Clara woke up with the feeling of someone kicking her in the leg. Not hard enough to get a moan out of her, but enough to jolt her awake.
"Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't see you there."
Clara opened her eyes... and couldn't believe what they saw.
So it was true.
The curly, brown-haired young man with blue eyes stood over her.
Frodo Baggins.
Clara hadn't put the Frodo of her dreams and the Frodo of the books together in her mind until now. She had never told the Doctor, but before him, there were two characters in her life that came from the books her mother left her: Robin Hood... and Frodo Baggins. Robin had always been her favourite, but she had to admit that Frodo was handsome. Quite handsome, with a youthful vibrance to his face, his blue eyes twinkling as he looked at her.
That was when she realized that she wasn't in the Tardis anymore. She was lying under an apple tree, a book lying over her chest. The book's binding was the same shade of blue as the Tardis.
She was in the Shire... with the person her dreams had told her to save.
Clara all thought this within the span of a few seconds, and now she replied to Frodo Baggins... was she really speaking to the real Frodo Baggins? How could he even exist?! She had seen a lot of things that could be called crazy during her time with the Doctor, including herself being duplicated across time and space. But this was a whole new level of crazy... a good kind of crazy, though.
"No, that's okay. I've probably slept for too long, anyway," she said quickly. During her time with the Doctor, she had gotten quite good at making things up and blending into the environment.
"Well, then, may I help you up?" Frodo held a hand out to her and she willingly took it. Standing on her own two feet again, Clara realized that she had been shrunk to the size of the average hobbit, even half a head shorter than Frodo.
"Thanks," she told him, smiling and showing dimples.
"I don't remember seeing you around here before," Frodo said, smiling back at her. "Are you coming for the Party tonight?"
"Yeah, I am. It's to celebrate your cousin's and your birthday, right? I'm a..."
Clara paused, wracking her brain for a good lie.
"... a friend of Pippin's."
"Ah," Frodo grinned. "Yeah, Pip never does let us know who exactly is coming."
He looked at the sky. "Oh, I'm sorry - but I'm late. I have to go meet a friend of the family. But it was nice meeting you...?"
"I'm Clara," she said.
"It was nice meeting you, Clara," Frodo repeated. "I hope to see you at the party tonight."
As Frodo ran off, Clara felt something rising in her heart. She didn't know quite what the feeling was, but she did know what all she was thinking of was, I wouldn't miss it for the world, Frodo Baggins. I will be there.