Ruby Sunday (Ruby's World) follows the precedent set by similar pages such as Pete Tyler (Pete's World) and Sarah Jane Smith (Donna's World).
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Ruby Sunday was an individual who traveled with the Fifteenth Doctor. She resided in an alternate timeline created by the Doctor's disruption of a fairy circle. Shortly after this event, the Doctor vanished from existence and Ruby found herself stalked by a mysterious and distant woman.
Biography[]
After landing in 2024 Wales from the TARDIS, Ruby revealed she had been to Wales twice before. The Doctor then told her about Roger ap Gwilliam, the most dangerous prime minister in British history because had led the world to the brink of nuclear war in 2046. Ruby then watched as the Doctor stepped on a fairy circle. Worried, the Doctor apologised for his actions as Ruby then examined the messages in the circle. As Ruby read "Rest in peace, Mad Jack" from one of the messages, she looked up to see the Doctor had vanished and and she was now followed by a woman who was constantly 73 yards away from her.
Worried, Ruby walked along the coastline to find someone to help her, the Woman remaining the same distance away from her. After a while, she met a hiker who told her she was near Glyngatwg. Ruby asked her to approach the woman and ask her about the Doctor but the hiker ran away when she tried to do so. In the town, Ruby entered the Y Pren Marw, a pub containing many villagers who dismissed her claims about witchcraft, tricking her by claiming that disrupting the circle had unleashed the "Mad Jack" she had read about. Ruby stayed at the inn for the next two days, hoping for the Doctor to return to her. However, on the third day, the landlady, Lowri Palin, ordered she leave after Joshua Steele, who had also tried to speak to the woman when Ruby asked him only to also flee, said he would only return if Lowri made Ruby leave.
Ruby returned to London via the train but noticed the woman was following her every step of the way. Once she returned to Notting Hill, she informed her mother, Carla Sunday, about the woman. To calm Ruby, Carla used her phone to talk to her as well, as Ruby was unable to reach her but she also ran away, the woman's powers making run from Ruby and leave in a taxi. Ruby returned her to inform Cherry Sunday, her grandmother, and cared for her over the next few days. However, Carla secretly returned and changed the locks, filing an injunction against Ruby, meaning she could no longer live there. Desperate, Ruby got a job in a shop and living in a flat on her own, trying to figure out how to get rid of the woman.
In 2025, the entity still stalked Ruby so she got in touch with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart of UNIT, and met her, the woman wanting to help her and learn more about the entity stalking Ruby. Kate informed Ruby that the timeline appeared to be "suspended around [her] event". She confirmed Ruby's belief that the entity was always 73 yards away, and had a perception filter around it, preventing people from truly noticing the woman. Kate speculated this was likely because of the TARDIS's own perception filter being present when the circle was broken. Kate then tried to bring in the entity. However, despite the precautions UNIT had taken against aliens and psychic shielding, their attempt to apprehend the woman failed as they too fell under her effect and abandoned Ruby.
Ruby carried on with her life but struggled to maintain a long-term relationship with several men because of the woman. Birthday cards to her dwindled but she made a habit of looking out to the woman every birthday from her flat window. In 2046, while dating Sanjay Miah at a bar, Ruby noticed Roger ap Gwilliam of the Albion Party on the bar's television, calling himself "Mad Jack". Ruby then remembered how the Doctor had mentioned Gwilliam before he was banished just before his disappearance. Overcome with inspiration, Ruby dumped Sanjay and proceeded to volunteer for Gwilliam's campaign in a plan to prevent him gaining access to nuclear weapons, as the Doctor had claimed he would.
On one occasion, Ruby watched as Gwilliam took part in a talkshow Hotline and remarked positively to the idea of launching nuclear missiles should he become Prime Minister and win the upcoming general election. She also informed him about Marti Bridges, ensuring he kept her close to him. After he won the election with a landslide majority, Ruby was informed from her lead aide in the campaign that Gwilliam was going to announce his secret acquirement of nuclear weapons from Pakistan and declare Britain's independence from NATO. Now certain Gwilliam would create the future the Doctor had told her about, Ruby positioned herself so Gwilliam would interact with the woman at the Cardiff City football stadium, which caused him to resign from office, averting the nuclear war.
Ruby in her twilight years. (TV: 73 Yards [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
However, despite Ruby's wishes, the woman remained with Ruby into her elderly years. In 2086, she returned to where the TARDIS remained on the clifftops in Wales, the box now a monument where people left flowers and messages to loved ones, such as one called Josh. By 2089, 65 years after the fairy circle incident, Ruby lay dying in hospital. Despite the abandonment she had experienced her entire life, she comforted herself with the knowledge that she had never truly been alone, at which point the woman unexpectedly appeared. However, unlike all previous observations, the woman was considerably nearer than 73 yards and facing away from Ruby. As the room's lights pulsed, the woman manifested closer and closer to Ruby, who sat up and attempted to embrace her. Seemingly at the moment of her death, Ruby was then sent backwards in time to 2024, where she manifested as the woman.
Ruby becomes the woman. (TV: 73 Yards [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
This time, however, the woman had arrived before the Doctor's disappearance. After apologising for how long it took to reach this point, the older Ruby noticed the arrival of the Doctor and her younger self. She communicated a warning to the younger Ruby: "Don't step". The young Ruby noticed the older woman in the distance, and attempted to inform the Doctor of her presence. However, when young Ruby and the Doctor looked, she was gone. (TV: 73 Yards [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
Impact on the main timeline[]
Some residual awareness of the events experienced by the older Ruby remained with the younger Ruby, however, as she stated she had been to Wales three times, instead of two. (TV: 73 Yards [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
Later, Ruby was unsure when the Doctor asked her if she had ever met Roger ap Gwilliam and Ruby instinctively knew that 66.7 metres was equal to 73 yards, which was the size of the perception filter surrounding the TARDIS. While they were in the Memory TARDIS, UNIT's time window showed the interview that Ruby had seen in this timeline of ap Gwilliam by Amol Rajan as a clue to finding the identity of Ruby's mother. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 14 (BBC One and Disney+, 2024).)
Ruby was also instinctively aware that the reality created by Desidirium and wished into existence by Conrad Clark was not the correct version of 2025, due to having lived through the latter year in the alternate timeline. (TV: Wish World [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).) When Poppy was erased following the restoration of the correct reality, Ruby was the only one who could remember her with not even the Doctor retaining memory of Poppy as his daughter. The Doctor admitted that he couldn't explain why Ruby could remember different courses of events in such situations and they concluded that it was just a special skill. (TV: The Reality War [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)
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