Author's note: just like my previous Delena story... considering the reviews and the comments I received from posting this, and from friends that started reading it I have gotten multiple pleas not to end this as a Oneshot... and so I shall be continuing this story, however I don't expect to make it extremely long (then again I said that last time as well), since Klaus is already dead, and well, I'm not sure what's going to happen with Damon and Elena.

Please don't get too anxious, this sort of came to me very suddenly, but I've grown quite fond of Caroline and Tyler... and so this sort of happened. It's meant both as a filler, (while I figure out what to do with Damon) but it also offers a glimpse into a story that I've been wanting to write for Caroline and Tyler... I thought it would work out well if I just incorporated the two and had them running alongside each other... That isn't to say that what happens in this chapter is fluff... it most certainly isn't, not in my opinion, it was very difficult and emotional for me to write this, and so I hope you enjoy :)

"Tyler!" Caroline burst past the gate the moment Tyler had changed back. She'd forgotten what this was like, she'd almost, almost forgotten about Tyler. But him showing up back at the hospital and then being trapped. She couldn't believe how she'd stayed mad at him for so long. She tore off her jacket which was about ten sizes too small for him but at least it would somewhat cover him. He was shaking on the ground, eyes shut and but-naked. Caroline wasn't phased by it though, all she could think of was the fact that he was in pain. And she knew he was in pain, she remembered the first time, it would haunt her forever. She covered him with her jacket and then reached out for him, Tyler finally moved and rested his head into her lap, he always felt eerily warm, like he was constantly running a fever but then she had gotten used to that too. He relaxed finally, the shaking stopped and Caroline realized that he'd been gripping her hand and she'd pretty much been cradling him.

"Caroline?" He looked dazed as he looked around the room and then shut his eyes again, exhausted Caroline knew what it took out of him.

"What the hell was that?" Matt, how could she have forgotten about Matt? What was she supposed to do now. Why the hell had he shown up, and where the hell did he get wooden bullets? This was so disastrous Caroline was having a hard time keeping her head straight, she wasn't good at managing other people's disasters, she had too many mini-crisis of her own to deal with other people. And now she had to juggle Matt and Tyler at the same time. "He's a werewolf?"

"Yes!"

"Well why didn't you tell me that? You told me you were a vampire!"

"It's not my business to tell!" Caroline yelled back, not sure why they were yelling in the first place. And she still hadn't moved from holding onto Tyler. His warmth somehow felt soothing to her, she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do here. She was definitely not good at this, this was Elena's thing, she was good at preventing drama. "Look Matt, now is not the time to discuss this, we need to get Tyler somewhere safe. Can you get your car closer?" Matt stared at her, partially in shock and definitely beyond pissed off but Caroline couldn't think of anything better to do right now, one thing at a time. She thought. First get Tyler out of here, and then we'll deal with the rest.

The ride back to the Salvatore boarding house was beyond awkward. Between Tyler half naked in the backseat and Matt pissed off and then Caroline who was currently feeling beyond guilt ridden she didn't know what to do with herself. She should have been more careful with Matt, she should never have told him, and she should have told Tyler from the start what the whole curse situation was about. She didn't know what had happened to Damon, Elena and Stefan. She didn't know if they were alright, or if Klaus was dead or if Bonnie was okay, there were too many things running through her head right now.

"Can I borrow your phone?" She looked over to Matt who was reluctantly driving to Stefan and Damon's house. He looked at her angrily for a second but then he shrugged and pointed at the glove compartment. Elena's number was on speed dial, she forced herself to hide the tiny surge of jealousy that ran through her, she'd resigned herself to the fact that Matt would probably always have a thing for Elena.

"Hello?" Elena's voice rang out from the other side and Caroline breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh my god Elena, thank god you're okay. Is Bonnie alright? What happened?"

"Wait what does Bonnie have to do with this?" Matt interrupted and Caroline just shushed him with a rather rude wave of her hand. Elena was crying.

"Bonnie's hurt really badly, and Jenna's-" More sobs as Elena's voice broke off a bit and Caroline felt like she might burst into tears herself. "I don't know where Stefan is. They used Jules for the ceremony, she's dead. And- Damon's hurt, he got bit-" Caroline couldn't believe how distressed Elena sounded over Damon, she thought that Elena's first concern would have been Stefan, not that she hadn't seen this coming but she hadn't expected this. Hearing Elena on the phone like this, the only other time she'd been like this was when her parents had died.

