Disclaimer: Stephanie Meyer's owns Twilight, not me. I'm just borrowing a few of her ideas. XD

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The sound of the collision could probably be heard for miles around as it echoed through the Canadian wood. Needless to say we both found ourselves on the ground, but fortunately we were no worse for the wear. He asked me a question in French to which I simply replied, "What?"

I stopped breathing as soon as I looked over at him. He was absolutely breathtaking! He was tall and lean while at the same time still being muscular. His hair was slightly wavy, a little over ear-length, and a rich deep honey blond. To top things off he had a gorgeous set of honey colored eyes. I had found another vegetarian! He stood up swiftly and gracefully before offering me his hand. "I am sorry, Mademoiselle. Are you alright?" he asked in a thick French accent, looking down at me kindly.

I stopped myself from gaping at him any further and gratefully accept his offer to help me up. It was a good thing that I could no longer blush. "Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." After our earlier crash the wolf was now long gone- along with any other potential prey in the immediate area. "Uh, sorry about getting in the way of your kill there." He laughed lightly in response, and the beauty of the sound made me feel almost faint.

"That is quite alright, Mademoiselle. No apologies necessary. Ah, how rude of me! I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Jacques," he replied with an enchanting smile.

It was only through the dazzling power of this very same smile that I was able to fight down the fit of giggles that threatened to erupt from me. First "Jack" now "Jacques". What are the chances, seriously? "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jacques. My name is Kathrin." I realized at that moment that I had yet to let go of his hand since he had helped me off the ground. I "casually" let go of his hand and let it fall back down to my side. Well, as casually as I could in that situation anyway. Yup, definitely a good thing that I could no longer blush. He chuckled at my obvious embarrassment. "So, um, you're a vegetarian too, huh?" I asked, attempting to make small talk. I had never exactly been a very good conversationalist.

"Vegetarian?" he replied with an amused smile. "Interesting way too put it. Yes, I suppose I am."

As a human I had never been as "into" the French accent as most other girls my age. Sure, it was a bit of a turn on, but so were a lot of other accents. In this case however I was completely enraptured by it. "That's good. I haven't had the fortune of meeting any others until now. Do you know any others?"

"Yes actually, but none of them are on this continent at the moment. See, I'm part of a fairly large coven, but we've decided to split up for a few years and live in different areas of the world." He spoke as if this was the most natural thing in the world, but I still found the whole situation be quite fascinating. I guess this showed on my face, because right afterward he said, "You have not been a vampire for very long, have you."

I chuckled and shook my head. "That obvious, is it?"

"Well, I have to admit, the sheer force with which we collided kind of tipped me off. Not to mention how strong your grip was on my hand a moment ago."

We stood there together for hours after, talking about various things. He told me all about his "family", his world travels, and his past experiences. Apparently he had been born a native to Canada and moved to France a few years after. He and his human family had lived there until the day that he was bitten. Oddly enough, he was bitten by a member of the Volturi. "They could tell from watching me that I would definitely have a gift, and they wished to recruit me."

"What is your gift?" I asked curiously. I had been concentrating very hard on only listening to his words and not his thoughts, simply so I could have even more of an excuse to talk to him. Surprisingly, it seemed to be working quite well. Perhaps if I work at it hard enough I can learn to tune out thoughts completely. There might be hope after all.

Jacques smiled before lightly touching his fingers to my arm. Even just this simply small touch brought an unreasonable thrill to me. He chuckled lightly before answering. "I am an empath of sorts, but only through physical contact. I can tell exactly what someone is feeling at any given moment as well as how they feel towards specific things… or people." Sensing the immediate embarrassment that came over me, he kindly withdrew his hand from my skin.

Ok, this is just freaky, I thought to myself. First I'm changed by this vampire named "Jack" who is an empath. Then I run into- literally- another vampire whose name is "Jacques" and he's ALSO an empath! I feel like I'm in the twilight zone or something. Oh gosh, "Twilight" zone. That is a BEYOND horrible pun! I managed to shake myself out of my mental ramblings in time to hear him ask if I had a gift as well. "Yeah, I'm a telepath," I replied with a sigh. "It gets annoying hearing others thoughts all of the time. I've been trying to learn how to tune them out."

Jacques expression still seemed rather amused. "Any luck with that?" Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Good.

We both laughed at this little exchange. "Beat that, Verizon," I said jokingly. "I think that was much clearer than any cell phone signal, don't you?"

"Oui." He cast his gaze upward at the now setting sun. "Would you like to come to town with me for the evening? It can be fun to people watch from time to time."

"I would love to," I replied, not being able to help but grin. "Though, could we perhaps hunt a little first? I'm still not that comfortable with my control around humans yet."

He laughed before putting a comforting arm around my shoulder. "Relax, Kathrin. I won't let you do anything. Besides, I can tell that you've eaten quite recently enough as it is."

I wasn't completely sure why, but rather than feeling shy or embarrassed as I normally would have when he put his arm around me, I felt completely relaxed and at ease. His empathic abilities had completely slipped from my mind as a possible cause. "Alright then," I replied with a small nod. "Let's go then." With that he slid his hand down to meet my own and we took off towards the small town.

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No cliffie this time! W00T! I'm sure you guys are very pleased about that. XD Review please! (Helps me to write a lot faster and better.)