A Life in Sodor

Chapter One – School and Autumn Days:

The Island of Sodor held a small school with a college mixed in. Some students on the mainland took a train to the island to come to the school whereas some students that lived on the island took the school bus. Today, the sun was shining and a few clouds were in the sky. At Knapford station, a large blue train pulling a series of brand new express coaches came in, its whistle alerting everyone in the station. As it came to a stop, a few guards came forward, opened the carriage doors and the passengers came pouring out. Most of them were students and they hurried along the platform, dodging through their elders to get to the bus that was waiting for them outside the station.

A tall lanky boy wearing a blue shirt with a number '1' on it stepped out of a silver car and gazed up at the structure of Knapford station. He had dark brown hair with blue eyes. His name was Thomas and he was returning from a long summer away from school. He looked round for his friend, Percy, whom he had not seen since he'd gone on holiday to Italy for three weeks. There, Thomas saw the familiar, green eyed, light brown hair, freckled face, and chubby little friend of his waving at him.

"Thomas!" he called.

"Hey, Perce!" Thomas yelled, waving. He said goodbye to his mother, closed the car door and hurried off to join him at the bus stop. "How was your holiday?"

"Amazing! I've got some pictures on my phone and camera and look at this tan." Percy exclaimed pulling back his green jacket sleeve.

Thomas nodded, impressed. "Nice, makes me feel more like a vampire but whatever."

Percy laughed. "So what about you, Thomas, how was your summer?"

"A little annoying with my little sisters running around." Thomas sighed as they walked over to the bus.

"That bad?"

"You have no idea." They climbed aboard, saying their hello's to Bertie the bus driver. At the back of the bus sat the Scottish twins, Donald and Douglas. They were a year above Thomas and Percy and were the real bad boys of the school. Actually, Thomas found it a bit of a surprise that they were on the bus at all. Most of the time, they didn't bother coming to school or left in the middle of the day. They were busy talking to Duck, Oliver and Toad. Just so you know Duck and Toad's names are just nicknames. Duck's actual name was Montague and when Duck was younger he had suffered a terrible injury and when he limped it was almost like he waddled like a duck, so the nickname had stuck in and nobody in the school hardly ever knew his actual name, unless you were close to him. Now, with Toad...well, nobody knew why Toad was given that name. Not even Oliver and they'd known each other from a young age. They'd never bothered to ask him as it was none of their business.

Duck smiled as they came closer. "Hey, you two, did you have a good summer?"

"It was okay." Thomas said, sitting down and making room for Percy to sit next to him. "Percy's was more enjoyable."

"Oh, yeah," Oliver said, putting down his electronic tablet. "How was Italy? And nice tan, by the way."

"Thanks. I've got pictures on my phone and camera," he said as rummaged in his bag for them. He took out his phone and camera and handed them out. Thomas sorted through Percy's pictures on the camera as Percy looked for them on his phone.

"And what about you five, what did you do?" Thomas asked.

"Well," Duck said. "Us three went to the mainland for few days and then that power cut happened. It was probably the most exciting thing that happened."

"Well," Donald spoke up. "It didn't just hit the mainland. It happened on Sodor as well."

"Really?"

"Aye, yon workers were at for a few days." Douglas explained.

"So, how come you two are coming back into the school?" Toad asked. "It's not often you're here."

Douglas chuckled. "Well, we have to make sure the school knows we're alive."

Donald nodded in agreement. Oliver raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean your mum nagged you to come back?"

Donald sagged. "The woman just nags!"

The others laughed. Bertie came down the bus counting the number of people on the bus. When he reached the back, he noticed the Scottish twins lounging on the back seat. He sighed.

"Come on, you two feet down! Treat this bus with a little bit of respect."

The twins smiled and nodded, removing their feet from the head rests of the seat. When Bertie was satisfied and walked back down to the front, they stuck their feet back up. Soon the bus began to move along the road and headed off to the school.

A little blue bird fluttered down on a window sill and twittered happily in the summery air. Behind the glass of a window sill, a tall slightly muscular man with long black hair, sat down in the little window seat of the house. He smiled warmly at the blue bird that looked up at him, curiously and then, like the shy creature it was, it flew away back to its nest. Henry watched it go and gazed out of the house window at the forest in front. Henry loved nature; he would often be in the forest on his time off in the florist shop, gazing at the wonderful greenery. But sometimes he wouldn't be alone. He felt someone come up behind him and looked up to see his long time boyfriend, Gordon, holding out a nice mug of herbal tea to him.

"Thanks, Gordon." He said, taking it. He blew on the hot drink, cooling it down. As he took a sip, Gordon sat down in front of him on the window seat and gazed out at the forest. Henry smiled at his lover and twisted around and rested his back against Gordon's chest. Gordon smiled and hugged Henry close to him.

"You okay, sausage?"

Gordon chuckled at the awful nickname. "I'm fine, a lot better now." he said, leaning down and kissed Henry on the lips. Henry hummed a little and closed his eyes. He often enjoyed these moments with Gordon, just sitting in the house or taking a walk in the woods with him. For Henry it was peaceful and he wouldn't have asked for more. They'd had been together for five years, gone through some drama but that now in the past and they moved on from getting through school, getting jobs and living together.

"Hey, I just remembered Thomas and the others are back at school today, aren't they?"

Gordon hummed. "I suppose they are. Do you remember when we were in school?"

"I do, yes. Do you remember when we first kissed?"

Henry smirked. "The school grounds, second to last year right?"

"Yeah, I can't believe I freaked out though."

"It's okay. You were just coming to terms with your sexuality."

Gordon hummed again. "I just..."