"What?" Damn Tyler and his werewolf hearing. Caroline turned into her seat to look at Tyler, she gave him the most apologetic look as he buried his head into his hands. "Tell Damon I'm sorry." He mumbled behind his hands and Caroline heard Elena cry harder.

"Elena, please tell me that it worked at least. Is Klaus dead?"

"Yeah he is. But-" Elena was crying really hard.

"It doesn't feel worth it." Caroline finished her sentence and sunk back into her seat in the car and felt tears running down her cheeks though she refused to let them overpower her. She was beyond that. "We're on our way to the boarding house, Tyler needs a place to crash and get changed. Does Bonnie need anything, will she be alright?"

"Jeremy's with her. I-" Elena took a deep breath at least she wasn't crying anymore but Caroline could hear the sniffling through the phone.

"I'm on my way Elena, Matt is too. We need to talk to him by the way." she figured having Elena as backup was a good idea, add onto that, it would distract Elena and she was better at this sort of thing. Clearly Caroline was so bad at explaining things that Matt had gone out and made himself wooden bullets.

"Matt?"

"I'll explain it when I see you." She hung up the phone then and turned to look at Tyler who looked absolutely guilt-ridden.

"Tyler this isn't your fault."

"If I hadn't come back, that guy wouldn't have his werewolves, Jules would be alive, Damon wouldn't have gotten bitten. Bonnie wouldn't be hurt. This is my fault Caroline."

"That's ridiculous and I thought you didn't like Damon."

"I still don't, but I don't want to hurt anyone either."

"Tyler-"

"It could've been you Caroline." He looked at her seriously, his dark eyes locking angrily with hers, he was trying to get her angry, the way he always did when he was trying to push her away. She knew it and recognized it because it was the same thing she did to people.

"Well it wasn't." She said firmly and then turned in her seat to look out the window again. Matt was being perfectly silent and Caroline couldn't believe the predicament she was in right now. A vampire, a werewolf and a human all stuck in an old beat-up car. It sounded like the beginning of a bad joke.

"So do you want to explain to me what Bonnie has to do with everything? And how the hell is he a werewolf?" Matt pointed at Tyler as if he were some kind of monster and Caroline felt angry at that, if he was a monster then so was she. She thought after all his heroic attempts tonight he would be more agreeable by the time they got to the boarding house and Tyler had gotten showered and changed. Elena was considerably upset about this whole situation, add onto that that she was now a vampire herself, Matt was beyond upset. He was slightly manic as he was taking in this entire situation.

"Bonnie's a witch Matt."

"And who did that to her?" He scanned the room accusingly as Damon moved into the room he gave Matt one of those serious frowns that implied he was being stupid.

"Nobody did anything to Sabrina. She was like that when we found her." He was half-joking but he was cranky and drinking an abnormal amount of blood Caroline had noticed. This was definitely not good.

"Sabrina?" Matt shook his head. "You think this is funny?"

"Matt, Bonnie was born a witch, her bloodline goes all the way back to Salem. The same as Tyler, he was born with the curse of a werewolf."

"Well what the hell man? I've known you your whole life, you didn't think that was something worth mentioning?"

"First of all, this all didn't start until a few months ago. And second of all; you wouldn't have believed me, best friends or not. You're having a panic attack as we speak and you expect me to slide that in when exactly? During football practise?"

"Matt we couldn't tell you." Elena was about to explain to him the council and everything but she got the most furious look from him Caroline had ever seen.

"Mathew Honeycutt now you listen to me carefully!" Caroline spoke up severely, she had quite enough of his judgemental attitude, they didn't need it right now, clearly he was working with someone on the council or he wouldn't have gotten a hold of those wooden bullets and right now, their friends were all hurt, some were dying and she couldn't be bothered to deal with his self-righteous attitude. "I don't care if you decide that you're for or against this whole supernatural thing but let me get one thing straight, not a single person in this room asked to become what they are. This happened to us, we didn't chose it and we've been fighting for the survival of this town ever since it did happen. You can hate me all you want Matt that's fine but don't you dare judge us for the choices we didn't get to make."

Matt looked at her carefully, he looked surprised at her sudden tone but he seemed to calm down a bit. "What do you mean you've been fighting for the town?" He asked then. Elena started explaining as much as she could until Tyler and Caroline took over in certain parts. There were things that Matt needed to know about the town's secret council and the werewolf curse, and then there was Bonnie's history and the involvement of the founding families. Caroline didn't realize how much information there was to process until they had gone through it all. Tyler apparently had done some digging into his own family history and there was a lot there about the founding families that the rest of them didn't know about. By the end of it Matt looked slightly sick.

