Many thanks for all the reviews, I do love them! And of course reviewers get teasers of the next chapter (and some idea of when the next chapter will be up, though I am trying to stick to roughly weekly).

As always, many thanks to Stephenie Meyers for letting us play, and to MeSh17 for her advice. I've deleted even more commas since she read it and added in new sentences, so any mistakes are mine.


Chapter Nine – Developments & Conclusions

The morning passed slowly at school. Jess had stopped pestering her about Jasper, since he'd made no effort to speak to her outside of class since Monday.

Now she was full of her plans to get a group together for a movie in Port Angeles on the weekend. Bella made half-hearted sounds of approval.

She was just so tired, only managing a few hours of sleep each night. But at the same time, maybe a movie would be a good way to distract herself. She was dreading her Papa's friend coming back and what that might mean for her nineteenth century self.

Honestly, she thought she might just force herself to stay awake all weekend. But she knew that even if she did that, when she did fall asleep again all the memories would be there, almost as though she'd lived them. So what was the point of putting herself through the misery of sleep deprivation as well?

Maybe a better idea would be to make an appointment to see a doctor to get some sleeping pills. She'd heard they stopped you from dreaming. She'd have to come up with some excuse though, and she was a terrible liar. But she couldn't exactly tell the truth.

If only Jasper would come home and speak to her father. The newspapers said the Battle of Galveston was a complete victory, so surely he would be able visit again soon? He hadn't had furlough in over a year—that one night on the way back to Galveston surely didn't count.

The Cullen's usual table was still empty when she got to the cafeteria, so after grabbing some fries and a bottle of water—she really wasn't very hungry, but the hot fries seemed appealing for once—she positioned herself with a view of the door, so she'd see him come in.

She listened with half an ear as Jessica drew more kids into her movie plan, somehow managing to get Mike to agree to pick her up. He had access to his parents' minivan so it was logical for him to drive, but when he turned to Bella and asked if she'd like him to pick her up too, she could feel Jessica's displeasure. She was sitting between Mike and Jessica, which she knew was through Mike's manoeuvring, and wondered how she could easily discourage him.

"Um," she began, "I, uh, I'll have to check with my dad," she said, "I'm not sure if he has plans tomorrow."

"Okay—" Mike began.

"I'll let you know in the morning, okay, Jess?" she said, turning towards the girl, not wanting to give Mike an opening to give her his phone number.

"Sure," Jess said, relatively happy again.

"Okay," Mike said again, getting up. "I have to get a book from the library. I'll see you in bio, Bella."

Alice walked in just then, and Bella was disappointed to see that she was alone. Glancing over to the Cullen table, she saw that it was still empty. Maybe Jasper was in the library, she thought, or delayed talking to a teacher.

When Alice made a beeline for their table and asked to sit next to her, Bella was almost too surprised to respond. Not that it would have mattered, she reflected. Alice was sitting down before she'd finished speaking. She was like a whirlwind.

"So," Bella began, "your brothers— I mean, uh, Edward and Jasper?" She stuttered out, flushing as she wondered whether Alice was offended by hearing Edward referred to as her brother. "Are they not having lunch?"

"Nah, they're not here," Alice said, causing Bella's heart to sink. "They're camping again this weekend."

"Oh," she said, stupidly. "They must be keen campers."

"Oh, they are," Alice laughed, a tinkling sound that made Bella want to sigh in pleasure despite her sadness.

She's so beautiful when she smiles, Bella thought. Even more so than usual. And those eyes! They were the same gorgeous colour as Jasper's. Funny, she could have sworn they were much darker when she first saw her last week. Must have been the light or something.

"Jasper asked me if I could get your notes from biology though," she added, distracting Bella from her thoughts.

"Oh sure, of course," she replied. "I can meet you after school if you'd like? Do you want to just photograph them? And I'll pick up copies of any handouts for him too."

"That'd be great, but I have to rush off after school," Alice said. "Could I come by your place tomorrow morning?"

"Sure thing. What time?"

"Whatever suits you. I've got no other plans."

"How's around ten then? Or later is fine if that's too early."

"No, that's great. Here," she said, thrusting her phone at Bella, "can you put your address and phone in my contacts? That way I can call if anything comes up."

