I've never written any Nine before, so do excuse me if anything is OOC. Anyway, enjoy! :D

Time Is Relative

He didn't like to admit it, but the Doctor wasn't feeling all himself. At all. And when something was wrong with him without his permission, it didn't bode well - for him, his companions, his TARDIS, and any galaxies within his immediate radius. It was an effort not to fall over onto the console where the orange light blinked helplessly at him as his vision swam and his head began to thump with excruciating pain. And it felt, somehow, that every tiny, ittybitty timey atom that equalled him when put together were turning against one another – fighting and clawing at each other.

Something was dreadfully wrong.

And ever since being reminded of his brief conversation with Lucy, memories that had drowned in all that energy during his latest regeneration floated to the surface liked bloated corpses. And one in particular stood out among the rest.

Abstergo.

2005.

There was a man in the Animus.

Abstergo Headquaters, 2005

To start off with, it was the quietest room in the world. Its large windows threw light from outside into the room and it's numerous purposes. At the very end of the room was a glass desk with the necessary desk ingredients – a computer, a note pad, a pen and – forgotten rather carelessly – an access key to most of the rooms in the building. Clustered in the corners were lab-like spaces and equipment – the floors there were tiled and microscopes littered the work surfaces, and binders were stacked side by side, bursting with paper. And in the centre of the room – an Animus.

The Animus was left by the Ones Who Came Before. So little is known about them, but their gift to humanity was being manipulated, misused by the Bastards Who're Here Now. There are other Animi out there too – 99% of them in the same building as the one in this room – but another, at this point in time, was being developed under a nurturing, patient and devilishly clever pair of hands, belonging to an Assassin who'd turned that very same pair of hands to computers after a snow boarding accident – and who knew? Coding gave the same adrenaline rush as falling out of a helicopter onto snow in god knows where. It would later be suggested that some kind of glands needed to be checked as a result.

Another story, for another time.

This Animus was occupied. Images flickered on the computer accompanying it, on the curved band of glass above the occupant's head as he drowned in the centuries, chasing a woman in man's armour, relived the grief of a man who's family were murdered before his eyes, and followed one glorious shining quest for an Apple.

I regret to disappoint you, but this is another story – for another time.

As has been mentioned before, to start off with – this room was the quietest room in the world.

But then there was a noise – and it sounded like the whole of the universe arriving to one sound conclusion. It was a noise that inspired – and it sounded like a key being dragged across piano strings to create one glorious symphony. While this sound harmonised with time and space, a blue police box faded into the room with its beat. And with a final thud, it materialised completely in one of the lab corners, instantly creating the impression that it'd always been there.

One of its doors opened inwards, and a man in a leather jacket and ears not to be scoffed at strode out, followed by a blonde woman in denim shorts, a shirt that tied around the waist and abnormally large pink sunglasses.

The man was called the Doctor, and the woman was called Rose. And she wasn't impressed.

'This looks exactly like a beach,' She stated in a tone that shouldn't be challenged, and the Doctor gave her a look that stated he would.

'Thought we'd take a bit of a detour,' he said, and then looked out into the room with a strange frown. Rose peered at the back of his head over the tops of her sunglasses – this wasn't like him at all. He was out of the door too quick – this was no detour. He couldn't fool her.

'Doctor, what are we doing here?'

'Having a look.'

'No we're not.'

'Yes we are.'

'Doctor, what're you – ' She watched him suddenly start towards the Animus in the middle, already pulling out the screwdriver from his pocket. Rolling her eyes, she stomped towards him in flipflops, and opened her mouth to deliver the grand mal of all tantrums until her eyes fell on the Animus' occupant.

She'd never seen anything quite like him. The dark circles around his closed eyes were startlingly vivid – if his eyes didn't rove restlessly underneath his lids, Rose could have convinced herself that they were make up. The shape of his skull was clear to see through his skin, which was paper thin and as pale as you like, and his lips were cracked with blood.

Rose had adjusted rather quickly to time travel – and she knew they weren't in the future, or the past. This was present – now, if you will. (But in a life like hers, it was a loose term) and the horror behind it was stunning.

Rose took her sunglasses off.

'Doctor – '

'I don't know,' The Doctor said, not looking up, his attention held by the poor soul in the Animus. 'I don't know who he is, what this thing is, or where we are. I was told to come here.'

'By who?'

The Doctor looked up at her at last, the faintest of smiles on his lips. 'Let's just say it was a reminder,' he said, and, with the faintest movement, pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Animus and activated it.

The buzzing joined the man's screams – the Doctor swept backwards, keeping Rose behind him as alarms sounded inside the room and outside the doors. The man was struggling to draw breath into the lungs who'd had their breathing done for them, and he clawed at the strip of glass over his head – and, failing that, punched it – it shattered and glass rained down on his face.

