A/N: Hello! This is my first multi-chap fan fiction, so I do hope that if you continue to read this story, you will forgive the inevitable gaps between my updates. While I would like to be able to promise weekly updates, I'm afraid that that isn't possible. I will do my best to post frequently, and promise that I will finish the story, but the intervals between each update are likely to be irregular. As stated in the summary, this is a Whouffle fic inspired by the film "Ruby Sparks," but you can certainly read this without having seen the film. Enjoy! :)

I do not own "Doctor Who," "Ruby Sparks," or any characters, themes, plots, or dialogue recognizable from either.

...

He woke abruptly from a dream that had ended too soon. His eyes flew open and he clutched the bed sheets around him with desperation as he emitted a noise that might have been a gasp. Or perhaps it was the release of a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. He shivered at the sensation of warm blood pumping through the hearts that had long since gone cold and still. But he felt them now, beating thunderously in his chest and at a rate he hadn't known was possible. Energy pulsed through him as it hadn't done in years and he scrambled out of his bed ungracefully and urgently to get to his feet. Staying in bed would have been futile. He needed to think, and he was no good at thinking while still. He paced along the endless TARDIS corridors, confusion riddling every fiber of his being, condemning it to perpetually long for the answer to a mystery he feared would remain unsolved.

The TARDIS hummed in approval; the Doctor was alive again.

He had become reclusive upon losing the Ponds. He rarely ventured out of the TARDIS, only doing so very infrequently in a desperate attempt to hold on to the little sanity he had left, and spent centuries not only pitying himself for his loss, but blaming himself for it. He had, once again, lost his family, and had in the process also lost his will to help others. And how could he, he reasoned, when he was beyond even helping himself? And so, with nowhere to go and no one to go to, he confined himself to his bedroom in his blue box, and dust accumulated on the TARDIS's console.

He had never slept much until then, but it had since become the only thing he ever did, as sleeping was the best way to escape reality. But this simple dream, the one he'd just woken up from, had managed to not only get him out of bed, but dressed as well, bow tie and braces and all, as if being properly groomed would aid him in his attempts of reflecting upon and deciphering his dream.

A brunette stood before the TARDIS, it seemingly towering over her due to how small her frame was. Her hand moved slowly over its worn wooden exterior, fingers trailing after her palm and eventually, upon reaching the door handle, wrapping around it. She gave it a small tug – and then a small groan – when despite the action the door remained closed. With a sigh, the arm fell to her side, the hand clenched in a fist, which she then after a few moments hesitation raised again to rap against the door. She waited for an answer that never came. She seemed familiar with the TARDIS, a notion that rather perturbed the Doctor, as he had not the faintest idea who she could be. He searched his past for a time he might have known her, a time he might have seen that same back as it walked away from him – as they all inevitably did – but came up with nothing. And so he opened his mouth, preparing himself to ask her if she needed help with something, when his tongue betrayed him and he cleared his throat instead.

She turned towards him immediately, the rapidity of the action curling a few tendrils of hair into her face as it whipped around with her. They obscured his view of her for a moment, but when her hand reached up and tucked them behind her ears, any doubt he had about the possibility of having known her vanished instantly. He would have had to be a damned fool to forget the likes of her. Yet when her large brown eyes locked on his, they smiled with familiarity and recognition.

The words he had initially intended to speak finally made it out of his mouth, though he had made no further effort to speak them. "Do you need help?" he heard himself say, but the manner in which he did so surprised him. It rang not like a genuine offer in his ears, but mockery.

She narrowed her eyes at him, yet the appearance of dimples on her cheeks wavered as she tried to suppress a smile. "I wouldn't if you would give me a key. I think I ought to have one, it would spare me from having to wait around for you all the time."

"I've never met you before! Who are you?" He tried to say, but the words refused to be articulated. And yet he still received an answer… from himself, after he scoffed and snapped his fingers to open the time machine's doors. "I'll have you know, Clara Oswald, that I just spent the past two hours fixing that rattling noise in the Maitland's washing machine, waiting for you to make an appearance."

