Amy was the first out of the TARDIS when they landed, shoving the door open as though it were an insult and elbowing an elderly lady as she ran to the building in front of her. After her came Rory, straightening the lady and murmuring apologies while he tried to keep an eye on his vanishing wife.
The Doctor was the last to peer around the door, watching as Rory pushed open the double doors and followed Amy into the building. He shook his head in consternation.
"And I thought she said she could eat anything," he muttered, messing with his hair. As tough a stomach as Amy Pond might have, she was not up to the challenge of eating a Rippling Fish Sandwich–which, to be fair, was famous throughout the universe as the sandwich most likely to make someone expel their food. Because the Rippling Fish tended to decay rapidly upon death and also had the alarming tendency to move even when its nervous system should have shut down long ago, only the bravest of space travelers dared to eat it. In fact, the people of Veltzgodel IX had made large amounts of money, hosting contests to see who could stomach one of their infamous sandwiches longest.
The current record-holder was the Doctor himself, who had managed in his 9th body to hold down the sandwich for thirty-six minutes, after which he had been terribly sick and vowed never to touch one of the bloody things again. But Amy Pond had practically asked for it.
"At least I got her out of the TARDIS," he said, patting the side of the door in comfort. "I bet you'd appreciate that, eh, Sexy?"
The TARDIS didn't speak, of course, but he fancied that the ship hummed its agreement. "Well, I'd better go after her, I suppose," he said. "Shouldn't leave poor Rory alone with her in this state."
And with that, he left the TARDIS and meandered over to the building. It was a massive affair, covering at least an acre of land, and titled "KMART." He'd never been inside one of those before; in fact, he wasn't even sure what it was.
"At least it's the 21st Century," he said after a customary glance around. "And America, too! I don't come here nearly often enough…"
A blast of cool air met him as he opened the door to KMART. And KMART, he discovered, was a place in which all sorts of strange things were stored. The very air had a golden-brown feel of age to it, and the people themselves were stooped and heavy. He sniffed, caught a whiff of dust, and felt compelled to stop one of the ladies passing by in a green work smock. She had very orange hair caught in a messy bun, and a face that spoke of a long relationship with the destructive power of cigarettes. "Excuse me," asked the Doctor, after taking a second to read her nametag, "Molly, would you mind telling me what year it is?"
"You serious?" she asked. "It's 2012."
"Ah. I see. And how long has all of this been here?" He accompanied the question with a few waves of his arm, which were meant to encompass the store and everything in it.
"Dunno, mister. You're asking the wrong lady."
"Then who is the right lady to ask?" the Doctor questioned, but Molly had already moved away, stacking some toothpaste onto the shelves.
It was high time to find Amy, anyway. The Doctor made his way to the back of the store, marveling at how difficult this task was. Where did all the space go?
Rory was standing in front of the door to the ladies' room, shifting from foot to foot. "Amy? Are you okay?"
The reply was marked by an unusually thick Scottish accent. "No! I'm not! Because he thought it would be funny to make me eat that–" The rest of the sentence was cut off.
The Doctor winced in sympathy, but one did have to defend oneself in cases like this. "Oh, no I didn't, Pond," he said, leaning on the wall next to the door. "You said you could eat anything, and I thought that the Rippling Fish Sandwich would be the perfect way to test that. You didn't have to eat it, you know."
"What else was I going to do? Play chess with it?" Amy yelled. Rory wiped his forehead.
"You might want to go in there," the Doctor whispered to him. "You're a nurse."
"Her body's getting rid of it, which is the best thing for it," Rory whispered back. "And you're a doctor. Do you want to go in there?"
He had a point. The Doctor winced as Amy was sick again, and Rory rubbed his eyes. "Hang on, Amy, I'm coming in," he said, and went in.
"Brave man," the Doctor commented to no one in general. He turned around to examine the store. Something about it was bothering him a great deal, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.
As he pondered, Molly approached him. Without even giving him a smile, she said, "Is that woman all right?"
"Oh yes," the Doctor assured her, "just the remains of a sandwich that's a curse on the entire universe. Not that you'd know anything about that, of course, but she'll be fine in a few minutes."
Molly's eyes held very little sympathy. "You just tell her not to mess up that bathroom. I've got to clean it today, and if it's nasty I'm going home instead."
The Doctor nodded, and Molly gave the bathroom door one more sullen glance before she moved away again. "Err…Amy," the Doctor said, "are you about done in there?"
A groan was his only response, but after a few minutes, a very pale Amy Pond emerged from the bathroom, holding a wet paper towel to her face. Rory steadied her as she walked.
The Doctor, very gingerly, patted her shoulder. "All right, Pond?"
"If you ever think that I am going to trust you when you say something tastes good again–" she threatened, but the Doctor waved it away.
"You practically dared me to take you there! Should I have let you miss out on an experience like that? Do you know how many people have even tasted a Rippling Fish and lived to tell of it?"
The glare she sent his way was enough to singe him around the edges. But, to be honest, she did look terrible. And Rory looked tired. Perhaps he owed it to them to take them somewhere nice, let them relax for a day or so. There was a planet that he knew that was almost all beach, and if he arrived at a time when the Giant Clams weren't awake, well then, it was a perfect vacation. "Back to the TARDIS, Ponds," he said. "We'll go somewhere peaceful for the day."
On the way out, Rory commented on their surroundings. "Something about this store is really disconcerting."
"Yes!" the Doctor said. "It's something about the time. Things don't seem to change very quickly around here. In fact, I'd say that nothing has changed in here for at least a decade. There are time fields that can do things like that, but they usually only occur in places that have jungles–"
"I was thinking," Rory interrupted, "that this place is smaller on the inside than it appears on the outside."
"Smaller on the inside?"
They all took a minute to processes this.
"What?" Amy said. "Like a reverse TARDIS?"
Rory could see the curiosity growing in the Doctor's eyes like balloon swelling up, and took quick steps to pop it. "Doctor. Peaceful places? Time off? Remember?"
"Yes, yes, of course," the Doctor said. "I wonder if a perception filter could mask something like that."
"Doctor!" Amy said. "Peaceful. Vacation. Now."
"Right, right. Come along, Ponds." The Doctor led the way back to the TARDIS, but not without a glance back at the KMART. "Reverse TARDIS," he muttered. Now that was a mystery to explore on a rainy day.
He resolved to land the TARDIS on a beach with only one or two Giant Clams. After all, how many people could say that they had seen a Giant Clam and lived to tell of it?