A/N: Thanks again for all your kind words! Sorry for the delay—moving to a new apartment is rough.

Chapter 4


"Now there's no holding back, I'm making to attack,
My blood is singing with your voice, I want to pour it out
."


Tyler doesn't wake up easily. His limbs are heavy and dense, and his head feels like it's buried under pounds of sand. Sleep glues his eyes together and he rubs them wearily, trying to get some sense of awareness as he pries open his lids. Everything is foreign and unfamiliar for a moment, and then he remembers.

Caroline's bedroom. All the sensations come rushing back, and he nearly groans again. He closes his eyes and sees her there, around him, above him, and it's so perfect he wants to slide back into sleep and relive it again.

Then he realizes she's gone. Her side of the bed is cold and unwelcoming under his hand, and his nose doesn't pick up the scent of her—something he didn't even realize he memorized until he noticed its absence.

He sits up, looking around. He takes the time to inspect the details of her room, grinning a little at the goofy portrait of a 6 year-old Caroline on her nightstand. Her room is softer than he would have expected, too girly for a vampire chick with superpowers. Although, when she's just Caroline and not Caroline the vampire, she's all round, sweet edges so maybe this makes sense.

He runs a hand through his hair and struggles out of bed, pulling on his boxers. The shrill pitch of the doorbell cracks through the house and Tyler nearly jumps out of his skin. Just as he decides to ignore it, the doorbell rings again, knocking around in his ears.

He walks down the hall cautiously, convinced it's Caroline's mom—until he remembers that the Sheriff has a key and wouldn't need to ring the bell of her own home. He peeks out the upstairs window and is further relieved; the cruiser is definitely not parked in the driveway. He can't see who is, though, so they must have parked out on the street.

He gets to the door and peers out the curtains—and is so relieved to see Elena on the doorstep that he doesn't hesitate in opening the door.

"Hey, I just wanted—oh." Elena's mouth falls open into a perfect little 'o' of surprise, and Tyler realizes this wasn't the smartest move he's ever made. The tiny brunette stares at him like she's praying she got the wrong house. He even thinks he sees her lean back to check, but it's definitely the Forbes residence. And Tyler is definitely standing half-naked in the doorway.

"I—I—" Elena starts, floundering hopelessly. He smiles and takes pity on her, nodding for her to come inside.

"Caroline isn't here," he says as she scurries in the house.

"Oh, okay. I just wanted to check because—" she stops and levels him with a fierce look that he wouldn't expect from her. "Tyler, what are you doing here?"

He opens his mouth, closes it again and shrugs—because really, he's doing exactly what he looks like he's been doing.

"It's a little early in the month to be transforming," Elena continues pointedly, and he realizes she's not letting him slide free of this. He should have remembered she's tougher than she looks.

"I was—we were—" He stops, reaches up to scratch the back of his head. He can't think of a way to make this less awkward. "Jesus, Elena. What do you think we were doing?"

It only takes her a moment, and then she gasps," "You—you and Caroline?"

"You don't have to sound so surprised," he grouses, his eyes narrowing at her.

"But when did—I mean, how did—she was just helping you transform!" Elena says, and the shock is definitely getting insulting now. Her hands flutter helplessly around her face. "I thought she was just helping you transform?"

"Look, it's not—it's kind of new for us too, alright?" Tyler says, irritation pulling at the corners of his mouth. He has no idea what's going on between him and Caroline, and he hoped he would have a lot more time before he had to explain it to anyone.

Elena goes very still then, her face so calm it's almost scary. She must be picking up tips from Damon and Stefan, because she looks every bit the cool, undead vampire. "Tyler," Elena says, and her voice is clear, enunciated. "Caroline's going through a really hard time right now. Like, really hard. And the last thing she needs is someone to come in and mess things up even more."

He stares at the tiny brunette, the familiar frustrated itch starting in his palms. Why is everyone so damned sure he's trying to break Caroline's heart? "Look, Elena, I can see you mean well, but you have no idea what the hell you're talking about."

