A/N: So in writing my Jasper/Bella story, I had to make Bella slightly different from canon because I honestly couldn't stand her in SM's Twilight. Anyone reading Fate Unfolding will see why I changed things and put such an emphasis on respect and trust, both of which were in short supply in SM's Twilight.

This one shot popped in my head and wouldn't leave me be until I wrote it down. This is pretty close to how I really see canon-Bella, with a bit of obvious exaggeration. For the Cullens, forget pretty much everything you know about them and please suspend your disbelief at the liberties I took with Alice's gift:)

If I was part of a coven of vampires, especially one dedicated to a peaceful life, this is how I would've wanted Bella's weirdly intense fixation on the one single Cullen - right from day one, by the way, where he glared at her like a budding sociopath and did nothing to encourage her interest - to be dealt with, regardless of my stance on killing humans.

She Should Have Listened

The Cullen siblings let out a collective frustrated sigh when Bella Swan's eyes zeroed in on their table again.

"Why is she staring again?" Alice growled lowly.

"Don't look at me, I've given the girl no encouragement," Edward defended himself.

Ever since the Phoenix transplant had turned up in Forks, the entire Olympic Coven felt they were perched precariously on a knife's edge. Bella Swan's obsession with Edward Cullen was putting everyone at risk.

The telepathic teen had barely spoken to her, only engaging her in polite conversation when he was forced to work with her in their Biology class. Unfortunately for Edward and the rest of the Cullens, Bella had twisted that into her own interpretation and decided it meant her infatuation with the boy was mutual.

Of course it didn't help that Edward had saved Bella from being crushed by an out of control van in a decidedly non-human manner. In his defense, the human was his singer and if her blood had been spilled he would have given their secret away to their entire school in a heartbeat, before any of his siblings could stop him.

She'd cornered him in the hospital demanding to know how he'd saved her. Edward had tried to get the girl to back off but she refused. She was stubborn and nosy and relentless.

Rosalie Hale, one of Edward's sisters in this life, had stomped her way over to the human, her face a storm of anger.

"Privacy, Isabella. Ever heard of it?" she snapped. "Just because you want to know something doesn't give you the right to pry into our family's business."

All the color drained from Bella's face at seeing Rosalie's anger. But because the human didn't understand the meaning of personal boundaries, all it did was make her more stubbornly determined to find the truth.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Edward sighed tiredly.

"No," she shook her head, still convinced that her one-sided crush was two-sided and that uncovering Edward's secret would somehow make him admit he was equally obsessed with her.

Rosalie looked down her nose at the human. "Then I hope you enjoy disappointment," she sneered, then took Edward's arm and the two walked out of the hospital, Bella staring at their retreating backs with a look of both longing and fear.

Climbing into Carlisle's car, Rose looked at her 'twin' and asked what the girl was feeling.

"Nothing good for us," Jasper said as he shook his head. "She's completely obsessed with Edward, thinks she 'loves' him—"

"Utter bullshit," Alice said under her breath. "If she loved him she'd actually listened to what he said. She wouldn't be shoving her nose in our business when he's politely asked her not to."

Jasper took her hand in his. "Right," he agreed. "She's also entirely determined. She's not going to let this rest."

"We should probably have a family meeting," Edward sighed. "Alice, could you try to see what's coming?"

Alice nodded and leaned her head on Jasper's shoulder, eyes closing as she searched the future.

By the time the family was seated around the dining room table they used for these types of meetings, Jasper was officially worried. Alice's emotions had been flickering back and forth in a dark cloud of anger, frustration, and fear.

Carlisle sat at the head of the table and looked around at the members of his family. He loved every single vampire at the table with his whole heart and wasn't inclined to let one human put all of their lives at risk. He may be a pacifist, but someone prying until they discovered his family's secret, thus potentially causing the Volturi to take action against them? Pacifism likely wasn't what they needed at the moment.

Esme sat stoically beside him, her face calm but inwardly seething. She was the living embodiment of a mother's love and she had five 'children' who were currently at risk. She knew her mate and husband abhorred violence and had devoted his existence to aiding the humans, but Esme wasn't willing to let a girl who was too nosy for her own good cause the destruction of her family. She may be a kind and loving woman but she was fully capable of becoming a fierce mama bear when her 'cubs' were threatened.

