A/N as always the splendiferous Gargslywoof provided edits and insight and i am so glad to have her beta-ing my stories.
Hope this chapter pleases. And please don't hate on Tyler, poor lad did just get his heart broken after all :-(
Chapter 9
"So if the worst I've done is slept with the wrong guy then none of you get to judge me ok? None of you."
A voice from the door makes her body go stiff and her heart plummet. "What about me Care?" That oh-so-familiar voice asks with anger and pain knotting around it like a poisonous vine. "Do I get to judge you?"
"Tyler."
She can't believe the words that spill from her at the sight of her boyfriend. They're the last things she imagines a returning, cheated-on, boyfriend, wants to hear: "What are you doing here?"
His expression is a volatile mixture of incredulity and rage, but she's saved from his response by Damon of all people who steps forward to demand that Tyler show them his wolf and prove himself to not be Silas.
His eyes don't leave her as the others explain why they need him to turn and she's terrified that, if the white-hot anger in his glare is anything to go by, he's in no fit state to control the transformation.
Still he goes to his knees yellow eyes locked on her as his bones break sickeningly in the silence of the room. He's almost a wolf, growling and snarling and not responding to the cries of his name when Damon's boot hard in his face brings him back and he stands and glares at her as his limbs shift back into place.
Behind her she hears Elena laugh, a musically vindictive sound, and Matt try to catch his friend's attention. But the world has shrunk down to the few feet between them and narrowed to the tunnel of his furious gaze.
She looks down unable to face him and he suddenly seems to hear Matt asking him what he's doing there and warning him that it's dangerous and he should run.
"Klaus called me." Tyler spits the name like it's spoiled milk in his mouth and she looks up sharply. "He told me I could come back." He looks at her with contempt chasing hurt all across his face. "To you."
"Tyler-" his name comes out choked and weak. What the hell is she supposed to say to him?
"Is it true?" he demands still half hoping that he has somehow misunderstood, that there's some explanation for her fucking his mother's murderer that he could possible make sense of.
She swallows hard and fights back tears. "Tyler, I'm sorry. I-"
"Christ!"
Tyler slumps down in one of the free chairs and buries his head in his hands and the room falls into awkward silence.
"Guys," Bonnie speaks eventually, her voice uncharacteristically hesitant. "We have to do the spell."
The others all watch Bonnie get to work but she can't tear her eyes from Tyler's bowed head until eventually looks up, and his dark dry eyes lock hard onto her wet ones. His face is pulled tight with anger and she has no idea what she's going to say to him when they finally get a chance to talk. Her mind is all over the place leaping from one addled thought to the next and over and over one question returns to her mind. Why the hell would Klaus call Tyler?
Bonnie's rhythm falters and they all turn worriedly to look at the witch. Her friend looks a mess, face drawn and limbs shaking as she stumbles through the complex incantation. Come on Bonnie, she thinks and realises that this is the first time ever that she's doubted Bonnie's ability to save the day.
"Bonnie," a voice calls from outside and the witch stops speaking and looks around. "Bonnie, please don't do this, don't trap me here."
"Silas," Damon spits and runs to the window. Outside Jeremy Gilbert is calling out pleadingly, looking every inch a frightened teenager. Bonnie rushes to the window.
"Jeremy!" she calls.
"Bonnie, Bonnie." Stefan shakes her hard. "It's Silas, come on you know it is."
The witch looks disoriented for a second then she nods and tears trickle from the corners of her eyes. "I know," she whispers.
"The spell, Bonnie, you need to finish it"
With a nod Bonnie returns to her place and begins to chant again. But when Shane's voice tells her that she can't control the expression without him and that she'll end up hurting everyone she loves she leans forward on her hands and breaths like she's run a sprint.
They're losing Bonnie. Losing the only one who can stop Silas. He friend can't cope with him invading her mind and still concentrate on the spell. She realises at the same time as Damon what needs to be done and they both turn to Tyler.
"Tyler, listen," she begins haltingly. "Silas can't mess with you when you're a wolf; you need to distract him so he leaves Bonnie alone long enough for her to kill him."
He looks witheringly at her, his eyes telling her that he's in no mood to do anything she asks.
Damon makes an exasperated noise and pulls his phone from his back pocket.
"Who are you calling?" Matt asks as Damon dials.
