A/N: I don't own Ashes to Ashes. BBC, Monastic and Kudos have the honour.

The problem with being a classical music lover is that when I let my phone pick a song for XTimeGirlX's songfic contest (my phone doesn't have a shuffle, so I had to close my eyes and dab at the track list), it served me up a doozy.

To explain: "Carmina Burana", by the German composer Carl Orff, is a thrilling vocal and choral work, written in 1935/36, setting to music 24 poems, mostly in mediaeval Latin, from an early thirteenth-century German manuscript (found in 1803) from the Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuern, south of Munich in the Bavarian region. Its best known movement, "O Fortuna", attained popularity some years ago when it was used to advertise Old Spice aftershave (yes, really).

At first I seriously contemplated throwing my phone out of the window, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised how right this song is for Gene. It's full of anger and bitterness, and the music has the most terrific headlong energy. Moreover, it comes from the section of "Carmina Burana" entitled "In Taberna" - which translates "In the tavern". Very Gene. And eventually I just couldn't resist the challenge of writing the first ever A2A LATIN songfic! Don't worry, I've given a translation (lifted from www-classical-net). Sorry about the formatting, I wanted to show the original text and translation side by side, but the site won't let me do that.

There are a number of performances of the song on YouTube: I recommend the superb rendition by the great baritone Thomas Allen, another tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, gorgeous Northerner.

So here it is. As always, please let me know what you think, and I promise to reply. Not the best thing I've done, but quite unlike anything I have written before!

Estuans interius

ira vehementi

in amaritudine

loquor mee menti:

factus de materia,

cinis elementi

similis sum folio,

de quo ludunt venti.

(Burning inside

with violent anger,

bitterly

I speak to my heart:

created from matter,

of the ashes of the elements,

I am like a leaf

played with by the winds.)

The Guv sat hunched in his customary corner, his table strewn with empty bottles. Nobody dared to approach him or speak to him, except for the long-suffering landlord who meekly brought him the next bottle on demand and was too afraid to suggest that he had already drunk enough.

CID exchanged sad glances among themselves. God knew, it had been hard for all of them to lose so many members of their team in such a short space of time. Even the old restaurant, where they had retired to celebrate or lick their wounds at the day's end, had gone. It wasn't the same, now that they had to go to the pub around the corner. But the strange thing was that the Guv, who had always seemed so indomitable, and who might have been expected to be the one to shrug off their reversals, had taken them worst.

Gene knocked back his latest pint and slammed the glass on the table, glaring fiercely at anyone brave enough to look at his direction. He didn't want their pity. He was going to get through this in his own way, even if it meant drinking every pub in London dry. But every time he looked into a full glass, he saw a face other than his own reflected in the liquid there. Sometimes the face had a bushy moustache and a curly perm, sometimes gold highlights and a goofy smile, sometimes black hair in a shoulder length bob. But more often than any other he saw the face of a beautiful woman, tears glittering in her eyes as she stepped back and turned to walk away from him. And then he had to drink whatever was in the glass, in case he saw that face again.

Cum sit enim proprium

viro sapienti

supra petram ponere

sedem fundamenti,

stultus ego comparor

fluvio labenti,

sub eodem tramite

nunquam permanenti.

(If it is the way

of the wise man

to build

foundations on stone,

then I am a fool, like

a flowing stream,

which in its course

never changes.)

He drank to forget, but when he saw their faces he remembered it all, and he cursed himself again and again for what had been done wrongly. Why had he not said more to them, when they had been making their farewells outside the Railway Arms?

Why had he not thanked Ray for the years of devoted service and companionship? None of the souls in his care had ever stayed with him for so long. And all he had said to send that faithful soul on its way was "Danger of getting poofy, Raymondo."

Why had he not told Chris that he was like a son to him, told him of his deep pride at seeing the boy becoming a man at last? Why had he not praised Shaz for her courage in laying her life on the line to trap Hoorsten? He had not even said a proper goodbye to them, only told Shaz to keep Chris out of trouble and told Chris that he wasn't coming in just yet.

