"What do you mean you don't want to go any where?" The Doctor exclaimed incredulously as his companions trooped back into the TARDIS behind him.
Amy rolled her eyes as she made her way up the stairs and leaned against the console, "Well, not that running around, fighting aliens from bad sci-fi movies isn't fun. But really, isn't there anything, less, oh I dunno, life threatening? That we can do?"
"What do you mean, 'life threatening'? Every thing was under control!" The Doctor protested looking somewhat offended at their raised eyebrows and questioning glares, "Well mostly anyway."
It really had been under control, well if it wasn't completely under control it wasn't like he would have been able to handle it
"Oh, right so world nearly ending for the umpteenth time was part of your plan?" Amy shot back with that ever so smug look on her face.
The Doctor opened his mouth intending to say something, then paused thinking about it, "Maybe not that exactly but-"
Rory cut in sensing that a yelling match was about to ensue, "What Amy means, is we just need a break from saving the worlds."
Amy threw her hands towards Rory, "Exactly! Don't you know where the universe's biggest shopping mall is or something?"
"Of course I do, but you cannot be serious you don't want to go to a shopping mall!" The Doctor insisted, walking around the console idly.
"Then can we watch a movie?" Amy asked turning around and grabbed for the screen hanging on the console, "How's this work?"
"Amy! That's not a TV! Don't touch-" The Doctor began until the screen flared to life with a an old black and white commercial, "What did you do!"
"I didn't touch anything! Why do you have this on your TARDIS? Is this the kind of stuff you order on netflix?" Amy shot back critically
In the background the commercial continues playing with images of dramatically overjoyed dick and Jane looking children played with all a manner of small figurines. The voice over narration, stereotypical of earths 1950's came on and Rory zoned out Amy and the doctors bickering for a moment to watch.
"Items for collectors, enthusiasts and children of all ages. The Toy Store at the End of the Universe has a wide variety of uniquely detailed and lifelike figurines. You wont find better prices anywhere. So whether you're a collector or you simply enjoy these wonderful models, visit us The Toy Store at the End of the Universe." the commercial ended and the screen was suddenly filled with row upon row of binary code.
The TARDIS made a noise like it was going to be sick, if indeed a TARDIS could be sick. The doctor and Amy stopped fighting and looked up almost simultaneously. The Doctor ran to the console checking gauges and flipping levers searching for the cause of the noise. Nothing happened for a moment then the TARDIS gave a lurch and the lights went out. The lights faded back in much dimmer than before casting an eerie darkness about the cabin. The binary on the screen suddenly returned to normal and writing started running across it detailing whatever it was that had just happened.
"What was that?" Amy asked looking at the doctor, rapt with attention..
The Doctor, seeming to be checking all of his buttons and whistles on the console while simultaneously trying to read what was running across the screen, frowned, "Some one or something you never know, seems to have overridden the manual controls and hi jacked us to…. Somewhere."
"You don't know where?" Rory asked, "Can't you just look it up on one of your things?"
The doctor shook his head, "I whatever took us here has disabled all of my flashy buttons, none of it works without the flashy buttons. I'll need to recalibrate the briod nebuliser and check the symbiotic links and-"
Amy sauntered over to the door, grinning as she leaned against the frame with a hand on the knob before cutting the doctor mid-sentence, "Well, you know there is another way, we could just open the door and take a quick look around. Maybe find out why we're here in the first place. But no you're right much to complicated." and with that Amy pushed the door open.
"Don't-!" The doctor began before realizing that nothing had happened, and indeed the air was not being sucked into the vacuum of space, hordes of enraged aliens were not storming the TARDIS and there were certainly not any poisonous gases leaking in, that he could yet notice anyway.
Stepping around Amy the doctor made his way outside and took a deep breath, "Reasonable oxygen levels nothing to dangerous, no significant pollution, dry atmosphere. Whatever civilization was here is long gone by now."
Amy stepped out, "So then it wont matter if we take a look around?"
"Well if there's anything to look at." the doctor said gazing over the barren desert landscape of the planet.
There wasn't even a single plant in sight, just rocks and hard packed sand, not at all a hospitable environment. Rory came out of the TARDIS and turned a full circle unable to believe that whatever had changed their course would have brought them to what seemed to literally be the middle of no where. As he made his revolution something caught Rory's eye. On the mostly empty plain there was a simple building. A small two story design, made of wooden slats with peeling white paint it had the look of a western general store right down to the picture window under the wooden awning. The sign on the building had roughly half of the letters still intact the rest had peeled off or simply rotted away. It read T y Sto At he End Of T e U verse.
"Doctor you should see this.' Rory called looking over his shoulder at the other two.