"Klaus." Damon tips his phone at Tyler. "You think I'm gonna leave this to a puppy? I'm calling daddy wolf."
Tyler's anger flares, predictably, and he tears off his t-shirt with a snarl. He storms out of the door and Damon smirks triumphantly.
"You're an ass," she tells the elder Salvatore, who just shrugs dismissively.
"Worked didn't it?" he hits the call button on his phone and it's obvious he's talking to Klaus. "Silas is here screwing with Bon-bon" he says then hangs up looking satisfied. "All sorted," he declares.
"Seriously, sorted?" She puts her hands on her hips and glares at Damon. "If by sorted you mean they kill each other."
"Relax Barbie." Damon pours himself a drink looking obnoxiously self-satisfied. "Tyler can't kill Klaus, and I figure Klaus didn't call Tyler back just to kill him. So now we have two hybrids against Silas instead of one, I call that a win."
She shakes her head and turns to the window in time to see Tyler's big black wolf approach Silas with a growl. She bites her lip and lays a hand on the glass wishing she could help him.
Bonnie is trembling all over and has the distinct look of a junkie being offered a hit, clammy-skinned and wild-eyed. So she focuses on getting her friend back in the game. "Bonnie." She takes the witch's hand and rubs it vigorously. "Please, Bonnie, you need to focus, Tyler can't keep Silas busy for long."
The witch nods and hovers her hands above the bowl containing Stefan and Silas' blood as she begins to chant again.
Outside Tyler is taking a beating. It's been easy to forget with all his mental trickery and psychological warfare that Silas is also ancient and powerful in a more traditional sense. The back of his fist connects with Tyler's jaw and the sound of breaking bone carries inside making them all wince. Tyler hits the ground with a yelp and struggles to rise, his growl more lost than menacing as Silas, wearing his true face for all to see now, advances.
Silas lifts the powerful wolf in one hand as if he weighs nothing and hurls him against a tree. "Bonnie," he calls as he turns away from Tyler's fallen form. "Only I can help you. And I can help you. To control your expression, to save your Grams, even to bring back Jeremy."
Bonnie shakes visibly but she grits her teeth and keeps going, blood trickling from her nose. "You're lost without me Bonnie, you'll just keep hurting the ones you love."
The witch falters, the rhythm of her chanting breaking like a wave over Silas' words. "Don't listen Bon-bon," Damon says firmly. "Keep going."
She turns back to the window in time to see Tyler leap at the ancient, only to be caught about the neck in a choking grip. He whimpers and his hind legs claw at Silas as the immortal plunges a hand into his chest.
"No" she screams and just when she thinks Tyler is lost a blur of grey-brown takes Silas from the side and all three of them hit the ground and roll apart. Relief resonates through her body and she lets out a shuddering breath. Klaus is here, he's here and despite her words to Damon earlier a huge part believes that it makes everything ok.
She watches from the window as the two wolves circle Silas, always one in attack and one in retreat as they use their speed and agility to take literal chunks out of their enemy.
They might hate each other, but they are wolves, and the instinct for teamwork runs deep in their blood. The connection between the hybrids as they take on Silas is so ferociously beautiful, so supernaturally natural, that she could almost believe she sees the crimson threads of understanding weaving from one to the other. A pack of two; and together they are more than Silas can contain.
Behind her Bonnie slumps forward with an exhausted wheeze and she realises the spell is complete. The wolves realise seconds later and the ferocity with which they rip Silas' suddenly human body apart is awe-inspiring and frankly a little graphic even for her vampire tastes.
There's a moment of calm as the two wolves stare at each other across the ruined pile of flesh and guts that was once Silas before Tyler leaps at Klaus with a snarl, taking down the smaller wolf in a mess of flashing fangs and harsh growls.
They come apart and circle each other. Tyler stands a few inches taller in the shoulder than Klaus, broader in the chest and more muscled in the haunches but even without knowing the men behind these beasts, even without the matted blood in Tyler's fur, you'd pick Klaus for the winner. There is a conceit to the lazy languid tread and an easy complaisance in his relaxed growl that stands in confident contrast to Tyler's rigid muscles and agitated snarls.
