Disclaimer: I don't own Ashes to Ashes, nor do I own Gaetano Donizetti's opera "L'Elisir d'Amore" (explanations below).

Being a couple of chapters ahead with GBTEO, I took time out while I was in Paris last week to dash off this fluffy, totally off-the-wall two-shot, which wouldn't leave me alone until I'd written it down. It was inspired, first, by the shocking news of the Chris/Shaz breakup at the start of S3, and secondly, by seeing a cracking performance of "L'Elisir d'Amore" (The Elixir of Love) by English National Opera. Any opera lovers out there should recognise how I have appropriated the plot and characters of "L'Elisir" for this story (in the same way as I hijacked Dickens for "Operation Christmas Carol"), but if you don't know the opera, that shouldn't affect your enjoyment of the story at all. (If anyone wants to find out more, there's a good synopsis of the opera at w w w (dot) glyndebourne (dot) com / operas / elisir_damore / synopsis / - take out all the spaces)

Anyway, see what you think, reviews and feedback are always so much appreciated!

"An elixir with a kick, sir, one that really packs a punch

If I knew where I could buy it then I'd have the love I want!"

- Felice Romani, libretto to L'Elisir d'Amore, translation by Kelley Rourke

"Did you enjoy your evening at Covent Garden, Ma'am?"

"Yes, thank you, Shaz, very much. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. A cast I'd always wished I'd been able to see - Gwyneth Jones, Jon Vickers, Gwynne Howell, Donald McIntyre - "

"Otherwise known as an excuse to bunk off work early," Gene grumbled as he walked past.

"I couldn't help the performance starting at 5.00," Alex said defensively, "and I did take an afternoon's leave. It lasts nearly five and a half hours."

"What's it about, Ma'am, that it takes so long?" Shaz anxiously changed the subject.

Alex looked at her very steadily. "It's based on an ancient legend about two lovers who don't admit to their feelings because they have great cause to be angry with each other. But then without knowing it they drink a powerful potion which unites them in eternal love."

"Give me strength," Gene groaned, and sloped into his office.

Shaz tossed her head. "Oh, well, nothing I'd need then."

Chris looked up from a file, his face a picture of misery. "Shaz - "

"Chris, I've told you. It's over." Shaz marched back to her desk. "I'm having dinner with Vince tonight."

"Give us all strength," Ray muttered.

Not the least of Alex's woes on her return to 1983, was the discovery that her shooting had led to the break-up of a romance which she had been convinced would survive any adversity. At least she and Gene had found a way to work together and to talk to each other. Their relationship had not recovered its former strength yet, perhaps it never would, but it was a start. But Chris had blamed himself so bitterly for the treachery which had led to the Boss being shot and the Guv going on the run, that eventually Shaz had found him impossible to live with. For her part, once she had learned that he had betrayed his colleagues to pay for her engagement ring, she felt sick at the sight of it. To add fuel to the fire, she had blamed Gene for the shooting, while Chris staunchly believed in his Guv's innocence. They had quarrelled ceaselessly until Shaz had at last returned the ring and told him that it was all over. Shortly afterwards she had met Sergeant Vince Fairheart, a member of the military attaché's delegation at the American Embassy. The team had been called out to investigate a suspicious incident in Grosvenor Square, and Vince had shown her his pass and asked permission to cross a police cordon so as to get to an important meeting in the Embassy. They had hit it off at once.

The sight of Shaz on the arm of the tall, dark, dashing American had sent Chris plummeting to the depths of despair. The pill was all the more bitter to swallow because Vince showered her all the things which Chris had longed to give her, but could never afford. Expensive dinners, silk scarves, jewellery, chocolates, drives in Embassy cars, she had it all. While Chris, who had been tempted to treachery to get the money to give her a good life, had lost everything.

CID disapproved of Shaz's new relationship. Chris might have been a traitor, but he had redeemed himself with Operation Rose, and Shaz had abandoned one of them for a Yankee lounge lizard. Ray, of course, was the most vocal in his disapproval. Alex, sympathetic to Chris but anxious to maintain her friendship with Shaz, managed to keep a foot in both camps. Gene, wisely, stayed quiet.

"Birds are all the same," he remarked to Alex one evening at Luigi's. "The more we slag Fairheart off, the more she'll stand up for 'im. Say nothing, an' she'll find out for 'erself that she's bagged a prize twat."

"Yep," Alex agreed morosely. "My guardian didn't like my ex. Couldn't see why, until Pete dumped me. Wished I'd listened to Ev - my guardian then."

Alex knew that Shaz found the atmosphere of unspoken disapproval hard to take, and dreaded that she might end up asking for a transfer. That'll really send Chris over the edge.

"Vince the Mince," Ray muttered after Shaz had left the room. "Dunno what she sees in 'im, myself."

