Rating: T
Summary: Crossover with Cheers. The TARDIS malfunctions, leaving Rose unable to understand the Doctor. Based on a dream I had.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Cheers.
Author's Note: For those of you who don' know Cheers, here's a quick rundown:
Sam -womanising bar-tender. Rebecca - owner. Carla - waitress. Woody - simple-minded bar-tender. Cliff - customer. Norm - alcoholic customer. Frasier - customer; psychiatrist. There are a lot of foreign languages used in this fic, translated using a dodgy translation site. TRANSLATIONS ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.
Communication ProblemsAfter an unfriendly encounter with the Stefanis race, the Doctor was piloting the TARDIS through the time vortex.
"So how bad's the damage then?" Rose asked him.
"Hard to say," replied the Doctor. "Everything seems to be in working order … oh, wait, there's something wrong here." He looked up at Rose. "De TARDIS vertaler is gebroken."
"What?" said Rose. The Doctor cleared his throat and spoke more slowly.
"The TARDIS translator is broken," he repeated. "Without it, we can't communiceer."
"We can't what?" said Rose. The Doctor continued talking, but it was all Greek to Rose (in fact, the Doctor was speaking in Dutch).
"Of course," Rose realised. "The TARDIS and the Doctor are connected. Whatever's affecting the translator must be affecting the Doctor. Doctor, can you still understand me?"
"Oui," said the Doctor in French.
"Okay," said Rose. "Can you repair the TARDIS?"
"Il prendra quelque temps, mais il devrait être réparé dans un jour ou deux," replied the Doctor. Rose put her head in her hands. She couldn't handle this. She needed some time out.
"TARDIS, if you can hear me, please, take me to a pub," she said. "I desperately need a drink." The TARDIS did nothing, so Rose tried a different approach.
"Don't make me absorb the time vortex again," she threatened. The TARDIS sprang to life.
"Onde vamos?" asked the Doctor in Portugese. Rose didn't respond.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
On the 16th of September 1992, the bar Cheers in Boston was, as usual, full of conversation.
"Hey guys, I need some advice," said Sam to whoever would listen. "See, I'm goin' out with this girl tonight and I really want to impress her. Any suggestions?"
"Plastic surgery," called Rebecca from her office. Sam rolled his eyes.
"Punctuality," suggested Cliff. "Chicks dig it."
"Like you'd know," said Norm. But Cliff waved him off.
"Now look," he said. "I'm a mailman. People rely on me to deliver their mail every day. They trust me with that responsibility, and I prove loyal to them by delivering by the appointed time. People have great respect for mailmen."
"I don't," said Carla. "Why would I respect the guy who gives me my bills?" Meanwhile, Frasier was sitting in his usual spot going through some papers when Woody served him his beer.
"What are you doing Doctor Crane?" Woody asked him.
"Oh, it's all these schools Lillith and I have applied Frederick to," explained Frasier. "We're having a tough time narrowing the list down."
"Isn't he a little young to be going to pre-school?" asked Woody.
"Oh no Woody, this is college," corrected Frasier. "Naturally I want him to go to Harvard like myself, but Lillith wants Yale…" Woody just smiled and nodded. He could only ever pick up about half of what Doctor Crane ever said. Just then he noticed a young blonde woman and a tall skinny man come into the bar, and the woman seemed to be in a rush. She sat down at said through deep breaths "Gimme … a pint."
"You got it," said Woody, pouring the beer. Rose gratefully took the beer and practically sculled it.
"Oh, I needed that," she said, relieved. Beside her, the Doctor spoke.
"¿Puedo tener yo uno también?" he asked in Spanish.
"Don't you start again," Rose told him. Sam, completely forgetting the woman he was meant to be going out with, walked over to her.
"Hey honey, what's wrong?" he asked her.
"Ingen av din forretning," muttered the Doctor in Norwegian. Rose turned to Sam.