Tyler hurls himself at Klaus again and the elder wolf effortlessly takes the back of his opponent's neck in his jaws, drops to his back and uses his hind legs to hurl Tyler, yelping, into a nearby tree. Tyler stands and comes again at Klaus who seems to have lost patience with the fight and this time pins the big black wolf to the ground by his throat, making Tyler whine pitifully.
She breaks away from Stefan's weak human grip and dashes towards them. "Klaus, please," she cries and the tawny wolf releases Tyler and steps away, his amber eyes fixed on her.
"Thank you," she whispers. The wolf nods and his amber eyes, unnaturally intelligent in the face of a beast, hold hers solemnly. "Klaus-" she starts without a single clue what she'll say after his name, no matter, her words are cut off by his growl as Tyler rises and sinks his fangs into the older wolf's flank.
Klaus wheels around and in a single grotesque and graceful motion spins around the younger hybrid. Limbs extending as he turns so that it's his human body that traps Tyler's wolf with his arm wrapped suffocatingly across the other's windpipe. Eventually lack of oxygen threatens Tyler's consciousness and forces him to turn back to human form.
Klaus releases him and walks naked and unembarrassed straight past her, holding out a hand to Bonnie who's in the doorway clutching the unlinking spell in both hands.
"Love?" he prompts and Bonnie numbly hands it over. He turns it over in his hands for a moment then looks at her, gives a small nod and turns to leave.
"Klaus,." Even now, in front of all her friends – God even in front of Tyler who's rubbing his throat and struggling to his feet – she calls after him. Feels the need to say something, anything, simply to have something pass between them. "Thank you."
His smile is sad, so sad that her heart slows painfully in her chest, but he looks satisfied too and nothing, absolutely nothing, makes sense in her exhausted brain. She takes a step towards him, a step away from Tyler, thinking that must be symbolism or a metaphor or something. But he's gone in a flash and she's left with nothing but empty air and the prospect of the worst conversation of her life.
Damon throws clothes at Tyler and she watches the dark vampire unceremoniously haul Silas' bloody remains onto a tarp. "Fucking wolves," Damon mutters under his breath as of one Silas' arms comes away in his grasp.
Silas is dead and they should be celebrating but now all the problems that had seemed trifling compared with the apocalyptic disaster they've just averted are back to suck the joy from their victory.
Inside she hears the others talking in hushed voices, the words are unclear but the tone is anything but celebratory. She knows Tyler is watching her, waiting for her to look at him and it takes all her strength to turn her already tear filled eyes on him. This is going to be awful, she thinks nauseously.
"How long?" Tyler asks eventually and she knows she owes him these answers. No matter how much it hurts to give them or how shamed she'll feel. No matter even that it won't help him in the slightest to know, she at least owes him honesty now. "How long did you wait before you spread your legs for him?"
"Tyler, please."
"How long?" he barks and she flinches.
"Yesterday, it was yesterday."
"He called me this morning. Told me I could come back if I could make you happy." Hatred for his sire twists Tyler's face into an ugly version of himself and his next words are spat out maliciously. "I guess he couldn't wait to gloat about how he screwed my girl."
She shakes her head in confusion, her mind bouncing back to Klaus again. It doesn't make sense. Klaus, who always, always, takes the chance to hammer home his victories, didn't gloat at all. Instead her turned away, from someone he considers an enemy and a betrayer, and left without a word and left.
Klaus fills her head even with Tyler's heart broken beneath her feet. It is only by sheer force of will that she can drag her thoughts away from the hybrid's abstruse motives and focus on Tyler's anguished questions.
"I'm sorry, Ty." She notices her hands are pressed together in the habit of prayer and she reminds herself that, even if she weren't the sinner here, no deity listens to the pleas of her kind, so she pulls them apart and clamps them to her sides. "I am so, so sorry."
"Sorry?" Tyler is incredulous and disgusted and hurt deep down into his soul and she hates herself for what she's done to him. "You let him touch you. You were supposed to be my girl. 'Until we find a way', that's what you said, then you let him touch you, the same hands that-" he chokes on the rest of that sentence and she shudders.
Had she somehow forgotten that the hands that had felt so good on her body yesterday had also held Carol Lockwood under the water not so long ago? Forgotten too that the mouth that kissed her with such reverence had drained the life from Jenna, and Elena, and thousands of innocents? No, she had not forgotten, but she had seen a different man before her yesterday, a man and not a beast, and yes she'd wanted that man. Wanted him in every cell of her body, every misguided fibre of her stupid heart.