"Jasper, what can you tell us about the Swan girl?" Carlisle asked to open the meeting.

Jasper thought on it a minute, looking back on all the times he'd focused in on the girl's emotions. "She's a bit of a study in contradictions. She has a vein of inferiority running through her while also believing herself to be a self-sacrificing martyr."

"I noticed the same thing when I talked to her that day in Biology. She said she was moving here to a town she didn't like, with a father she barely knew, so that her mom could be happy. I got the impression she saw herself as selfless," Edward agreed.

Emmett snorted. "Selfless? She's not selfless," he shook his head. "She's decided she wants to know our secret and our feelings on the matter don't mean anything to her. That's pretty much textbook selfishness."

Jasper nodded his agreement. "She also looks down her nose at the other students—"

"Except us," Alice laughed.

"Except us," Jasper agreed with a smile. "My best interpretation of her emotions - and I've been doing this for 142 years - is that she sees the rest of the student body as immature, while she sees herself as more mature."

"Aside from carting around classic novels everywhere she goes, nothing about the girl screams maturity," Rosalie sighed. "Mature is respecting boundaries, mature is leaving others in peace when they've made it clear that's what they want."

"Exactly," Jasper nodded again. "Regardless of how she sees herself, her emotions essentially boil down to selfishness and stubborn determination," he explained, then looked at his little brother with a smile. "And an ocean-sized obsession with you, kid."

"I don't understand why," Edward huffed. "I said it before and I'll say it again, I've given her no encouragement."

"We know," Alice smiled as she reached over to take his hand. "No one here blames you. This all lands squarely on the human's shoulders."

Carlisle sighed and looked at one of the newest members of his family, though 'new' was relative as she and her mate had been with the family for over fifty years. "Have you seen anything, Alice?"

Alice nodded slowly. "I've seen some things and none of them are good."

"How not good?" Esme asked.

"Seriously not good. Like absolute chaos and danger for the whole family not good," Alice admitted.

"In what way?" Carlisle asked worriedly.

"As unlikely as this seems, at some point she must wear Edward down because I see them as a couple and—"

"What?" Edward said through gritted teeth. "That would never happen. Even if her mind being silent was a draw, I would never be in a relationship with a human. And certainly not with one who had no concept of personal boundaries. We've barely even spoken," he added incredulously. "She sees a pretty face and decides she's 'in love'? Please," he scoffed as he shook his head.

Alice smiled at him. "I'll thwart you at every turn if you change your mind. Letting her get close to the family leads to disasters followed by nightmares on top of calamities."

"What?" Rosalie laughed. "One human girl? Not that I want her to get close to the family, because I don't, but how does she cause that much trouble? And what exactly is the trouble?"

Alice looked at her empathic mate. "Please stay calm, honey. None of this will come to pass. We'll make sure it doesn't," she said softly, which did absolutely zero to calm Jasper's worries. Alice took a deep breath and looked at all of her family members. "Okay, here goes… Bella attracts the attention of a coven of three. One is a tracker who fixates on her. It leads to a fight with him and Jasper and Emmett kill him."

Jasper's eyebrows shot up. "I left killing firmly behind me sixty-seven years ago."

"And I've never killed anyone. Well, not intentionally," Emmett shrugged, thinking about his few slips when he was still new in this life. "I have no desire to be a murderer, thank you very much," he scoffed.

"It gets worse," Alice frowned. "The mate of the tracker tries to get revenge on us all by creating a newborn army."

Jasper wasn't sure whether to laugh or growl. The thought of a newborn army getting anywhere near the family he loved and vowed to always protect made the idea of murder a little more palatable. He would never let someone who was such a threat to his loved ones live.

"But before that, something happens that leads the family to leave Forks and we split up," she said, eyes locked on Edward.

Edward's eyes quickly darted to Jasper before looking back at Alice and he gave her the smallest nod. Whatever she'd seen, she was obviously asking her telepathic brother to keep it to himself. Jasper thought he'd probably be better off not knowing.

