Because Charlie Swan would pitch an unholy fit if he knew his daughter was riding a motorcycle, Bella had left her bike in the Cullen's garage after their joyride and Jasper took her home in his truck.

Bella watched from the doorway as Jasper drove away, wishing she wasn't always saying goodbye to him and Alice. She was grateful for how often the pair came to visit, but she would be lying if she said she didn't miss them when they were gone.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her cell phone ringing. Seeing it was an unfamiliar number, she debated ignoring it but figured she might as well answer - at least it would distract her from the downturn her thoughts had taken.

"Hello?"

"Hey Bella!" a vaguely familiar, cheerful male voice greeted her. It took her a second to recognize who she was speaking to.

"Peter?" she asked in surprise.

"Glad to know I'm just as memorable as I think I am," he laughed. The warm sound brought a smile to her face.

"This is a nice surprise. How are you and Charlotte?"

Bella had never spoken to the man directly, so the two chatted for a few minutes before Peter got down to the reason for his call.

Her shock had Bella sitting down hard on the stairs, but just as quickly, she pulled herself together and went up to her room. Closing the door behind her, she sat at her desk with a pencil and notepad, listening closely and jotting down everything he was suggesting. The girl had always wanted to be able to protect those she cared about, but that was difficult for a human in the midst of the supernatural world.

After Bella asked every question she could think of, she thanked Peter, letting him know how grateful she was that he may have just given her the tools she needed to keep those she cared about safe.

Meanwhile, just outside of town, Alice Cullen was looking at her own phone uncertainly. Jasper walked in the door with his head cocked to the side. "What's up, Ali?" he asked, feeling her confusion.

"I'm not sure," she answered slowly. "I just got a call from Peter asking for Bella's number."

Before Jasper could respond, he felt the jolt in Alice's emotions that meant she was being pulled into a vision. Her confusion only grew at whatever she was seeing play out in her mind.

When she snapped back to the present, she gave Jasper a curious look. "Did anything happen this afternoon?"

Because Rosalie never made a decision to ask Jasper about Bella being his mate - and she obviously never got visions of people's thoughts - Alice didn't know that Rosalie had likely put the pieces together until Jasper explained his suspicions.

"Is there anything to worry about?" Jasper asked, knowing that Peter's knowledge usually related to the safety of one of his loved ones.

All Alice could do was shrug. "I honestly don't know. There's nothing in Bella's future that makes me think she's in any danger, but we both know Peter might get information about something to come that I haven't seen yet."

Jasper nodded, trying to keep himself from panicking. If there was a risk to his mate that he needed to know about, Peter would have contacted him directly. It took him a second to wrangle his worry and shove it to the back of his mind, but he still knew he'd be calling Peter just to reassure himself that Bella was safe.

"Did you know Bella was a shield?" Alice asked after a minute of silence.

Jasper was surprised that it had never occurred to him that his mate had a gift. The family knew Bella could keep Edward from hearing her thoughts, obviously, but both Jasper and Alice's gifts worked just fine in relation to her.

"That's what Peter was calling her about?" he clarified.

Alice nodded slowly. "I only caught a brief snippet of their conversation, but yes. He's hoping he can help her learn to control it."

Jasper's shock was so strong that Alice felt a blast of it before he reined it in. "As a human?" he asked incredulously.

Alice couldn't help but laugh at her closest companion's astonishment. "Don't look so surprised, we already knew she was special."

Jasper snapped his mouth shut. Of course he already knew his mate was special, he just didn't realize that extended to her being a gifted human.

Just as Jasper was pulling out his phone - whether to call Peter or Bella, he wasn't sure - it rang.

He rolled his eyes as he answered. "Yes?"

"Don't ask."

Jasper sighed. "Peter, you can't ask me to—"

"That's exactly what I'm doin'. For now, don't ask questions. Either of you."

Hearing how serious his eternally light-hearted brother sounded, Jasper was silent for a beat.

"I know you want answers, Major, but I can't give them to you yet. In all the time you've known me, have I ever let you down?" Peter asked.

Jasper let out a small sigh. "No. Never."

"Then trust me. Please, Jasper, just trust me for now."

Alice and Jasper shared a wide-eyed look. Peter rarely called Jasper anything but Major. Well, he called him 'asshole' a bit more often than Jasper found strictly necessary, but he almost never referred to the man by his given name. That, more than anything else, showed how serious Peter was.

Jasper nodded slowly as Alice did the same. "Alright, Peter. No questions."

"You could've just opened with that, asshole," Peter snarked.

Jasper let out a sharp laugh. "Sorry, brother. I do trust you. Sometimes it's just hard to keep a calm head when it comes to Bella, especially because I'm already suppressing just about every natural mating instinct."

Peter's voice was gentler when he responded. "I know. I'm sorry fate's takin' the long way around with the two of you."

Jasper shrugged and tried to shake off his worry. "It is what it is. We all knew this would be anything but easy."

Alice came to lean against Jasper's side and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as she let him feel her reassurance.

"Coulda been worse," Peter reminded him.

"True," Jasper nodded as a wave of intense gratitude swept through him.

During their time in Texas before coming to Washington, Alice had seen vision after vision of what the future could be, from Bella dying after her first day at Forks High to a life where Edward refused to let Jasper and Bella spend any time at all together, let alone unsupervised. It was one of the reasons the two of them had stayed with Peter and Charlotte as long as they had. There was so much to untangle and the four of them came up with every possible scenario and angle they could think of to not only keep Bella safe, but to ensure she and Jasper had their eternity together.