"Apart from being six feet six, looking like Andy Williams, and being loaded with dough?" Chris said bitterly.

"Yeah, but a bloody Yank! Mind you, you know what they say, one yank and they're down."

"What are down?" Chris looked blank.

"Figure of speech," Alex said hastily. If looks could have killed, Ray would have been incinerated. "Chris, could you find me the Wadstone case file, please?"

-oO0Oo-

Chris wandered into Luigi's that evening having just watched Fairheart driving Shaz away in a limousine large enough to accommodate a young cricket pitch in the back. He sat on a bar stool, folded his arms on the counter, and bowed his head.

"Good evening, Signor Skelton. What can I get you?"

"Nothing." Chris's voice was low and bitter. "There's nothing I want, Luigi, unless it can get me back the woman I love."

Luigi looked sympathetic. "Have you any idea what you would need for that?"

Chris looked near to tears. "Doesn't exist. Would 'ave to be something like the stuff the Boss was talking about. Trish an' Solder or something."

"Tristan und Isolde," Alex corrected gently from where she sat, two stools along.

"Tristano è Isotta?" Without leaving Chris, Luigi reached for the cassette player, switched off Adam Ant, removed the tape, substituted another, and pressed the Play switch. The strains of the overture to Donizetti's comic opera L'Elisir d'Amore filled the air. "In that case, Signor Skelton, you should try this." He reached under the counter, produced a half-bottle of Médoc claret, and placed it in front of Chris.

"I'll need more than that if I'm gonna get drunk," Chris said morosely.

Luigi leaned closer. "If I am to tell you the secret of what is in this bottle, Signor Skelton, you must promise never to tell a living soul."

"Sure, but why?" Chris, his interest piqued, listened with rapt attention, oblivious to the fact that Alex, a few feet away, was eavesdropping so hard that her ears could have been sticking out at right angles.

Luigi's voice was low and confidential. "It was in 1923. My family lived in a small village in southern Italy, where my grandparents kept the inn. One fine day, a splendid car drove into the village. Nobody had seen anything like it before. Three men in very smart suits rode in it, and the back was full of cases of wine. The men wanted food and petrol. My Uncle Giacomo was young and reckless, and while the men were eating in the inn, he stole a case from the back of the car. He reckoned that such smartly dressed men must be carrying very fine wine. The men returned to the car and drove away without noticing that a case was missing. A few minutes later, the dreaded carabinieri came through the village, driving like madmen, scattering everything in their path. A couple of hours after, they returned with the three men, one of them wounded, as their prisoners, and with that fine car in tow. The villagers learned that the men were all noted mafiosi who were wanted on suspicion of trafficking in illegal substances."

Chris was impressed. "Drugs?"

"Not quite. The bottles in the car contained, not wine, but an extremely potent elixir of love."

"A what?"

"A love potion. One drinks it, and twenty-four hours later, one is irresistible to the opposite sex. The carabinieri knew that a case was missing from the car, and they searched everywhere for it. Uncle Giacomo was terrified that if he confessed to his theft, he would be accused of being in league with the Mafia. He hid the case in the cellar of the inn, and eventually the carabinieri gave up and went away. The elixir of love became our family secret. Uncle Giacomo drank a bottle of it when he wooed my lovely Aunt Giovanna, my father, when he courted my mother, and I, when I won my beautiful Rosetta. When my family came to England before the last war, we brought the remainder of the elixir with us, decanted into ordinary wine bottles to avoid suspicion. Before Uncle Giacomo died, he passed the secret to me." He pushed the Médoc across the counter. "In your need, Signor Skelton, I entrust one of the few remaining bottles to you. Use it wisely."

Chris gazed at the bottle with respect. "Bloody 'ell. But how do I get Shaz to drink this?"

"Not her. You. Drink it, and in twenty-four hours' time, go to her and tell her everything that is in your heart. Then see if she will not give you a hearing."

Chris's eyes were as wide as the Quattro's headlamps. "I will! Thanks, Luigi, you're a real mate!"

He made to get off the bar stool, but Luigi grasped his wrist. "I must implore you, Signor Skelton, for all our sakes, tell no-one about this. The Mafia have long memories and a longer reach, and even now, if they were to learn of Uncle Giacomo's theft, it could have fatal consequences for me and all of my family."

"I promise." Chris was very solemn.

"Grazie. Take it, then, Signor Skelton, and good luck to you."

Chris triumphantly bore the bottle away to an unoccupied table, and Alex shifted across to the stool where he had been sitting.

"After all that, you owe me a glass of house rubbish, Luigi. And then," she lowered her voice, "you can tell me why you fed Chris all that phoney baloney which you've freely adapted from an opera Donizetti wrote in 1831."

