Yeah, I know - I've said this was coming for about two days now, before I finally posted it. I just didn't get round to it - sorry. I think I can see where this story is going now. I've finalized some ideas I've had swimming about in my head, so things should get rolling from here on out. Anyway, enjoy the chapter everyone!

Chapter 16: Eyphah

It was at that moment that the young girl began to regain consciousness. Seeing the little girl begin to stir, the three adults moved in around her as she awoke. The first thing she saw was the Doctor standing before her. She jerked into full awareness very quickly.

"How?!" She squealed in surprise. She took in River and the Doctor with wide, disbelieving eyes. "But... You should be..."

"Dead?" River intersected, "Never!"

The Doctor winced at her words. From where she was, River didn't catch the motion, but Eyphah did and she pondered it. He interrupted her musings. "Why, Eyphah? Why do this?"

Eyphah just stared at him, not afraid to meet his eye. As she did so, her eyes clouded over. The Doctor held her still as she struggled against him, her breath hissing loudly between her two front teeth - which sat slightly skewed against her lower lip as she snarled at him.

Jack stepped back in shock and horror as he took this in. "What the hell?!" He shouted, reaching for his gun. River slapped his hand away from the holster without thinking. He glanced at her, then returned his attention to the Doctor.

Eyphah's eyes stayed dark as the Doctor fired questions at her. "What are you?" He asked, slightly incredulous. That she could go through such a complete transformation so fluidly and quickly caused him to feel a mixture of awe, amazement and a little bit of fear.

She looked at him through wide, dark eyes, ginger hair falling across her face. "Do you mean what species am I," she began, cocking her head. "Or do you rather mean what have I become?" A twisted grin curled around her lips as she smiled with wicked glee.

The Doctor watched the motion with trepidation. "Both."

Eyphah smirked. No one saw how, but suddenly she was away from the Doctor, moving away from him around the console. River and Jack were both on high alert, fingers twitching around gun gilts as they followed the girl's movements with keen eyes.

The Doctor got to his feet. Straightening his bow-tie, he turned to face the ginger orphan as she moved with lynx-like grave about his treasured machine. "Well, aren't you going to give me an answer?" He asked her quietly. This time, the calmness in his voice wasn't soothing - it was threatening. The mere sound of it sent shivers down River's spine - her Doctor was now extremely angry, she knew. This was not going to be pleasant for the child.

Eyphah stood still and cocked her head again. There was a small period of silence whilst she mulled things over. Then, her mind made up, she replied. "Well, my species Doctor - you really should have figured that one out by now. Go ahead and see if you can't."

The Doctor mulled the facts over in his head. "You are from Earth," he began to ramble, expressing his thoughts aloud so as not to get lost in the vastness of his own brain activity, "yet you are not human. You carry a watch that sings of the Universe, and have knowledge and darkness that should no- Oh." Something seemed to click as his brain made a connection.

"What is it sweetie?" River asked, stressfully. The Doctor began to pace slightly, ignoring his wife for the moment as he continued to talk to Eyphah. "My blood on the watch- it was locked to my DNA. DNA that then merged with yours, causing you to lose your humanity, hence the stamina. And my inner darkness, amplified by... Something in your genetic code. But how? An amplifier in a human - that's impossible!"

Eyphah smiled her sickly sneer once again. "Not impossible, Doctor," she corrected, "just highly improbable." She turned on the spot, walking back around the column towards the Doctor. This time he backed away.

"Didn't you ever think about the meaning of my given name, Doctor? I was named Eyphah by the Orphanage after all - it is not my name." Eyphah stopped again, leaning on the console slightly. "Eyphah - it's Hebrew Doctor." She smirked as he figured it out.

"Of course..." The Doctor's gaze fixed on her shadow-filled eyes as he voiced his understanding - more for Jack and River's benefit than anything else. They weren't as multi-lingual as he. "Darkness," he specified, "Eyphah is Hebrew for darkness..."

A bright, toothy smile appeared upon the child's face. "Congratulations Doctor, you got there in the end. Too late though..." The smile twisted and darkened as she stepped away from the console. "I was told you'd be bright, how disappointed I am to discover this is not the case. You see, Doctor, all this time you never noticed." She indicated her surroundings. "I was laying a signal. My way out should be here any second-" bright, blue light flooded the room "-now."

The TARDIS was full of Silences. Not only that, but the dark man with the vortex ring from the Orphanage was there too, right next to Eyphah. "The attack in the Orphanage was no accident, Doctor," he said, voice chilling as ice. "Thank you for showing Eyphah the way home."

There was another flash, and the Doctor blinked away the blinding after image the light burnt into his vision. Eyphah, the man and the Silences were gone. River and Jack looked around in confusion. The Doctor sat in his chair, head hanging slightly as he processed the information he had just received. River tapped his arm.

"Doctor," she began slowly, "You might want to see this." He looked up. River held a post-it note in one hand. "It was stuck on the console - Eyphah must have left it when she was leaning on it." She passed it to him.

The note was written in Gallifreyan, which surprised the Doctor somewhat. But it was what the note read that truly threw him. "What's this?" he mumbled, fingers tracing the outline of the circling text.

Jack glanced at the note from over his shoulder. "What does it say?" He asked. River shot him a look that he didn't understand. There was an uncomfortable silence before the Doctor replied.

"It's coordinates." He said at last.

"So?" Jack replied, not understanding the significance.

"Jack, they're written in Gallifreyan. That should be impossible…" He indicated the circling matrix sketched onto the yellow note, "Specifically these are the coordinates of a small planet known as Jideofor."

"So what do we do now?" Jack asked.

"Well," River spoke up again, "I don't know about you, but I rather feel like a trip." She bonked a few parts of the TARDIS and popped some coordinates in to the display. "We're off to see what this is all about. Destination: Jideofor."