A/N: Hello everyone! thank you for all the fantastic reviews and feedback :) thank you to the constant reviewers Eva Sirico, Maddy Love Castiel, kittykat625 and of course schizo-nephalim. You guys have been amazing and have really stuck with this story and given me awesome support. And I haven't forgotten the new reviewers . , Riza Tukudo, and TaleHeart for all the wonderful feedback :D It's always good to see other people taking some time out to say their own piece.

So you guys will start seeing the chapters branch a little and how the characters will begin to interact more alone or with one other character instead of the whole group and you may be surprised but who knows :p yes I will be doing Gabe centered chapters as well but that might not be for another 3-4 chapters but I really don't know yet so you'll have to stay tuned ;)

Also thank you to two of my great betas who went over this for me in the last few days. You guys have been awesome every time I email you, you always answer and are just rearing to go :) thanks for being life savers Sayura-san and Starlight-killer!

Now on with the chapter and I hope you guys enjoy it

And congrats to Danneel and Jensen on their little baby girl born almost a month ago now! :)

Celest ^i^

*hugs*

Lance and Amy walked down the cobblestone street. They had just passed the Spanish Steps with the fountain in front of it trickling water serenely. As they walked farther and farther down, more and more people came out of shops or apartments ready to start the day.

"So where exactly are we heading?" asked Amy as she bounced alongside Lance.

Lance pointed up on the side of the street just a little away. "There's a café not much farther called Café Grecco. Personally, I like it and it's close for us to try out. Besides I thought you might like it."

Amy glanced at him puzzled, "Why's that?"

Lance grinned down at her, "Oh you'll find out soon enough."

It still wasn't quite 24 hours yet for her and Jazz to switch back bodies hence why she was still walking around with Jazz's short hair. She had put on a light sweater of hers instead of Jazz's clothes. It seemed kind of baggy on the small pixie like frame of her body but she just didn't feel too comfortable in Jazz's tops. Jazz had rolled her eyes but when Amy saw how she had dressed her, her eyes had bugged.

"An eye for an eye." Jazz had stated, smirking at her.

It was a great relief to have told Jazz about her scars on her arms. While she hadn't intended to do it and it came about like an accident, she still breathed a sigh of relief when she knew that someone else knew of her problem. It was hard to keep things like that a secret from the people around her that were like family and to know that they knew really lifted 100lbs off her back.

Lance stopped in front of a café and looked up, "This is it."

Amy gazed up at the little store front. It had a white circular overhang with beautiful cut stone on the sides. At the top was the sign for the café and a window was inset a foot away or so from the arch. Walking up the steps, Lance grinned as the smells assaulted Amy. It smelled incredibly delicious in the enclosed space. You could scent the warm smells of the different cakes either baking or coming out of the oven; the coffee thick and rich with the sweeteners. It wasn't incredibly busy at the time but there were still a healthy amount of people sitting spread apart around the area. The walls were covered with paintings on every square inch. Pictures of landscapes to self-portraits to what appeared to be Rome maybe 100 years ago. Little tables sat in front of the chairs or booths which had a beautiful cherry red coverlet.

"What do you want?" asked Lance as he stopped.

Amy looked around him and her eyes became wide; a huge array of different cupcakes, cakes, brownies and more were spread out richly before them. Everything you could imagine from the original chocolate and vanilla cake to the more ritzy red velvet.

"I really don't know." Amy gushed at him, incredibly excited by all this.

Lance smiled at her, "Tell you what, you go pick a booth or a table and I'll come and join you. Let me pick you out something that I know you'll love."

Amy nodded her head and smiled at him, "Thanks Lance."

Lance winked at her and turned back to the barista behind the counter to order their cakes and drinks. She moved through the tables, cautious of even bumping into something and moving it out of place. Some people had laptops open in front of them and were busy clacking away at keys or the odd person had a book opened up on the table and read avidly as their coffee and cake waited beside them.

Choosing a private booth with no one in hearing distance of her, she clasped her arms in front of her and looked at some of the old pictures. They appeared to look like still photos in time; some looked hundreds of years old. Amy frowned as she gazed at what appeared to be self-portraits. Suddenly a cake and a steaming mug of hot chocolate were placed in front of her. Her eyes widened and she couldn't help the large grin that spread across her face.