"Why, Care?" he asks and bile rises in her mouth when an answer does not. What the hell is she supposed to tell him? Certainly not the truth - that for one crazy moment she'd forgotten every reason she couldn't be with Klaus and for that brief bright time simply existed in the impossible rightness of them.
"It just happened," is her flimsy reply, and because the tired pedestrian response seems to make him even angrier she ploughs on. "I didn't plan it, but he's been around-"
"Jesus, fuck."
"Tyler," she pleads without hope of him calming down and he glowers at her.
"Been around?" Tyler shakes his head his eyes finally wet now with all his pain. "Like I wasn't, right? Because that bastard ran me out of town, remember? He killed my pack and my mom and he ran me outta town and you fucked him because he's been around?"
That makes her sound like a terrible person, but she doesn't have another explanation that won't tear even deeper gouges in Tyler's heart, so she runs with the lie. "Yes."
"Bullshit!" There's a little of his wolf's snarl in his voice as he shoots her down. "You always wanted him. Look me in the eye Caroline and tell me you didn't want him right from the start."
While lying to Damon is easy, lying to Tyler, to her own Tyler, feels like chewing razor blades. Still she tries, because he doesn't need to know that this was always inevitable, that looking back she realises she's been on this course since Klaus perched on her bed so long ago and offered her the world straight from the hot veins in his wrist. "Of course not."
Tyler shakes his head contemptuously; he doesn't believe her, and why the hell should he?
"I'm sorry," she says again knowing even as she does that it's pointless. She'll never get his forgiveness, not for this. But she is desperately sorry that she hurt him and so she'll keep saying it anyway. "I'm so sorry you had to find out like that, I swear I never meant to hurt you."
"My shitty timing right?" he sneers, his face a hard mask of anger, his eyes full of tears. "How was I supposed to find out, when I got my invite to the fucking wedding?"
"Tyler please-"
"He'll make you unhappy, Caroline. Being with that piece of shit will break you."
"I'm not with him, not like that, he-" she bites her tongue before all her tangled feelings - all the burning want, all the mixed-up pity and fruitless longing she has for his sire - come spilling out and grind what's left of Tyler's heart into the blood-stained earth beneath their feet. "I couldn't be, I know that. It just happened, ok, and I'm sorry."
They're silent then for long moments while he fights tears and she twists her hands together and wishes fervently that it will just end soon.
"Was it good?" he says eventually without looking up. Then he closes his eyes looking pained and defeated as he tips his head back. "Of course it was, God."
"Ty don't do this," she pleads and when his eyes snap back to hers they're bleak and full of hate, not just for Klaus but for her too now she thinks as she swims in their dark waters.
"You know what? I hope it was good, I hope it was the time of your life Caroline," he says darkly. "Because you're right - you can't be with him, and you've lost me." She knows that as she watches his broad back disappear that she won't see him again, at least not any time soon. The girl inside that had hoped for a fairy tale ending for them wants to drop to her knees and cry, but the girl she's become since he left, the powerful fierce girl that doesn't take any shit, that girl has other ideas.
The bright lights of the boarding house windows fade behind her as she stirs her temper and heads across town; back again, as always, to him.
"What the actual fuck Klaus?" she snaps as she barges into his home, anger making her choice of words uncharacteristically crass.
"Caroline, what-"
"Am I doing here?" she's feeling mean and sarcastic and exasperated. She's had a god-awful couple of days and his feet seem as good place as any to lay the blame.
"Caroline-"
"Funny story," she doesn't let him speak, she's too riled up - unjustified anger is so often the most persistent. "I got screwed over by this asshole I slept with who's been acting like a giant freak and was so eager to get rid of me he actually called my exiled ex back to take me off his hands."
"Caroline."
"Stop, Jesus. Stop saying Caroline. You know Tyler just walked in on me smacking down with everyone about sleeping with you." He looks uncomfortable and she glares angrily at him. "Yeah. He knows and guess what - he wasn't pleased."
"Caroline," he starts, and when her eyes flash he clenches his fists and talks over whatever she might say. "That is unfortunate timing, but you know you would never have been able to keep it from him; you would have had to face it eventually. I'm sure you'll be able to convince him to forgive you."