Before he had the chance to try to say that he had no idea who the Maitlands were, or who she was, for that matter, she responded. "You were in the house? But how? You didn't knock!"

"You're right, I didn't. I've never been here before." He tried to say, but the words were not forthcoming. Instead he felt himself shrug as he walked by her and into the TARDIS. "The door wasn't locked." He answered simply.

"So you just let yourself in?" She asked incredulously, following him inside.

His lips pulled into a smirk as he shot her a glance over his shoulder. "That's what you were trying to do with the TARDIS a moment ago, no?"

He knew he had her then, whoever she was, even if she did not. "That's different. You're here to pick me up and take me away. That requires me to enter the TARDIS, but not you the house." She crossed her arms in front of her chest and leaned her hip against the console, a self-satisfied smile on her lips. He began fiddling with buttons and levers on the console.

"Why would I be here to pick you up if I don't know who you are?" He thought, but he made no effort to vocalize the question. He speculated that the attempt would be as futile as the previous ones. But he did not remain silent either. The words he did speak did so by their own volition however, just as the others before and, he suspected, as the ones that would follow. "It does if I have to wait around for you for two hours."

"Again with the two hours! If waiting around for me bothers you so much, why didn't you tell me you were here? I didn't know!"

"You ought to have. I'm here every Wednesday at ten o'clock." He said. When she didn't respond, he continued. Though the words were spoken more tenderly than the last, they also carried more weight. "Listen, Clara. If I didn't want to wait around for you, I wouldn't."

She blushed and smiled at him, her gaze flickering from her boots to his eyes. She gave no reply to his revelation, unable to think of a worthy one, so she changed the subject instead. "So, where to, Chin Boy?"

Pink suffused his cheeks. "Oi! What's wrong with my chin?"

She chuckled, causing the pink to darken to crimson. "Nothing! Nothing's wrong with it at all! It's a very fine chin, and I'm sure it serves its purpose…That is, if its purpose is to pull someone's eye out." There was a glint in her eye, a gentle lilt in her voice as she teased him; she was enjoying this too much.

He pointed to the TARDIS doors. "Right. Out you go, Oswald!"

She feigned shock and disbelief. "You're kicking me out? So soon? You wound me Doctor, truly." She laughed at herself, and he found himself joining in.

And then he replied, grabbing her hand and pulling her towards the doors after him. "Not kicking you out – taking you out. I'm coming with you. We've arrived!"

He knew that it was just a dream, that he wouldn't see Clara again – that she didn't exist. But it had been a long while since he had felt anything but despair and self-pity, and this simple dream had sparked something inside of him that he hadn't felt in ages. And he couldn't help but think that that signified its importance.

He never dreamt of people he didn't know. His dreams usually featured Amy, Rose, or his family on Gallifrey. People he had loved and failed and lost. They were dreams of times passed and memories made and places visited and saved. Sweet dreams that he damned because they made waking up all the more difficult.

But this dream was different. It wasn't a memory of his because Clara had never been, and would not be, a part of his life. And waking up from it hadn't left him in sufferance – it had excited him. But for the life of him he couldn't figure out why it did. He had always loved a good mystery, and had of course always had a penchant for solving them, so for the questions he had tried to ask but had remained unanswered to be what he found so enthralling made perfect sense. And yet he remained unconvinced. He couldn't help but think that it was simply the girl whom he found intriguing, not the events of the dream. Or perhaps they went hand-in-hand. His interest in her was amplified by the mystery in which she was surrounded.

Thoughts of her overwhelmed him, and the fact that they did left him in endlessly puzzled. For such a dull dream to evoke such a reaction from a man who had spent the greatest part of his life amongst something as miraculous and vibrant as the stars was ludicrous - impossible even. And yet it had done so.

She had done so.

...

A/N: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!