It was decided.
She was going to be married in seven days.
The message came to her at dusk, from the hands of a very fidgety April Young, whose father was also one of the Elders. Caroline wanted to roll her eyes – they didn't even bother to deliver the message themselves. But in the end she just smiled the perfect smile like she trained herself all her life at April's whispered "are you okay", and closed the door with a barely audible click. She knew how gossipy this town was, and she wouldn't give those sneaky onlookers one bit of reaction so they could blab on about "poor little Caroline" in the following week.
A week. That was all the time she had before her name, her life, her person would be forever tied to another. Well, as long as forever can be for her at this rate.
She wondered where her mom was. Probably still with the other Elders, trying to finalize everything. She knew it would be better if Liz was there, that she at least would fight for her daughter even if it was just the smallest detail. But the irrational part of her, the part that was deeply rattled by this somewhat expected, but nonetheless shocking piece of news, wanted her mom here so bad she felt like screaming. She paced around the room, searching for something to clean or organize since it was her go-to method of destressing, but she couldn't settle down long enough to find anything.
Her mind was reeling. Seven days. That wasn't even enough time to thoroughly prepare for an exam. How could she be married on such short notice? She'd always dreamed of her wedding plans. A year-long preparation of sending out invitations, booking venues, deciding on florists and photographers and caterers and whether or not she wanted an ice sculpture. She knew it might be too tacky, but what if she found a really chic design and it actually came off as retro? She wanted the time to think and hesitate and freak out.
But now she could do none of those things.
Caroline felt the tell-tale sign of her magic raging inside of her, the panicked streaks smashing around blindly as if under siege. She tried to push them down like she always did, sorting out the twisted strings of power and guiding them back one thread at a time. It became an instinct over the years, to reach into herself and brutally yet patiently untangle the mess, just like one would with a tangled necklace. But this time her trembling consciousness lost the threads again and again until finally, her magic came flooding out.
She was just out of the shower after cleaning up the whole mess when her mom knocked on her bedroom door.
"Can I come in, sweetie?" She couldn't remember the last time Liz called her that.
Silently she nodded from her vanity, seeing her mom's troubled eyes in the mirror.
"You heard." Liz sat down at the side of her bed, her voice hesitant.
"Yeah."
"Caroline we can still get you out of this. You don't have to go through with it. Now that they think you agreed their guards will be down, at least for the next few days, and I can help you escape," Liz had a slightly frantic look on her face as she blurted out all her thoughts at once. It was moments like these that Caroline saw how much they were alike. "I have some money saved up, you can go abroad. We can maybe find a way to contact the Bennets and they –"
"No mom," Caroline gently stopped her with a smile. Somehow her mom's rare panic calmed her. She went to sit down beside Liz, clutching the towel she was using to dry her hair in a tight grip. "We haven't heard from Bonnie for years. Besides, I can't leave now. Too much is riding on this, and you know they won't let me out of sight. I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone watching us right now."
Liz snorted, "you let me worry about that. I can take them down."
"I know you can, mom. But it's not really about that. I agreed to the deal. And if I back out now, what will happen then? Klaus might get angry. Or they might have to call Elena back to take my place."
"I don't care about Elena! The Gilberts can for once face the consequences of their own actions. You are my daughter, Caroline –"
"Wait, what do you mean 'their own actions'?"
Liz sighed, "you kids were too young then – you are still too young now. But you remember Jonathan Gilbert right?"
A vague face came up in her memory, "yeah I guess. He was Elena's grandfather, right?"
Liz nodded, "it was around the time I was pregnant with you that words got around about Klaus breaking his curse. He became a hybrid, which scared a lot of people. And then he started turning werewolves. Witches everywhere were alarmed, because it was way too much power, but for a few years no one dared to make a move."
"Until Jonathan," Caroline connected the dots. "What did he do?"
"He found the spell that Klaus's mother used to bind his werewolf side, and tried to repeat it."
So that was why their coven went to war with the vampires. Klaus was telling the truth. They started it, and what followed was only retaliation, and then years upon years of grudges. But what she told him was still true. It didn't matter, not now, not to her.
"What was it like when you were pregnant with me?" It was a topic she and Liz seldom broached, their relationship being bumpy at best for the most part of her life. She lowered her head, beads of water dripping from her hair to her pajama bottoms, big, fat drops of coldness.
