The previous evening had been full of whispering. News of Henry's breakdown had quickly made its way around the various branch lines, and when the engines got back to the Shed that night there were rumours already flying. Henry was pretending to be ill so as not to do his share of the work; Henry was to be scrapped; Henry was going back to Crewe…

Gordon was the last one in, that night. He caught a glimpse of the green engine in the repair shed just as he was shunted off the main line, and had to admit he was shocked by the great wound halfway down his boiler, where the men had peeled the heavy plates and lagging away like so much tinfoil. Henry's face had no colour in it at all, and his eyes were closed.

"….bet he's just faking again, cause it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and you know how he gets about rain, says it spoils his paint and gets into his workings and gives him funnel-ache…" James was unmistakeable.

"Now, don't be uncharitable. You know Henry's been really ill before." That was Edward, Gordon knew, in the darkness.

"I heard his boiler had burst!" Thomas, by the voice's pitch. "That means he's done for—oh, no. Henry can't be done for, he's, he's a Big Engine—"

Edward again. "Don't worry, youngster. Henry's tough; he'll be perfectly all right."

The younger engines—Thomas and Percy—talked amongst themselves. Gordon, feeling his metal cooling with a soft pink-pink-pink noise, found himself thinking again about the green engine's history. He'd…never really been very well. Coughing and wheezing on steep grades and cold mornings; losing steam, countless incidences of firebox choking and smokebox clogs; boiler sludge buildups that crippled him with cramping pains; water-tank leaks…oh, the list went on and on. Even after Henry's rebuild it hadn't ended. He remembered in particular the time he'd had Henry's coal by mistake, and oh, how good that had felt, but he remembered vividly coming back to Henry—gamely struggling along barely able to breathe through his wretchedly congested firebox, coughing dreadfully—and giving up his own speed record to switch tenders for Henry's sake. Time and again that sort of thing had happened. Gordon found himself wondering just how many times it could happen before the other engine really could take no more.

Ancient Toby, beside him, seemed to read his mind; he murmured, softly, for Gordon's benefit alone, "I don't like to think of it, but maybe the Diesel has a point."

"What's that?"

"Maybe we are archaic. Our time's drawing short."

Gordon snorted. "Don't say things like that; you'll frighten the youngsters. You know perfectly well the Fat Controller won't let anything happen to us, or our railway."

Toby didn't say anything more. Even the younger ones quieted, after a while. There was an oppressive atmosphere in the shed that night, and Gordon found it very difficult to sleep.

He did, however, drift off in the wee hours of the morning, and therefore he didn't notice when the man in the black balaclava neatly slid through one of the back shed windows and padded down to the floor, nor when he brought over a ladder and poured something into the sleeping James' safety valve, nor yet when he replaced the ladder and clambered back the way he'd come. The open window catch banged softly in the night, just as it always did, and the engines slept on without any knowledge of their brief visitor.

The Fat Controller was there in person that morning, Sir Topham Hatt himself, wanting an update on Henry's condition. While the rest of the engines were being stoked and woken slowly to working life, the men in Shed B had already been at work half an hour at least. The foreman wiped his hands with a rag marginally less greasy than they were, speaking to the Controller out of earshot of the desperately sick engine.

"It's not good, Sir. The crownsheet's weakened where the snap occurred, and at least thirteen percent of the rest of the flues are crystallizing. I'd not dare bring him up to a quarter of rated press even with the broken ones blocked off."

Hatt didn't curse, but his face went a shade redder. "Blast and damnation. I can least afford to lose him now, in the middle of the damn tourist season---All right. Call Murdoch back from the freight runs. I'll need someone to take over Henry's work while he's ill….how long do you estimate it'll be?"

"Sir….I dunno if I was clear. He needs a whole new set of innards. I can't even run him enough to get him out of the shed on his own, without threatening to blow the whole yard sky-high. This has been building for some time, I think."

Hatt's glare was a bit like liquid oxygen—but then he seemed to slump. "Damn, damn, damn. All right, then. I'll have to raise fares and borrow." Almost as an afterthought, but so quietly the foreman knew it was heartfelt, he added, "….is he in much pain?"

"Yes, sir." His voice was quiet, as well. "We're doing everything we can to ease it. I think he'll be better once we grind out the remains of the old flues and just clean him out."

"Do it. Take anyone you need who's not working on something else. This is high priority, understand?"