And Bolly? All had he said to her was "Yes, you can. They've got a saloon bar. Can't have you putting me off my stride, can I? I mean, I'll end up wondering if I'm not completely right all the time. Can't have that. Weren't bad though, were we? See you around, Bolly Kecks. Go." Why the hell had he not had the courage to tell her something of what she meant to him? She had even had to initiate their single kiss, for God's sake. While they were working on the dating agency murders, he had embraced Shaz and kissed that harpy Elaine, so why had he not been able to do the same now for the woman who meant so much to him? He should have taken her in his arms and told her that his life in this world would be empty without her in it, that from now on he would be incomplete until the day he saw her again. Why had he not promised her that he would join her in the Railway Arms one day, asked her to wait for him, promised to remember her until then in whatever way he could? He should at least have explained to her that she had to go into the warm, safe, happy refuge of the pub, because every second she was outside gave Keats another chance to get her, and he would sooner go down in the lift himself than risk losing her to the speccy bastard. Instead he had ignored her grief and need, and dismissed her in the cruellest, most abrupt way possible.

God, how she must hate him now for rejecting her. His fist clenched as he thought of all the smarmy top brass in the Railway Arms flocking around her like bees surrounding a honeypot. She'd be able to take her pick. By the time he got there, he would be spending his eternity alone, watching her living it up on the arm of some posh Super with an accent as plushy as a cinema seat. And all because he'd been too much of a proud, stubborn bastard to tell her when he'd had the chance.

Feror ego veluti

sine nauta navis,

ut per vias aeris

vaga fertur avis;

non me tenent vincula,

non me tenet clavis,

quero mihi similes

et adiungor pravis.

(I am carried along

like a ship without a steersman,

and in the paths of the air

like a light, hovering bird;

chains cannot hold me,

keys cannot imprison me,

I look for people like me

and join the wretches.)

It was done now. There was no point in looking back. Bolly and the others were where they should be, safe in the Railway Arms, along with all the other souls he had saved. He was needed in this world, and that need would never end. He was the Gene Genie, the Manc Lion, and he was invincible. He had to be, for the sakes of all those who still depended upon him to redeem their souls. Everyone from the old-timers like Bammo and Terry to that disdainful twerp DI Geoffrey Watson who sat on a bar stool, apart from the others, elegantly sipping Coke and looking down his nose at his colleagues with a superior expression which made Gene long to drown him in a vat of mineral water. At least the little prat had stopped whimpering about his iPhone, whatever that was.

Gene knew that, in time, more souls would come into his keeping. But they could never replace the ones he had lost.

He started suddenly and glanced to his right. Just for a moment, he could have sworn that he had glimpsed a pale face, topped by crisp black hair and framed by heavy spectacles. It was only an unoffending drinker returning from the Gents. Gene breathed again. But he knew that one day Keats would be back, and this time he would be ready for him. He looked into his glass, and saw a different face there. The face of the man he had failed to save.

"Forgive me, Viv," he muttered. "I promise I won't let him get anyone else. I owe you that much."

Mihi cordis gravitas

res videtur gravis;

iocis est amabilis

dulciorque favis;

quicquid Venus imperat,

labor est suavis,

que nunquam in cordibus

habitat ignavis.

(The heaviness of my heart

seems like a burden to me;

it is pleasant to joke

and sweeter than honeycomb;

whatever Venus commands

is a sweet duty,

she never dwells

in a lazy heart.)

There was a burst of laughter from CID's table. Gene winced. Bugger off, I'm grieving. But there was a part of him that wanted to join them. Perhaps it was time to learn to laugh again, to accept whatever solace the companionship of his team could offer him. He had thought that he would never get over losing Sam, but then Bolly had come to join him, and everything had changed. Nobody would ever replace her in his heart, but there would always be other souls who needed him. He needed to be needed. That was why he was there.

A busty blonde barmaid caught his eye and winked as she polished a glass. One corner of his mouth crooked in response. He could be onto a promise with that one, he knew. One night that he wouldn't spend alone. A chance to lose himself in acres of willing, moaning flesh. There was a time when he would have jumped at the opportunity without stopping to think. But now, what was the point, when the only woman he would ever want was slim and dark?

He would never have her. Was it time for him to go for what he knew he could have? He cocked an eyebrow at the barmaid, and she scurried over to him, quivering with eagerness.

Via lata gradior

more iuventutis

inplicor et vitiis

immemor virtutis,

voluptatis avidus

magis quam salutis,

mortuus in anima

curam gero cutis.

(I travel the broad path

as is the way of youth,

I give myself to vice,

unmindful of virtue,

I am eager for the pleasures of the flesh

more than for salvation,

my soul is dead,

so I shall look after the flesh.)

"Oy, you! Another beer!"

THE END