Pain. Blood. He knew these feelings, but these were his own. And it was terrifying. As he sat up in the Animus, the alarms screaming at him from all angles, a deep human instinct inside of him he'd forgotten all about cried for someone to hold him. He looked around, and he saw a man and a woman and the compassion in her eyes.

With feet that knew nothing but how to run, he swung himself over the edge of the Animus and set them down on the floor. His arms were already reaching for her as he staggered forward, pleading silently for her to hold him –

Something landed on his back – and administered electric poison that seared in his veins. He screamed and shuddered violently before falling on his face onto the floor, where he didn't move.

The Doctor and Rose looked up with all the wrath of humanity and the universe behind them and saw a group of people. They were mostly made up of body guards – all dressed in a smart and crisp kind of blue with big large guns pointed directly at them – but there was one with grey hair who had an evil genius sort of feel to him holding what looked exactly like a Judoon powered taser.

'Do excuse me,' he said, in a voice that sounded like worn out gold. 'I hope he didn't cause you any bother?'

'Bother?' The Doctor repeated, savouring the word, rolling it around his mouth – spitting it right back at him. 'He wanted someone to hold him!'

'Mmm. Well, we don't really tolerate that sort of nonsense here,' the man said, and waved a few fingers vaguely at the bodyguards behind him – two of them started forward, seized the limp man by his arms and dragged him from the room, his shaven head lolling limply onto his chest. 'Now with that out of the way, can I ask who you might be – and how you got here? Only our security didn't spot you at all!'

'We're not telling you anything,' Rose spat at him.

'I think you will.' The man sang the last word. 'Now, lets get you both set up in a nice cell, and we'll have a chat about this later, mm?'

Having been in too many prisons to count, the Doctor knew a good guard when he saw one. But the one who'd dumped him and Rose in their cell for a brief while was obviously new, not much experience and not too bright - he hadn't thought to extend a quick check of their pockets to the ones in the Doctor's jacket – where the Screw driver lived. As the sound of what could surely be the footsteps of the Doctor's escort to an interrogation room, he had nudged the Screw driver into Rose's hand and meaningfully eyed the grate on the ceiling, in easy reach if it so happened that Rose took a fancy to stand on the bench and give the screws that held it in place a thorough inspection. When the guards opened the cell, he jumped to his feet and grinned widely, which threw them off guard for a moment and gave Rose plenty of time to slip the Screw driver into the pockets of her shorts and out of sight, and to glare at the Doctor's back. Some time at the beach was much preferred over crawling her way through a ventilation shaft and following the murmur of voices. She'd almost ended up in a middle of a birthday party the last time. It was awkward – they'd thought she was a stripper taking a more unusual route rather than hiding in a cake.

And now the Doctor sat in an interrogation room, eying the man called Vidic while he asked a question with an awful amount of importance.

'What was his name?'

'We got rid of that a long time ago.'

'What was his name?'

Vidic looked at the Doctor long and hard. And the Doctor looked back at him. There was silence in the little room – even the guards at the doors didn't dare to even shift their weight and risk disturbing the atmosphere's attempts to balance the two sources of overwhelming power in the room. The Doctor against the Templars. Universe against religion.

To many, religion is their universe. And to some, the universe is their religion. Two ways of looking at the world. Two beliefs.

Two weapons.

Vidic sat back in his in his chair and studied the Doctor. He was in charge of a whole army, with four guards in the room sworn to his will and said captive was handcuffed to a chair with the key in the pocket of the guard outside the door with a sniper rifle. As far as Vidic was concerned, he was the one with his thumbs in this wonderful little pie he had cooking.

'Whatever his name was, he's forgotten it a long time ago, as have I. I shouldn't worry about it. If you really want to call him anything, call him Subject Sixteen.'

'There are more like him?' The Doctor queried.

'Oh, plenty more. And each and every one of them is special.'

'How do you mean, "special"? And if they're so special, why do they end up like him?'

Vidic laughed. 'I thought I was meant to be the one asking the questions here!'

The Doctor glared.

'But it is a good question, I'll admit.' Vidic laced his fingers together and placed them on the table in front of him. 'Where do you hold with religion?'

'Depends what one we're talking about.'

Vidic tapped his fingers on the desk. 'Let's say I'm talking about Christianity. That run of the mill religion. Do you know it?' Vidic's eyebrow lifted slightly, as did the corner of his mouth, but the Doctor didn't react.

'That one, and many others. It's why I had to check for classification.'

'I see. Well, if you know Christianity, then you'll know the story of Adam and Eve. I trust that you do?'

The Doctor didn't react.

'I'll take that as a yes. The devil tempted Eve to take a bite of the Forbidden Fruit – the Apple from the Tree of Knowledge – and for that, she and Adam were cast out of Eden by God.' Vidic leaned forward. 'What if I were to tell you that the Apple were no real fruit, and that every Subject who has passed through these doors are a direct descendant of those first two humans on Earth?'