The foreman nodded, still wiping at his hands, as Hatt strode away. He had that peculiar floating gait that many small fat men have, and he looked like a rather determined penguin.

He'd only just got back to Henry and directed his men to break out the torches when a scream shattered the relative peace of a work morning. It wasn't the shriek of a whistle, or a human in surprise: this was the cry of a being in desperate pain.

What now? thought the foreman. What else can possibly go wrong?

James stood barely outside of the shed, waste steam shooting helplessly out of what was obviously a burst main safety. He'd got just that far before it blew, and that in itself made zero sense: he'd been perfectly fine the day before, and the valve assembly itself wasn't exactly ancient.

More alarming still, he was in terrible pain. All of them had burst a safety or two in their time, and it hurt a bit when the valve broke, but nothing like this. His driver and fireman were trying to calm him down, trying to find out what had caused it, but all he could do was whimper that it hurt, it hurt, it was burning

Sir Topham Hatt was not having a good morning. He arrived on the double and demanded explanations, as if there were any to give, and the repairman who'd clambered atop James' bright red boiler shouted down that it looked corroded.

Corroded? Hatt thought. Can't be. That's a solid brass valve and it was new six months ago, what on earth's going on here?

"Take him back to the repair shed!" he yelled over the hiss of escaping steam. "I'll have—" and he trailed off. No, he couldn't have Henry pull James' trains today, could he. "I'll call in the twins. Just get him fixed!"

James, pushed into the repair shed beside Henry by one of the shunters, whimpered. He'd never felt anything like this—he'd had breakdowns, of course, what engine hadn't? but this was different. It felt as if someone had dribbled acid right down inside the workings of his safety valve, and it burned like nothing he'd ever felt before.

He could dimly feel the workmen moving over him, his firebox being quenched, the uncomfortable pressure against the wounded valve fading as they exhausted his boiler in a cloud of wasted steam. Oh it hurt, it hurt, and his pride hurt him almost as badly: he'd been all ready to go, to take Henry's trains for him and show off his bright paint and his cheerful strength, and then a few wheelturns out of the shed the pain had struck in a bright arrow and he couldn't move at all…

He sat there amid the clouds of rising steam, with men swarming all over him, tapping and clanking with tools, and felt about as sorry for himself as he ever had. Everyone had seen.

Somewhere away to his left a very weary, tired, pain-tightened voice made itself known. "Hang on, youngster. It'll be all right."

Henry? James thought. "H-Henry?"

"It's me. Just be brave, James. A burst safety isn't so bad; you'll be up and running in no time." Oh but Henry sounded so ill, hoarse and tired with his own pain.

"Henry, you're going to be all right, aren't you? Aren't you?" James was frightened. He wasn't often frightened.

"I'll be fine." Henry coughed. "Don't worry about me, kid. Just get well and get back to work. You'll be all right."

James fell silent, but he could still feel the other's nearness through the rising steam and confusion. After a moment he tried again. "Henry, I…"

"Shh," Henry said. "Get well, and keep an eye on the others. All of the others. Do that for me, James."

"I-I will," he said, unsteadily, and then fell silent again as they did something particularly unpleasant to his valve seats. What had he meant, keep an eye on them? Did Henry think something bigger was going on?

Work that day on the Sodor railways was a little different from usual. Douglas and Dougal had been called in to run Henry's and James' trains for them, and little bits of information about the two engines' conditions flickered back and forth whenever the engines met one another at stations. Gordon had already left the Shed when the news of James' indisposition reached him, and he was inexorably reminded of Toby's words the night before. Archaic. On our way out.

He hooshhhhes steam angrily, and when the signal turns he yanks the Express out of the station with a lot less care than usual. First Henry, who was always ill, and now James, who never was? Who would be next—little Thomas with his cheery peep-peep whistle? Kind Edward, older than most of them, who could defuse an argument with a quiet word? Percy? Gordon himself? He stormed up the hill faster than his driver really wanted him to, running to beat not a speed record but a low creeping suspicion, and found at least a little relief in sheer functioning. He at least wasn't affected.

Yet.

"Too obvious."

"Yes boss. I just thought—you know—corrosion, it'd look natural—"

"I don't care what you thought. Give it a day or so, and then when you go after the antique you damn well take more care, all right? Nothing that can be traced. Or you won't be, either."

"A-all right, boss. Got you."

"See that you do."