Lance sat down opposite of her and put down his own purchase. "Don't tell Jazz that my favorite is strawberry cake, oh and I got you hot chocolate. I hope that was okay?"

"Oh it's fine!" Amy gushed quickly so Lance didn't get worried. She laughed as she saw the large marshmallow floating in her mug. Looking over she saw that Lance had the same thing.

"Yeah I know," he said determining what she was laughing about correctly, "And I got you Tiramisu. I think you'll really enjoy that."

Amy picked up a fork that was set on her side and took a corner off of the small square cake in front of her. The fork bit lightly and the cream and cocoa powder flaked lightly onto it. She gingerly lifted the fork to her mouth and took a hesitant taste. The cake seemed to explode in her mouth; it was so soft and moist she couldn't help the moan that she emitted.

Lance chuckled across from her and she turned red at remembering that he was there. "Sorry," she mumbled quietly into a napkin that she took to wipe her mouth, "But oh my god is that ever good. It's like heaven in my mouth."

"Oh I know so there's no reason to be sorry; if I may say so it's one of the best creations known to man." Lance said as he broke off a piece of his own cake.

"Hey Lance, can you bake?" asked Amy suddenly struck with the idea.

"Actually yes, I can. I think it's because of all my potion brewing it gave me a knack for cooking. I know that's technically witchcraft or what not that I can do but it gave me the first passions to begin cooking and now," he shrugged, "I can probably make any recipe."

"Think you could make this for my next birthday?" asked Amy giving him the puppy dog eyes.

Lance laughed, "Sure, if that's what you want." He took a light sip from his hot chocolate. "So Amy tell me what you wanted to talk to me about."

She took a deep breath and placed her fork gently down on the small plate. Linking her hands together she twisted them in nervousness before she took a deep breath.

"IwouldshowyouifIcouldbutsincemeandJazzswitchedbod iesIcan'treallyshowyou-"

"Woah, woah Aim slow down," Lance held up a hand as he frowned at her. "Jeez what's up with you?"

She took another shuddering breath as her heat began to beat double time. "Okay, what I'm trying to tell you basically is that after you and Jazz left Crawford and I thought Gabe was dead, I kind of spiraled into a deep depression."

Lance frowned at this, "Okay, go on."

She gazed down at her hands and noticed that they were shaking on the table top. Slowly she took them off the table and sat them under her thighs in an effort to stop the shaking. "I got into some bad habits, Lance." She stuttered quietly.

Lance placed his own fork down and crossed his arms on the table. He chewed the piece of cake in his mouth slowly, "What kind of habits?" He mumbled out.

"I- I- I started to cut myself." She whispered quietly.

Lance froze at this and looked at her arms that were hidden below the table. He swallowed the cake in his mouth thickly with a huge gulp and rubbed his nose.

"Amy-"

"Lance, I know! Believe me, I know it's wrong! I just didn't know how to cope and I didn't know who to turn to and-"

Lance waved away her explanation and Amy instantly stopped talking, "Since we left you?"

Amy shook her head mutely, "No, not exactly; it didn't start happening until maybe a month or two later."

Lance groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. Amy bit her lip at seeing the complete and utter distress her friend was in and it was all because of her.

"Amy, what made you think so less of yourself that you would go that low? That you would physically start harming yourself?!" He hissed out to her.

Amy's heart dropped, she had really been hoping that her friends wouldn't take it so hard but Jazz took it bad and Lance seemed to be quite beaten up about it, too. She wanted to cry so badly but she adamantly held it in. She had helped causing this rift and she would be the one to help heal it. No more lies, no more half-truths and definitely no more secrets. She cried enough about this issue, it was time to start making things right. Besides, things did always go a lot worse before they ever seemed to get any better.

Lance sighed and took a long drink of his hot chocolate. "So why start telling us now?"

Amy sighed herself wearily, "Truthfully? Because since Jazz and I swapped bodies yesterday, she found the marks. They were bothering her and then it all came out like this. She saw the old scars and the new ones and just completely flipped on me in her own way. To be honest Lance, I don't know if I would have said anything to you guys yet if this hadn't happened."

Lance bit his thumb, "Yet? Something tells me, Amy, you planned to keep this a secret until it did get forced out into the light. You had no inkling to tell us."

Amy didn't answer that, she just stared down at the marshmallow spinning lazily in her hot chocolate. There really was no good way to answer Lance, she just had to let him say his piece and then hopefully they could help rebuild this fragmented friendship that the both of them shared because of this.