Liz took the towel from her hands and started drying her wet locks carefully, "it was a mess. But a fun mess mostly. There was this one time when I was trying to eat a pear, but a blast of magic out of nowhere knocked it out of my hand before the sickness even came in. You still don't like pears," she laughed a little, shaking her head. "Should've known then that you were special."
"A special pain in the ass, you mean," Caroline joked, savoring the feeling of her mom's fingers combing through her strands.
"Language, young lady," Liz poked her forehead gently, before her tone became serious. "Honey, I know I don't say this a lot, but having you is the best thing of my life. I'm just sorry that I wasn't there for you more."
"You are a single mom, and I was a brat," Caroline shrugged, remembering her teen years when she would always give Liz the cold shoulder or act difficult just because. "What would I do without you, mom?"
Her mom might have been absent at times, but she was the only constant in her life. For the first time since she got the message, fear really started to sink in, taking its palpable form of a heavy shadow looming over her heart.
Liz set the towel aside and held her shoulders, "you will be okay, sweetie. You always know how to take care of yourself. You are my daughter after all."
Caroline nodded with a small smile. She knew her mom was probably right. After all, Liz had brought her up all by herself, Caroline's father having left town before he was even informed of the pregnancy. She just wished she had the same courage as her mom did, walking into the unknown with nothing but a conviction to keep on walking.
"It's just...Why does it have to be me?" Her voice broke then, myriads of emotions rushing to the surface, overwhelming her, "everything is about to change. I'm okay with being alone, but now...another person? In my life? I don't even know him, other than the fact that – oh right, he's our biggest enemy who is a total psychopath!"
She always thought herself good at handling crises – she kind of had to be, deranged magic and all. It wasn't easy but she did it. She reformed herself once and again around the rocks and ditches life had thrown into her path, and if she couldn't, she just tried harder. For as long as she could remember, every day was a practice. She was always climbing tooth and nail on the learning curve as she struggled with her magic, her quirks, the loneliness that never stopped eating at her; people side-eyeing her, people leaving. First it was her dad who she never met, then Bonnie, then Tyler. Even Elena was sent abroad two years before. She learned to deal with all of it. Over the years she got used to her own ways of being, taking control of the few sanctuaries that she did have like her room and the garden, with a law of her own. She'd tried her best to make sense of everything despite how little sense they did make, just so that the sense of not belonging would never drown her again.
She looked around her room, everything she picked out with care, their presence flowing so effortlessly in sync like a song. A song that she would soon cease to hear. "What about all of this? I drove four hours straight to get that wallpaper, which is now discontinued for good. What do I use in my new room then? Will I even have my own room there?"
"Sweetie calm down," Liz held onto her hands firmly to get her attention, until her rapid breaths finally returned to a normal rhythm. "It will all work out, trust me. I stayed there to make sure they added a few addendums to the treaty. Klaus got free daylight rings for his vampires for the next five years, but that's not our concern now. Caroline, you will have your own room even if I have to strongarm him myself."
"Oh mom," she managed a watery smile before hugging Liz tightly, resting her head on Liz's shoulder.
"Don't worry too much, honey. You'll be okay. You are strong."
Caroline nodded quietly. She knew she was, because even right now, she was fighting with all she had to keep her emotions under control. Once again she could feel her magic almost climbing out of her own skin, fueled by fear, anger, anxiety, even love. She contained their scorching flames just under the surface, one wrong breath away from her mom's hand rubbing soothing circles on her back. For the millionth time in her life Caroline wondered at the solitude merely existing could entail. As much as you loved someone, sometimes so much that you wanted to bare every bit of yourself to them, the best thing was to do the exact opposite.
She spent those long moments in her mom's embrace, alone.
Eventually she straightened up, feigning a yawn, "I think I'm going to get ready for bed, mom. Thanks for being here for me."
When Liz left with a kiss on her forehead and a "we'll talk tomorrow" in her wake, Caroline closed her door. Concentrating on controlling her powers, she raised her hands, feeling the silencing magic surrounding her room securely until no sound would leak out of its invisible barrier. Then she curled up in her bed, and cried so hard she could barely breathe. She would allow herself this one night of vulnerability, to mourn what she would soon lose, and what she could never have – what she hadn't even started to dream of.
