present to you, chapter t—

Klaus: If you finish that horrendous rhyme, you won't live to think of another one…

Me: (mimes zipping mouth shut, slinks off to hide.)

Truth Be Told

One thing that Caroline usually liked about being a vampire was that her brain was so much more efficient. She could think about a dozen things at once and understand all of them simultaneously. But that day, she found it ridiculously frustrating, as she sat through the after-school Town Hall meeting in the gymnasium. Since most of the council had been blown to smithereens in the Young farm disaster, several new members had recently been sworn in, and were now sitting a panel at the school, discussing such riveting topics as curfews, educational reform, and… blah, blah, blah.

Caroline's vampiric powers of comprehension delivered each and every word into her conscious mind, but none of them could drown out her memories of last night, when she'd picked a fight with an Original Hybrid. She was still having a massive adrenal rush from that. She'd barely slept afterwards, and had wound up going running at three in the morning, and then stress-cleaning half her house, becoming so absorbed in her work that she was nearly late for school.

Consequently, she had also forgotten to take her vervain that morning, and after the way she'd thrown that little fact in Klaus's face last night, she felt naked and vulnerable about it. Even though there were only four people in the world who could compel her—one of whom was daggered in a box and two of whom had apparently skipped town—she avoided making eye-contact with anyone, as if her subconscious was trying to protect itself.

Added to all of that, Tyler was sitting next to her on the bleachers. He'd turned up to school that day like nothing was wrong, and every cell in her body was screaming at him to run, get out of town, go find a deep dark hole and hide in it, do something to protect himself from the inevitable surge of Klaus-wrath when the Original found out that his nemesis was still in Mystic Falls. Hindsight being 20/20, Caroline realized that for this very reason she should NOT have told him about the fight. Now he was staying in town to protect her, and he might die, whereas she was pretty confident in her safety—at least from Klaus. But Tyler was in a stubborn mood, and she felt like she was talking to the wall when she tried to convince him to run for it.

Since her vampire-enhanced mind was not yet full of all these wonderfully calming thoughts, she kept envisioning Klaus's face, when he shouted at her, when she told him what was what, when he healed her, when she said goodnight. Despite everything he'd done, she felt compassion for him. Maybe it was because, in the middle of her tirade, when she tried to convince him that they were alike, she had wound up convincing herself of the same.

This gymnasium was where they'd first met.

If she'd been a normal human being, half of those thoughts would have completely occupied her conscious mind, and she'd have had quite enough stress to be getting on with. But, she was hardly so lucky. Stefan still didn't know about Damon and Elena, and she stared at the back of his head miserably; he'd opted for the front row, probably to avoid Elena, who had installed herself between Bonnie and April. Bonnie, whose dad was now head of the council, meaning he also ran the secret, supernatural council, so now as a witch she had to answer to him on multiple different levels…

Caroline rubbed her forehead tiredly. The minute she got out of this useless meeting, she was going to take the longest, hottest bath in the whole wide world, guzzle some of her mom's fancy alcohol, and hopefully sleep for twelve hours. She'd been infected by a hybrid just last night, and really needed some pampering.

It didn't help matters that Matt had texted her to say that said vengeful hybrid had showed up at the lake house to speed up Jeremy's training… And while she was on the subject of blood and blood-colored things, she still needed to pick up 500 red balloons for the decade dance… She groaned softly, and Tyler put his arm around her, probably thinking that she was just exhausted from last night's near-death experience. If only that was her biggest issue.

It was probably about then that April Young got up and slipped out. It was several thoughts later when Caroline saw Elena get up and follow. The meeting finally adjourned, and Bonnie made her way through the crowd to her dad. Since Elena had picked Caroline up that day, she kissed Tyler briefly and exited through the door her vampire friend had taken. Then for the second time in two days, a pair of hands locked around her head, she felt a horrible snapping sensation in her neck, and the world blurred out.

-0-

"Wha—" Caroline mumbled as she regained consciousness, and then Rebekah was right in front of her, expanding pupils filling her vision, boring right into her nervous system.

"You will not run off," Rebekah intoned coolly. "You will answer all of my questions truthfully. You will do everything I say." Caroline's earlier paranoia about the vervain was now intense regret burning through her veins. She needed a vial in her purse or something. It didn't help that there was so little of it left—between herself and her mother, they'd nearly gone through Liz's personal stash.

"So," Rebekah announced, stepping back and looking around the table. Caroline's eyes followed hers, and she saw that Tyler, Stefan and Elena were all there, looking similarly restrained. "What've I missed?"