"See, it all started when our spaceship got attacked…" she began. Sam's eyes widened. He could have sworn she's only had one glass…
"… and then it affected the translator, which the Doctor is connected to. So now he's been talking in foreign languages and I can't understand a thing he says," finished Rose. Sam gave her a pat on the back, wondering whether it would be to his advantage or not to bed a crazy girl. He extended his arm further around Rose, who had now taken a handful of peanuts and was beginning to eat them, when the Doctor pushed him away.
"Hinter ab, Kumpel!" he yelled at him in German.
"Doctor, stop that!" cried Rose. "Why are you doing this?" The Doctor sighed, turned to Rose, and took her hands in his.
"Weil Rose," he said softly, "ich liebe dich." Rose snapped her fingers.
"I know that!" she exclaimed. "That's German! Okay, so 'ich' means 'I', 'liebe' means 'love', so that means … eww! Doctor, not while I'm eating!" The Doctor put his head in his hands. Of all the words the Germans could have picked, why did 'you' have to sound like a part of the anatomy?
"Gee sweetie, your guy here sure does know a lot of languages," commented Sam. "How did he learn them again?"
"I told you, the TARDIS, that is, our spaceship translates them all automatically," repeated Rose. Woody took this moment to join in.
"Sometimes I wish I had a translator for Doctor Crane," he said, indicating Frasier. "He speaks so fast about stuff I don't understand."
"Oh, I know exactly what you mean," said Rose. "The Doctor's the same. Does Doctor Crane speak at like 90 miles an hour and then look at you like you've just dribbled down your shirt?"
"Yeah, but so does everyone else," answered Woody. "Except maybe my girlfriend Kelly."
"That's nice," said Rose. "So anyway, I think the Doctor can fix this translator thing but I'm not sure. Until then, I'm stuck with him changing languages every 5 seconds which is giving me a major headache."
"Why don't you just ask him to keep his mouth shut?" asked Woody.
"Because he's the Doctor, and he can only achieve so many impossible tasks in one lifetime," replied Rose.
"Эй!" said an offended Doctor in Russian. However, after some thought, he grinned. He turned to Rose and told her, "Я предполагаю, что я только должен буду найти другое использование для моего рта тогда..." Even though Rose couldn't understand a word of what the Doctor was saying, there was something about the way he said it that seemed quite … suggestive. Rose gasped. He wasn't. Was he? Before she could think about it any further, his lips were on hers. Rose moaned into the kiss, her tongue almost tasting all the different languages in the Doctor's mouth. Around them, everyone looked on as the man that wouldn't shut up and the crazy girl snogged each other senseless, until finally, gasping for breath, they broke apart. Rose looked into the Doctor's gorgeous eyes. Suddenly language didn't seem that important. Without speaking, she extended her hand towards him. He took it, and together, they made their way out of the bar. On the way out, Rose whispered to the Doctor a phrase she'd learnt in Year 9 Italian:
"La sua camera da letto o il mio?"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Inside, everyone exchanged glances.
Okay, what was all that about? thought Carla.
There was enough material in there for a whole seminar, decided Frasier (A/N Another Fawlty Towers reference).
I wonder if spaceships have mailboxes? wondered Cliff.
She had a good ass, observed Sam.
Maybe I should give up drinking, thought Norm.
……… thought Woody.
Communiceer – communicate
Oui –yes
Il prendra quelque temps, mais il devrait être réparé dans un jour ou deux – it'll take some time, but it should be fixed in a day or two
Onde vamos? – Where are we going?
¿Puedo tener yo uno también? – Can I have one too?
Ingen av din forretning – Mind your own business
Hinter ab, Kumpel! – Back off, buddy!
Weil Rose… – because Rose…
Эй! –Hey!
Я предполагаю, что я только должен буду найти другое использование для моего рта тогда... – I guess I'll just have to find another use for my mouth then…
La sua camera da letto o il mio? – Your bedroom or mine?
I hope that wasn't too confusing. I didn't want the translations to be in the main document, coz I thought it'd be more fun for you to find them yourselves. Anyway, please review.