It was after midnight that her gut-wrenching sobs finally subsided. She sniffed a few minutes longer, wiping her face with a tissue when suddenly she thought she saw a shadow flash outside her window. With a flip of her hand, Caroline got rid of the silence spell, and approached the spot. Nothing was there. She opened the window, looking around suspiciously. Still, she found nothing, only a moonless night drenched in darkness, not unlike the future she was so scared of a minute ago.
"Okay then," she whispered after taking a deep breath. "Show me what you've got."
Again she thought she heard someone chuckling in the distance. She paid no mind of it this time, choosing to go back to bed.
She had plans tomorrow.
Bright and early the next day Caroline managed to procure the email address of one Klaus Mikaelson, and composed a very formally-worded email, adding her own addendums to the treaty, among which she demanded her rights to continue her undergraduate studies in any institution of her choosing, and to refuse sexual advances at any given time.
Not long after the email was sent one of Klaus's hybrids was knocking on her door, bringing the message that Klaus had "graciously" agreed to most of her requests, with the only amendment that she should choose a college no farther than a two-hour drive from Washington D.C., where apparently they would be living for an extended amount of time. Along with the message came a full plan of the Mikaelsons' lavish house in Georgetown, and Klaus's engagement gift to her – a diamond bracelet that looked like it was worth her entire town.
"Klaus said you can pick any room you like," the hybrid relayed to her with a surprising tone of reverence. At least he wasn't referring to Klaus as "his majesty".
Caroline threw the bracelet into the deepest corner of her drawer, and committed herself to research. Room to decorate, college to transfer to. What a busy bride-to-be she was.
She didn't expect the gifts to keep coming. For the next two days, hybrids were dropping by like a prolonged human-shaped meteor shower, though Caroline knew there was only one wish she cared to make: for them to stay away, preferably forever. It was a total invasion of her personal space, and just downright annoying. She was pretty sure Klaus was only doing it to exact some psychological control over her, since the gifts all made her uncomfortable in different ways. Some of them were visibly expensive, like jewelry or car keys, which Caroline would roll her eyes at and throw into the growing pile in her room. But even worse were the ones that appeared personal, thoughtful even, like the small pocket filled with rose seeds of a rare breed.
Caroline hated how her heart would, against her better judgment, skip beats when she opened those gifts. That manipulative bastard.
The manipulation came to a crescendo when, on the fourth day, she swung the door open ready to give whichever poor hybrid on Caroline duty today a solid piece of her mind, only to gasp at the person appearing in front of her.
"Oh my god, Tyler!" She threw herself into his arms, her heart instantly filled with a happiness she hadn't tasted for the past week and a half. Never mind he was the ex who left her without a word. It was nice to see a familiar face from the past, especially at a time like this. Tyler's arms felt even stronger than his sixteen-year-old self, and his scent was a bit different too. But still it was a nice hug, spreading a warmth through her which seemed unaltered by time or separation.
When they finally let each other go her heart was still pounding, her head dizzy from the excitement.
"You look good, Care," Tyler offered her a big smile. "Not just good actually. You look hot."
Caroline slapped his shoulder playfully, "oh stop it." The conversation feels so familiar that she couldn't help but giggle, "actually, yes I do. And you do too."
It was a lot more hugs and squeals and at least three consecutive "come-on-in"s later that they were sitting in Caroline's living room, soda cans dripping circles on the matching coasters in front of them.
"So tell me, how are you here?" She hadn't heard from him ever since he left, the hundreds of voicemails she sent him going unanswered, her messages from worry to anger to worry again left in a void until finally she was told that his numbered was cancelled.
"About that," Tyler cleared his throat, his joyful expression turning hesitant. "Klaus sent me here to protect you."
"What? What do you mean Klaus sent you? How do you know Klaus? And protect me? What are you talking about Tyler?"
"Whoa Caroline, slow down," Tyler laughed at her antics. "You are just as I remembered."
But the situation was anything but amusing to Caroline, "don't change the subject! Answer my questions one by one right now, and don't even think about leaving anything out." She gave him a withering glare that he had learned to avoid at all cost, "you owe me at least that."
"Way to bring out the big guns, Care," Tyler held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, let's see. Klaus sent me, because I'm one of his best hybrids, and you could quote 'use a familiar face in such demanding times' unquote."