"Of course, good idea," Bella said.

"And give me your phone, and I'll put myself in there," Alice added.

By the time they'd swapped phones back, the bell was ringing for class. Alice jumped up and grabbed her tray, tossing a "see you tomorrow" over her shoulder as she pitched the contents of the tray into the garbage and left the cafeteria.

I don't even think she ate anything, Bella thought as she slowly took her own tray to dispose of her leftover fries. They hadn't been as nice as they'd smelled.

"First Jasper Hale, then Alice Cullen!" Jessica exclaimed behind her. "Are you secretly friends with the whole family or something?"

"No," Bella denied. "Aside from when Jasper introduced us on Monday, I'd never even spoken to Alice before. I guess she just wanted to make sure she could get my bio notes for her brother."

"Maybe," Jess agreed doubtfully, "but Bella, in the three years they've been at this school, I've never seen Alice sit with anyone outside her family. Never."

"That's weird then," Bella agreed. Privately, though, she thought about the snarky comments Jess had made about Alice and Edward dating, on Bella's first day, and wondered if that was indicative of the reception the Cullens had received when they moved here—if they'd been rejected, however subtly, for being different, and simply found it easier to stick together.

Maybe, because she was new too, they found Bella less intimidating. Not that she could imagine any one of them being intimidated by anything, she thought, especially not by any of the kids at Forks High.

.

.

Driving at the speed limit, it would take about 38 hours to get from Forks to Houston. Jasper and Edward made it in 26 hours, even with a short stop at Peter and Charlotte's. It was still slow enough to frustrate Jasper, but if they'd run they would have had to take too many detours, avoiding populated areas.

Besides, they would certainly need the heavily tinted windows of Carlisle's Mercedes if they were to get around Texas in the daytime, though Alice had assured them Saturday would be overcast in Houston.

Luckily, Peter had been able to tell them to focus on his sister's journals, so hopefully it wouldn't take long.

"I don' know what it is y'all are lookin' for," Peter said, "And I don't know if you're gonna to find it. But there's somethin' in those journals you need to know. Only…"

"What?" Jasper had barked at him, impatiently.

"Well, I don't think you're gonna to like it much. And another thing—" Peter frowned at them and it was all Jasper could do to restrain his growl. "I don't think you're gonna find them where you think you are, so you'd better git goin', or you aren't gittin' back in time."

"In time for what?" Jasper did growl now, but Peter was unable to be any more specific.

In fact, their primary destination was a library archive in Liberty, a town an hour outside of Houston, which housed archives covering a wide range of south-eastern Texas history. Among them were the historical papers of the Davis family, which included journals and letters of a Mrs Mary Davis, nee Whitlock.

They arrived at the library just as it opened, and quickly made themselves at home, only to discover that the particular journals they wanted—and their matching microfiche records— were on tour.

"I'm very sorry, those journals are part of a civil war era exhibition in Austin at the moment," the librarian, whose name tag read "Audrey Rodriguez", told them. "We do have lots of other interesting material from that family though, including some later journals and letters of Mary Davis. I can let you have a look at the microfiche copies of those if you like."

"Actually, Ms Rodriquez, it's the civil war period we were mainly interested in," Jasper told her, "as well as her original family—the Whitlocks, right?"

"That's right, Whitlock was her maiden name, but I'm afraid we don't have much more information from that family. Her brother, Jasper Whitlock, was a Major in the confederate army, but he died during the war. There is some material on his life in the exhibition, but of course it is also currently in Austin."

"Of course." Jasper sighed. He turned away and spoke to Edward at a speed and level that was inaudible to human ears. "Should we have a quick look at the later journals while we're here, do you think?"

"I don't really see the point, do you?" Edward asked. "There's unlikely to be anything directly related to the time period we're interested in, and Peter said we wouldn't find the journals we needed here."

"True. And there's really nothing quick about studying microfiche, even at vampire speed."

"No. Maybe this is why Alice hasn't been able to see the outcome of this search. Let's just see what we can find about the Williams and Johnsons families, and then head to Austin."

