AN: So, when I really like an IP, my brain works overtime to try and figure out what interesting plot I can bring to the table to justify a fanfiction. What I like to do usually is create canon complacent stories with one key difference that shifts the narrative enough that it's still its own story, while still remaining true to canon.

So then my brain went: "Hey! What if Jessica actually succeeded in trying to date Edward?!" and I said, "Yeah, sure that can work."

So here it is, Twilight fandom! A story on a ship that nobody asked for or even thought about but here it is!

Nothing else to say other than, I hope you enjoy, and if you do, drop a follow, fave, or comment! If you don't enjoy it, then thanks anyway for giving this random story a quick glance!

Let's begin!

EDIT: CHAPTER HAS BEEN REVISED 26/08/22

Chapter One: Operation Heart Clinch

It was at the young though monumental age of 10 where Jessica learned what a true high was. That high took the form of a plastic trophy painted gold, a running girl at the top and a pretty plaque framing the bottom:

Jessica Stanley

1st Place 300m Dash

Her mom had grabbed her face and kissed her cheek fiercely as her dad had laughed and ruffled her hair. "'Aye! There she is!" He'd boomed, arms spread wide as he addressed the onlookers of crying losers and their bitter parents. "That's my Jess! That's my winner!"

They'd gone to Seattle after dinner, and Jessica had brought her trophy with her. This made it easy for her dad to boast some more to anyone who cared to listen: "See here? My daughter won a race today—we're celebrating. Waiter, your most expensive stuff, please?"

She'd slept with that trophy like it was a stuffed animal, brought it to three Show and Tells in a row, and somehow managed to slip it into every conversation she'd had with her friends, no matter how clearly annoyed they were with her. It was the happiest most euphoric moment of her life, getting her hands on that stupid piece of junk. And when the high from that win faded away, she knew that she needed to win another.

Well seven years later, and she'd just finished winning the vote for President of the Debate Club. It was only like…one single school day before the shiny new badge stopped making her grin like a moron and pose in the mirror. The universe knew that Jessica Stanley needed a new high, and so the universe proudly delivered her a hard win.

That was his name, Edward Hardest (Work in Progress) Win of her Life Cullen. Why? Because in the year she'd been in his presence, it was clear as day to Jessica that he hated her.

Edward Cullen didn't blush at Jessica's flirtations and his eyes never wandered when she wore her most provocative outfits. He didn't so much as smile when she greeted him in the hallways and any conversation she tried to start with him was shut down with curt replies just bordering on rude.

Oh, at first she could chalk it up to a lot of things—jealousy, misogyny, him just being rude in general. The issue was, it wasn't any of things. Edward wasn't rude in general; he answered teachers with "sir" and "ma'am", picked up peoples' books when they dropped them, and held the door open for Angela just three days ago. She didn't think he was misogynistic because the only girl he ever seemed to be agitated with was her and only her, and he couldn't be jealous of her winning streak because he couldn't have known about it when they first met—he'd hated her from day one for absolutely no reason.

Jessica remembered that September morning vividly.

It was raining outside (shocker), the water plastering dead leaves to the window and tap dancing against the glass. Normally, Jessica would've silently cursed the weather station for straight-up lying about the "clear bright skies" and "balmy weather" but that day she was occupied with something else.

It was first-period trig—and her mind was never preoccupied with trig unless she was mentally screaming about how goddamn boring it was to her. But that day, there was a new student in the class. Jessica hadn't listened to the introductions and explanations for his existence, because she didn't really care, because standing beside Mr. Vanner and making him look impossibly plain was the most beautiful boy she'd ever laid eyes on.

No, beautiful didn't cover his appearance by a million miles, and despite having never needing to look up a word for gorgeous ass god of a man, Jessica knew none existed. His physical form was attractive enough—porcelain smooth skin, warm amber eyes, full lips and auburn hair somehow both mussed up and presentable at the same time. But there was this…feeling? Aura? Sensation? Whatever it was, it rose from his captivating form like an addictive perfume that had her nerves singing. It made Jessica want to both get away as far as possible, before she choked on it, and come closer till there was no space between their bodies and nothing else filling her senses.

