Title: Dirty Little Secret

Chapter: 3

Summary: Caroline Forbes is a lot of things. Neurotic, controlling and insecure being top of the list, but one thing she is not is stupid. So she knows that something is seriously up with childhood friend (and occasional enemy) Tyler Lockwood. She's determine to figure out why all the sudden he's acting as if he's seen a ghost and why he looks at her all the time with a heat she doesn't understand. As she digs deeper, she finds out about a whole new world she didn't know existed and- despite her lack of knowledge- how she's part of it. Mostly AU.

Author's Note: Again, thank you for all the reviews! Some of you are just too smart for your own good and are totally catching onto my plan. So this chapter has actual Tyler-Caroline interaction! Enjooooooy!

"I've got it! I'm calling!" someone yelled, mere seconds after Tyler stepped out of the woods, carrying a more than hurt Cody Abrams. It was a scene straight out of a horror movie. Never had Caroline ever seen so much blood come from one person outside of a TV show or movie. How did people even hold that much blood inside them? It seemed impossible that that much liquid could be held in one person without them bursting from the fullness and pressure.

Tyler carried Cody to the picnic table and laid him down on it. Caroline gaped at his strength. Cody was in no way a little guy. His muscles were almost as impressive as Tyler's and Caroline knew he had to be heavy. Maybe Tyler was having some kind of adrenaline rush. The same adrenaline rush that allowed mother's to pick up cars off their kids. She'd heard that somewhere.

She felt like this wasn't really happening. Like she was in one of those dreams that felt so impossibly real, and then seconds before you wake up you realize that it was in fact a dream and in that second everything changes. A dream of love suddenly doesn't feel so warm and happy anymore and a dream of horror is no longer scary. The pulsing fear that had been inside you, eating you and holding you in a paralyzing grip suddenly was gone, replaced with amusement and curiosity, because after all, dreams can't hurt you. Dreams were just projections of your subconscious. They were random and uncontrollable and not real. She was waiting for that moment where her mind said, "Okay! This is all just a dream! Wake up now, sleepy head!" But the moment wasn't coming. It was just like the dream she had earlier, only this time, it was reality.

"Someone get me a blanket or something!" Tyler yelled, frantically looking around for something to press against Cody to stop the bleeding. Caroline couldn't even tell where the wound was. There was too much blood. It was everywhere.

She was completely frozen. Who could have done something like that to him? What could have done something like that? Was there someone out in the woods, insane and blood thirsty, or was it something else? What else could it even be? Questions floated through her head and she didn't have enough time to think about one before another one popped up.

"Here! I've got a blanket!" Stefan yelled, suddenly holding a blanket in his hands. He must have grabbed it off of a tree or something. It was early October and it was starting to get a little cold- especially at night- so some people would bring out blankets for parties and hang them on a certain tree, so they'd know where it was when it was needed. He ran to Tyler and handed it to him. Tyler balled up the blanket and pressed it against Cody's chest. The sound of Stefan's voice unfroze her and she began running toward them as everyone else seemed to be backing away.

"I need something else!" Tyler yelled and as Caroline got closer, she saw a gash on the side of Cody's neck, which blood was pouring from in what looked to be like gallons. Of course, it wasn't because he would be dead but it still looked like it. The gash wasn't on the side of his neck with his jugular, which surprised her. That much blood was pouring out of him and his jugular wasn't even cut?

With an almost audible click, Caroline's mind entered back into her head and adrenaline began pumping in her veins. "Someone give me their jacket!" she yelled. Her jacket was leather and she didn't think that would do the trick.

Someone handed her a thick, cotton jacket and she pressed it to Cody's neck, surprising herself. Who knew she would be the one that would try to save someone's life? Certainly not her. She always thought she would be the person that watched, frozen in terror while someone else saved the person's life.

"They're on their way," a blonde headed, short girl said, cell phone still in hand. Her eyes were wide as golf balls as she took in the scene in front of her.