"So you've all grown up on this stuff? I mean does the whole town-?"

"No just the founding families, and we didn't really grow up on it. The council only gets together when they see that there's been vampire attacks or something."

"Sheriff Forbes didn't say anything about a council."

"Wait you've been talking to my mom?" Caroline suddenly felt beyond betrayed, her mother, her own mother hadn't said a thing, hadn't confronted her which meant that either she was in denial or she was planning something. Caroline sat down quietly and tried to grasp what this meant.

"Caroline, I didn't mean to do anything I just-"

"What did you do?" Tyler asked him, not accusingly but steadily and Caroline could tell he was worried.

"Everything Caroline told me." Now it was Caroline's turn to feel sick. "I didn't know that there was like a whole group of people planning something. And she kept saying that you weren't- you know- you- anymore." Caroline felt the tears come back to her this time, she knew what her mother thought of vampires, she knew that Elizabeth Forbes wouldn't be able to look past what she'd become. She felt terrified of this situation, she'd been through it before and this time it was worse, every time her mother's love for her daughter was tested it didn't overpower her sense of duty to the council and the town. And it was heartbreaking. Caroline had never been close to her mother, but she was her mom. And she'd used her boyfriend to get information from her, like she was the enemy. Caroline sunk her head into her hands and felt the sobs coming back to her. This was way too much to handle in one night, how the hell did Elena manage all this drama?

"Matt, did you tell them about Bonnie?"

"No I didn't even know but the Sheriff was worried because she thought all the Gilbert's were in on it, and she thought that Damon was the mastermind or something." Damon snorted at that but when Caroline looked up he looked pale and he took another swig from his drink. Elena with her new-found vampire speed was up at his side before Caroline realized that he was wavering. He'd almost sunk through his knees, he really wasn't okay. Elena put a hand to his cheek and Caroline suddenly realized why Elena had been so heart-breakingly upset at Damon's wounds, she gave Elena a meaningful look as she quietly took Damon out of the room and Caroline fixed her mind back on her own problems.

"Why would you tell her those things Matt?"

"Caroline I-"

"You don't understand do you?" he looked at her dumbstruck but now she was upset, she was angry at him and her mother, the two people she truly cared about, she'd never lay a hand on them, even now, she couldn't hurt them, couldn't even picture doing such a thing. And they had betrayed her. Conspired against her and her friends when all she'd ever done was try to protect them and this town. "All we have ever done is protect this place. I told you that, I told you everything, I trusted you. When she tells the rest of the council they'll come after us. They'll hunt us down and they'll kill us, Tyler and Elena too. Bonnie will probably be killed for being a witch and who knows what they'll do to Jeremy and Ric for helping us." She said in an exasperated breath shaking her head, truly scared of what might happen for the first time.

"Come on they wouldn't do that!"

"They would Matt, god how can you be so stupid!" She stood up to look him in the eye angrily and felt Tyler put a hand on her forearm to stand in between them, she wouldn't hurt Matt, not now and not ever but she felt relieved at Tyler's presence.

"She's right Matt, the council has been around for over two centuries, they'll kill us without considering what our motives were. They won't listen to us because they believe we're some kind of monsters who only imitate the people we used to be and we lie to get our way." Caroline couldn't believe how steady Tyler's voice was, they had been best friends since they were babies and now his best friend had sold them all out to the council. She felt beyond betrayed she felt broken and it wasn't all Matt's fault but she thought she could have at least trusted him. She had thought that he would at least come to her, confront her or something before he did something stupid. She slumped back down in the couch and felt the sobs returning to her as she felt how hurt she was, all the sacrifices they'd made, the hurt they'd gone through, the things that she'd done to keep Matt safe all seemed so worthless now. She wanted to crawl away somewhere and hide, the relationships she had, the friendships, they couldn't be worth all this, all the pain and the betrayal, the secrecy and death. It wasn't worth it.

Tyler spoke to Matt in low undertones and Caroline couldn't hear them anymore, she was lost in the fact that she was alone, Bonnie might die, Damon was dying, she didn't know where Stefan was and Tyler would probably leave the first chance he got. And her own mother hated her, even Matt who she thought loved her had hurt her so bad, she didn't think it could ever be fixed. She felt completely and utterly alone and scared for the first time in her life Caroline Forbes had no plan at all.