"Me developing ADHD," Caroline replied instantly, compulsion unhinging her jaw. Tyler smirked for a second before returning to looking concerned. Rebekah laughed, and then addressed the group.

"While I've been lying daggered in a box, you lot have all been scrambling to find the cure, and yet you're all still vampires, so you don't have it yet. I thought that Stefan would stop at nothing to get the cure for poor, dear Elena, so that he could grow old and die with her. What changed? Stefan?"

"She's with Damon," he grudgingly answered. Caroline looked at his face as Rebekah's compulsion tore the painful truth from him. She could tell, from the set of his jaw, the hardness of his eyes, that he'd put two and two together and figured out just how together they were. Her heart ached for him, and if she hadn't been sitting across the table and compelled not to get up, she'd have taken his hand, or put her arm around him. But, thanks to Rebekah, she was glued to her seat, a good two yards from her hurting friend. Thus began Rebekah's sadistic game of truth-or-dare.

"Elena, truth or dare?" she asked gleefully.

"Dare," Elena snapped back, clearly preferring the possibility of a dangerous or painful stunt to whatever Rebekah would make her divulge.

"I dare you to tell Stefan why you're with Damon," Rebekah responded silkily. Elena glared up at her, hatred blazing in her eyes. But she had to answer.

"Lately, when I'm around Stefan," she admitted slowly, "I feel like he's trying to fix me, like he can't accept me for who I am now. I can't be with someone who sees me as a broken toy. But when I'm around Damon, I feel free. I feel like he'll love me no matter what I do or how I change. I'm happy." Caroline scoffed a little, and Rebekah turned in her direction.

"Somebody's still 'Team Stefan' all the way, it seems," she commented. "What ever happened to 'chicks before dicks,' or whatever the kids are saying these days?"

"Elena is sired to Damon," Caroline hissed. "We have no way of knowing how much of what she feels is real."

"Oh my!" Rebekah exclaimed. "That is fascinating. What are your thoughts on the subject, Tyler?"

"The sire bond only affects how a person acts—not how they feel. I hate Klaus, but when I was sired to him, I did everything he said."

"Speaking of my brother," Rebekah continued, "why isn't he hunting down your collective asses for sitting around at mandatory town meetings instead of working on finding the cure?" She looked around the table, but no one volunteered anything.

"Answer the question," she snapped at Tyler.

"He got a little distracted when the hybrids and I plotted to take him down last night," he sighed. Rebekah looked somewhere between impressed and sympathetic for about half a second before she returned to business-mode.

"I'm guessing that means you're the last dog standing," she sighed.

"Actually, the others all got away," Tyler admitted, Rebekah's compulsion saturating his brain. "They left town. Apparently, Caroline went toe-to-toe with Klaus last night when he was about to kill them, and walked away in one piece."

"Well now," Rebekah breathed, eyes widening as she looked at Caroline. "How did you manage that?"

"I didn't," Caroline admitted. "We fought, he won; he just decided not to kill me." Inside, she cringed. She'd told Tyler that she had snapped Klaus's neck from behind, and then chained him up in the old Lockwood cellar before he came around. Now he was going to be even more overprotective. Thanks, Rebekah.

"That's Nik, for you," Rebekah grumbled. "He'll stab his siblings in the back repeatedly, but when it comes to killing someone he's aiming to sleep with, suddenly he has morals. But honestly, Caroline—a hybrid pissing contest? What were you doing involved with that in the first place?" Fear twisted Caroline's gut into a knot. Her heart pounded. She hadn't realized that she had any secrets worth keeping until this moment—that was all Stefan and Elena's deal today. Or, at least, it was supposed to be.

"I knew something was going wrong," she said truthfully. "Hayley was being shady. I wanted to make sure everyone walked away safely. My thoughts on the subject didn't go too much further than that."

"Then why wouldn't you just tell Tyler to call off the plan?" Rebekah asked. "Surely he didn't go up against my brother without a Plan B. Tell me, Caroline."

"Because," Caroline breathed, the words exiting her throat entirely by the power of Rebekah's mind-control. "Then not everybody would have walked away." There was silence for a beat.

"You're including Niklaus in that," Rebekah accused. "Aren't you? Answer me."

"Yes." She looked straight at Rebekah. It was better than looking at Tyler. Rebekah's predatory grin should have frightened her, but for some reason it was just annoying.

"So, Elena's in bed with Damon, Caroline's rescuing Klaus, and you're all scrambling after the cure like rats in a wheel," Rebekah summed up. "Looks like I missed quite a bit. Now, about that cure."

