Hi, friends! Sorry for the delay with this chapter. As I've mentioned, I was in the midst of finishing a semester of school so I was caught up in studying and freaking out and whatnot. But that's over now and I'm back, ready to get on schedule!

Before I leave you with the chapter, though, I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who has been reviewing. I'm glad so many of y'all are interested in and looking forward to this story! Your reviews make my day. Thank you, thank you for taking the time to leave them. Thank you also to everyone who has favorited and followed. And anyone who's here, reading this now. Thank you for taking time out of your day to check out my story. I hope you like chapter 3!

Chapter Three

Jasper

It was not often that I became flustered. My mind was always turning, strategies and reasoning and information and my surroundings flowing and processing all the time. Catching me off guard was a near impossible task.

But Carlisle's suggestion had me stumped.

"Her…friend?" I asked, incredulous. His words didn't sound like something that could be serious—but I knew from both his expression and his emotions that he was solemn. He wanted me to make friends with my singer.

"It's not as outlandish as you're imagining," Carlisle said calmly. "You're stronger than you think."

"And," Alice added, both careful and cheerful—because of course she was on board for this plan, "it'll help you improve. You're strong now, but you'll get so much better, Jazz, I've seen it."

For the most part when Alice said she'd seen something, we all took her word for it and trusted her advice. Now, though, I was all too aware of her margin for error. "It only takes a snap second of weakness for that vision to change."

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter."

My brow furrowed. "How could that not matter?"

Her lips twitched as she grew smug and I knew she was holding back a smirk. "Let's just say you're not the only one who's going to get attached to Bella Swan."

For my Alice, my patience could be endless. But for her riddles in this moment, I was nearing my limit. "Alice."

She giggled, in no way intimidated by my annoyance—of course she wouldn't be, I would never harm a hair on her head. "We have to let things play out naturally, and they won't do that if I go telling everyone all of the things before they even begin to happen. But I'll say that I'm going to adore her. She's going to be my best friend." Her eyes widened at me, shining in excitement.

Well, damn. "And you'll be devastated when I relapse and tear her throat out."

Again, Alice was not fazed even though my imagery was a tad gruesome. "Jasper. That won't happen."

Carlisle, who'd been silent through our little exchange, finally spoke up again. "But it is still a risk, and it is up to Jasper to decide. I've given a suggestion. Let's wait to hear if anyone else has another option, and then let Jasper weigh his options and decide."

Alice frowned. "No one has come up with anything good. They're just going to say we have to move."

"And Jasper may decide that relocating is necessary. It's up to him. He's the one who would have to struggle to stay here."

Alice shook her head but said nothing more. I hated to make her unhappy, but I was honest when I said she'd be devastated if I murdered her possible friend. A small bit of disappointment now in exchange for no heaps of pain later was not a bad way to go. Though the most ideal option would be for Alice to be happy all the time—but that would require me to actually be able to pull of Carlisle's suggestion. And while I'd have loved to have been able to commit to that, to say that my strength was great enough, I couldn't. Not with certainty.

"Well," Carlisle said, lifting a stack of papers and placing them inside a manilla folder, "I'll take this final bit of work home with me so we can go discuss with the others. I can finish this up later tonight."

Alice sighed. "Yes, the others will be arriving home shortly. They'll be impatient if we don't arrive soon."

Carlisle nodded. "Let's go, then."

We three rode home in Carlisle's Mercedes, Alice's toe tapping all the while. Her impatience was obvious, but unease sank into my bones the closer we got to home. Carlisle said we needed to hear what everyone had to say, but my intuition was telling me that it didn't matter where the discussion went—I was going to be spending time with Isabella Swan whether I liked it or not. Hopefully Alice's visions were as solid as her confidence indicated.

Edward

When we got home, Esme was the only one there. Rosalie huffed and sat on the couch, impatient to wait for the three missing members of our family to arrive. Esme looked at her in confusion, and Emmett grinned. "It's been a big day. Jasper almost—"

"Emmett, shut up," Rosalie hissed, rolling her eyes.

"No," Esme said. "What happened?"

"Emmett was going to colorfully describe how Jasper almost slipped up at school today," I explained calmly, sitting down on the bench in front of my piano. I wasn't quite in the mood to play, so my back faced the instrument.

Esme's eyes widened. "Oh no. He must be so upset."

Emmett snorted. "He's fine. He and Alice went to talk to Carlisle about it. I'm sure he got Jazzy's head on straight."

"You don't need to be so nonchalant, Emmett," Rosalie snapped. "We could have to move because of this. Again."

Emmett rubbed her shoulder. "We'll be fine no matter what, Rosie. No use to be sad."

"I am not sad," she seethed. "I'm angry."

Her thoughts were actually morose, but I wasn't going to betray her words.