She sunk into the armchair she was sitting in and brought her legs up to her chest, sobbing into her knees and praying that she could just fall asleep and go somewhere else. It was entirely childish and impossible but she was seventeen for Christ's sake, she shouldn't be a vampire, she shouldn't have to fight to survive, she shouldn't have to watch her friends dying. Her life shouldn't hang by a thread on the condition that their truth be kept a secret.

"Caroline?" Tyler's voice rang out above her cries, his hands appeared on her knees as he tried to pry her out of her little shell. She couldn't stop crying though and she didn't want to come out from her little shelter but Tyler was exceptionally strong as he unfolded her gently."Caroline please look at me." His voice was so steady, he was being so sincere but Caroline didn't feel soothed because she knew he would want to leave soon. He wouldn't stay here, he would up and disappear again, like he had the last time. Caroline finally looked up at him when he placed a hand on each side of her cheeks and she found him looking at her big honest brown eyes staring back at her with a searching look and Caroline suddenly found herself laughing. She was so upset that she was desperate for something to make her laugh and it took Tyler by surprise clearly since he was chuckling nervously looking at her for a reason to the laughter. "You alright?"

"Puppy eyes." She said between another fit of giggles as she let him pull her out of the armchair and hold her in his arms. He laughed then too but he was confused.

"What?"

"You do that look, the big puppy eyes." her laughter died down a bit again as she hugged him back and took in the smell of him, that warm heady scent that right now made her want to cry. He made her feel safe and it wasn't fair because he would leave her and hurt her all over again. She felt the tears come back to her, she didn't want him to leave, she'd missed him so much, she'd been hurt more than she'd even realized when he'd just left without saying goodbye. He would break her heart if he did that again.

"Are you okay Caroline?" He whispered into her neck and Caroline shook her head, clinging to him as if she could keep him here just by holding on. Everyone and anyone who knew what she really was, either died or hated her for it. And it was too much to bare, she couldn't be like Damon, she couldn't just turn off a switch and spend forever alone. She cried again and shook her head.

"It's not fair." she knew she sounded like a child, but she didn't care, Tyler moved back just far enough so he could look into her eyes, Caroline rested her hands against his chest, her fingers lingering over his collarbone. "Everyone's dying and hurt. And my mom-" The feeling that she'd lost her mom wouldn't leave her, and it hurt more than anything in the world. Her mother hated her, hated what she was. She hated her so much that she'd used Matt against her and her friends. "What am I supposed to do now?" She asked Tyler because she didn't know who else to ask. She had no one else, suddenly it didn't matter if he was leaving again, she had him for now, he was here for her now.

"We'll figure it out." She shook her head at that.

"What am I going to do when you leave again?" She couldn't believe that she'd actually said the words but they were true, she missed him. He understood her probably better than anyone else, if Tyler's mother knew what he really was she would probably react in a similar way as her mother. It was part of the reason he'd left she figured.

"Caroline. I'm not going anywhere." He was being completely serious, he wasn't lying and Caroline suddenly felt herself relax, as if he had physically taken some of the weight onto himself. She cried again, feeling luckier this time, she was just a huge mess tonight but she felt she kind of had a right to be. "I promise I won't leave you again." She was slightly surprised at how he'd decided to phrase that but she'd never felt more grateful when she looked up at him again and he smiled at her, putting a hand to her cheek she closed her eyes at the warmth.

She leaned in and kissed him lightly on the edge of his lips, lingering, slightly unsure of what she'd just done. It felt so right though, and when Tyler turned his head he captured her lips in his and pulled her closer to him, suddenly making her feel better than she had in ages. His strong arms enveloped her as he kissed her sweetly and made her feel safe once again, and Caroline believed him when he said they would figure it out. Together.

*sigh* This was difficult to write, mainly because the complex relationship between Tyler and Caroline reminds me a lot of me and a 'friend' of mine... minus the whole vampire/werewolf thing ;)

I've actually become a big fan of the whole Caroline-Tyler thing on the show, I think they would make a very sweet, if not very complicated couple... Anyway in the next chapter I shall address Damon and his predicament with Elena again... I'm not entirely sure where this is going, because originally it was meant to be written as a oneshot for Damon and Elena, instead it has turned into... well... this...

Reviews and suggestions are more than welcome :) I really enjoy reading your opinions, so thank you for the ones I have already received, I hope you enjoyed this.

Title for this chapter is from Are You Alright by Lucinda Williams. It seemed fitting for Caroline and Tyler...