The blood in her veins ran cold.
"What do you mean you are his hybrid?" Her voice was barely a whisper.
Her pleading eyes were met with Tyler's, understanding, yet unapologetic, "it means that I'm like him now. Half wolf, half vampire."
No, it can't be. Not Tyler. No no no no no -
But then she felt it. Her witch senses, heightened by her wavering emotions, finally caught on what she'd initially overlooked at her doorstep. The dark aura of chilling, rotting death, and a slightly brighter, but somewhat more feral one. Half wolf, half vampire.
Caroline's breaths came in short, erratic pants, her heart sinking like a drowning man with a boulder tied to his feet. How could this be? He had felt so warm in her arms. This was her Tyler. She didn't care if they weren't together anymore, if years had passed and they were technically strangers who didn't know a thing about each other's lives, if he had a family somewhere else on the other side of the planet, or perhaps ten – he would always be her Tyler. The boy she detested in grade school because he knocked her over when she was playing hopscotch and never apologized. The young man who did apologize to her for knocking her over during hopscotch five years before; who stood up for her when someone called her "crazy" even though her magic had just gone wild and ruined his favorite shirt; who she stood up for in turn when someone else filled his locker with wolfsbane.
He was the person who she shared the most amazing kiss with under the mistletoe she chose to hang. The person she loved with all her heart, and thought she would love forever and ever.
Yet now here he was, not even ten yards away from her neatly organized past diaries among which quite a few were filled to the margins with her scribbles "Mrs. Caroline Lockwood". Here he was, a fully transitioned werewolf, and a vampire.
Dead.
"What did he do to you?" She jumped to her feet, hands balled into fists, the soda cans on the table suddenly shaking so hard they could hear the sharp fizzing sound cutting through air.
"Caroline calm down," Tyler stood up with her, trying to hold on to her arms but she immediately backed away from his touch.
"No I will not!" She screamed at him, "what did Klaus do? Tell me!"
"He did nothing okay?" Tyler shouted back, before running a hand through his hair in frustration, "look Caroline, it's more complicated than you think, but the bottom line is it happened way before this wedding stuff and he didn't do anything against my will."
Caroline scoffed, "how do you know? He could have easily compelled you to believe anything!"
"Well he didn't. He actually told me I better drink vervain daily in case his siblings tried something. I swear that dude's got the craziest family I've ever seen, you have no idea..."
"I don't care about Klaus's family drama!" The natural closeness in Tyler's tone stoked the fire inside Caroline even higher, "and don't you see? He's just telling you this in order to gain your trust, when he didn't need to compel you in the first place. Every hybrid he created is sire bonded to him, Tyler."
Tyler shot her an unimpressed look, his hands now shoved into his jean pockets. It was something he did a lot when he was frustrated or irate, but his entire posture somehow resembled a certain someone so much that Caroline nearly gasped. "I don't need you to lecture me on my own species, Caroline."
"Oh don't play the species card with me. I didn't care when you were a wolf then, and I certainly don't care that you're a hybrid now. What I do care –"
"Don't you though?" Tyler cut her off, eyes questioning.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, one minute you're jumping up and down, so happy to see me, but I tell you I'm a hybrid and you look like you can't get out of the door fast enough. Looks like you're just like the rest of them."
Caroline wanted to scream at him. She knew Tyler could be a dick sometimes, especially in those early teenage years when they weren't an item yet. But he had never doubted her. Not for a long time. She swore if he got this newfound love for paranoia from Klaus too she'd have even more of a reason to blow the vampire king's head off. If he didn't die then, even better – she could blow it off again when it was done reattaching.
"You listen to me, Tyler George Lockwood," she stomped to him, finger poking his chest. "I've said this to Klaus, and I'll say it to you again – god what is the problem with you hybrids –"
"Not helping your point, Care," came Tyler's wry retort.
"Shut up!" Caroline rolled her eyes at him, "it's not the hybrid part that's bothering me, okay? I can even accept the, well, dead part." She gestured at his figure with both of her hands, which somehow came out as an hourglass shape. That finally earned her a hint of a smile from him. "Granted I'm not too psyched about the prospect of you looking like this when I'm eighty and all wrinkly." His smile grew bigger. Good. She didn't want him mad at her in any shape or form. Klaus was the enemy here.
