Lock and Key (novel)
After her drug and alcohol addicted mother abandons her, child services forces 17-year-old Ruby Cooper to move in with her sister, Cora, who had left for college when Ruby was young. Ruby is upset about this arrangement and continues to wear the key to her old home on a chain around her neck. After learning she will be transferring to a new high school, Ruby attempts to run away but is found out. Nate Cross, Jamie and Cora's next-door neighbor, covers for her. Over the span of the story, Ruby slowly becomes closer to Nate.
Ruby Allen
Ruby discovers that Johnny was an alcoholic in "Get Johnny Week" and she leaves him to Phil. She and Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) have a heart to heart, and Grant discovers that Phil paid Juley to sleep with Ruby. Grant is furious and burst into Johnny's office where Phil is holding Johnny until he confesses to Dennis's murder. This gives Johnny a chance to get away. There is a big chase, which results in Danny Moon (Jake Maskall) handcuffing the brothers and marching them into the forest. He is about to kill Grant when Jake Moon (Joel Beckett) shoots him instead and kills him. Ruby persuades Johnny to hand himself in, and then returns with Jake to Walford. She is furious with him when he reveals he had killed Danny. Jake becomes obsessed with Ruby's welfare, but takes over the running of her club until she turns 18, in October. Ruby withdraws £2000 for a holiday but decides to return it and is mugged by Juley. Ruby then has a relationship with Sean Slater (Robert Kazinsky), Stacey's brother, unaware that he is a womanizer who is only dating her for her fortune. Ruby finds out that her father had a heart attack after an argument with Sean in prison. On the day of Johnny's funeral, Ruby goes missing and Sean finds her, slumped behind the desk in the Scarlet office, with a bottle of vodka. Later, she speaks to Pat who made her think, by saying that her father was normally right about people, including Jake and Sean. Sean later proposes to her, stating he has genuine feelings for her, and she accepts. Later, Ruby learns from Stacey that Sean had kissed and slept with several other women while with her, and confronts him. She makes Sean vow to be true to her, but when she tells his mother, Jean Slater (Gillian Wright), that he is back in Walford, he angrily breaks up with her, throwing her father's ashes in her face. Ruby later leaves Walford in the back of a taxi, having fallen out with Stacey once again.