Epilogue: Chapter 11: That's Another Story

Memories of that curious tank engine Mira and her just as curious crew were still alive on Sodor, long after they were gone.

Thomas's fireman had been inspired by Mira's driver, and began carrying around a radio of his own. It didn't work as well, and half of the time, it could not get a signal from the nearest radio tower on the island. But when it did, Tidmouth shed's usual silence was cut off with lively music. Music in the sheds always reminded Thomas of the little wood-colored engine, even when he was all by himself.

When he was pained by the knowledge that she was no longer around, Thomas told himself that if he was thinking of her, there was a good chance that she was thinking of him, too. And that got him through the worst of it.

That, and, some naughty behavior, of course.

One morning, after Gordon had had a long night away, Thomas left the sheds early to get Gordon's coaches ready, like he used to do in his formative days. It was the only way he would have enough time to grab Annie and Clarabel and not be late for his own morning journey.

He deposited Gordon's coaches at the platform and left to go find his own. Halfway there, however, he stopped and groaned. He and his crew had forgotten one of Gordon's coaches on a siding after it had been set aside to be washed. Annoyed, he circled all the way around to the back of the station, and halted abruptly.

Gordon had arrived early, waiting on his favorite siding, and humming to himself. Not just any song, either, but a very familiar one. One that went to lyrics that Thomas once thought were painfully relatable.

Much like he'd done so many years ago, he snuck up behind the tender engine, on the tracks to his left, and 'whiished' his whistle as long and as loud as he could. "Up and at-em, lazy bones! Stop humming that rubbish and get back to work!"

Gordon was so shocked, his response came out as a sputter. "W-Why you little—!"

With his fireman's chuckling of approval, and his driver's shaking his head, Thomas rocketed out of the station, laughing harder than he had laughed in years.

That night at the sheds, the engines reconciled, and Gordon apologized for being something of a hypocrite. Thomas apologized as well for sneaking up on him, but made it clear that he only did it to laugh with Gordon, not at him.

He was still the same matured engine he'd become under the tutelage of the tender engines, including Gordon himself. Even if Mira's visit to the island had proven that, at heart, Thomas was still something of a clown.

Though he said nothing more about it, knowing this was a fact made Gordon pleased.

Still, signs of change were cropping up around the sheds. Edward's return, and his handsome new scar in particular, had caused the normally poised and collected Emily to become a lot more clumsy than she usually was.

Luckily for her, only one engine recognized it. Unfortunately for her, that engine was Thomas.

In a situation like this, a respectable engine would bind his lips, and carry on acting as if he were none the wiser. Decorum was an Englishman's best friend.

But Thomas the tank engine didn't know the meaning of the word.

He fussed up behind Emily with her coaches one day. "Listen, I never got to thank you for talking me up to Mira, back during Gordon's accident," he told her quietly.

"It was the least I could do," Emily replied. "After all, you saved me from going over that cliff, too."

He waited a beat, then: "No... apologies for calling me a jackass, then?"

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I'm not going to apologize for stating the truth."

Thomas rolled his eyes. He didn't know what he'd expected her to say otherwise.

Though she put on a proud front, especially when she was getting ready for a coach trip, as soon as Edward came whistling past Knapford with his freight train, Emily became visibly flustered.

"There he goes," her driver said.

"I know…" she sighed. "He never comes through Knapford with his freights when I'm here."

So her crew knows, Thomas mused. Of course they would. Engine-Operator confidentiality.

The problem was, it wasn't confidential information anymore.

Seizing the moment, he switched tracks and came up besides Emily so that their buffers were in line with each other. "If you'd like, I can see if Edward would like to shunt the coaches here tomorrow while I take his freight train."

"You would do that?" Emily asked, sounding relieved.

"Sure. Then maybe you two could go off and rest by the beach. Maybe watch the waves at high tide, or something."

Emily's eyes widened, suddenly remembering who she was talking to. She was only mad that she hadn't caught on sooner. "What are you implying?"

But Thomas just snickered.

"Oh, you're not—!"

"Emily, and Edward, sitting by the key—" Thomas began to sing, his wheels slowly beginning to turn.

"Stop—!"

"K-I-S-S-I-N-G—"

"Thomas!"

