The Desires of The Heart

History Repeats Itself

It took Jasper about a minute or two to recover from the shock of hearing Scarlette's nickname for him fall from Sophia's lips. He hasn't been called that in over a hundred years...how Sophia could possibly know that is a mystery.

When he finally realizes what's happened, he follows Sophia's lead down the stairs only to be met by the majority of his family, and no Sophia.

"Jasper? What happened?" Esme asks her voice laced with concern as she stands beside him.

"I–I don't know.. One minute I'm showing Sophia around, and she stumbles upon my old war metals." He thinks it through sitting on one of the nearby sofas.

"And then she....Oh." He suddenly stops as he remembers her finding the old picture of Scarlette and how the two look eerily identical.

"What is it Jazz?" Alice sits beside him, concerned for her dear friend.

"She found the picture of Scarlette."

~~~

Out of the shade of the forest, I finally am able to find my way home, my mind buzzing with so many things. I flinch as strange glimpses fill my head, ones of a Jasper I never knew in a time I wasn't even alive.

How is that even possible? A-and that picture of me..? I suddenly sit on a log, feeling like I'm gonna pass out from my head being jumbled with visions of the past, as well as now, with the Jasper I know.

"Sophia?" I hear a tinkling voice appear behind me causing me to jump.

"Alice? W-What are you doing here?" I run a hand over my face in exasperation as Alice takes a seat beside me.

"I wanted to make sure you're okay. You left rather quickly."

"Yeah...I'm sorry, I just..."

"Got overwhelmed?" Alice confirms softly, and I simply nod.

"Jasper is willing to explain, if you want to come back with me?" Alice offers as I eye her wearily, my mind still tumbling around at an impossible speed.

"Why didn't Jasper come find me?" I whisper, attempting to hide the hurt from the insightful vampire.

"He wasn't sure how you would react to seeing him. And honestly, he doesn't know I'm here, but I know how important you are to Jasper, and with all the things running through your head, I thought I'd check up on you."

Alice pats my hands gently, and I wonder how she knows that my mind is jumbled with the past and the present, but then I remember it's Alice and she probably saw this coming.

"Okay." I mutter softly, noticing how Alice reaches out a hand before I can even voice my decision.

"Alice...I don't even know how any of this could be possible..." I mutter as we make our way back to the hidden house.

"We don't know a lot either. Like I said, Jazz can explain the past, but as for right now...we're still looking into it."

"Wait, still?" I pause looking at Alice with an eyebrow raised. "How long have you all known about this?"

"We'll explain Sophia I swear, but Jasper wants to be the one to explain the majority of it to you first. It'll be easier to put together."

I nod and the two of us walk in silence the rest of the way to the house, my mind still blurring between now and then, and it's hard for me to make sense of anything. We approach the house and I stop outside taking a deep breath before Alice squeezes my hand gently. Walking inside, I feel that the mood of the house is different, more tense than when I left.

I come to a stop when I see Jasper has met us at the base of the stairs, and I've never seen him look so worried. "Will you take a walk with me?" He asks quietly extending a hand, which I take in mine, nodding.

We walk in silence out of the back door and into the surrounding woods, and I chew on my lip before turning to look at him in curiosity watching as his features shift from past to present in my mind, and I speak what's been burning this entire time.

"Okay, explain what happened back there." He smiles slightly with a hint of sadness, as he turns to me, grasping both of my hands in his cooler ones.

"We—I'm not exactly sure how this is all happening, but it would seem you're some sort of reincarnation of Scarlette Harris, the girl in the picture you found earlier."

"That would explain why she looked just like me, or I look like her...? But, I saw the two of you, us...together over a hundred years ago. How..." I question and he shakes his head before looking me in the eye.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. I did some research and usually reincarnations don't retain any of their memories of their old lives, but this hasn't happened very often so I don't have a lot to go off of. What exactly did you see?" What exactly did I see? I still can't believe this myself...

"I saw...us. When I picked up the medal, I saw you were in a grey uniform, and I was fixing the lapels of the jacket. You were reassuring me you'd come back. But I'm guessing you didn't, because when I looked at the picture of Scarlette, I was suddenly in a garden and I felt her/my sadness..." I glance at Jasper seeing the pain and sadness in his eyes and I realize my assumption is correct.

"I was speaking to Thomas, I think was his name... asserting my choice of not marrying because Mr. Whitlock was dead..?" I look up from our connected hands seeing surprise flooding Jasper's face, and I'm even more confused than I was earlier.

"That—that was my name before I met Carlisle and his family. Scarlette knew me as Jasper Whitlock, and Thomas was her doorman... How you could've remembered that, so completely, is impossible and her feelings—"

"Were mine. I felt that sadness as if it was my own heartbreak. I don't—impossible is the right word for all of this." I pull my hands from his, running them through my hair, still not understanding this, and it seems he's just as confused as I am.

"Hey," He gently grabs my hands from my hair, holding them again. "We'll figure this out, there's gotta be some instance of this happening before." He smiles slightly, and I begin to do the same before a pressing question comes to the forefront of my mind.

"Is that why you started talking to me? Because you thought I was your fiancée from a hundred years ago?" I was unable to keep the hurt from my voice, not knowing what will happen next with us, or even if there will be an us after this...

"No, Sophia. I'll admit that's what I thought when I first saw you in Carlisle's office, but when you didn't respond to Scarlette, I knew you weren't her, but I was intrigued to figure out how you could look so much like her... And I couldn't ignore the pull I had to you." He places his hands on my cheeks bringing my eyes up to his, and I see the truth of his words in his amber eyes.

"It was more than just you looking like Scarlette that drew me to you Sophia, and it's more than that causing me to stay and see where this goes. If you'll let me, of course."

He smiles crookedly and my doubt falls away as I return a small smile, knowing that I too have an indescribable pull to this vampire in front of me. Whether that be from our extensive history, or that fate decided to give us a second chance at things, I have feelings for this man and am prepared to do what I can to see this through.

"Of course, I'm not one to waste second chances."