This fiction is in no way intended to offend religious individuals, or to challenge their beliefs in Christianity, God, or Jesus Christ. I hope you like my portrayal of them.
I also hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed realising it, you atheists and agnostics too! If you have any interesting points or questions please review. But don't try to guess the story line and spoil it for everyone else. I dislike people who do that.

1

The Vatican Church

The Doctor leaned softly against one magnificent, ancient stone pillar. The quiet, respectful murmurs of hundreds of people filled the enormous space, echoing off its cold surfaces and merging into a collective, tranquil song. Lazily he tilted his head back, glancing up at the pillar's dizzy ascent into the church's towering heights, its huge dome ceiling. Golden light played around the endless golden plaques and golden arches... Golden engravings wound upwards around the central black marble structure that sheltered the legendary altar.

Maggie stood quietly inspecting the centrepiece a few feet from him. Her green eyes were wide and piercing, one finger constantly twisting a wild curl of her long tawny hair. Her delicate jaw was slack, indicating her intense engagement. An indulgent smile tugged at the corners of the Doctor's mouth as he dropped his gaze to her again.
Unconsciously, she drifted closer towards the alter and its marvellous black frame, searching out every detail of gorgeous craftsmanship.

He watched her fondly for a few minutes. Waves of strangers passed them by on their own tourist trips.

"I don't believe in God," she threw at him over her shoulder, "but I love how much they loved him. These artists. Have you ever seen such beautiful work?"
"Well, yes... Back home." he admitted, "But it's still pretty decent. St. Peter's Bascilia. 'Basilica Papale di San Pietro'. It even has a name that hurts your brain."
"It's a shame we can't go and see any of your cathedrals."

She gazed at him, one side of her full mouth pulled up in a sad smile.
His chest tightened but his hearts warmed. Idling over to her, he returned her expression and placed a familiar hand on her shoulder.
"I wouldn't have taken you there anyway, Mags," he joked, "your brain would have fallen out. It was ten times more beautiful than this."
There was a pensive pause. He retracted his hand and she leaned against his arm.
"Thank you for bringing me. I know observing art isn't your thing."
"You deserve a break." he smiled at her, "I owe you."
"That's the last time I go wading around in sewers for you. I've seen far too many."
He chuckled, and she brushed another wayward curl of tangled hair out of her face.

He loved her face. He loved her reckless curls and her soft, slim hands and her quick mind. He loved her devoted compassion, her unwavering sense of justice, how she never complained about anything. He loved her free, creative thoughts and the story books she kept in the console room, and the odd clothes she picked out of ancient shop windows on a whim. He loved her airy smell and her taste in music.

Most of all, he loved her because she didn't show the slightest bit of interest in seducing him. There was nothing behind her forward friendliness but more forward friendliness; they relied on one another, they worked like a dream team, they were each others' company.
But his godlike status didn't make her swoon. His boundless energy didn't sweep her off her feet, his looks had nothing to do with her attachment.

Call it what he would, she was his best friend. His very best friend.
He talked to her about Rose and River Song when they sat on his bunkbeds watching her choice of films. He had told her about the Time War - not your usual quick briefing, but in detail... he had allowed himself to feel when he described his history to her.
She was a mystery. She was just a human, but she fitted seamlessly into his world, as apparently did he into her's. She had set up an art room in the TARDIS and praised him when he took the time to paint something. She made him take her to Laser Quest once a month. She encouraged him to eat vegetables.

She hoisted her backpack more comfortably onto her shoulders and grinned up at him.
"So, where are we eating?"

Ninety minutes later, as they were twirling pasta around their forks in Piacere Molise, Maggie looked up at him with a glint in her eyes that only ever meant one thing: dangerous, stupid, brilliant adventure.
"So you've been around nearly a thousand years, right."
"Thank you for reminding me."
"Have you ever met him? Or a version of him? Or someone who knew him?"
"Who?" he grinned, relishing her games. She loved to keep him guessing.
"God." she breathed intensely.
"I've met what some people would call the Devil. Never really gone for God. He's not the kind of guy who hangs around for lone space travellers."
"How the fudge did you manage to meet the Devil?"
The Doctor smiled a crooked, knowing smile, though his eyes didn't reflect it.
"It was trapped, on an impossible planet. Orbiting a black hole. I met the body, buried twenty miles under - the mind escaped up to the surface and possessed somebody. Would have found its way back to Earth, if..." he faltered, and then concentrated on his spaghetti.

"Was she brave?" Maggie murmured.
He glanced back up at her, and suddenly beamed.
"She was magnificent."
"What do you think she would say now, if she saw you with your new face?"
"She'd say I was too young. Too clownish. She'd be right."
"Well thank god she's got your old face all to herself, then." she said warmly, "I think she's the luckiest of your companions, you know. She deserves it too."
"So do you." he muttered. His face had lit up in an embarrassed grin, eyes gently praising her for saying everything he had needed to hear, "Nobody's ever said - that before."

Dismissing his approval, she leaned in excitedly again.
"So. God. What do you reckon?"
"Pfff, I don't know. If he does exist it's probably on another plane or dimension. Not easy to reach. And I doubt he'd make personal appointments."
"I always thought if he did exist he wouldn't be at all human. Perhaps you couldn't even see him. Maybe he's a gigantic cosmic dust cloud."
"I like your thinking." he drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment, then stared very hard at his fork.
He took a breath, breathed it out again, and then tried a second time.
"But... the easiest way of finding out is on this planet anyway."

Maggie's eyes became saucepans.
"You're not suggesting-"
"No, no, not if you think it's wrong to. I mean, it's just a thought. A very... very interesting thought."
She stared at him disbelievingly.
"You're going to do it anyway. You're going to visit Jesus Christ. You're insane."
"You love it."
"Yes, I really do, we should go right away."

The TARDIS rocked and groaned and Maggie and the Doctor fell and gambolled about, pressing buttons and pulling levers.

"Do you think it's all true, then? Do you think it all really happened?" she called over the sound of the time rotor.
"Oh, come on Mags, you're more clever than that!" he hollered back, "People have been arguing for centuries what should and shouldn't be put in the Bible. They've added and debated and taken away 'til history wouldn't recognise itself. There may be a hundred made up stories, and a hundred absent truths! But we'll find out, eh?"
"Sure. My dinner isn't having the best time, can't you stabilise her?"
"She's wading through thousands of years of religious conflict and mystery, give her a break!"
"Sorry."
"Push the red hyper-ecstramulation node!"

They swept on, into the near untouched tunnel of time, each second dashing past a hundred years or so.

No adventure, before or after, had ever been - or was to be - quite like this one.