He was like a fairy tale prince, ripped straight from the nostalgic art of a Disney movie, but one with the ominously attractive aura of slasher villain.

Long story short, holy shit she wanted him.

Now sure, everyone knew there was more to a prince than just looks, but everyone also knew that shitty moral compasses showed up on the face—things like ugly sneers, punchable up-turned noses, age lines at 22, and hunchbacks that'd put Frodo ('or was it Frollo? Hm, can't remember.') to shame. So, the laws of karma wouldn't have allowed someone so gorgeous and absolutely perfect to be a bad person, right? That would be simply—!

"Ms. Stanley," a stern voice cut through her thoughts and she jerked her head to the side, tearing her eyes from the beautiful prince and forcing them onto the glaring teacher. "Clamp your jaw shut and re-join us on planet Earth, please."

Snickers erupted throughout the classroom and Jessica spun around to glare at everyone who did. That only made the snickers morph into laughter as the teacher snapped, "Ms. Stanley," and slammed his palm against her desk.

She quickly spun forwards again with a jump and squeak of surprise as the sound reverberated through the wood. She glanced at Mr. Vanner's hand before looking up at his scowling face, swallowing nervously and turning up the charm to ease his ire. "Sir?" she said with a sweet smile and an innocent tilt of my head.

He stared at her for a few seconds and then finally said, "Share your textbook with Mr. Cullen until he can get his own, please," Before standing and moving towards the blackboard.

Cullen. Old-time-y regency era British names. Oh, that was sexy. "Of course, sir," she'd said with a lot less fake positivity as Mr. Cullen slipped into the chair next to hers and folded his hands atop the desk. Something inside her twisted uncomfortably through her haze of sheer admiration. It told her to move two seats down and avoid eye contact as much as possible. But the feeling dissipated when he then turned to Jessica, waiting, and the brunette swiftly became victim to those stunning amber orbs sending butterflies exploding inside her—

"The book?" He'd said as she blinked out of her stupor. His voice was (unfortunately) not British, but there was something so elegant and crisp and ugh about the cadence of it that she still— "Please?"

'Holy crime, get a hold of yourself, Jess!' she snapped at herself as she cleared her throat lightly and opened the textbook. "Sure thing, Mr. Cullen," She batted her eyelashes at him for extra added effect. She then turned back to their teacher. "Page number, Mr. Vanner?"

"250." He finished writing the topic on the board and turned to her and Mr. Cullen. "You should be in fairly good hands," he continued, this time to the gorgeous Adonis. "Ms. Stanley knows what she's doing most days."

Ah-ha! Still teacher's pet! And her position had been reaffirmed right in front of the hot new Mr. Cullen. She would have looked over her shoulder and given the previously snickering class a smug smirk, but she settled for a hair flip and a straightening of her posture. Let them feel the smugness radiating off her.

"Edward," said hottie stated.

Jessica turned to him and raised her brows with a "hm?"

"You needn't call me Mr. Cullen, it's Edward. Are you going to share the textbook?"

Edward Cullen. She'd found it to be such a pretty name, and of course, she'd mentally gushed about it—but then her mental gushing stopped abruptly as Edward sighed in resignation and looked away, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. "Never mind. I will follow without it."

"Wha—no! No, no, no sorry, sorry I was just—" Jessica quickly flipped through the pages to the subject they were on. "It's not every day we get new faces here," she finished, sliding the book between the gaps of their desks and smiling broadly at him. "You're a teensy bit fascinating."

He didn't return it, and his eyes instead fell to the textbook.

Jessica's smile dropped in mild disappointment but she pushed it back up, believing all she needed to do was to up her game a bit, that was all. She glanced ahead to see if the teacher was looking, and he wasn't (instead prattling on about…who cares?), so she said in a low voice, "I'm Jessica."

He nodded silently in response but didn't continue the conversation.

Squinting in contemplation at him, she brightened her face once more and tried, "Do you like trigonometry?"