"Wow." She shakes her head. Doubts and questions swirl about in her mind but she's feeling too petty and unreasonable to ask any of them. "And you didn't think to include me in this decision? You are unbelievable."
He stands suddenly and steps towards her looking frustrated himself now. "Forgive me if I'm a little confused. Tyler's return is what you wanted." His jaw clenches and for a moment he seems to struggle to control his voice. "All you wanted, as you told Damon just last night."
He heard. Just hours after leaving his bed, he heard her tell Damon that all she wanted was another man - no wonder he'd been such a jackass all day. But she's not ready to let go of the anger that protects her just yet so she rolls her eyes. "Seriously, you think I'd tell Damon anything about my love life?"
"Nevertheless," is all he says and busies himself pouring another whiskey.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She steps over and snatches his drink, downing it in one and enjoying the angry viridian sparks flashing in the blue of his eyes.
"That you have what you wanted. Freedom to be with Tyler." His eyes cloud and she doesn't enjoy that shade of blue half as much. "Freedom from me."
Her anger goes and without it she is exhausted and confused and something in her stomach won't stop churning. She flops down on the sofa he just rose from and holds up the glass for him to take. He fills it and another and sits beside her.
"I don't get it," she says and takes a sip of the scotch he hands her; without her petty anger the taste is enough to make her eyes sting and she blinks. "This morning I thought you-" she trails off, she imagines he knows what she thought when he played the part of disinterested jerkface.
"I had already decided to call Tyler," Klaus admits. "But I have been resolved to let you go before, Caroline, and yet you come to me and every time you do-" he swirls his drink and sighs. "The agony of hope. I needed you to leave"
She nods her understanding. "And you knew just what would make me go. Guess I'm not as mysterious as I thought."
He nods but doesn't speak so she chews her lip and forms the question that won't leave her alone. "I still don't understand. Why would you suddenly give up now? Why would you ever call Tyler?"
"Because you cried," he says and his voice is a little too strong as if he had to push it hard to get it out and couldn't control it. He takes a breath and continues more softly. "You cried, Caroline. The happiest I have been in centuries and you wept for the shame of it." He can't look at her then and she takes the moments with his gaze averted to process his words and her heart aches for him, for both of them.
"That's not why I cried Klaus," she says eventually. He turns to face her and she hates to see his bright, playful eyes so hollow. The question hangs unspoken between them then why?
"I cried for you, Klaus, because I know how lonely you are and I knew I couldn't be the one to make it stop." He looks like he's about to speak so she presses on - she has to get this out now. "I mean my mom would freak and my friends would hate me. You are a terrible person. You do horrible things to innocent people. I couldn't be with you."
He gives her a look, chiding her for stating the obvious; already she sees in his eyes that he's readying his defences against her. She won't let him. "And I cried for me because I wanted to be. So much."
His half built defences crumble and he looks away so she gently wraps her hand around his cheek and lifts his gaze to hers. "I didn't cry for shame Klaus, I cried for us, for everything we can't have."
He rest his forehead on hers, connecting them, and she wonders at how familiar a gesture it feels now. His fingers skate up her arm and the hand with which she'd cupped his cheek travels to his elbow. They stay that way for long moments until he asks the inevitable question. "And Tyler?"
"Gone," she says sadly. She mourns the loss of the girl who loved Tyler, the girl for whom life had been so simple, for whom right and wrong had stood clearly apart; she mourns the child she was. The woman she has become dances through the twilight borders where good and evil lie like lovers with limbs entwined, for that woman nothing is simple and yes, she'll miss Tyler for that.
"I'm sorry sweetheart."
"Don't be, we've been over for a long time I guess." She meets his gaze and gathers up her courage; honesty is the order of the day, she thinks, why stop now? "Besides, just because I can't be with you, doesn't mean I want to be with anyone else."
That shocks him; his eyes widen just a fraction and his lips part. She imagines he hadn't expected that level of honesty from her, or perhaps he doesn't ever really believe he could be anything but second choice. She huffs, gives him a rueful smile, and offers him another taste of that honesty. "It's actually really not funny how much I don't want to be with anyone else."