The Doctor tilted his head. 'I'd be mildly surprised.'

Vidic laughed. 'You do have a way with words, Doctor.' He smiled at the brief frown on the Doctor's face. 'We have spies in TORCHWOOD. We know all about you. And it was so kind of you to let us take that blood sample. If I were you, I would've been a bit more careful about where I stumbled into.'

'Really? And where's that then?'

'I'm surprised at you, Doctor. All your time travel and you haven't come across us once. We're an old organisation – one as old as Christianity itself.'

The Doctor took barely second to arrive to the answer. 'Templars.'

'Of course, we're more about the power now, rather than religion. Religion's a rather outdated concept now, don't you think? We know too much about the universe to think that everything was created by a big man in the sky.'

'Sometimes, someone's faith is the one thing they have in the whole world.'

'What's your faith, Doctor?'

'Ask me again in five minutes. I need some time to think about it.'

Vidic shrugged and eyed the clock on the opposite side of the room. 'Alright. Any more questions while we wait?'

'I've got one.' The Doctor tilted his head, and his handcuffs clinked as he shifted slightly on his chair. 'What was that machine Subject Sixteen was in?'

'I'm shocked you didn't ask sooner. That, Doctor, is the Animus. It was a gift, left to us by the race who occupied this planet before the human race came to be. And through it, we can pull apart someone's DNA to the extent where they can relive the memories of their ancestors. It's a thoroughly remarkable piece of technology, and I'm sure you'll comply with us when we invite you to give it a try? Only there's so much about you we'd like to know, Doctor.'

'If you put me in that thing, you'll see things you never even dreamed possible. You'll regret every waking moment of your life.' The Doctor's eyes were cold and hard.

But Vidic grinned.

'And that'll be the fun part of it. Well, Doctor, it's been five minutes, and I haven't forgotten my question – what is your faith?'

'I don't have one – not really, anyway.'

'Oh? It rather seemed to me that you did.'

'Your question was a bit off. You asked if I had a faith, but you didn't ask whether or not it was in something.'

'Ah, very good! In that case – what do you put your faith in?'

It was at that very moment that it came to Vidic's attention that this room had an air ventilation system. It wasn't as though he hadn't known it before, but he'd just become aware of it – mainly because one of the four screws holding up the grate in the ceiling had just fallen down onto the table between him and the Doctor, who was suddenly grinning at him. The guards were already pulling out their guns and aiming them at the ceiling by the time a second screw dropped onto the table, and their fingers had barely twitched over the triggers when the whole thing came down and, with a hiss of a broken pipe, steam filled the room in a big humid cloud. Vidic staggered backwards, knocking his chair over, and screamed through hacking coughs at his guards to do something, who were all bumbling around in the smoke.

'You alright down there, Doctor!' someone shouted, and Vidic would've howled in dismay if it wasn't for all the blasted steam.

'I put my faith in Rose!' The Doctor crowed triumphantly, before there was the sound of flipflops hitting the floor, a buzz of something sonic, and the door slamming on them all.

'GET THEM!' Vidic screamed at the guards, shoving them all out of the way as he threw the door open again. 'KILL THEM! SHOOT THEM DEAD!' They poured out into the corridor, and were bolting up it when they heard the noise of the universe echoing in Abstergo's Headquarters – which sounded remarkably like the sound of a key on the piano strings and all that is good in this world, leaving us for a time.

Time Is Relative

He'd known!

The Doctor found himself moaning as the memory faded. They hadn't stumbled into Abstergo by accident – he'd known where they were going – for crying out loud; for once in his life he'd had a purpose! He he'd known how to activate the Animus – he'd known Vidic, he'd known Abstergo, he'd known everything! How did he forget? How? HOW?

The pain he'd been having in his head chose the moment to strike – hard. The Doctor cried out and fell to his knees as every particle fought him, rejected him and clawed at him.

He knew what it was. And he shouted it at Amy and Rory as they flocked towards him, wrapping arms around his shoulders and shouting in his face.

'They're using my DNA! They're using my DNA like some big lasso and they're pulling us in!' he cried out as the pain hit him again. 'Like Templar cowboys!'

'Can you stop it?' Rory demanded.

The Doctor's eyes fell on the light, which was blinking pathetically. He felt sweat drip into his eyes.

'We're doomed,' he stated in all the desperation of a man who has nothing left.

OMG. CHAPTER TWELVE SOON. :D A lot of chapter twelve will go unbeta'd, its ten phases in all and poor SchmEthan just doesn't have the time to go through them all at once D: And some phases are a paragraph long too, so I can just really go through them and apologise for any mistakes. YAY LONG CHAPTERS. :D I can't wait to put it up! Anyway, ta' for reading, much love! *Heart with hands*