It was probably the most Alice had ever used her gift in all the decades since she'd been turned.

So yes, things could have been worse. But fortunately for Jasper, he had Alice, Peter, and Charlotte on his side and he couldn't have asked for any better people to help him navigate the cracks and pitfalls of his life with.

"Thank you, Peter," Jasper said quietly.

"Of course. We just want you to be happy. And you will be. That's all that's important right now."

"You will be," Alice echoed him with a wide smile. She'd seen their future and knew how blissfully happy the two would be.

Jasper nodded. He knew Peter and Alice were right. They'd make it through to the other side of this... well, he was going to say 'nightmare' but having Bella in his life was anything but a nightmare. Just being friends with the girl brought him profound happiness. Life wasn't necessarily easy at the moment, but he was happy.

He had faith in his friends and family, and in Bella.

For now, that was all he needed to know.

Jasper stopped by the Swan's house a couple days later while Alice and Rosalie were going through the Cullen's house to pack up some things they wanted to take back to New York with them.

Alice still saw the family living together back in Washington in her visions, but she didn't know what the catalyst for the move was, which meant she didn't have a firm timeline. She did know it wasn't too far in the future because vision-Bella looked exactly the same as Bella currently did, right down to the length of her hair.

Since Jasper and the three other vampires were planning on heading out the following morning, Jasper took the opportunity to have some time alone with his mate. Emmett had been so excited to see Bella again that he'd wanted to spend every moment he could with her, and knowing how much Bella had missed the others, Jasper had been more than happy to give up some of his Bella-time so she, Emmett, and Rosalie could hang out.

But he still missed his girl, which is why he was knocking on her door late Tuesday afternoon.

When Bella answered the door, Jasper couldn't help but notice how tired she looked. Even the smile she gave him was tired.

"Hey Jas, come on in," she greeted him before stifling a yawn.

He followed her in to the living room where she practically collapsed on the couch. When he sat down beside her she immediately leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. He could feel the bone-deep exhaustion in her, which was interwoven with more worry than the girl typically carried.

He wrapped an arm around her and started gently running his hand through her hair. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked softly.

Bella thought on it a minute before answering. "Not yet."

"Alright," he agreed easily, and he couldn't miss the flash of gratitude in her emotions.

After a few more minutes of sitting together silently, Jasper's fingers gentle in her hair, Bella drifted off to sleep. Jasper reached over for the blanket that was resting on the other end of the couch and draped it over his mate. She cuddled a little closer to his side and Jasper couldn't keep a wide smile from breaking across his face.

He knew Bella felt safe and comfortable with him, he knew Bella loved him - even if it wasn't romantic love yet - but he still felt the most blissful contentment when she did things like that.

About an hour later, Charlie Swan came home from work. He'd seen Jasper's truck outside so knew he was there, but he was surprised to find his daughter asleep on the boy's shoulder, a little bit of sleep-drool on his shirt.

Charlie coughed to cover up his laugh at the sight and Jasper's eyes were filled with amusement when they met his.

"Is she drooling on me?" Jasper whispered. This wasn't the first time Bella had fallen asleep on him.

Charlie lost control of his laughter then and it burst out of him, bright and sharp. "Only a little," he reassured the kid as Bella started stirring from sleep at his noisy intrusion.

As she blinked her brown eyes open, she saw her dad looking at her with a smile. "Hey dad," she murmured as she lifted her head and stretched. When she caught sight of the little bit of drool on Jasper's shoulder, her dad started laughing. "Oh hush," she said through her own laughter. "You can't deny he's drool-worthy, dad."

At that, both Jasper and Charlie Swan lost the battle and both burst into loud laughter.

After he got himself under control, Charlie simply shrugged. "He's not really my type but I guess he's alright to look at."

Bella dissolved in a fit of giggles and Jasper just shook his head, eyes twinkling with amusement. "Y'all are weird."

"Yeah," Charlie sighed. "Yeah, we are. So! Pizza for dinner, kids?"

Jasper smiled and nodded at his mate's father. "Thank you, sir. That sounds great."

And so Jasper spent the evening chatting with Bella and her dad, a baseball game on quietly in the background. It was a perfect night. Even if he did have to eat pizza.

A/N: A heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this, and an equally heartfelt thank you to everyone who has taken the additional time to leave a review. I always love hearing what y'all think and your feedback is really helpful!

Case in point...

abaker9: Thank you for including in your review that you were skimming a bit to find J/B time! I honest to god forgot that just because I know what their past and future look like doesn't mean you guys do. Which honestly, duh. I rolled my eyes at myself so hard.

I know this chapter isn't J/B romance but I always like writing anything that shows how different Jasper is to Edward in relation to how they treat Bella. My Jasper is all about respectful boundaries while canon Edward didn't understand what either respect or boundaries were. Seriously, some things are not okay, Edward! Sneaking into a stranger's bedroom to watch them sleep is right up there at the top of the list! Honestly, the fact that Twilight was geared towards a teen audience is wild. Here kids, take some stalking with your emotionally abusive 'romance'. Uh, no thanks.

So thank you abaker9 for pointing out that lapse. (And for pointing it out so kindly!) Bella will also be doing some soul searching in the next couple chapters which will give you more insight into her and Jasper's relationship.

And see, mention something in a review and maybe I can work it into the story!

Thanks again everyone:)

Take care, M. x