People in Mystic Falls (or most other places outside of war zones) didn't see things like this everyday. Things like this just didn't happen. Mystic Falls was small and happy and safe. It wasn't a war zone where brutally ravished bodies were as common as crickets in the middle of the night or lighting bugs at the first signs of dusk.

"I don't think he's going to make it," Stefan said, looking Cody from top to bottom. "He's losing too much blood."

"Don't say that!" Caroline said, her voice going up an octave with distress. She pushed the jacket a little more against his neck. Cody was not going to die. He wasn't. He couldn't just die! Just a few hours ago they were going at it in Mr. Tanner's class. He couldn't be here one minute and just leave the next! A voice in her head told her, that yeah, he actually could but she silenced it. No, Cody was not going to die.

"What the hell happened out there Tyler?" Stefan asked, looking at the blood covered boy.

Tyler was still looking down at Cody so she couldn't see what his exact facial expression was. She thought she saw fear, which was understandable- she was terrified-, but she couldn't tell for sure. Tyler had never been one for sharing emotions, but she thought this was an exception to that whole macho, pride mask he put on.

"I don't know," Tyler said, shaking his head slightly. "I went out in the woods and found him like this."

"Why did you go out into the woods?" Caroline asked, remembering how he had cocked his head to the side like he had heard something. Was it possible that he had heard something? Something that could have alerted him? It would be a reasonable explanation but she hadn't heard anything and she had been standing two feet away from him. How had he heard something and she hadn't?

"I heard screaming," Tyler said, confirming her suspicion.

Caroline looked up at him, her eyes wide. They widened even more when she saw that he was staring right back at her. They stayed like that for what felt like a long time, her blue eyes boring into his brown ones. She didn't know exactly how long it was (probably just a few minutes) but not once did their staring break as they desperately tried to save their classmate's life. And even in the middle of all this chaos, Caroline knew one thing. And that was something was seriously up with Tyler Lockwood and she was going to find out, no matter what.

Cody was alive. At least, he had been when they put him into the ambulance. EMS had arrived just a few minutes after they had been called and as soon as they saw Cody, they started talking in technical words and short phrases that made no sense to her, but she guessed it was some kind of EMS language, purposely shortened so that they spent less time talking and more time saving people's lives. They had instantly told them to back away and they took over. They put an oxygen mask over his mouth and began doing things so quickly Caroline couldn't even keep up, let alone understand. And then they had him strapped to a gurney and were putting him into the ambulance.

A lot of people had bailed as soon as they saw Cody, scared or freaked or something, and even more people bailed when 911 was called. If 911 was called, that meant the fire station, police department and the hospital were alerted. It was no secret there was alcohol and Caroline assumed no one wanted to get busted for underage drinking. That made her fume. It was like, hello! Someone is dying- someone you know - and you're worried about getting in trouble for drinking? Her mom was the Sheriff and she wasn't leaving.

She was sitting down at a table with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. An EMS woman had given one to her, Tyler and Stefan. She told them that they had kept Cody alive long enough for them to try and save him. She disappeared then and Caroline hadn't seen her since.

There were a quite a few cop cars- one being her mom's- and an ambulance. God only knows who else had been out in the woods that night and because this wasn't a formal party where people signed their names upon entering, there was no way telling who just went home and who was out in the woods, if anyone. That thought scared her. Was there someone else out in the woods, bleeding and dying? Unable to call out for help?

The twenty or thirty kids who had stuck around instead of leaving were told to stay here for questioning. They were all gathered near the remains of the church and there were police officers everywhere, surrounding them. The flashing of blue and red lights felt more intimidating than comforting, and she couldn't help but feel scared. Whoever or whatever had done that to Cody was still out in the woods, roaming free.

That thought made Caroline shiver again.

"Are you cold?" someone asked.

She jumped and turned to see Tyler sitting down beside her. She couldn't muster up enough energy to be annoyed by his presence or any other emotion for that matter. She felt kind of numb, like she was in shock or something. All the adrenaline she had had just a few minutes ago was completely gone and she felt like she would fall over if it wasn't for the fact that she was sitting down.