"I saw the way you were with Vicky—"

"What is it with Vicky?" Tyler demands, his control snapping a little, just for a second. "Look, I'm not saying I wasn't a dick, but that girl was messed up, and I honestly didn't know what the hell to do with her. And anyway, one has nothing to do with the other. Caroline is different."

"She's different," Elena repeats, sounding a little disbelieving. Funny, she can believe in vampires and werewolves and witches, but believing that Tyler has a living, beating heart is just a little too much for her.

"You have no idea what it was like," Tyler says, his eyes fierce. "You have this whole underground support system going on, but I was weeks away from turning and I had no one. And then—I don't even know how it happened, but there was Caroline. She stuck her neck out for me more than anyone I've ever known."

"Tyler—"

"And while you were all running around trying to keep your secrets, Caroline was the only one helping me with mine," Tyler finishes, talking over her. "So if I hear one more goddamned warning about how I'm some douche she needs protecting from, I swear—"

"Who else is saying it?" Elena interrupts. Tyler just stares at her, eyebrows still pulled low over angry eyes. "Look, I get it, Tyler. I didn't realize you and Caroline had gotten so close, so I'm sorry. But who else knows about this?"

He drags his tongue along the edges of his teeth, loathe to say the name out loud and draw attention to him yet again. "Matt."

Elena's face falls, and Tyler feels his hackles rise. "Oh…"

"It's not like they can be together," Tyler defends, raising a hand and waving the option away. "She can't be honest with him, and being with her just puts him in danger."

"I know, but—these things can get complicated, Tyler."

"You would know."

Tyler can see the way her facial muscles tense, and he knows he's got her—which means his hunch is correct. He might not know the details about Damon, Stefan and Elena, but he knows two brothers should never look at the same woman the same way.

"Is she okay, Tyler?" Elena asks finally, and he lets the other subject slip away, because ultimately he wants to know the same thing as her.

"I don't know," he says, but he hesitates, because his answer is to vague to really be the truth. She must catch the indecision in his gaze.

"She told you something," Elena says, her eyes going wide like a hound that's just scented the fox. "What? What is it?"

He vacillates, caught between wanting to tell her and wanting to keep Caroline's confidence. "I…"

"Tyler."

"She's been forgetting things," he admits, trying to smooth away his guilt. He wants to help Caroline, after all. Who better to enlist than her best friend? "Her memory has gaps now. Ever since she—ever since she was shot."

"Oh, no," Elena breathes, her eyes going misty and sad.

"Do you think there's anything we can do?"

"I don't know," Elena admits, meeting his gaze. He hopes she believes him now, really believes that Caroline means a lot more to him than some random fuck. "I can try to find out. But Tyler?"

"Yeah?"

"Where exactly is Caroline?"


Caroline's eyes adjust easily to the dark of the bunker. Her lips curl at the smell, stale and slightly stagnant like there's water trapped somewhere, but she presses further down the steps. The bunker is set deep into the ground like a cellar, its only opening the nearly horizontal door that Jules left camouflaged but not completely closed—probably for the airflow. The overall look is heavy and burdened, and makes Caroline feel like a body inside a coffin.

She has trouble believing Jules would choose such a place unless the werewolf was afraid. The thought gratifies Caroline and sends a peculiar flair of strength through her, like knowing her enemy's already frightened gives Caroline even more of an advantage. Not that she needs to sway the tides in her favor; Jules is weeks away from being at her strongest, and the only benefit she has over other humans is that she can't die by natural means. And that doesn't bother Caroline at all.

Caroline is careful not to make a sound as she steps over decaying planks of wood and what might have once been furniture. Her feet move seamlessly, never getting held up on all the jagged edges and torn seams that litter the ground under her feet. Her pack of supplies is heavy across her shoulder blades, carrying everything she'll need—Wolfsbane, a gun with assorted wooden, silver and regular bullets, a butcher's knife she stole from her kitchen counter and a few other odds and ends she thought would make for poetic justice.

There's a distant part of her screaming to stop this, but that Caroline's voice is so faded and hollow it's like she's drowning at the bottom of the ocean. That voice is telling her she isn't the type of person to do this—and she knows she's not—but there's a strange sense of numbness that's been spreading through her since this morning. She's not even upset anymore, or angry—she just knows what she has to do. And the girl in her, the human under the waves, keeps shouting that this can't be right, that she's done something very, very wrong, but Caroline can't seem to care.

