Torchwood: Fanfic: Universal language

[m_findlow]

Title: Universal language
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 491 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for samuraiter's prompt "Any, any, impromptu air guitar tournament" at fic_promptly
Summary: Music is the only true universal language

'Is someone recording this?' Owen asked, his eyes glue to the scene in front of him.

'The hub's cameras should pick up pretty much all of it,' Tosh replied.

'You know,' Gwen said, 'there's weird, then there's Torchwood weird, and then there's this.'

'Yup', Ianto agreed. 'Definitely qualifies for a category all of its own.'

Working at Torchwood, there was an expectation that you would occasionally have dealings with aliens that weren't conversant in English. In fact it seemed rather presumptuous to just expect that because humans had managed to proliferate all across the galaxy at some point in the far future, that everyone who came here, or fell here through the rift by accident, could speak the native tongue, or otherwise have translation capabilities.

When those two things failed, Jack was usually able to step into the breach and resolve the problem. He was himself, conversant in several other key alien languages, and many species were also fluent in Galactic Standard, which covered at least have of the species across the galaxy. Before English permeated the galaxy in about eight hundred years from now, Galactic Standard was the primary way of getting your point across if you were stranded on another world, or planning on hitching a ride via a passing ship, or just hoping to chat up that attractive purple being with twelve tentacles who looked like she knew how to have a good time.

This was, as Ianto had pointed out, completely out of the box.

They'd tried every kind of language they knew, but the odd, teddy bear looking creature with six legs instead of two, hadn't been able to understand anything they'd tried. They even attempted drawing pictures, but it just gave them a confused look. That much they'd been able to understand. It wasn't until the team looked askance at Jack and he'd shrugged his shoulders, that the bear had started initiating some of its own gesticulations.

'Maybe it knows sign language,' Tosh suggested, but that didn't work out either, because sign language was just another version of English.

Despite that the bear continued its movements, and Jack tried to reciprocate. Finally, it seemed they were making headway, each taking turns. The others couldn't understand what was going on. To them, it looked more like an impromptu air guitar tournament, judging by the movements they were making.

After a good twenty minutes of this, the bear finally waved at Jack and disappeared in a beam of greenish coloured light, having been able to hail a passing ship to take him back home.

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and started skyward as the beam of light shot upwards, taking the alien bear with it.

'What was all that about?' Owen asked.

'No idea,' Jack confessed. 'He started off with Starman, then something about a Supermassive Black hole. I got lost somewhere along Valleys of Neptune, but Stairway to Heaven seemed to do the trick.'