"I don't have an opinion," he said.

"Well, I think it's boring. I'm only doing it because like, every good university program wants math crap." She rolled her eyes.

"Perhaps you'd appreciate the subject if you paid attention," he said, giving Jessica a sideways glance that bordered on annoyance before turning back to the book.

She'd flushed in half indignation, half embarrassment before snapping her eyes to the textbook.

Okay, rude. But also, also this could be worked with, no? Yes, he was a fixer-upper but most boys were! Jessica could salvage this, surely. Work a little feminine charm and he'd be eating out of her palms in no time!

Edward had sighed again then, rubbing his temples roughly and slumping his shoulders.

At the time, Jessica had convinced herself that it wasn't her, it was the trig lesson. That he found the subject boring after all and that his agitation had been a sign that there was at least one thing they had in common.

It turned out, as the days, months, and eventual, year progressed that it was her. She didn't even know if she and Edward had anything in common because he wouldn't freaking talk to her!

For no reason!

Jessica couldn't have even the tiny victory of having Edward as a friendly acquaintance because of how much he hated her and she didn't know why! The indignation behind that was almost powerful enough to overtake her ultimate goal to make him her boyfriend.

She'd actually pondered giving up all throughout summer break. Had pondered in bed at night, on her daily jogs, with her friends, and she'd almost decided that Edward Cullen simply wasn't worth it—he clearly didn't want her, right?

Almost was the key word here, but it all boiled down to one thing: Jessica Stanley was not a quitter, quitters didn't become cheer captains, quitters didn't become debate club presidents, quitters didn't have quarter of the male population drooling over her. Jessica was a winner.

That, and her deeply engraved crush and been reignited the second she'd taken her usual seat next to Edward at the beginning of the school year just a week prior.

So win she was going to do.

She squinted at her target from across the cafeteria, fists clenched tightly around her lunch tray.

And today in front of an audience (because to hell with subtlety and the possibility of a very public very painful rejection), Jessica was going to win Edward's heart, one way or another.

Edward had known he was damned since the moment he'd turned into…this.

Some days he wanted to be angry at Carlisle, but those days were few and far between the rest of his miserable life; how could he be angry at the man who was a father to him in all but blood?

Some days—those even fewer and farther between—he'd be angry at God himself for allowing him to become a monster. For bringing in that plague to doom him for eternity. For coaxing a kind man like Carlisle into his vicinity, and allowing him to be given a new, deplorable life. The issue was, that made even less sense—God could not be pleased with the soulless, bloodthirsty monster he'd become, so how could He have ordained this to happen?

But most days he blamed himself for being weak in the first place, and those days occurred everyday he wasn't blaming the latter two for his woe.

If, by some miracle he were to die one day, he wasn't even sure if Hell would take him; if he hadn't a soul to ascend to heaven with, he hardly believed he had one to descend to the depths of the earthly plane. But alas, on his first day of school in the rainy town of Forks, he discovered that The Lord in all His power had found away to punish him anyhow.

Jessica Stanley.

Her mind was a radio forever cranked to the max and connected to a jumbo speaker. Each word punctured his brain like a sharp, agonizing needle and left him in an irritated mood whenever she was nearby.

It wasn't truly Jessica Stanley's fault, Edward knew. There was no way she could help the fact that her thoughts were so loud and…jagged. However, she could certainly help not replaying disturbing fantasies of him in…uncouth situations. On top of that, when she wasn't thinking derogatory things about him—which was very rare—she was criticizing everyone for the slightest of things or stewing in jealousy because someone had a better test score than she did.

He was used to the hormone drunk thoughts of infatuated teenagers both girls and boys alike (and even a handful from prison bound adults), but not ever had their thoughts been so agonizingly intrusive and obnoxiously arrogant at the same time.

In addition, their infatuation hadn't lasted for a year.

Emmett naturally found his situation amusing, Rosalie sympathized to the point where she occasionally thought about killing the over obsessed girl, and the others saw it as a mere human crush that would fade in due time.

