A Breakdown in Communication

Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all it's characters etc belong to the BBC. I don't own anything (unfortunately for me…)

Author's notes: Ok, this story is set in season 2 some time after School Reunion, but before Age of Steel, and the Doctor and Rose have been reunited with Jack.

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Chapter 1

Rose walked into the console room, took one look around and asked "Ok, what're you doin' now?"

There were wires and pieces of machinery everywhere and all she could see of the Doctor were his legs poking out from under the console, where he was evidently tinkering around with something. However, immediately after asking the question she regretted it when he started spouting technobabble where she only understood every other word. She went and sat on the seat, only half listening to what he was saying, the other half of her was wondering if they could ever be more than just friends.

Her mind was drawn out of her daydream and back to the here and now when the console that the Doctor was under exploded in a shower of sparks and bits of wire. As she rushed to see if he was ok, the Doctor shot out from under the console, nursing a burnt hand and muttering in a strange, but beautiful language that she didn't understand. From his tone of voice however, she guessed that he was using some quite colourful curses.

Rose tried to take the Doctor's hand to assess how badly he was burnt, but he waved her off, still speaking that strange language.

"What's the matter? Doctor, are you ok?" Rose asked.

At this, the Doctor turned around to look at her and said something else in a clearly questioning tone.

Rose just shook her head and pleaded "Doctor I don't understand, please just speak English and tell me what's going on"

But the Doctor just looked blankly at her before a look of dawning realisation crossed his face. He dashed to the damaged console and started poking through the wires before turning angrily around, and, with an exclamation Rose didn't' understand, kicking over the nearest toolbox.

It was at this point that 'Captain' Jack Harkness came into the console room saying "I found those wires you wanted Doc, and your sledgehammer, but are you sure that it will do the trick? Because I'm really not sure that…" He trailed off at the blank, confused look on the Doctor's face. "What's goin' on?"

Then, the Doctor said in very slow, halting English, with a very strange accent "Jack, I think we have a … problem"

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The Doctor paused, evidently thinking hard "The...err…" Unable to think of the right word he gestured towards a particular bit of the damaged console "It is…broken"

Jack walked over to the console and inspected the part that the Doctor was pointing at, muttered "damn" and then turned back to Rose. "The TARDIS's translation circuit is broken," he explained.

"How long will it take to fix?" Rose asked, still looking at the Doctor, who was, it seemed, already trying to fix it.

"I'm afraid I don't know Rose, I may know a little about the TARDIS, but the Doctor's the expert, you'll have to ask him… and possibly have to play charades with him to get him to understand you," Jack answered.

Rose went over to the Doctor and said hesitantly "Doctor?" When he continued almost frantically to poke at the wires with his sonic screwdriver, she raised her voice a little "Doctor?" This time he turned to look at her.

"Umm, I was just wond'ring, how long will it take to fix the translator?"

The Doctor merely frowned at her, as if confused. She tried again, speaking slowly.

"How long?" She gestured at the console "How much time will it take?"

The Doctor seemed to understand this (or he hazarded a guess and was lucky), because he said slowly "I do not know. Maybe it takes a week, or maybe it takes more, or maybe less" Then he added something else in the language that Rose was assuming was Gallifreyan before going back to work.

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