Douglas could be seen puffing along the coast of Sodor, but he was missing something. He was missing Donald. The Scottish twin was chugging slowly, his eyes darting between the separate tracks. He appeared to be looking for something or someone. Suddenly he came to a stop. He had noticed an engine hiding behind the Arlesburgh lighthouse. "Heh heh, I gotcha." Douglas chuckled to himself as he steamed forward as quietly as his pistons would allow.

Just as Douglas was about to corner the engine they noticed him and quickly puffed away laughing maniacally. The engine was Donald and he had started down the coastline with his brother hard on his tender. "There's no way you're gonna catch me, Dougie!"

"Watch me!" Douglas called to his brother and he pushed his pistons harder than he had before.

Donald noticed Douglas gaining on him and he too chuffed as hard as he could. As the two rounded a bend headed towards Arlesburgh junction Meredith came steaming forward on the other track. She was pulling her own coaches again. They had just been repaired and she was once again running her passengers as normal.

She saw the twins chasing each other and laughed. "Playing hide and seek again are we?"

"You know it, lass!" Donald cheered with a chuckle. "And I'm winning!"

"Nae true!" Douglas scoffed, his face red from puffing too hard. "Keep talking and I'll catch ya, nae bother."

Meredith giggled and continued on her route. She had passengers and the last thing she wanted was to get into more trouble with Sir Topham Hatt for being late.

On the other side of the island, Gordon was sitting at Vicarstown station with Flying Scotsman. The two big engines were making small talk while they waited for their next train. Gordon hadn't yet told his younger brother about his moment with Meredith the other night. He wanted to. He wanted to finally have something over that show-off Scotsman, but he couldn't risk someone overhearing and telling Sir Topham Hatt. The fat controller had a strict no intimacy between engines rule on the railway and Gordon was afraid of what would happen if Sir Topham Hatt found out about that night.

"Gordon?" Scotsman's voice broke Gordon away from his thoughts. "Did you get enough sleep? Your steam seems low and you're clearly distracted."

Gordon rolled his eyes. "I'm fine." He said plainly. "What were you saying?"

"Oh, well I was thinking about this year's Great Railway Show. It's in a few months and I believe you should compete again." Scotsman said enthusiastically. "Give us a chance at a fair race, hm?"

"I don't know about that." Gordon frowned. "Just feels like another way for you to try and show me up."

Scotsman's enthusiasm quickly faded. He wished Gordon wasn't so bitter about his fame. After all, that fame was what saved him from being cut down like all their other siblings. "I don't want to show you up, Gordon."

"Hmph, right." Gordon scoffed, but then he saw his little brother's disappointment and he lightened his tone. "Well, maybe I'll think about it. I just don't know how Sir Topham Hatt will feel about taking up engines to compete another year."

Flying Scotsman perked up once more. "So you do care."

"Don't push it." Gordon warned as he began to depart from his platform. Scotsman laughed as he watched his brother leave in a heavy cloud of steam and smoke.

James was having a rest at Wellsworth. His next passenger train wasn't for another half hour and he had an extremely early run that morning and was already feeling done in for the day. He had started to doze off when he heard a familiar whistle and his eyes shot open. It was Edward. He was pulling a goods train to Brendam Docks. James felt his boiler bubble when he saw the little blue engine. He smiled. "Hi, Edward."

"Hello, James." Edward stopped beside the red engine. "You look tired"

"Yeah, it's one of my long days." James let out a long breath. "Where are you headed?"

"To the docks. I have to deliver this train and pick up another for the Mainland."

"You're going to the Mainland?" James suddenly seemed worried.

Edward nodded with a smile. "I'm excited. A little nervous though. I've never been."

"Will you be gone long?"

"No, just overnight. The delivery is to Doncaster." Edward said proudly.

"Isn't that where Gordon and his brother were built?" James said. He noticed that passengers were beginning to fill the platform.

Edward nodded again. "Yep. The plant is closed down though."

"That's a shame." James was quiet for a moment then smiled at Edward. "Be careful, okay?"

The little blue engine chuckled. "You know I will. I'm not a show-off like you." Edward winked at James and the red engine's cheeks heated up. "I'll see you tomorrow, James ."

James gave a farewell whistle as Edward took off towards the docks.

Oliver and Toad were waiting at a signal on the Mainline. They were on the way to the quarry to pick up some slate for Arlesburgh Harbor. Henry passed by with his heavy goods train and he exchanged warning whistles with Oliver as he sped down the line. Another moment passed and the signal clicked to green. Oliver tooted on his whistle once more then started up with a puff of steam.

The drive to the quarry was quiet. Toad was humming softly to himself, but Oliver could hear him and he became slightly annoyed. "Must you make all that noise, Toad?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Oliver." Toad said sadly. "It's such a lovely day I just thought it needed a little song."

Oliver sighed. He didn't much care for Toad's singing, but he also didn't want to hurt the brake van's feelings so he decided to let it be and suffer through the noise.

The Great Western pair arrived at the quarry where Skarloey and Rheneas were waiting beside the train of slate. "Ah, hello there Oliver, Toad. Owen's nearly finished loading the cars if you'd like to go ahead and get coupled up."

"Sounds good." Oliver said. Toad was uncoupled from the tank engine and shunted to the back of the heavy train while Oliver was turned around at the turntable.

Once the two were coupled, the last load of slate was dropped into its car and Oliver was given the all clear by a quarry worker. "Ready, Toad?" Oliver called to his brake van.

"Ready!"

Oliver blew his whistle and pumped his pistons as hard as he could to get the heavy train moving. "We'll be seeing ya!"