Well…except Jasper. Jasper had walked up to him one day after school, glanced at Jessica, and patted his back in sad empathetic solidarity. That terrified Edward considerably, because if anyone knew whether a crush would fade or not, it was Jasper.

Edward still hoped maybe it would, but graduation was two years and a half away, so if she didn't get over him by then she would simply have to enjoy the heartache.

He was snapped out of his thoughts when Emmett coughed on the chocolate pudding he'd spooned in his mouth. "Nope," he wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Still tastes like shit."

Jasper blinked at him slowly. "And you thought that would change…why?"

Emmett shrugged. "Thought putting marshmallows in it would make it taste better, y'know kinda like hot chocolate?"

"Maybe we could put something contradictory to make the flavour pop," Alice suggested idly, tapping her chin in thought.

"No," Rosalie snapped. "People will question us if they find us putting Cheetos in chocolate pudding cups."

"Come on Rose, nobody's going to be like, 'hey these kids must be vampires because they put—'"

"Shush Emmett!"

Edward winced and clutched at his head in the same moment Jasper tensed sharply. Emmett grinned. "Uh-oh, here comes your secret admirer, eh, Eddie?"

"Secret?" Rosalie scoffed.

Edward sighed and felt his shoulders slump slightly.

He would ask God to help him…except again, he was rather certain this was his long awaited punishment.

Inhaling sharply and breathing out with just as much ferocity, Jessica strode forwards. With her head held high, eyes zeroed in on her destination, and a set goal in mind, she made her way towards the Cullen table.

Edward was the first to glance her way, face smooth as marble except for the almost subtle pinching of his brow. She stared him straight in the eye and narrowed her own, tilting her chin up even higher in a challenge. His sister, Rosalie Hale gave Jessica a look of unveiled contempt that made her the victim of Jessica's fiercest glares. Her boyfriend, Emmett, gave her a look of amused curiosity so Jessica spared him the hard glance and the final two Cullens weren't even looking her way so they were spared as well. That changed when she got closer and realized that Jasper Hale was looking away from her on purpose, veins bulging in his neck as if he were fighting the urge to vault the table and punch her in the face. His girlfriend, Alice, placed a small hand on his shoulder and murmured something soothing in his ear before turning to Jessica as well and giving her a sympathetic smile.

Oh my—did every Cullen hate her guts? Why? What did she do? Nothing worse than the shit Lauren Mallory pulled, that's what!

This was an even harder win than she'd thought. But just like that marathon back in '03, not only would she persevere, she would freaking wi—oh my gosh, was Alice Cullen having a seizure? Because she was twitching slightly, her eyes were rapidly fluttering, and Jessica had just stopped walking and contemplated whipping out her cell phone to call 911 when the girl gasped softly and blinked twice as if awoken from a dream. Her eyes then locked on Jessica's for a long while before she smiled brightly, scooting on the bench and gesturing her forwards.

…huh?

Alice gestured again and Jessica couldn't quite wipe the surprise from her face as she strode forward once more. Surprise was a sentiment shared by the rest of her siblings it seemed, as three pairs of amber eyes turned bewildered towards the girl who may or may not have been having a seizure. One was "how could you do this to me?" (Edward obviously—freaking drama queen). One was "what the hell is wrong with you?" (Rosalie obviously—that bitch). And the last one was "ooh, this is going to be good!" (Emmett obviously—he was the only Cullen that wasn't either pretending she didn't exist or hated her for no reason, and if he wasn't already in a relationship and looked like Edward, she would've been pursuing him instead but y'know, Jessica was a winner, not a homewrecker).

Well, maybe this wouldn't be as hard as the 2003 marathon after all.

With a triumphant harrumph, she plopped herself down beside the still smiling Alice and an eerily stiff Jasper before sweeping her gaze across the table. Glare from Rosalie, friendly wave from Emmett—which Jessica returned with the added bonus of a winning smile—and guarded expression from Edward who's eyes were flickering between Alice and she.

Alice met his gaze and smiled, while Edward narrowed his eyes.