"I'm just worried about you, Tyler. I don't like the idea of Klaus using you."
Tyler shook his head, "it doesn't work like that. Sure, I feel the need to please him to a certain extent." Caroline scrunched up her nose at that. "But if he's really forcing me to do something I don't want to, I'd still hate his guts. Which I don't."
"But you'd still do it right? If he ever forced you?" The idea made her sick to her stomach.
Tyler sighed, "Care, it's not like that."
"So you keep saying." It felt to her more and more like some stupid mantra Klaus had fed him.
"Look, I know you're concerned, and that's very sweet of you. You were always the one looking out for me," Tyler reached out and held her hand. Caroline merely shrugged, returning a half-hearted smile, knowing there was more to come. "But you have to trust me on this. Klaus would not do that again. If not from the goodness of his heart, then at least from a strategic point of view. He'd done the ordering, forcing, strong-arming thing before, when he first broke his curse, and it didn't end really well."
"Gee, I wonder why."
"So now he's changed lanes. Believe me or not, we're actually a pack, all of us hybrids. And for a pack leader, Klaus is not too bad."
"Not too bad?" Caroline broke out of Tyler's hold and started pacing, "are you listening to yourself? He's still using you, just under the disguise of this wolf pack bond, or whatever you people call it. If anything that's even worse."
Tyler snorted, "my people, huh?"
"No, Tyler, I didn't mean –"
"You know what? You are right. They are my people, including Klaus. And you don't get to make any judgments, because you weren't there."
Caroline winced, "and whose fault is that?"
"I know you're still mad at me for leaving, and you have every right to be. But there's more to it than you think."
Caroline swung around to face him, her nerves wound up so tight she felt like snapping at any time. So she weighed her words one by one, making sure the utterance of any of them wouldn't break the fragile equilibrium inside of her, something she'd learned through the years, but had yet perfected. Her voice came out strained, as if hanging onto an invisible edge, "and what do I think, Tyler? Despite common belief in this town, I'm not stupid. My boyfriend who claimed to love me more than anything in the world left overnight, without one single message. Do you think I wouldn't have known something was wrong?"
She'd run a thousand scenarios in her mind. She'd tried talking to her mom, hell even to Carol Lockwood no matter how she didn't like the older woman and vice versa. She'd cried herself to sleep for a week straight, checking her phone every other minute, waiting for something, anything. She didn't know back then that she'd have to wait for another four years. "You know what hurt me the most? That whatever danger you were facing, you didn't trust me enough to tell me about it."
She would have run with him. Anywhere in the world. But he didn't give her the chance.
And now he was back, with his trusted pack. His people. Including Klaus. She wondered what they did for him that she couldn't. She wondered what they did for each other. She'd heard stories about wolf packs, about how they had this inexplicable bond without which they never felt whole. But what if you were not a wolf? Were you just doomed to feel lost and incomplete forever?
"Caroline, I trust you with my life," Tyler was at her side in an instant, imploring her with earnest eyes, but she didn't feel much comfort. "It just all happened so fast and I didn't have any other choice. But the good thing is I'm here right?"
She reluctantly nodded. However conflicted she was, that was the one silver lining she wouldn't dispute.
Tyler exhaled, relieved, "okay, tell you what? It's getting late now, and I still have to go see my mom. But I promise I'll tell you the whole story first thing tomorrow. How's that sound?"
"Fine," Caroline huffed. "I'll see you here for brunch at 10a.m. sharp. If you're one second late I'm serving you ninth-grade Caroline style coffee."
Tyler shuddered dramatically, "I wouldn't dare." Just when she cracked a smile at the memory of her disastrous culinary skills and his ensued suffering, he added, "I'm your Klaus-appointed bodyguard after all."
And there went her sliver of good mood.
She hugged Tyler goodbye on autopilot, her eyes trained on the two soda cans left on the table. She must have knocked one over during her magic outburst, the battered tin shell now precariously leaning on the other, just one touch from spilling over. Part of her wanted so desperately to add the final straw. She didn't even need to lift a finger. She had so much power inside of her, controllable or not. Who said she couldn't knock down a few cans when everyone else was out there creating messes, turning hybrids, bending innocent people to their will?
But eventually she walked over and set the can back straight.
She was Caroline. She was a fixer.
And damned if she couldn't find a way to make the devil set Tyler free.