He forces a chuckle then sobers quickly. "I'm not a man inclined to indulge in the futility of wishing," he says in that deep earnest voice of his and the sincerity of his tone makes her heart thump expectantly in her chest. "But I do wish I could have been a man worthy of you Caroline, and if I had been that man, I would have moved heaven and earth to make you happy."
"I know."
They share a small tight smile and her mind rattles with the realisation that this is actually happening, they're actually going to walk away from this thing that's danced around them since the start. Oh they've made deals and promises of separation. They've hurled insults and feigned contempt as they shrouded their connection in scorn but the finality of this is like lead in the air making her breathing slow and laboured and her shoulders feel burdened.
They stand and he kisses her cheek and she longs to hurl herself into his arms like parting lovers but she doesn't. She thinks that if she does she may never let him go and so she turns and makes the endless journey to the door. It's done, she thinks, it has to be. They might wish it were different but they both know they can't be together and wishing won't change that.
At the door she stops, her father, comes to her mind from out of nowhere, standing before her stern and expectant. "I always taught you to try your best. I need you to try your best now." Sure he'd been torturing her at the time and he would definitely not approve of what she's about to do but the parenting lesson still stands. After all her father had always prized effort. He had taught her to strive. Perhaps there can be merit in letting go with grace but that is not the way Bill Forbes raised his daughter.
"No!" She turns on Klaus with eyes blazing determinedly and he blinks dumbly at her. "No wishing, no can't, no what-will-people-think, just no."
"Sweet-"
"If I can't be with you because you are such a terrible person," she draws in a steadying breath and runs a hand through her hair feeling its silk between her fingers. "Well then you are just going to have to be better."
He shakes his head at her audacity, shoots her down with his version of the truth and a little impatience to convince himself. "I have been this way a thousand years."
"And you hate it," it's almost a snarl. She is dauntless now, finally brave in her decision to fight for them and she'll demand the same from him just as her father taught her.
He tries for a scornful look but her insight has shaken him and his effort falls far short of convincing. "The others don't see it," she continues bravely. "But I do. I know you're more than just a monster. That there's a halfway decent guy in there somewhere. So if you'll dig him out from under all your paranoia and bullshit and be the man I know you can be, then I will tell everyone to suck it up and get used to me being with that man."
"Caroline, love, even if that-" he draws in breath and his lips move soundlessly, that way they do when he can't work out what to say. Eventually he shakes his head. "I wouldn't know where to begin, I couldn't-"
"Seriously?" her voice is rising, agitated rather than angry but still energy buzzes between them marking the moment as pivotal and she finds herself pacing and gesturing emphatically as she talks. "You call yourself the most powerful creature on the planet. If that's true you can do anything." She turns on him and takes a chance on what she's almost certain now is the truth. "And if you love me-"
His gaze darts about skittishly and he tries to interrupt her, "Car-"
"If you love me," she cuts him off in a strong, uncompromising voice and stabs her hands downward by her hips for emphasis. She breaths in through her nose and takes a step towards him softening as she goes. "Then you'll try."
And there it is, her offer, her challenge, placed before him. It's up to him now. Maybe he feels the way she thinks he does, maybe he's in love with her, maybe that'll be enough. Or maybe she's a foolish self-involved teenage girl wildly overestimating her own significance.
He steps in, closing the last scrap of distance she's left between them, and snakes his hand in beneath her hair to hold the back of her neck. He looks into her eyes and she gets her answer. "I will try," he says and three other little words are implied not just by his acquiescence but by the reverent timber of his voice and the burning emotion in his eyes.
It should be enough, but she's greedy for more. She's about to alienate her friends, terrify her mother and potentially endanger everyone she's ever met, so sue her, but she's going to get the full works out of him.
She glances down then back up into his eyes and commands him in a silk and steel voice. "Say it."
"Oh sweetheart," he laughs, a slow sad caress across her flushed skin. "I haven't said it in centuries."
"Say it now," she insists. "Be brave right now." She lifts her fingers to touch his cheek. "Tell me what I am risking everything for."
The hand on her neck tightens and he moves still closer into her space, breath ragged as he brings his free hand up to flatten her curls against her temple. "I love you, Caroline."
A/N I know i'm sorry to stop there but this chapter was getting longer than the rest so i took an opportunity to stop. Next time I promise we'll be back on track. Possibly, probably, a smutty track too :-)
Hit me with a review if the spirit moves you too