"First comes love—!"

"Thomas the tank engine, get your little blue backside back here and face me like a man!"

Like he did with Gordon, Thomas roared away before Emily, stuck to her coaches, had any chance of catching up to him. His laughter could be heard for miles.

It was good to be young. Or at least, it was good to feel young.

To everything, turn turn turn.

The seasons changed, and spring turned to summer, and then to fall, and then to winter. Thomas only became smarter and wiser, alongside his friends. And it wasn't long before Thomas himself was training excitable newcomers on Sodor, the same way that Gordon and the others had trained him. Silly little engines, some steam, some diesel, some old fashioned and some with technological abilities Thomas had never seen before. But the one thing they had in common was that they all had so much to learn, and all were simply wonderful. And Thomas loved each and every one of them.

And every time he heard the radio, he thought of a very different kind of love, and just hoped that she was thinking of him too.

And dear reader, I am happy to say that she did. She wasn't sure what it was about him, but a couple times, she'd blush out of the blue, deciding that there was something undeniably cute about him. Especially with those dark rims under his eyes after Gordon's rescue, listening to him stumbling to make conversation with her as they traveled to the works. That night would stay with her forever.

Eventually, Thomas would learn once and for all whom he was meant to be with for the rest of his life. And despite the odds, even Emily would eventually discover that some men do change, after all.

But, that's another story.

The End

A/N: Hi, I'm Kartoon, and I'm a disgrace. :D

So this is the first time I tried out a Thomas the Tank Engine story. My hyperfixation with this show has faded on and off for about a year, but it's only now that I'm getting anything I've made for it out there.

That said, what the actual hell is this garbage story and why did I make it? And why am I party crashing another fandom?

Dunno, really. Just thought I'd try something different from the fanfiction I was writing at the time. The storytelling theme carried over from the books to the show gave me an itch to write. 160 pages later, and after I slapped together some cover art for this thing in a couple of hours, here we are.

As far as when in the timeline of the show this takes place, it's not precise. I based this off of revisiting the first four seasons of the show (which are imo the strongest as far as writing goes), but I threw Emily in there because I remember her from the mid-2000s seasons, and I like her as opposition for Gordon—a voice of reason, as opposed to Thomas who shuts Gordon up with his sass. And I also wanted another girl engine in this story.

But I really wanted to show off the character chemistry that got me hooked on the show to begin with. I'm not so much in it for the train aspect of the show—and if my weakness in this area of expertise shows, you know why—as the way the characters bounce off of each other, especially early on in the series.

Focusing on the engines I'm familiar with helps me try and flesh them out here in the writing, too.

I wrote at least 80% of this story back in January or February of 2020 when I was hyperfixating solely on the first few seasons, and wrote the rest over the past few weeks. At the time I wrote this I was somehow certain that the engines having crushes on each was never even alluded to, and I was like "eh, can I write this in a way where even I can take it seriously?"

And only after this thing was mostly done did I scrub through the movie Thomas and the Great Race, which has a similar situation with the love interest in that, getting off a ferry. Apparently engines being attracted to each other is canon, whodda guessed. Oh well, frick it. Imma still post it.

Like with the real series, there are going to be some mild logical errors. According to most of the classic show, the engines can do basically frickall without their drivers except talk, but we see a lot of instances in the show where things seem to happen with the engines that are not attributed to the drivers.

Mira's driver, for example, as she's characterized, would definitely not let Mira run through Knapford whistling at Thomas and Gordon like that, and probably scaring some of the people on the platform—even if Mira's driver is kind of free-wheeling beneath her tough as nails front. I chalk it up to the same logic that explains why Thomas was able to keep pulling pranks on Gordon at Knapford in "Thomas and Gordon," assuming his driver and fireman are not doing that.

Anyway, hope ya'll liked the ride. It was fun to write at times, though I don't think I'll be revisiting the character Mira if I ever come back to writing for this show.

If you stuck it out through this trainwreck of a story (no pun intended, except pun intended), plz review.

Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends © Rev. W. Awdry, Britt Allcroft Productions & Mattel.

"Turn! Turn! Turn!" The Byrds & Columbia Records

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" The Beatles & Capitol Records