Luigi smiled as he poured the wine out. "Signora Drake, you are not the only psychologist in this restaurant. Signor Skelton is young. He has been culpably foolish. But he has a great capacity for belief. I tell him that an ordinary bottle of Médoc is an elixir of love. He drinks it, and it will give him the confidence to approach Signorina Granger again, believing that she will be unable to resist him."

Alex's eyes narrowed. "So why the twenty-four hour delay? Apart from the fact that it's in the opera."

Luigi winked. "It will give him time to order his thoughts and decide what to say to Signorina Granger. He will know that it is his one great chance, and use it accordingly. If I know him, he will not waste it."

"I hope to God you're right," Alex muttered. She glanced over at Chris, who was already sinking his first glass of Médoc. "In the meantime, Luigi, make sure he has something to eat." She put a £5 note on the counter. "He was too miserable to eat anything at lunchtime, and he probably didn't have any breakfast either. If he has a half bottle of claret on an empty stomach, he won't know what's hit him."

-oO0Oo-

A couple of hours later, Chris was well away. The pizza which Luigi had given him remained untouched by his elbow, and he had drunk nearly all of the claret. Now he sat, gazing dopily at the bottle on the table in front of him, with a happy smile on his face, humming along to "True" blaring from Luigi's sound system. He didn't seem to have to have a care in the world.

CID watched him in astonishment from their usual place at the long tables and Gene's corner table. Even Ray had respected Chris's grief enough to leave him alone when he needed to be miserable in peace and quiet, but now they wondered if he had flipped his lid at last.

"What's up with 'im?" Gene growled to Alex. She shrugged elaborately. Too elaborately, his gut instinct told him. She's up to something.

"Don't know. Maybe he's trying to get over Shaz at last."

"Oh. She's picked the wrong time to come back then."

Alex followed his gaze and saw Shaz standing at the top of the stairs. She looked anxious and nervous, and her eyes scanned the tables for one person. Alex cursed inwardly. No prizes for guessing whom she's looking for. And Chris is pissed on Luigi's bloody "potion".

Shaz located the person she sought, descended the stairs, and timidly approached Chris's table.

"Chris? I haven't seen you looking so cheerful in weeks. Are you all right?" She sat opposite him.

"Shaz! Bloody 'ell!" He struggled to focus. "Yeah, I'm fine, fine. Never better."

"Oh." She sounded as though she would have preferred him to be suffering. "Please, can we talk? It's important."

"You've got a nerve," he slurred. "Gave me my ring back, broke me 'eart. Doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't matter? Oh, Chris, what do you mean?"

"Don' care any more. Doesn't matter wha' you think now. Wait till tomorrow. Then you'll see."

Shaz looked distressed. "But tomorrow will be too late. Look, I'm sorry about the past few weeks. I know I've hurt you, and I'm really sorry. But I must talk to you now, very seriously. Please."

"Don' care. I've got over it. I'll be cured by t'morrow. Can make you sweat a bit. Deserve it. Time to make you suffer a bit."

"Who says I'll suffer?" Shaz flashed back.

Chris favoured her with a drunken grin and tapped the side of his nose. "Doesn' matter what I say now. Won't be able to 'elp yourself tomorrow."

"Won't I?"

"Nope. Tomorrow everything'll be different, you'll see."

"Yes, it will, if you don't stop staring at that stupid bottle and pay attention to me!"

Chris managed not to slide off his chair. "Not now. Talk to you t'morrow. Tell you everything then."

Shaz looked close to tears. "Please, Chris. This means so much to me. You don't know how much."

He regarded her owlishly. "Y' been making my life a mis'ry f' long enough. Wait n' see. Don' care any more."

"Let me get this straight, Chris. What don't you care about any more? Me? Us?"

"S'right. T'night y'can go off wi' the Mince fr' all I care. All change t'morrow. You'll see."

"Yes, there will be a change!" She jumped up from her chair. "You'll be sorry for this, Chris Skelton!"

"Wha - "

"Vince has asked me to marry him. Believe it or not, even after everything that's happened, I wasn't sure whether to accept. That's why I came back here to talk to you. To see how you felt. But now you've told me repeatedly that you don't care any more, I know exactly what I'll do!"

Even then, she was waiting for the broadside. For Chris to jump to his feet in alarm and declare that he hadn't really meant it. But to her horror and rage, he burst out laughing.

"S'fine by me. Won't last long. You'll see!"

She fetched him a backhander which would have sent him flying into the wall, if he hadn't pitched forward with his face in his neglected pizza. Her hand whistled through the air over the back of his head.

When Shaz had first joined Chris, the noise level had been about usual for Luigi's on a weekday evening, but as their conversation intensified, all other sounds had died away to a horrified silence. At that inopportune moment, the Mince himself appeared at the top of the stairs, radiating glamour, drop-dead charm, and faint disgust at finding himself in such a downmarket venue.