Henry looked up at Gordon, sensing his tone. He shifted until he was sitting cross legged facing the blue eyed male. "Gordon, don't think about it. It's over now. If he didn't want to make up with you after all this time than there's just no point."

"I know, Henry. Thank you for being there for me." And he leaned in and placed a kiss on his lips. Henry smiled and took a sip from his herbal tea.

As Thomas and his friends watched the twins go off into the school, a brown four-by-four truck pulled up into the teacher's car park...and backfired making the new students jump, but signalling to everyone who knew the truck well enough who it was. Toby the groundskeeper and his wife, Mavis, who worked in the school cafeteria and sometimes in Knapford station as well. Toby was from Texas and even though he had lived in Sodor most of his life, his accent had never left him. Mavis was his wife of over thirty years and even in their retirement stage they still tended to the school in their spare time. Today however seemed a little different. A small girl, who probably came up or slightly past Thomas' waist, skipped out of the truck. She had bushy brown hair that was pulled into two pigtails. She wore a simple floral dress with a bow.

"Hello, Thomas, Percy." Toby said, walking over to them. "Duck, Oliver, Toad."

"Hi, Toby." They chorused. Mavis knelt down and spoke to the little girl.

"Who's that?" Thomas asked.

"Why, that's our granddaughter, Henrietta." Toby exclaimed. "It's her first day here at Sodor Academy."

Percy awed. "She's cute!"

"She certainly is!" Toby exclaimed. Henrietta skipped over to Toby and hugged him. She then noticed Thomas and the others and immediately shied away. Toby chuckled. "Now, now, Henrietta, there's no to be shy. This is Thomas, Percy, Duck, Oliver and Toad. They'll be your new friends."

The boys waved at her but she hid behind Toby. Suddenly, the bell rang signalling the students to come inside. The students hurried in, pulling their bags and coats into their lockers and hurried off to their form rooms. As Thomas and Percy arrived in their form room, they noticed two girls that they hadn't ever seen before. They settle down at their desk, next to each other. Suddenly, Lady Hatt entered the room.

"All right, settle down, everyone." She said and everyone hurried to their desks and silence settled in. "Now, welcome back to Sodor Academy but to new students, welcome." She then gestured to the girls at the back of the classroom. They slowly got to their feet, walked over to the front of the room and stood beside Lady Hatt. She smiled at them. "Would you like to introduce yourselves?"

One of them stepped forward. She had long black hair and big brown eyes that seemed to have a hint of green in them. She was slim and curvy. Thomas found her...a little cute. Where had that come from? He thought.

"Hello, everyone," She said. "I'm Emily Stirling. I used to live in Scotland and then on the Mainland and I moved to Sodor last year and I was at Wellsworth Secondary."

Emily then stepped back and allowed the smaller girl who had big blonde hair tied back in pigtails. She had big blue eyes and wore a vibrant pink dress. "Hi," she said, "I'm Rosalie Rosie for short, I prefer it that way. I also used to live on the Mainland but not in the same school as Emily here. I only moved to Sodor a few weeks ago...and I love the colour pink!"

There was silence at this as the students stared at her as she beamed. Lady Hatt cleared her throat and then asked them to sit down at their desks. They sat down and Lady Hatt began talking to the class, addressing them. Thomas slowly turned and caught Emily's eye. She smiled at him.

"Welcome to Sodor Academy." He whispered.

"Thank you." She mouthed and focused her attention on Lady Hatt as she talked. He then spun round to Rosie and mouthed the same thing. Rosie smiled and her cheeks went red. Thomas smiled and then spun round to face the class.

The bell rang signalling break time. The students then headed down to the lunch hall to grab some breakfast. Thomas and Percy were heading down to the library for some books for their homework. On the first floor, they spotted Oliver, Toad and Duck.

"Hey, guys." Percy called out.

"Hey, Thomas, Perce." Duck called out.

"Where's Donald and Douglas?" Thomas asked, looking around.

"Didn't even go to their first lesson." Oliver said. "Apparently, they snuck out when the bell rang for the first lesson."

"Not even surprised." Percy said, rolling his green eyes.

"They do know they have exams coming up, right?" Thomas asked.

"They don't really care." Duck said, with a shrug. "If they don't want to learn, it's their decision."

They walked on to the library, collected their books and then headed down to the lunch hall. At a small table sat Rosie and Emily, they were talking quietly. Percy hurried over to them. He always liked to meet new people.

"Hi, Emily, Rosie!" he chirped.

Both girls looked up at him and smiled. "Hey, Percy."

Thomas came up behind his friend and Rosie went scarlet.

"Hey, girls. How's your morning been?" he asked.

"It's been okay." Emily said. Rosie nodded eagerly.

"Good." Thomas said as they all sat down. "Oh, Emily, Rosie, this is Oliver, Duck and Toad."

"Duck?" Rosie asked with an eyebrow raised.

"A long story but to cut a long story short it's a nickname that stuck fast."

"Oh."

"So, what's on the breakfast menu today?" Thomas asked, as he turned to the kitchen platter.

A/N:

Welcome to my first Thomas and Friends fanfiction. Now, to give you all a fair bit of warning in a couple of chapters later the rating will go up as it will contain mature themes but not ALL the way through. They'll also be yaoi and hetero relationships as well...a lot of yaoi ships in this. So if it's not your thing or you see a ship you don't like then you can turn back around or you can possibly skip it if you so wish. It's up to you but don't say I didn't warn you, okay? Anyways, I hope you enjoy this fanfic. I'll update real soon, thanks again.

Reviews are love :)

M.S.P.

Xxxxx