The sound of a car making its way up our driveway caught our attention. "They're home," Esme said. "We'll get this all sorted out."

I wasn't so confident we'd be able to sort this out in a way that would make Rosalie happy, but I let Esme attempt to comfort Rosalie anyway. My pessimistic thought process wouldn't help anything.

Jasper's thoughts were full of turmoil when they entered the room, Jasper moving to stand near the mantle while Alice sat in a chair and Carlisle stepped over to kiss Esme on the cheek. I tried to determine what words of wisdom Carlisle had given, but Jasper was such a jumble of uncertainty I couldn't gather anything useful. Alice was purposely blocking me, though she seemed to have a fair idea of how things would go. She simply didn't want me to know yet. Carlisle's mind was calm as he quietly filled Esme in on the situation.

"So?" Rosalie asked once Esme was up to speed. "Do we have to move? Or do we think Jasper will be able to handle himself here in Forks with that girl around?"

"You know," Emmett said cautiously, "there's an option in the middle here. It doesn't have to be stay with her alive or leave with her alive. We could stage an accident and—"

"No," Carlisle, Esme, and Alice said at the same time.

Emmett's hands rose defensively. "He doesn't even have to drink from her, though! Just remove the temptation…" He trailed off when no one in the room offered any indication that they agreed with the idea. "It was just an idea."

"We can't take Charlie Swan's only daughter," Esme said softly, her mind remembering her pain at losing her own child so long ago. "He'd be heartbroken."

"Besides," Carlisle added, "we're not going to take an innocent human life. It can be avoided, so we're going to do what we can to avoid it."

Carlisle clearly had something brewing in his head, but he wasn't outright thinking about it and I was growing impatient with my curiosity. "What's your solution, then? I know you have an idea. Is there some way we can manage to stay in Forks?"

His lips pursed in thought. "I believe so, yes. I think Jasper should use this as an exercise in control."

I blinked. Of all the things I could have imagined he'd say, that would not have even been on the list. "Carlisle, do you know how intense the thirst for a singer's blood is? Even for you, I bet it'd be nearly impossible to resist. Let alone—" I cut myself off before I could say something disparaging about my brother, but it was too late.

Alice turned to glare at me. "Don't act so high and mighty, Edward. You don't have a perfect record yourself."

"I know," I said in an attempt to be diplomatic. "But I saw how it was for him. It's not regular temptation."

"You don't know nearly as much as you think you do," Alice argued, her face set in anger. There was more to her upset than my foot-in-mouth moment.

Before I could inquire on it, Jasper said, "Edward's not wrong, darlin'." He looked at me. "But she's not wrong either." I tried to glean their meaning from Jasper's mind now, but he apparently had nothing to share other than confidence in his wife—and…

"Alice, no," I groaned.

She rolled her eyes. "Shut up."

"You only want to be friends with her! You'd put your husband through hell for that?" I sounded accusing now, but what she wanted was out of the question. There was no way we could draw Isabella Swan into our lives simply because Alice wanted a buddy.

The frustration in her featured mixed with hurt. "This isn't just about me. I can't believe you'd think that!"

"What else am I supposed to think?"

"Maybe you could trust me!"

"Normally I do, but you're out of line here."

Jasper's snarl ripped through the room, and we went silent as all of us focused on him. His dark eyes were on me. "Rein it in, buddy," he warned. "You're going too far."

I pulled in a deep breath, still agitated but he was not wrong. "It's not that I don't trust you," I told Alice, my voice back to a normal volume.

"It would be good for all of us," she defended herself.

"How?" Rosalie asked, both curious and defiant. She didn't entirely understand what we were arguing about, but she'd gotten the gist that Alice wanted to let a human close into our lives.

Alice frowned. "I can't give details—not before they play out naturally. But it'll definitely be really good for me and Jasper. You won't be her biggest fan…not at first, anyway."

Rosalie snorted. "Unlikely ever."

Alice smirked. "You'd be surprised."

Alice's confidence had Rosalie's eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Is this supposed to win me over? Tell me how much I'm going to adore her so it happens? Because that's not going to work."

Alice laughed, sour mood gone. "No. Don't count her out before she even gets a chance, though, is all I'm saying."

"Whatever," Rosalie said, but she was holding back a smile.

"So you want us to keep living in Forks and for Jasper to continue going to school?" Esme asked, trying to grasp the concept. I could see where she was having trouble—this didn't seem like a solution at all.

Carlisle nodded. "Yes. What better way to conquer thirst than to spend time with your biggest weakness?"

She bit her lip. "It seems risky."

"Jasper is strong."

Esme's thoughts cleared at the statement, her confidence in her newest son absolute. "He is. What do you think, Jasper?"