She's a creature of the night. A perfect being worthy of adoration, of being worshipped—of being feared. How dare these mongrels try to paint her as something less, something beneath them?

She finds Jules finally, after stepping through another doorway. This room is completely pitch black, the sparse light from the opening choking to nothing here, and the only illumination is a small, dusty flashlight. Caroline can see anyway, and if she couldn't she could hear Jules on the bare mattress in the corner, breathing deeply enough to be sleeping.

Perfect, Caroline thinks.

She walks to the edge of the mattress, which is clean and must have been carted in when Jules decided to stay here. Slowly, she lifts her foot and prods it into Jules' side. The werewolf twists and moans, dragging up from unconsciousness like an anchor being raised. Jules' eyes are cloudy with sleep, and she blinks slowly in the near darkness.

Caroline sees the moment sleepy unawareness turns to panic. Jules jolts, not so much moving in one direction or the other as bouncing on spot, the kind of useless move teenagers make in scary movies right before they die. Caroline reaches down and grips Jules around the forearm with one hand, yanking the beast to her feet.

"Remember me?" she asks, her voice raising up at the end like it's actually a question and not just a phrase meant to mock. Jules is shaking now; Caroline can feel the vibrations under her fingers. "I'll take that as a yes."

Caroline throws the beast down, missing the mattress so that Jules' face lands on the filthy floor. "Oh, come on," Caroline says, placing her foot in the center of Jules' back and holding her down. "I was hoping for more of a struggle than this!"

Finally Jules fights back, shaking out from under Caroline's hold and leaping for the door. It's an impressive move, a little too long and smooth to be human, but Caroline slides forward and catches her. She grabs the werewolf by the hair and tilts her head backwards, baring her throat.

"What do you want?" Jules asks, her voice hoarse and raw like she hasn't spoken in weeks.

"That's easy," Caroline says. She drags Jules to the manacles at the corner of the room, the ones Jules drilled into the wall for her transformations. It's amazing how people will dig their own graves if you just hand them the shovel. "I want revenge. On your whole wolf pack, but since they're not here…. I'll have to make do with you."

Jules claws at Caroline's face, and the move is so unexpected that if catches the vampire by surprise. Jules earns just a little time and almost makes it to the arch of the doorway. Almost.

"Ouch," Caroline says, wiping the blood from her face. Then she raises her fingers to her face and licks them clean. Once she's done, she grabs Jules by the arm and takes her back to the manacles. It's so, so easy to lock the werewolf in, and then Caroline knows she's already won.

"I'm just here to help Tyler," Jules gasps, her eyes wide and dilated in the black room. "I just want to help him the way Mason meant to."

Caroline halts, her hands clenching convulsively into fists. Flashes of Tyler, of their night together sway in front of her eyes, and she almost stops. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out the Wolfsbane. Jules' breathing goes heavy, and Caroline wonders if werewolves can see in the dark after all.

"Tyler will hate you for this," Jules warns, but this time his name doesn't ignite any reaction in Caroline.

"I'm guessing this is a lot like Vervaine to you," Caroline says instead, dragging the herb down Jules' face. The werewolf screams as her skin bubbles and smokes—the perfect reaction. Caroline smiles. "Which is why I loaded it into these."

She pulls out a set of plastic water guns and presses one of the triggers experimentally. More ravaged sounds escape from Jules as the diluted Wolfsbane burns through her skin, making pock marks and lesions everywhere it touches.

"Please," Jules begs, her voice echoing her agony.

Caroline shrugs. "Payback's a bitch."

Then the vampire pulls the trigger of her little toy gun again.


A/N: Dun, dun, dunnnn. If you want to imagine something funny, picture Matt on the doorstep of the Forbes residence instead of Elena. I was originally going to do that, but then I saw an interview with Michael Trevino talking about how, after 2 seasons, he and Nina Dorbrev finally have a one-on-one scene together in Season 3. I really wanted to try that, but still, Matt would have been hilarious.