Okay. Weird. But she had a mission and weird sibling mental conversations weren't about to distract her.

"Well! Now that I have your attention," Jessica began, acutely aware that she had also gotten the attention of half the cafeteria too. It filled her with a sense of pride, being the first to have the courage to sit at the table of high-and-mighty-hotties. "I would like to reintroduce myself."

"With all the disrespect in the world, I think we'll pass," Rosalie said with a wrinkled nose, voice laced with so much pure and undiluted disgust that Jessica instinctively wanted to shrink, but instead she stood up straighter and glared right back.

"I wasn't talking to you. Wannabe Barbie dolls don't deserve my attention," Jessica sneered before flashing her hair. A feeling of triumph overcame her as Rosalie gave her a look that suggested she wanted nothing more than to penguin slide across the table and strangle her to death.

Good. Let her stew and that obvious envy.

"Now," Jessica said, smiling again. "I'm Jessica Stanley. I'm the cheer captain for—"

"We know. Or at least I do," Edward sighed. His head was bowed again and he was massaging his temples roughly. "You mentioned as such every time you tried speaking to me."

Jessica frowned. "No I didn't. I didn't tell you when we first met, or when you were hiding in the hallway skulking PE the other day—which for the record, I don't get! I mean you are clearly well built and wouldn't you want to show off your muscles?"

It would also be super hot watching them flex, Jessica figured. And covered in sweat, and—

Emmett burst into laughter as Edward squeezed his eyes shut and let out the longest sigh she'd ever heard from him.

What. The. Hell.

Fine. Screw the re-introductions, she was diving right in.

"Go on a date with me," Jessica blurted out finally.

"No," Edward said curtly.

That…that hurt more than she'd expected. And make no mistake, Jessica had been expecting rejection with all the cold shoulders and almost-glares he'd been giving her (you can't be a winner and be stupid at the same time. Oxymoron, hello!), but…gosh he didn't even think about it?

"Uh…" Jessica laughed awkwardly as the whispers from around the cafeteria started. Her chest stung and her stomach had twisted itself into a fleshy pink pretzel. "Why…not?"

"I'm not interested."

"…okay but why?"

Edward pressed his lips together before going back to his untouched salad, twirling the fork idly.

Yeah, he wasn't going to explain himself was he?

"Can you at least think about it?" Jessica asked, trying to keep her voice out of the whining zone. It worked (hopefully).

"No," was the immediate response, and Jessica was about to argue her case when Alice piped up with, "When was the last time you had fun, Edward? A date sounds like a lovely idea!" Jessica jumped in her seat. She'd forgotten she was there, since she and Jasper had been so quiet. She also couldn't quite wipe the surprise from her face at the endorsement and for the second time, her siblings looked at her in confusion. Jasper, meanwhile, simply raised an eyebrow at his girlfriend. Alice mouthed, "trust me" to both him and the rest of her family.

Rosalie was still pissed and turned away with a huffy breath and Emmett wiggled his eyebrows teasingly at his brother with a grin. The brother in question frowned deeper and dubiously stated, "Fun." As if that was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard.

Jessica's ego was so horrible flayed by two simple "no"s and a dubious "fun" that she considered throwing in the towel right then and there.

Except that was what losers did.

Jessica Stanley was not a loser.

"One date," Jessica said with conviction. "And if you aren't 100% satisfied with the Jessica Stanley charm, I'll leave you alone."

Alice raised her eyebrows in Edward's direction and he rolled his eyes back before turning back to Jessica. "Fine," he said dully at last. "Time and place?"

Jessica straightened up and beamed. This was it, she was finally going to clinch his heart.

And unbeknown to her, she was going to clinch a whole lot more than just that.

…and no, that wasn't an innuendo.

AN: Remember kids, annoyingly pestering people to go on dates with you is very BAD okay? Jessica is just very insensitive at this part of the story and Alice knows what ye know not, lol.

Anyway, that was chapter one! Hope you all enjoyed it! Follows, Favs, questions, criticism, and comments are all very welcome!

Fantasy Fan OUT!