Rebekah's quiz of Stefan about the cure blurred by in Caroline's brain. Strange, since she'd been focusing on so many things without trying too before. But right now, one all-consuming thought filled her mind. Don't look at Tyler. Somehow, if she made eye-contact with him, Rebekah's compulsion would spill from his eyes to hers, and she'd spill her guts, about the way she'd empathized with Klaus, the way he'd held her while she drank his blood, the way she'd let him, even after he'd just tried to kill her. He'd know every humiliating detail if she met his gaze, which she could feel burning through her left temple. So, she looked down at her hands, memorizing every line of her fingers, and trying not to listen to Rebekah's interrogation.

"Well then," the blonde Original announced at last. "I think that'll be all. Tyler: turn."

"What?" Tyler choked out. Caroline was suddenly very much aware of her surroundings. "No! I'll kill them!"

"Exactly," Rebekah responded flippantly. "Now," she added, her pupils widening again. "TURN." Tyler took several steps back, as if the force of her compulsion had been a physical blow.

"No vamp running in the hallway," Rebekah instructed, "and no one leaves the building. Bye now." And with a dimply smile, she flipped her hair, turned on her heel, and exited.

Tyler fell to his knees, groaning and clutching at himself futilely.

"I can fight it," he panted. "But you have to run! Now!" Stefan and Elena took off out of the room, running as fast as the damn compulsion would let them, but Caroline, although she backed off a few paces, waited in the room. With her life in danger, her mind was working on overdrive, and her thoughts were finally clear. He'd turn. But, since he was fighting the transformation, it hurt him, even though in breaking the sire bond he'd learned to do it without pain. He'd be angrier when he finally transitioned, but he'd also be weaker and slower. She could get him to chase her into the sound booth in the gym, then she'd lock the door, and he'd throw himself at it until he got tired, at which point he'd turn back into a human. Hopefully.

Of course, if she timed it wrong, he'd catch her, and that would likely be the end of her relatively short immortal life.

Tyler's fangs extended, and his facial bones shifted and elongated. That was her cue. Caroline turned and dashed out the other door, towards the gymnasium. She could hear the sound of Tyler crashing into bookshelves and skidding across the slick hallway behind her. The gym seemed horribly wide open, and much longer than she remembered, and not having vampire speed as an advantage was like something out of a fevered nightmare.

She took the stairs three at a time, and felt the air shift as Tyler's jaws closed within a hair's breadth of her calf, just before she slammed the heavy door shut behind her and leaned against it. The thing was abnormally heavy—the cheer squad had used to joke that it was bulletproof, in case a wild gunman came to the game and demanded a score change or something. It shivered as Tyler rammed himself into it, but held admirably. Thank goodness Rebekah hadn't compelled them out of using vampire strength, too.

Tyler's barrage on the door took about fifteen minutes to abate, and afterwards, Caroline sat there, breathing hard and listening very carefully to the sound of silence echoing through the gym. Then, she inhaled steadily once, blew out the breath, and opened the door.

Tyler lay on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, naked and human. Relief flooded through Caroline, and she rushed back down the stairs. Tyler sat up with a groan.

"Care?" he murmured blearily. "Did I…?"

"You didn't hurt anybody," She responded quietly, sitting down beside him. Something clicked in her head, like a door opening, and she realized that somewhere, Rebekah must have freed them.

"Sorry," Tyler said, jerking his head towards the battered door. "Thought I was done with doing that when I became a hybrid."

"It all turned out okay," Caroline replied, wrapping her arms around him and rubbing gently at his shoulders, which tended to be the sorest part of him after a rough turn.

"Care…" he started, but trailed off.

"I just didn't want you guys to get hurt," she said immediately. "And I didn't want you to sacrifice your humanity just to take down Klaus either. So—"

"I get it," Tyler assured her, with only a hint of bitterness. "I was going to say… I need to leave." He made eye-contact with her for the first time that day. "You were right this morning. I need to get out of town. You're safer without me here, Klaus wants me dead, and the pack needs their alpha. I need to go where I'm needed."

She wanted to say that she needed him, here, but he'd die if he stayed. She wanted to say that the pack could fend for themselves, but she'd met them, and they'd turn on each other in a minute if Tyler didn't handle them. She wanted to tell him to stay. Instead, she kissed him once, lingeringly. A goodbye kiss.

Tyler headed off to the locker room to find some of his clothes, and Caroline made her escape, wanting to get home and into her own bed before reality hit and she started crying. He kept doing this to her—packing his whole life into a duffel bag and walking off into the sunset to do werewolf things.