"No," she said, shaking her head and ignoring the blood that was still on Tyler. Tyler had taken off his blood soaked shirt when the EMS woman handed him a blanket, but there was still a thin layer of blood coating his arms and legs and chests. There weren't enough wet naps in all of Mystic Falls to effectively get off all that blood. "Just… I don't know."

"Yeah," he said, looking down at his hands in disgust. "Me too."

"What the hell could have even done that?" Caroline asked, intensely.

"I don't know," Tyler said, his eyebrows knitting together over his dark brown eyes.

"Do you think it was a person?"

He sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. "Maybe," he said, running a hand over his short hair.

"But that was brutal. His chest and neck were torn to hell. What kind of person would do that?" Caroline asked, desperately wanting to believe that it hadn't been a person and it had been an animal. It was scary to think that a person could be capable of something like that. The world somehow seemed a shade darker. If a human being was capable of doing that to another human being… she shuddered delicately.

"I don't know, Care," Tyler said, opening his eyes. They were too calm. She wondered if he was just as numb as she was.

"Are you okay?" she asked, feeling a bit awkward. Tyler wasn't one to talk about feelings and she wasn't either, not really. Not with people she wasn't very, very close to.

He looked down at the ground and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Because its okay not to be," she said, feeling herself blush. Good god she never thought she'd be having this kind of conversation with Tyler Lockwood. Then again, she never thought she'd see Cody with his skin ripped and half dead. "Because that was… scary."

"Yeah."

"Do you think that he's going to be okay?" Caroline whispered. She wasn't sure if he would be able to hear her, but she couldn't make her voice any louder.

"I'm not sure," he said, looking up at her. This time was different though. It didn't have so much… oh, what was the word she as looking for? Not passion, exactly. More like… heat. Yeah, heat, that's the word. This time when he looked her over, there wasn't so much heat behind it. It was more so curiosity, like she was someone strange and mysterious and not the girl he'd known his entire life. Why are you looking at me like that? She wanted to yell, but didn't. She'd known Tyler long enough to know that he wasn't someone who just laid everything out on the table. He kept things in.

So instead of yelling and demanding to know what was going on with him and causing a huge scene, she simply looked down at her lap and tried not to seem as curious as she felt. "What's going on with you, Ty?" she asked, using his nickname in the vain hope that if he heard it he'd feel more comfortable; therefore, he would tell her more than he would if he didn't feel comfortable.

"What do you mean?" he asked. Something about the way he said it, and how he averted his eyes made her think he knew exactly what she meant.

"You know what I mean, Tyler," she said, firmly, though not bitchy. That certainly wouldn't get her anywhere.

"No I don't," he said, an edge of defensiveness in his voice.

"Look," she said, taking a deep breath to keep from yelling at him. "I know that you've been having a rough time lately and you're-"

"Look, Caroline," he said, "I've always been fucked up. You know that better than anymore. The last months… its just been icing on the cake."

That wasn't entirely true. When they were in kindergarten Tyler had thrown a frog on Caroline and told her to eat it. She replied by jumping up, smacking him right across the face and stomping away with Elena and Bonnie by her side, their five year old arms crossed across their five year old chests. And there were so many other pranks he had pulled, but still, that wasn't what she meant. So yes, the pranks sucked but he was just being a dick when he did that stuff.

She shook her head. "Its more than that, Ty. You're different. And I can't figure out what it is."

"Why do you care?" he asked, not exactly irritated but not just simply curious either.

She stared at him, tongue tied. Not once had she thought about it. Why did she care exactly? It wasn't like they were best friends. They were hardly friends at all. She could say it was because she cared about people, but that wasn't the full truth. Sure, she cared about her friends, but like she had just stated, she and Tyler weren't really friends. Maybe it was just because she was nosy. She had no idea why she cared so much, but she did.