They both turned around to see what Rory found so interesting on what had seemed such a dull planet.
"Tysto… is that even a word?" Amy exclaimed after attempting to read the sign.
Rory shook his head, 'Weren't you watching that commercial or whatever it was that came on right before we ended up here?"
The Doctor locked eyes with Amy for a moment both realizing that neither had been paying attention to it amid their bickering, "No but, well that's why we have you Rory!"
"Toy Store At The End Of The Universe, according to the commercial it sells dolls." Rory informed them slightly annoyed at the fact they hadn't been paying attention.
"Brilliant Rory! Wonderful a toy shop. don't know why someone would take the time to kidnap us away to a toy shop but we might well find out." The Doctor suggested beginning a jaunty walk towards the place.
Amy shrugged and followed him Rory frowned and called out, "Is that really the best idea?" before going to catch up.
The toy store in question looked like a building that could only have been at home in Dickensian England. The window panes on both the door and display were clouded shut with age and cobwebs. The only sound the door made as they walked in was a long shrill creak coming from the rusted hinges. Every space in the shop was covered with shelves or tables stacked one on the other to form rickety towers, which if examined to harshly looked liable to come tumbling down in a heap of dust, broken wood and small figurines. The figurines were another thing. They were everywhere, no particular order just jostled and pushed back as far as they would fit on whatever surface they had been placed so they would all fit. From what they could see no two of these dolls were these same. There might have been a thousand that looked as though they had been taken of the streets of the twenty-first century but there were minute differences in the clothing, the hair, the color of the eyes so that each and every one was completely unique. Slowly the group drifted apart to examine the wares of the toy shop.
The shelves formed a veritable maze within the store. Amy worked her way through this maze occasionally picking up a particularly interesting figurine. Careful as she could be when she set them back down, a domino effect being a perfectly legitimate possibility. Eventually she got to the very back of the shop, where there sat a counter. Behind that counter the apparent shopkeeper, an aging man with somewhat thinning white hair, also sat, staring blankly into space.
"Oi, you the manager here? Mind telling' me where you get these dolls from?" Amy asked him making a vague gesture over her shoulder.
The man was silent, not even glancing in her direction.
"Are you deaf? I asked you who made the dolls." Amy asked repeating herself and taking a step closer to peer at the shopkeeper.
From behind her Amy heard a girlish voice scoff, "He's not going to answer you."
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The Doctor's method of exploration was much quicker than Amy's more casual 'scenic route'. He took out his screwdriver and after an initial try whacked it once or twice on the palm of his hand. With the accompaniment of, "Come on you stupid thing!" After which he was satisfied with the results and began to follow the whirring noise to a door that had somehow managed to remain uncovered by the dolls. On his first try the door was locked but that was a situation his sonic screwdriver immediately remedied. This door was clearly used more often than the front one and was also better maintained, the hinges made no sound as he opened the door. Once inside the room The Doctors eyes lit up like a twelve year old in a candy shop.
"This ought to be interesting." he murmured stepping further into the room and softly shutting the door behind him.
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The dolls were really starting to give Rory the creeps. He couldn't shake the feeling that they where watching him, and when he looked over his shoulder and caught a doll that had maybe, just maybe shifted its position. Well it was helping matters. So he had decided to employ a tactic similar to that he used when Amy somehow managed to drag him along to shop for shoes; give everything a quick once over and move on. He stayed towards the edges of the building, not yet keen on the idea of getting lost in the maze occupying the center of the room. The path he chose dead ended at a staircase that was threatening to fall in on itself. He looked over his shoulder again and caught a geisha doll staring at him and opted to chance the stairs.
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Amy turned around to see a sprightly teenaged girl with a short blonde bob, " He's the Silence, he's just there."
Amy raised a quizzical eyebrow, and looked over her shoulder at the silence quickly, "So then runs this place?"
"I do." the girl shrugged, never breaking eye contact.
Amy shook it off, it wasn't like a teenager having a job was all that odd, "So, where do you get the dolls?"
Pointing upward the girl answered, "The toymaker, I wake up some days and I'll get a box of new dolls on the counter and others disappear from time to time."
Strange, Amy thought to herself, " This is a rather unusual place for a toy store must not get a lot of business?"
"Oh we don't sell the dolls here." The girl said quickly shaking her head firmly
"Well why not you got plenty of them?" Amy asked leaning against the counter as she continued the conversation.
"Sorry, that'd be against my contract with the Toymaker." she smiled apologetically
"Alright….what did you say your name was?" Amy continued the cryptic answer fueling her curiosity.