Rain and sleet started falling from the night sky, pelting her and saturating her hair and clothes. It was probably incredibly cold, but Caroline's vampire skin didn't even get gooseflesh. She'd ridden to school with Elena, who was a little preoccupied with her Salvatore drama, and had probably forgotten that Caroline's car was still in her driveway. She could have vamp-sped herself home, but somehow the impulse didn't make it from her brain to her limbs. She wondered if he'd ever come back. She wondered if he'd answer his phone more often this time. She wondered if she should stop calling him, and quit while she was ahead, before she made her way into stalker territory.

"Do you need a ride?"

Caroline froze. Why the hell was Klaus's voice coming from her left side, out of… oh. Klaus's car. He was coasting along the side of the road, passenger side window rolled down. She made the mistake of meeting his eyes, and the one-second window where she might've had enough brainpower to whoosh out of sight fled her. She looked up at the deluge, and down at herself. Then she looked at his car.

"Depends," she called back, trying to be flippant. "What are your seats made of, and how well do they tolerate being soaking wet?" Klaus raised an eyebrow.

"Get in," he said, leaning over and pushing the door open. Caroline twisted the worst of the wetness out of her hair before opening the door all the way and climbing into the expensive-smelling leather interior of the car. Well, it wasn't like Klaus-freaking-Mikaelson couldn't get the seats cleaned.

"So, why's a pretty girl like you walking around in weather like this?" he asked conversationally as he shifted the car into gear and got up to speed.

"Elena drove me to school, Rebekah distracted her and Stefan with Damon drama, and she forgot to drive me home," Caroline explained tiredly. "Oh, yeah, your sister's awake," she added.

"And in a mood, I imagine," Klaus finished after a surprised pause so brief that a human wouldn't have noticed it.

"Oh yeah," Caroline agreed, burying her face in her hands.

"You're not fond of Damon and Elena together, are you, love?" he probed. "Because of your history with him, or out of affection for Stefan?"

"Both," she sighed, too emotionally exhausted to bother deciding whether or not to have this conversation with him. "It's just too sad, to see true love go down in flames, over him of all people." Somehow, it was an image of Tyler's face, not Stefan's, which swam before her vision when she spoke. True love was meant to last forever, wasn't it?

"Because he's bad for her?" Klaus filled in, turning onto her street.

"No," Caroline admitted grudgingly, sitting up and leaning back into the seat. "He's not bad for her—he's just bad." Then, for the third time that day, she made the mistake of making eye-contact with someone. Klaus wasn't even pretending to watch the road. Freezing rain pattered loudly against the windshield as the unspoken truth hung in the air between them—it wasn't just Damon she was talking about. Caroline wrenched her gaze away first.

"I just want her to be happy," she said, turning the topic very carefully back to Damon and Elena specifically. "She's my friend, and I love her, and she's had a lot of bad stuff happen in her life; she deserves some happiness."

"What if he is the one who makes her happy?" Klaus suggested softly. The car slowed to a stop—they were at the bottom of Caroline's driveway. "Could you accept him then?"

"I don't know," Caroline replied honestly, looking back at him. He'd gone back to looking out ahead of them, but now they weren't moving. She dropped her eyes to her knees again. "Sometimes…" she admitted, barely whispering the words, "Sometimes I catch myself wishing I could forget… all of the horrible things he's done…"

She could feel him looking at her, then, and the tension was back, and thicker than ever.

"But you can't," he whispered back hollowly. "You can't, can you?" Caroline turned her face, and met his eyes. She wasn't sure what her face looked like—sad? stubborn? hateful?

"No," she admitted miserably. Klaus dropped his eyes and blinked a few times.

"Thank you for the ride," she said, opening the door, and stepping out into the rain.

This time, he didn't murmur "goodnight."

A/N:

Me: (Peeks out) Is Klaus gone yet? I won't rhyme anymore, I promise!

Since Klaus-a-geddon was turned back by a Caroline-ter-vention in the last chapter, Carol Lockwood still walks among the living. Rudy Hopkins took Pastor Young's spot as head of the council, instead of being mayor.

Since Caroline was at home recuperating from a near-death experience courtesy of Klaus, she wasn't spilling Elena's secrets to Stefan. However, I think he could have intuited that much without her helping—he basically did anyway, she just confirmed it, in the original show. The other events of After School Special, Klaus turning a bar full of innocent people for Jeremy to kill and then leaving him to it, Kol almost killing Shane, and Bonnie almost killing April, all occur; Caroline simply isn't consciously aware of them at the time they're occurring.

Anyway, you've already seen the episode (I hope, haha! I am spoilerific, in case that wasn't dreadfully obvious by now). You don't need to read all of those details again—my chapters are horrendously long enough as it is!

See you all next time!