She was saved from having to respond because she saw Matt walking up to them from the corner of her eyes. She broke her staring with Tyler and tried to compose her face by the time Matt approached them.

"Hey," he said, quietly.

"Hey," she said, her voice breaking. Tyler simply nodded, acknowledging his presence before standing up and walking away, not saying a word and not looking back.

Matt and Caroline both watched him go. "He okay?" Matt asked, sitting down beside her.

"I don't think so," she said, honestly, "But Tyler is Tyler and he'll never admit it." A thought occurred to her and she could have smacked herself in her head for not thinking of it sooner. "Maybe you should talk to him," she said. "I mean, he is your best friend."

Matt looked hesitant. "I could try, but like you said, Tyler is Tyler and he isn't the kind of person who will spill his guts."

She sighed. That was true.

He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close into the crook of his side. It didn't feel as warm and comforting as it usually did, but she'd freak out about that later. "Are you okay?" he asked, squeezing her slightly.

"I don't know," she said.

"Look, Care… I'm sorry."

She looked up. His face looked guilty. "For what?" she asked, confused.

"When Tyler came out carrying Cody… I froze," he admitted, looking ashamed. "I didn't try to help or anything."

"So? Everyone was scared, Matt. That's not something to apologize for."

"I know," he said, his cheeks turning slightly pink. "Its just that, I should have helped you, Stefan and Tyler instead of watching."

She sighed and leaned her head against his chest. "You didn't leave. That's enough."

He didn't say anything, so they sat like that: his arms wrapped around her, her head against his chest in the silence. It seemed like a very long time before a short, stocky cop with a buzz cut and beady eyes came up to them.

"Miss Forbes?" he asked, his voice deep.

"Yeah?"

"I need to ask a few question if you don't mind," he said, in a very "I'm only saying that so you feel more comfortable" more so than a "If you don't want to, I understand" kind of way.

"Yeah, okay," she said, and untangled herself from Matt. She wrapped the blanket more tightly around her shoulders and followed the man. When they were a few yards away from everyone else, he stopped and turned toward her.

"Would you please tell me everything that happened," he said, notebook out and pen poised. It was something straight out of the movies.

"Everyone was just hanging out when Tyler came out of the woods half carrying, half dragging Cody Abram, who was unconscious and covered in blood. He laid him down on the picnic table and then we tried to stop the bleeding."

"And why was Tyler in the woods?" he asked, not looking up from the notebook.

"He said he heard screaming," she said, "But you'd have to talk to him to get those details."

"And you were with him with he heard Cody screaming?"

"Yes."

"Did you hear him screaming too?" he asked, looking up at her.

"No," she said.

"But you were with Tyler when he claimed he heard it?"

She stared at him. It was easy to see where he was going. He was trying to say that Tyler had been lying. It was weird that she hadn't heard Cody screaming like Tyler had when they were together, but that didn't mean Tyler was lying per se. "Yeah, but I wasn't really paying attention to anything but Tyler," she said, defending him. Tyler hadn't done anything to Cody. That wasn't him.

"And why were you two together?

Now she was just plain confused. Where was he going with this? "We were… talking." She really didn't want to explain the creepy staring to this guy. That was between her and Tyler. Not her, Tyler and the police department.

He raised an eyebrow, hearing her hesitation. "About what?"

She resisted the urge to scoff at him. This was so not his business and it had nothing to do with Cody getting attacked! "Stupid teenage stuff," she said. "I thought he was flirting with me and I wanted to clear it up because I'm his best friend's girlfriend." Okay, so that wasn't one hundred percent true but she had a feeling that if she told this man the truth, he'd take it in a different way and suspect Tyler of something. She didn't want Tyler to get into trouble, and especially not because of her.

"Were you two arguing?"

"No, we were just talking."

"Did he get angry at your accusations?"

"No," Caroline said. "I never got around to the accusing."

"And why is that?"

Oh, good grief! "Because that's when he heard Cody screaming, so he left and went into the woods."