"Go steady!" Rheneas said before returning to work with Skarloey and the other narrow-gauge engines.

Oliver and Toad were back on track towards the harbor. Toad started singing as soon as the pair had left the quarry and Oliver was feeling fed up. He didn't want to be rude, but his head was beginning to ache from Toad's out-of-tune singing. The brake van hit a particularly sour note and Oliver had just about enough. "Toad!"

"Yes, Mr. Oliver?"

"Would you mind keeping quiet for the rest of the journey please? I've got a headache and could go for a bit of peace." Oliver said sternly.

"Oh," Toad felt disappointed, but he didn't want to make his friend feel worse. "I'm sorry, Mr. Oliver."

The green tank engine sighed. "It's okay. Maybe just try not to be so loud?"

"Okay." Toad looked down at the track as they rolled along. He started to hum again, but this time kept it as low as possible. Unfortunately, Oliver could still hear him. Because steam engines are loud by nature, their hearing is sharp. This meant even the softest of sounds could be heard by an engine even over the thunderous pumping of their pistons. Despite Oliver still being able to hear his brake van, it was at a volume that he could tolerate so he continued on without another word of complaint.

It was late afternoon. The sun was showing signs of setting and the heat of the day had finally begun to ebb. Thomas was in the shunting yard at Knapford with Philip. There were more trains to be sorted than usual so Thomas was given a day off from his branch line in order to help organize the yard. Percy had just chuffed into the yard when Thomas shunted a few cars over to him. "Heads up, Percy!"

"Oh!" Percy yelped as he caught the cars despite having been caught off-guard. "A little warning next time, maybe?"

Thomas giggled as he switched to another line of cars. "But I did give you warning."

"Not enough." Percy retorted as he pushed the cars onto a siding.

Just then Philip scuttled to a train of empty cars and was coupled up. "I'll be back. The quarry just called for more cars!" Once given the thumbs up, Philip scooted off with an exhaust-filled honk.

Thomas finished up another goods train for Henry then took a moment to fill up with water. He watched Percy grab James's coaches that the red engine just dumped in the yard and shunted them to a line. They were covered in dust and mud and Thomas knew James would complain if he came back and noticed them in that state. "You wanna take those coaches to be cleaned, Percy?" Thomas asked as his driver finished up filling his tanks.

"Sure! Let me bring Henry his train and I'll do that." Percy said excitedly before he quickly shunted the goods train to Henry's platform.

Thomas began to pull away from the water tower just as Gordon had pulled up behind him. The big engine huffed impatiently. "Hurry up, Thomas. I have an express to pull."

The tank engine rolled his eyes and decided to stop and smirked. "What's the magic word?"

"Move!" Gordon growled with an angry blow of his whistle.

Thomas laughed. "Nope. That's not it."

Gordon grit his teeth, his eyes narrowed. He looked at the little tank engine in front of him and without thinking lurched forward and shunted Thomas right out of the way. "I said move!"

Thomas shouted in surprise as his wheels grinded against the tracks, throwing up a shower of hot sparks. "Gordon!" The tank engine tried to pump his pistons to get out of the way but he had developed a wheel flat on three of his wheels and he couldn't move. "Gordon, stop pushing me! You've flattened my wheels!"

"Well maybe next time you'll learn to get out of my way and not be so cheeky." Gordon hissed.

Sir Topham Hatt had heard the commotion from his office and was storming towards his two mischievous engines. "Gordon and Thomas, what are you two playing at?"

"Gordon shunted me, sir! And now my wheels are flat." Thomas said quickly.

"Is this true, Gordon?" The fat controller crossed his arms. Gordon suddenly regretted what he had done.

"I- I just needed Thomas to move and he wouldn't." The express engine said. The remorse in his eyes left as quickly as it came and was replaced by anger. "He's always in the way and picking on me and I'm tired of it."

"I pick on you? You pick on everyone, Gordon!" Thomas said curtly. "You think you're so special because you pull the express, but you're just a bully."

"Why you-" Gordon huffed but was cut off by Sir Topham Hatt.

"That's enough, the both of you! Thomas you shouldn't have sat in Gordon's way and Gordon you should not have shunted Thomas. You're both to blame." The fat controller said.

"Oh, you tank engines are so useless!" Gordon shouted. "You do nothing but get in my way. If you ask me, tank engines should all be scrapped!"

"Gordon, that's enough!" Sir Topham Hatt shouted back. He rarely raised his voice at his engines, but Gordon had gone too far in saying that. "Go to your shed immediately and don't come out until you're ready to apologize."

"Ohhh," Gordon groaned and began to back away from the water tower. As he did he looked up and saw Meredith sitting outside the station. Her eyes were wide and watery. She had heard his remark on tank engines. The big engine's pistons froze. He didn't mean for her to hear that. Before he could say anything she puffed angrily into the station. "Great." Gordon sighed to himself. He really needed to learn how to control his temper. He didn't mean what he said, but that didn't matter. He should have never said it. With another sigh the express engine chuffed slowly back to Tidmouth without another word to Thomas or Sir Topham Hatt.

Another quick update. I had fun writing this one. I saw it as an opportunity to expand on the different relationships that I'd like to explore in this story as well as add a bit of drama because who doesn't love that? Lol. It's not really expanded on in the series, but I imagine Gordon actually having a pretty bad temper. Of course it can't be too bad in canon because this franchise is intended for children, but this fic is not so I'm gonna have fun with it. Also, to the guest that left a review on the previous chapter it was such a delight to read and I greatly appreciate your enjoyment of my interpretation of the Thomas & Friends universe! Anyway, hope you enjoyed and don't forget to read and review!

Much love!

Bumble