"Wait; new scars? Are you saying you did this since being with us here?" Asked Lance in shock.

Amy closed her eyes and nodded her head mutely; she chose not to answer verbally.

"But what could have …Wait a moment. Did you see … ?"

She looked at him and the look in her eyes must have said it all. He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair, "Jesus Christ; Amy, I'm so sorry. Fuck I'm gonna kick that sorry excuse for a trickster's ass."

"Lance, don't," she mumbled quietly, "I just wanted you to know from me about this and I want your help to get better; besides, Jazz threatened me that if I didn't tell you guys by the end of the week then she would and she promised me that Gabe or you wouldn't be too happy about that."

Lance grinned and snorted, "Yeah, she's right about that."

It was quiet at their table for a while after that. They continued to eat their cake and sip their hot chocolate as they looked at all the other people mingling and grabbing their pastries for on the go. She slowly started to relax when it seemed apparent that Lance was taking and digesting the news, along with his cake, well.

"Hey Lance, what was your family like?" she asked quietly.

Lance shrugged and cut into another piece of cake, "What do you want to know?" He asked mumbling around the moist mouth-watering piece.

Amy scrunched her face at him, "Like anything! What were your parents like? Did you have siblings? What was the world like back then? Better or worse? How were you first introduced into witchcraft? How did you-"

"Woah!" Lance laughed at her. "One question at a time princess sheesh. Do I need to buy you another cake to just tide you over while I talk?" He asked her jokingly.

"Weeeeelllll," Amy remarked slyly at him, "If you don't mind."

Lance shook his head and grabbed her plate, "Hang on, I'll be right back."

She sat quietly as she stirred her hot chocolate absentmindedly. It seemed to be getting better now; maybe Lance just needed to some time to swallow the overly large pill she just stuffed down his throat. And since she was sharing, there was no reason for him not to either. A plate was placed down before her and she looked up as Lance sat down across from her again; he even had another plate of strawberry cake. She grinned at him which he returned.

"Well, in answer to your many questions, there's really not much to say," Lance began as he took off a piece of the cake and pushed the large strawberry to the side to save for last, "Originally my mother and father worked on a lords lands. We had to scrounge up enough money to even obtain it, then we had to farm it ourselves. At the end of the growing period we had to harvest and that's when my brother, sister, myself and my mom and dad always had to pitch in."

"You never mentioned that you had siblings." Amy quirked as she shoveled another spoonful of cake in her mouth. She groaned at the taste and Lance breathed out in amusement.

"In all honesty I never talk about them," Lance conceded quietly, "My brother was plagued by demons, that was what we called it back then, and my sister was a social outcast."

Amy frowned at this, "What do you mean? On both counts."

Lance sighed, "My brother used to scream and rant at something that none of us could see, he would throw himself into delusional states of the mind and sometimes never snapped out of it for days at a time. He was hardly ever lucid and he was just a year or two younger than I was. We tried to get help from every medical healer that we could think of but for naught. He grew to have a reputation as the demonic child and everyone gave him a wide berth which in turn began to reflect upon the rest of my family." Lance rubbed his hand across his forehead. "I tried to help him as best as I could but nothing I ever did seemed to be of any use for him."

"My sister became pregnant when she was only a young teenager. We didn't know until she had started showing and by then it was too late. She was stoned to death in the street by people who took grave offense to the act. It didn't matter to them if maybe she had been raped. The fact that she was having a child out of wedlock was such a disgrace and frowned upon that they took matters into their own hands. My father and I had tried to stop it but we were knocked unconscious. We only came to ourselves during nightfall and when we saw her body crumpled on the floor, blue and cold, we knew that it was too late. She was gone along with the baby," Lance choked out refusing to look up at her, "After that my mother seemed to become a walking corpse; to this day I swear she really died of a broken heart, not the Black Death."

Amy swallowed. What did you say to something like this? Lance's life was hard, beyond that even. He had experienced hardships in his life that paled in comparison to her problems. She cut herself because she lost her friends or so she thought? Wow, what a selfish thing to think of. Lance had lost his sister from stoning, his brother was mentally ill, his mother died basically of a broken heart with no will to live. His father and he seemed to be the last ones keeping it together but she could tell without Lance saying so that the relationship became strained and probably broke. She didn't have the heart to ask about it.