"Miss Forbes, does Mr. Lockwood have a temper?"

She hesitated. She didn't want to lie, but she didn't want to push Tyler in a hole. "Kind of," she said, slowly. "But I don't know anyone who doesn't."

"Does he have a history of violence?"

Damn it. "Yes," she said, honestly, "The occasional fights ands arguments, but-" She paused and looked at his name badge "-look, Officer Baker, Tyler isn't a bad person. He's hot tempered but he would never actually hurt someone."

"You said he got into fights," he pointed out. "Fighting hurts people."

"Yeah, but he'd never do something to anyone like what happened to Cody," she said, firmly.

"I never accused Tyler of attacking Cody."

Unbelievable. Un-freaking-believable. "Not directly," she argued. "But your questions seem to be pointing that way."

"Miss Forbes, I'm just trying to get the full story," he said.

"Well, you have it," she snapped. "Tyler and I were talking, Tyler left because he heard screaming, a minute or two later, he came out of two woods with Cody. He laid him on the table and we tried to stop the bleeding. That's it."

He wrote something down but didn't acknowledge her. Instead he asked, "Is there anyone you know of that has a specific problem with Cody? A grudge, or some reason why they would want to hurt him?"

She swallowed. That meant whatever had attacked Cody was a person, right? Why else would he ask a question like that? "A lot of people don't like Cody," Caroline said. "He's hard to get along with."

"Do you get along with him?"

She shook her head. "No."

"But you can't think of one person that has a problem with him more so than anyone else?

She thought about that for a few seconds. She wasn't lying when she said a lot of people didn't like Cody, but it wasn't like he had ever done anything really, really, death worthy to someone. He was mostly just an obnoxious jerk. "No," she said, shaking her head.

"I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be one hundred percent honest," he said, looking at her seriously.

"Okay," she said.

"Was there alcohol here?" he asked, though from the sound of his voice she assumed he already knew the answer to that. No point in lying.

"Yes."

"Do you think Cody was drinking?"

"Probably," she said. "Cody loves partying."

He scribbled that down and closed his notebook. "I think that's all, Miss Forbes. Thank you for your cooperation."

He began walking away but she said, "Wait!"

He turned to look at her and she took a step forward. "Was it a person that did that to Cody?" she asked, swallowing.

He cocked his head to the side. "What else could it be Miss Forbes?"

"An animal maybe," she said. "I saw Cody up close and it looked more like an animal attack."

"Thank you for your time, but I can't share details of the investigation," he said, and with that, he was gone.

An hour later she finally arrived at home. Not too long after being questioned, her mom told her to get in the car and she was taking her home. She argued that Elena and Bonnie could give her a ride, but she said no. So she got into the police car and listened to her mom lecture her about underage drinking and responsibility. She ignored her and instead looked at the window, watching the trees and buildings pass by in a blur of color.

She opened up the door and gathered all of her things before slamming the door and heading up to the front door. She fumbled in her purse for her keys and finally found them. She unlocked the door and stomped inside, just wanting to go stairs and take a shower.

"Caroline, wait," Liz said from the doorway. She planned on going back to the scene as soon as she dropped Caroline off so she wasn't coming in.

"What?" she asked, tiredly. She was already half way up the stairs and she contemplated running up the stairs, not wanting to listen anymore. She didn't though.

"I'm glad your okay," she said, surprising Caroline. "And I'm proud of you for helping save that boy's life, even if I'm not happy about the circumstances."

Caroline stared at her in disbelief. Her mom didn't say things like that to her. Caroline had always gotten the impression that her mom was kind of disappointed with her. Caroline was bubbling and girly, which Liz wasn't. She didn't understand Caroline's love of clothes and boys and cheerleading.

"Thanks, Mom," Caroline said, giving her a weak smile. It was all she could do.

Liz nodded before disappearing out the door.

Caroline stared at the door for a few seconds, a lump forming in her throat. She turned and walked up the stairs before the first tear fell.

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