A spell goes up so none of them can go back to Mystic Falls (except Matt) and they all scatter. Tyler tries to put his life together. He travels for a while, eventually goes back to school -- though not Whittemore. He tries to move on. He avoids Louisana, New Orleans, all of it. He's not going to chase after Klause anymore. He's not going to let him have that sort of power.

He wonders sometimes if anyone misses him. He and Matt text occasionally, but as the years pass on it becomes less and less. He doesn't really keep in touch with anyone else. He makes friends here and there, has a few flings, but he never truly connects. Maybe it's self preservation.

If you don't let someone close you can't lose them.

It's maybe fifty or so years before he runs into Caroline. He's up in New York for a gallery opening -- a few pieces he did under a pseudonym are being put up and he wants to see them. See how people react to them. What he doesn't expect to see is her.

In all this time Tyler hasn't loved anyone the way he loved Caroline. He's not sure he ever will. Back then, when he left, everything seemed too impossible to put back together. In the end they both chose Klaus -- just in very different ways. Still, it almost knocks the air out of his lungs to see her, and it aches in a way he can't quite describe.

It takes a moment for him to even find his voice.

"Caroline?"