"My parents were very kind people; they did anything even for complete strangers. It baffled me how they would let a weary traveler into our small one room home and offered him the little food that we had so that he could be comfortable. I never understood it and it created tension with me and them on the many arguments that we had about it. I saw no reason or point to be kind to people who may not be kind to us, but my mother scolded my kind of thinking. She was always of the mind that if there was no kindness in the world, then what was there to really live for? Call her naïve, crazy or just a kind soul but you couldn't meet a more gentle spirit out there and believe me I've had a long time to look."

"Wow," Amy coughed out quietly, "And I thought I had it tough. I made it sound like the end of the world for me but you Lance, you had some kind of strength that I'm clearly lacking. I feel so ashamed of what I just told you now, knowing all of this. I am so sorry."

Lance reached over the table and laid his hand gently on hers, "Don't be," he smiled kindly at her, "Amy, I've been around for long enough to learn that in life people process things differently. That's why you can't have a perfect and orderly world. What one perceives as too much, another just looks at like a chip in the road. What one perceives as wrong, another has no problem in doing. I've met people who are very kind and people who are very crude and mean. Believe me when I tell you that what you went through was harsh in its own right and there are people out there who would have killed themselves over your hardships. The fact that you didn't shows that you have a strong desire and will to survive, in there." He pointed at her heart.

"But Lance, it scares me to think what I would have done in your shoes." Amy quipped back, still not entirely convinced.

Lance sighed, "And hopefully Amy, you'll never have to. That's what family is for after all."

She nodded as she bit her lip, "Thanks." Lance smiled at her. "You didn't ever tell me how you got into witchcraft though."

Lance shrugged his shoulders, "Well, after my family died from the Black Death, I took to roaming across the hills of England. I eventually happened upon an old man who seemed to take an instant shine to me," Lance chuckled, "It's really not very fantastic, Amy, seriously. I didn't get swept away on a dragon or almost charged through by a unicorn. No, it happened quietly. After I met this old man, he started teaching me tricks, little things at first until they grew in power. From floating rocks in the air to being able to move whole houses or hills. He told me his name was Merlin but that's all I really know about him."

Amy's eyes bugged out in her head, "Merlin?" she squeaked out. "Are you telling me you had Harry Potter classes by the Albus Dumbledore of our history?

Lance chuckled, "Well, supposedly Merlin is a myth, Amy. He kept his existence well hidden and people eventually lost track of him. He's still living well as far as I can tell anyways."

"Wow," Amy mused quietly, "So you were taught by Dumbledore, probably were in Salem for the witch trials, too …"

Lance shrugged and nodded his head. Amy laughed and slammed down her cup, "No way!"

He grinned at her, "Personally I think the townsfolk were more psychotic than the actual witches in some instances but hey, maybe I was just biased in that."

Amy snorted at him, "So wow, we both really laid into each other today, didn't we?"

Lance shrugged, "I guess." Before he could finish his large strawberry Amy quickly plucked it from his plate and took a bite off the tip. "Hey!" Lance yelled in outrage. "That was my strawberry!"

Amy rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and moaned, "Oh my god now I see why you left it for last. So good." She stood up from the table as she popped the rest in her mouth. Lance pouted at her. "You coming?"

Shrugging he got up from the table and followed her out into the hot afternoon sun; she didn't even realize how long the two of them had been in the little café. Hours had passed without the two of them being any the wiser.

"So why did you say I would like that café?" Asked Amy as she skipped down the sidewalk. Lance glanced at her amused. "I mean you were right, I really did like it but why were you so sure?"

"Well, it's kind of a historic landmark in Rome," Lance explained to her, "It opened its doors in 1760. It's reputed to be the oldest and best known or oldest bar in Rome, second only to one other in Italy. Historic figures have been known to have coffee there; such as Stendhal, Wagner, Hans Christian Andersen and even Casanova, just to name a few. It's still a popular hangout for writers and politicians."

Amy snorted, "So you decided to appeal to my brain, so to speak."

"So to speak." He replied winking at her. "However," he started as he took in her skipping, "I think you're acting more and more like Jazz as the hours tick by."

A/N: Not bad? Tell me what you think if you want!

Also I did some history checkup on the web but if my facts are a little off plz dont hurt me X)