Chuckling she answered, "I didn't say but I'm Susan,"
A crash sounded from not to far off and Susan's face paled as she ran back into the shelving maze with Amy quick to follow her. Susan threw open the door to the room she had led them to, where the doctor was crouched over the remains of a computer he had apparently dropped.
"No, what have you-! Agh! I locked the-" Susan pointed vaguely at the door before pressing her fingers against her lips, "okay, I do need that, and in one piece."
"Ah, yes about that, complete accident. Really. However!" The doctor jumped to his feet, "Why, would a toy store need chronospacial teleported-transceiver?"
"A what?" Amy asked pulling a confused face.
Susan frowned, not moving her fingers " It's in my contract, the Toymaker hired me to find people for him. I find people some when, somewhere and pull them out of time and into here."
"Is that what you did to us?" Amy asked trying to get their attention.
The doctor looked at Susan curiously "The Toymaker, he doesn't need you to bring people to him, he could do that himself."
Susan finally let her hands drop and laughed, "He exists in his own mind. I think he's been there for to long, he's forgotten how manipulate our world. I just know that he hired me and I signed the contract."
"So what did you get to deliver people to their deaths?" The Doctor accused coldly.
"How dare y-!" Susan bit her tongue before she finished, still seething with rage, "I'm not allowed to talk about the details of my contract. Enough already, the Toymaker is-"
" Well that's convenient, isn't it-" The Doctor was cut off by the floor creaking just out of the room.
Susan whipped around in time to see the Silence shoot Amy with a small hand laser.
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Rory reached the second floor, where the staircase abruptly ended at a door. Cautiously he knocked, and when there was no answer he opened the door and walked inside. As soon as he was inside Rory got the same impression he did whenever he walked in the TARDIS. The room appeared to be a life sized game of chess. The pieces looked to be actual people, one of the white paws bore a eerily similar resemblance to the geisha doll that had been staring at him before. The space where the white king would have stood was empty. The black king however moved forward slightly so that he was in front of the row of 'pawns'.
"Good day Rory, I'm the Toymaker. Lets play a game of chess shall we?" The toymaker smiled slightly.
Rory frowned, "I think I'll go back down to the shop actually."
A clown that had been standing in the rook position grabbed Rory as he turned back towards the door. A man dressed like the old French aristocracy looked back at him, "Leaving isnt an option unless you win. The other option is you join the dolls in the shop, lad. You don't play you forfeit, same thing as losing."
A slightly sunken man in a top hat looked t Rory, "You look like a smart lad, can't lose nothing by playing
Rory shook his head and pulled his arm free of the clown and going to assume the position of white king, "fine I'll play."
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"Amy!" The Doctor shouted, "What did you do to her!"
Susan knelt down next to Amy placing a hand on her collar bone. Behind her the Silence had once again become immobile, " She's just knocked out, she'll be fine. Doctor."
The Doctor turned on Susan, "What are you trying to pull? Who is he?"
" He's the Silence-"
"No! I'm finished with this! What's his real name?"
Susan winced and stood up, "Before he made the contract, he was Omega. I pulled him here at the end of his life to play the Toymakers game and he made a deal instead. The Toymaker and the Black Gaurdian both made contracts with him. He cant talk, and he cant hear us, but he's the same genius. They're out to get you Doctor."
"Why are you telling me? You work for the toymaker." The Doctor said suspiciously
"Its in my contract." Susan answered simply
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"Queen, b-6, check."
Rory looked up at the smug looking nurse in front of him gazing around the board for a way out of this predicament, he called out "Castle!" and exchanged places with said piece. The Toymaker evaluated the board calm as ever.
"bishop c-4." the game went on, and as it did the board slowly began to clear as pieces were captured until the Toymaker finally found himself caught in the crosshairs of an undeniable checkmate.
"Alright, I won, can I go back downs stairs now?" Rory asked once again turning to the door.
Then the ground gave a lurch and Rory's first thought was earthquake. Then he saw how the entire building seemed to be ripping like a piece of old fabric.
"You never could have won."
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Downstairs the building only slightly trembled.
"What now!" the doctor exclaimed
"It's the Toymaker, he played a game and lost, he's taking his world apart. Except, I've been using my temporal, and spacial software to attach it to our reality, if he wants to destroy his world he needs separate the realities again without destroying this one, the rest of the council would definetly not be happy ." Susan explained
"If he lost, he had to have an opponent…..who- Rory!" the doctor realized running out the door, stopping quickly to pop his head back into the room, "watch her." he said nodding at Amy before going again.
Susan nodded biting her lip. She pulled Amy into a sitting position keeping half an eye on Omega who remained unresponsive. Desperate for something to do Susan paced a few nervous steps before suddenly going to one of the computers and beginning to write a new program. Amy stirred, making a low groan.