"So, what? The family dissolves?" Esme asked incredulously.

"For a time, yes," Alice nodded. "But eventually we're all back together again in Washington. Unfortunately, something brings our whole family to the attention of the Volturi. It ends in a huge confrontation where…" Alice trailed off and Edward's eyes went wide as he gasped in a sharp breath.

"What?" Rosalie snapped. "Where what, Alice?"

Edward was the one who answered as Alice moved even closer to her mate. "Where both Carlisle and Jasper are killed," he whispered.

Esme let out a fierce growl. "Over my dead body."

Jasper found himself in an uncomfortable position. He'd vowed when he and Alice joined the Cullens that he would always keep them safe. None of them were fighters or killers, while he had nearly a hundred years of being both. But he'd also made the decision not to kill humans once he learned about the animal diet. Slips in control were one thing, killing other vampires who were a threat to his loved ones was one thing… deliberately murdering a human was something else entirely. Yet he also didn't want any of his family members to carry the weight of killing someone for the rest of eternity. With all the bodies that laid dead in a trail behind him, would one more make a difference?

As much as it pained him, Jasper knew this was something he needed to shoulder. He loved every person sitting at that table and the human girl was a direct threat to each and every one of them. He was the family's protector. This fell on him.

"I'll deal with it," he said quietly. "I don't want any of you to have this on your conscience for the rest of forever. You all know I swore to always protect this family. And I will, no matter what it takes."

"No," Esme shook her head. "I will not let this girl dredge up that time in your life, darling. Out of all of us, you deserve peace of mind the most."

"I agree, Jasper," Carlisle added, resigned to what he needed to do. "I know you see yourself as our protector, but the safety of this family is my responsibility."

Before anyone could respond, although Jasper felt the agreement in everyone's emotions, his phone rang. Alice gasped and started laughing, and Edward was fighting a smile.

"Answer it," she said while smiling at her mate.

Jasper pulled out his phone, not at all surprised to see his brother's name. "Hey Peter."

"Hey Major, Cullens," Peter greeted them, Charlotte echoing him in the background. "You know I'll always have your back, brother. It's taken care of."

"What?" Jasper laughed.

"The human," Peter clarified, and Jasper just knew he was shrugging as he said it. "She was a winner, that one. Completely obsessed with Edward. Y'all dodged a real bullet here."

Jasper smiled fondly when he realized that Peter did indeed always have his back. The two had been protecting each other for a century. Peter and Charlotte knew that Jasper would do anything to keep his family safe, but that it would also take an emotional toll on him.

"It's a real shame that truck of hers was such a piece of junk. Poor thing had faulty brakes," Charlotte added. "Careened right off one of those cliff roads into the Pacific."

Emmett snorted a laugh while Rosalie shook her head with a smile. "So everything Alice saw was true, Peter?" she asked.

"Yep. That and more. The girl was a danger magnet and all that danger was headed straight for the seven of you," he confirmed.

"Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Charlotte," Esme said softly.

"You're welcome, Esme," Charlotte answered, and you could hear the smile in her voice. "We love all of you for the way you accepted our Jasper. We'll always be there for y'all if you need us."

Just at that moment, all the Cullens could hear sirens in the distance. Jasper glanced at Alice when he felt the shift in her emotions that signaled she was being pulled into a vision. The six other Cullens held their breath as they waited to find out what their future looked like now and if there was any blowback on the family for the human girl's untimely death.

When Alice came back to the present with a smile, the Cullens let out a collective sigh of relief.

The newspaper headline that greeted the family two mornings later had Rosalie laughing.

Fifteen-Year Old Quileute 'Mechanic' Blamed for Seventeen-Year Old Isabella Swan's Fatal Car Accident

"The kid's not even old enough to have a license and she was driving around in a truck the boy 'fixed up' for her? Idiot," Rosalie sighed.

Alice and Jasper looked at the newspaper over her shoulder, both a little sad at the devastation on Chief Swan's face in the accompanying photo.

"She should have listened," Alice said as she shook her head, as creeped out as always at the human's obsessive fixation on her brother.

A/N: That was so fun to write, lol. Let me know what you think!

Take care, M. x