Jasper was watching Esme with a dazed look in his eyes. He could feel her surety that he could handle it—if he wanted to take the risk. He knew Carlisle felt the same way. Alice, too. Emmett wasn't quite as confident, but he trusted our brother to only take on challenges he felt he could best. Rosalie was indifferent; her only concern was that she didn't want to relocate again. Apparently, I was the only hold out here.

This was not lost on Jasper. "Why are you so against me even trying?" he asked, not accusing but honestly wanting my opinion.

I shrugged. My distaste for the idea was inherent. Maybe because I'd seen Jasper's struggle so clearly in the cafeteria earlier that day? "It's a big feat."

"No," Alice contradicted me. "He knows Jasper can do it if he sets his mind to it. Edward's just put out that he can't read Bella's mind."

My jaw dropped. "That's not why."

She snorted. "Okay, keep telling yourself that. But I'm not going to let you talk Jasper out of this simply because you're insecure that your ability mysteriously doesn't work on her. You need to get over it."

"It is a curious phenomenon," Carlisle murmured.

Alice smiled. "You know what? You're right. It is. And we should explore it further by staying in Forks and making her our friend! It's a perfect plan, really."

Emmett's laughter boomed through the room, and even Rosalie's lips tipped upward in amusement. "Well then," Jasper said, grinning at his wife. "Who am I to argue against rock solid logic like that? Let's give it a try. If I think I'm heading towards slipping, though, I reserve the right to change my mind," he warned.

Alice jumped up from her seat with a happy squeal, darting across the room to throw her arms around Jasper. "Of course you reserve the right," she said, "but you won't need to. This is going to be so great!"

Jasper was glad to have made Alice happy, but his thoughts weren't so optimistic. Still, as he returned Alice's embrace he whispered to her, "I hope you're right, darlin'. I hope you're right."

Bella

"So how did your first day go, Bells?" Dad asked later that night as we sat at the kitchen table eating dinner. He'd gotten home barely ten minutes prior, just in time for me to pull the baked potatoes out of the oven as I fried our steaks.

I shrugged. "It went fine."

"Make any friends?" His eyes were on me carefully as he shoved a forkful of potato into his mouth.

I was about to give him another brush off answer, but decided to try to use his questioning to my advantage. Forks was a small town—surely my father would be familiar with the Cullen family. "A few. You know, in my bio class I sat next to one of the Cullen kids."

Dad's gaze narrowed on me as he dropped his Fork onto the table. "You better not be hopping on the bandwagon with the majority of this town and giving that family a hard time, Bella," he said sternly. "We're lucky to have Dr. Cullen around—he's skilled enough to work anywhere he wants, places far nicer than here. It's only his wife's preference for small towns that has him at our rinky dink hospital. And those kids are good; I haven't heard of a lick of trouble from a single one of them, and they're all on the honor roll. But they're new and maybe a little different so everyone treats them like aliens. You'd better act better than that, Bella."

Blinking at him in shock, I sat back in my chair. It was rare my father said so much at one time. The fact that he'd done so in defense of the Cullens was…interesting, to say the least. "I wasn't rude to him or anything," I said. "We didn't even really get the chance to speak. The teacher lectured all class and then we had to get to our next classes."

Dad nodded with a sigh. "Okay. Sorry for jumping down your throat. It just pisses me off that people give them a hard time."

I gave a small smile. "I'll be nice. I was only wondering at all the talk I was hearing. They seem fine, but with the way everyone was going on about them…I wondered if there was more."

"Nope." Dad shook his head. "They're good people who stumbled on a nosy town and don't like to spread their personal business. It ruffled some feathers, and no one's let go of it." He paused. "Plus there's some prejudice from the people of La Push…but that's more kept to the reservation, so I don't know those details. It's all bullshit anyway."

I laughed. "Wow, Dad. You're passionate about this."

His lips twitched as a touch of pink tinged his cheeks. "Well, I don't like good people getting run through the mud. And I said we're lucky to have Cullen as a doctor, didn't I?"

"Yeah," I nodded, "you mentioned that."

"Right." He took the last bite of his food before standing up and bringing his plate to the sink. "So be polite and kind, yeah?"

"I promise," I told him. I meant it. My father was a pretty good judge of character—being a cop and all. If he said they were good people, I trusted him. Even though Edward hadn't exactly been nice to me earlier…but Dad had mentioned that the family didn't like spreading their personal business. Edward had probably correctly assumed that Jessica and I had talked about them during lunch and had been showing his distaste. I couldn't really fault him for that.

But the question remained, was it worth getting that angry over? Even with a somewhat plausible answer for Edward Cullen's actions, the whole situation still seemed fishy. Hopefully tomorrow would go better and I'd be able to brush off the feeling.

And that's it until next time! I hope you enjoyed it! PLEASE, if you could, please leave a review with your thoughts. They are really so appreciated. :)