"Amy? How are you feeling?" Susan asked immediately leaving the computer to check on Amy.
As Susan knelt next to Amy, Omega was spurred into action, making a dash for the computers.
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The Doctor ran through the lone door to the room on the second floor," Rory!"
"I cant get to the door." Rory called back, "he's doing something to the distance, run all I want, I wont get anywhere."
The room did seem to be shifting and bending, like a carnival funhouse, where you could never tell whether it was a mirror or a walkway in front of you. The former chess pieces had once again reverted to small figurines that rolled about on the floor. Rory attempted again to make a break for the door to no avail. The toymaker was determined for his opponent to lose.
"Hello Doctor, so glad you joined us." the Toymaker said completely calm, "really though I expected to be done by now."
"enough of that I'll make a deal with you." the doctor said trying to distract the Toymaker from his current task.
Reality stopped bending suddenly and rory started for the door. The Toymakers interest was apparent, "what's your deal?"
"Let Rory out and I'll play a game, what would you rather have another human or a time lord?" the doctor asked knowing he had his opponents' attention.
The door clicked faintly behind the doctor and both him and rory moved infitesimally towards it, " you have a dea-"
Suddenly there was an aging man with black hair and matching robes, " No! not for him! No deals! The Doctor dies!"
The doctor and Rory where already gone having distracted the Toymaker long enough to get out of the room. They really did seem to have a chroic disability to go any where without having to end up saving something.
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Susan jumped up and tried to pull Omega away from her computers. He pushed her off knocking her against the wall with Amy. Hurriedly typing something into one computer and then something else into another. Omega grabbed a small handheld computer device from what appeared to be the mid-fiftieth century. And before Susan could get up he had already run out of the room. Susan ran frantically from screen to screen, and as she gathered information from each a pit formed in her stomach. Amy sat up shaking a feeling of vertigo from her head, looking up she saw Susan half slumped over one of the computers.
"Susan? You alright?" Amy asked, concerned as she got to her feet, "what happened?"
Susan nodded and started her frantic running about again as she began doing something on the computers, " Amy when the Doctor comes tell him that Omega is going to pull the store out of time, or rather into where time doesn't - it doesn't matter. You'll need to get outside, run, knock over shelves, just get outside."
"Well, what's he really done?"
"He's trying to take the entire planet, I'm trying to contain it to the store. You lot get out, I'll have to be upstairs, the range I can create will need to be right in the epicenter. Don't tell the Doctor that." Susan said quickly looking at Amy to make sure she was following the conversation.
"Why not? If you tell him he can fix it he always can!"
Susan shook her head, "Amy, this isn't something he can fix! My way is the only way there is to fix it, and he'll stay here which is what they want. Listen , I made a contract with the White Guardian to do everything in my power to keep the Doctor alive. The universe, all of creation needs him. Amy a good portion of my life has been devoted to making sure that I will be here at this particular moment in order to fufill this one task so the doctor does not die. Do you understand."
Amy swallowed and nodded,Get out of the store got it, yeah."
Susan grabbed what was probably some sort of laptop and started for the door. She stopped in the door way as though she had remembered something, "Would you mind telling my grandfather I said goodbye? Susan Foreman says goodbye?"
"Of course, where's he at?" Amy asked, she could hear foot steps on the stairs, Rory and The Doctor she assumed.
"You'll see him, and you'll know when you do. Trust me." and she was gone, running away to save the universe for the first time in a long time.
Knowing where the floor would silence her footfalls and her way through the labrynth of dolls. She passed so close to the Doctor just once for a moment, that he was only on the other side of the shelf and she looked over through gaps between the tiny figurines and watched him run by. Then, she's up the stairs and into another world. Amy hides it with lies that she is already waiting outside and the Doctor doesn't notice that's she's not until the store is simply there on moment and then abruptly not there the next. He is angry at first then silent. He begins to walk back to the TARDIS.
"Doctor wait we've got to find her grandfather! She told me," amy's voice breaks for a moment, "she told me to tell him that Susan foreman says goodbye."
"Alright, that should- what was her name again?" the doctor asked as something caught his attention drawing the color from his face.
"susan foreman she said. We've got to find her gran-" Amy began
"We don't need to find him, Amy." the doctor answered
"she just died to save us I think we owe-" Rory said suddenly indignant
"She's my grandaughter! Alright, let's just leave." the doctor said trying to brush it off and continue back to the TARDIS.
Amy and Rory's eyes locked for a moment, and they remembered how dangerous it was to be his companions.