"Shaz! Have you decided, hon?"

"Yes, Vince, I have." She held out her hand to him, and he descended the stairs to join her. Alex felt that he needed a roll of drums.

Vince curled his arm around Shaz's waist, and she gazed happily around the restaurant. The silence was absolute.

"Luigi." She looked towards the bar, where Luigi had been watching the proceedings like a man in the path of an avalanche. "Can you do me a buffet tomorrow at lunchtime?"

"No expense spared," Vince added. "I'm paying."

"Certainly, Signor è Signorina. But tomorrow?"

"Yes!" Shaz clapped her hands in delight and gazed up at Vince. "Listen up, everyone. Vince has just been told that his posting here is ending early. He has to fly back to the States tomorrow. He's asked me to marry him, and I've accepted. There isn't much time, as his plane is at seven tomorrow evening, but we're getting married at the registry office tomorrow at three."

"WHAT?????" Chris raised his head with a howl of despair, strands of mozzarella clinging to his face. "But that's before it'll work!" He caught a desperate glance from Luigi and fell silent.

"I'll be flying over to join him and meet his family in a couple of months," Shaz continued. "Sorry it's such short notice, but you'll appreciate that after the wedding we'll want a couple of hours to ourselves before he leaves, so I invite you all to a party here before the wedding, at noon tomorrow. I hope you'll all come to give us a rousing sendoff!"

"Shaz, no, no, you can't - " Chris lurched to his feet and staggered towards her, a pitiful figure, dejection and despair in every line of him.

"Why can't I?" she flashed back.

"You can't, it's too soon - don't, love, you'll be so sorry if you do - please, Babes, please - " He had reached her side and seized her hand, but she snatched it away in disgust.

"You've just said you don't care, so I hardly think you have the right to dictate what I should do, Chris Skelton!"

"Shaz." Tears rolled down his face. "Please, love. We've been through so much together. Remember when you came to my rescue in your wedding dress, and shot that corrupt copper? And when I shot Markham's toe off for you? Don't destroy it all now."

She turned away. "Leave me alone!"

"Shaz, please - "

"She just told you to leave her alone, bud." Vince's hands shot out, grabbed Chris's lapels, and hauled him clean off the floor until he was looking the tall American in the eye. "You're lucky I don't pick fights with pathetic drunks, but if you don't clear off this minute I'll black your eyes for you."

"Vince, no! Stop it!" Shaz cried shrilly.

"That's enough." Gene had risen from his table and glided slowly and menacingly towards the group. Alex stood at his side, and as one the rest of CID rose to their feet, ready to sow destruction at their captain's command. "Put him down. Now. Or I'll charge you with assaulting a police officer."

"Think you'll find I've got diplomatic immunity, sir." Vince let go of Chris's lapels, and Chris dropped to the ground in a dishevelled heap.

Gene was shorter than Vince, but by sheer force of personality he seemed to tower over his adversary as he thrust his face close. "Sod diplomatic immunity. You lay a finger on 'im again, Yankee Doodle Dandy, an' you'll find this police officer assaulting you." His gaze flicked downwards on the word "doodle", in a manner which managed to convey the ultimate insult to Vince's masculinity.

Vince looked down his nose at Gene. "Charming. Shame all London's policemen are so uncouth. Still," he turned a dazzling smile upon Shaz, "the policewomen make up for it."

Chris scrambled to his knees. "Shaz - "

Vince's foot was uncomfortably near, but Gene was eyeballing him. Shaz laid a hand on his arm. "Vince, leave him. Please. He can't help it."

Vince glanced down at the pathetic heap at his feet and smiled contemptuously. "Not worth the trouble. Come along, cupcake. Plenty of better places than this to celebrate our engagement."

She nodded, but her face was pale and her eyes were downcast. As Vince swept her away up the stairs, she seemed oblivious to the fact that not one of her colleagues had moved to accept her invitation or offer their congratulations, and at the top of the flight she turned and looked back, stricken, at the whimpering figure curled up in a ball on the floor.

Gene bent down and hauled Chris back into his chair. "Come on, son. Luigi, black coffee, the strongest you've got."

"Nooooo..." Chris sank his head into his arms and burst into tears. Luigi clasped his hands behind his head, and his forehead hit the bar counter with a dull thud.

"Get some water, Bolly," Gene ordered. "An' then you can tell me what the bloody 'ell's going on!"

Alex shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. Looks like Chris has gambled and lost." She marched over to the bar and grabbed a water jug.

"Nice one, Luigi," she snarled, as a hum of conversation began to reassert itself. "So now what to you plan to do to sort out this mess?"

"I wish I knew, Signora Drake." Luigi's voice was muffled. "I wish I knew."

TBC

Let me know what you think - Gene will play a larger part in Chapter 2!