They spent the next two hours going through many records, from births, deaths and marriages to private papers and letters. Both the Johnson and Williams families had been wealthy and relatively powerful before the war, but both had drastically reduced positions in the post-war years and not a great deal of their papers had been preserved.

However, they quickly found the record of Isabella Williams' birth, on September 18, 1844.

It was Jasper who discovered her marriage to Robert Johnson on January 22nd, 1863. He accidently crushed the corner of the table when he saw the entry.

"If he wasn't already dead, I would kill him!" Jasper growled in fury. "And her father with him! There's no way she married him willingly. No way."

"Hey," Edward said in what was obviously supposed to be a soothing tone, "it was a long time ago Jazz. And you were gone. She had to move on."

"She wouldn't have! Not by choice. Not that quickly."

"Are you remembering something else then?"

"No," Jasper leaned over and put his head in his hands. "Not really." His voice was muffled, but he knew Edward could hear him. I don't really remember, he thought to him, I just—I feel. I feel protective of her. I feel—I want to kill the man who touched her. Even more, because I am sure, completely sure, she was married to him against her will. But even if she wasn't, I would still want to kill him.

"Shall we get out of here?" He could feel Edward's concern for him, but he wasn't ready to leave yet.

I just want to look a bit more. To see if…

"You want to know if she had children."

"Yes."

"Do you think—are you thinking that Bella Swan might be a descendent?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know." Jasper sat up and stared unseeing at the screen. "Not really, I guess. I mean, that wouldn't make any more sense than anything else. Being a descendent wouldn't give her those memories. But Edward, she just looks so much like her."

"She looks exactly like her, from that one memory you had," Edward said. "Unless…"

When Edward went silent, Jasper turned to look at him. "Unless what?" he finally asked, impatient to keep working.

"Unless— Jazz, we had thought there could be a vampire with a special skill, who had somehow planted the memories she has."

"We had, but then when we saw how they matched with my memories, I thought we discounted that idea."

"But what if your memories were planted too?"

"What?! Edward, that's impossible."

"Is it?"

"Yes! You know it is. How would that happen? We haven't had any nomads come through Forks in months, and if they had some kind of plan like that, you would have read it in their thoughts."

"Maybe. But what if they ran into you when you were out hunting. What if they had some way of masking themselves, and you never knew they were there?"

"Edward. Have you ever heard of Ockham's razor?"

"Of course—the simplest answer is often the best one. To paraphrase."

"Exactly."

"So what's the simplest answer then?"

"I don't know! Reincarnation? Into a body that looks identical to her previous one?" Jasper growled in frustration again. "Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure your explanation is not it."

"Okay, let's just see what else we can find, and get to Austin before the library there closes for the day."

It was not a minute later that Jasper let out a growl of anguish and ran from the library. He knew he was being less than discreet and could feel Edward's concern, but he had to get out. He had to run.

She had died. Isabella had died, and he hadn't been there for her. Only 22 days after her marriage, she was dead. He howled, and ran, faster than human eyes could track him. He didn't know where he was going, he just had to run.


A/N

Poor Jasper. He doesn't even remember who she is, really, and yet he's totally devastated. What do you think this will mean for when he sees Bella Swan again?

This chapter published 8 May 2018, 6ish pm (Aussie time). 2324 words.

Recs. Just one this week. I am behind schedule on everything!

WIP: Whitlock's Swan by DC Nixon s/12868255/1/Whitlock-s-Swan, – this is a Jasper/Bella WIP. DC Nixon has written some others that are complete though. I have to admit I skimmed the first few chapters of this (they were a bit traumatic!), but once I got sucked in well, there I was. Now I have to wait for the next chapter like everyone else, LOL.

This Jasper is very different to mine, and actually so is Bella, but still fun to read.

Summary: Bella moves to Forks to get away from one controlling vamp and ends up running into a whole coven. The Cullen kids have branched off from their father and Alice is running the show. They are ruthless, they are vindictive and they want Bella as their pet. What happens when Jasper realizes they have his Swan? - Jasper/Bella

(January 2020 - as I type it's been months since I updated, but if you are reading this now, just so you know, I am still working on it, and plan to start publishing again when I have the rest all completed. It's not abandoned.)