The island of Sodor was eerily quiet. The sun was obscured by a heavy blanket of gray cloud as another storm made its way towards the coast. It had been a few days since the incident between Gordon and Flying Scotsman shook Tidmouth to its studs. All the engines that typically stayed at the sheds there were scattered across the island while the sheds were being rebuilt. Thomas could be seen at Knapford yard shunting goods cars for Henry. He looked sad, as did all the other engines. They were worried. Gordon and Flying Scotsman were in worse shape than originally thought and many wondered if the brothers were to be scrapped. Even Philip remained silent as he worked.

Sir Topham Hatt was in his office fanning his face with his top hat as he paced back and forth. He was on the phone with the controller of the London and North Eastern Railway, the railway where Flying Scotsman worked when he wasn't helping on Sodor. He was updating the Mainland controller about the state of his engine and, unfortunately, there was no good news. "Yes, yes, his boiler has to be completely replaced as does his fire box." Sir Topham Hatt said. He did his best to maintain a calm demeanor but he felt awful about what happened. "That on top of all the damage to his driving wheels and pilot truck, he essentially has to be rebuilt… yes… yes, my Steamworks is doing everything they can, but if I'm being honest, they're not entirely sure whether or not he will survive the overhaul." The fat controller rubbed his face as the Mainland controller furiously laid into him. "I understand your frustration; my people are doing everything they can for Scotsman… no… No! I will absolutely not be scrapping Gordon! Yes, of course there will be repercussions, but first we need to make sure they make it through the repair process. Yes… yes, I understand. I'll make sure to update you as soon as I hear something new. Alright… goodbye." Sir Topham Hatt clicked the phone to the receiver with a frustrated sigh. "Damn."

Meredith was sitting at Arlesburgh Junction. Her eyes were heavy. She hasn't been able to sleep since she heard of Gordon's fight with Flying Scotsman. She wanted nothing more than to drop everything and not leave Gordon's side while he was being repaired, but she was also scared. She heard how horribly off both the big engines were and she didn't have the puff in her pistons to be able to face them. The little white tank engine felt guilty. She knew their fight was because of her. She felt solely responsible and if they didn't make it, Meredith wouldn't be able to go on. Should both not make it, she decided she would demand to be scrapped along with them.

"Meredith? Meredith, are you alright?" Rex's voice forced Meredith to look up from the ground. She turned her boiler slowly to better see the mini engine as he pulled into the little station with his passengers.

"I'm okay." Meredith said quietly. She knew he wouldn't believe her, but she didn't want to discuss her inner turmoil. "I'll be fine."

Rex and Bert exchanged worried glances when Bert rolled in with cars of wool. "I've never seen you this quiet." The blue mini engine said. "What's the matter?"

Meredith sighed. "I'm just worried about Gordon and Flying Scotsman… that's all."

"Yeah, we heard about that." Rex said, his eyes dropped. "I hope everything turns out alright."

"I wonder what happened to cause the fight." Bert raised his brow in curiosity.

"Well I heard that Gordon was cross at Scotsman earlier that morning." Mike added from up above Meredith. "Nobody knows why though."

"Perhaps the heat just got to him. You know how siblings can be sometimes. Donald and Douglas fight all the time." Rex said. At the same time a new group of passengers were beginning to fill his carriages.

Mike scoffed. "They argue, Rex. They don't shove each other through buffers and brick walls. Whatever provoked it must've been major."

Meredith felt sick to her boiler, but didn't say anything. She didn't want to slip up and reveal that she was the cause. She heard the last car of her train fill with ballast stone. Normally she would have stayed to talk, but she didn't want to hear anymore of the events at Tidmouth. She gave a no departing whistle and set off without so much as a goodbye to the mini engines.

At the Steamworks, an engineer from Doncaster was inspecting Gordon and Flying Scotsman. Both engines were sedated and in a deep sleep to avoid discomfort during their repairs. Victor was watching carefully over the man as he thoroughly checked both Pacifics. The engineer was serious, occasionally scribbling notes down on his clipboard as he ran his flashlight over the damage.

Victor continued to watch the engineer with Kevin at his side. The small crane kept glancing at Victor, but never said a word. He had never witnessed such a solemn scene. The little crane didn't know what to do, so he stood silently until the engineer strolled over from inspecting the brothers. He quickly removed his glasses, stashing them in the chest pocket of his oil-stained coveralls. "Well, there's good news." The black haired man started with a cockney accent. "Flying Scotsman should pull through no bother. He needs a new boiler and firebox along with new pilot axles, but we've discussed this already. Other than that the damage is mostly cosmetic. Gordon is much worse off. Not only does he need the new boiler, but he needs a new smoke box as well. It'll be tricky to replace considering all the biomechanics involved with his face, but we've done it before and came out successful."

Victor and Kevin both breathed a sigh of relief. "So they'll be fine?"

"Assuming everything goes as it should, we expect they'll be out of here and back to work within the next couple months." The engineer said with a toothy grin. "We'll start work on Flying Scotsman immediately and assess Gordon once we have Scotsman awake and stable."

"Oh, that's fantastic!" Victor said excitedly. "Sir Topham Hatt will be pleased to hear this news." Victor began to reverse down his track when he suddenly thought of something else. "There's one more thing, if you have a second." The engineer nodded in acknowledgment and Victor lowered his voice. "Is there anyway you could panel Gordon?"

"Panel Gordon? What for?" The engineer asked with a tap of his pencil.

"Well," Victor inched forward and lowered his boiler. "There's a little tank engine that I know for a fact he's been physical with. He's caused her extensive damage and I don't fully trust he won't do it again. I just think it would be in the best interest of the little engine's safety that he's paneled up."

The engineer twisted his mouth in thought as he shifted his weight around on his feet. "I suppose if it's for another engine's safety I can get him sealed up while repairing his axles."

Victor smiled. "Thank you, my friend. That's all I needed."

Back at Arlesburgh Harbor, Duck had a couple problems of his own; better known as Donald and Douglas. The Great Western engine stood silently as he watched the two small tender engines duke it out over who would be the back engine for the goods train they had to collect at Brendam Docks.

"I'm always your back engine." Douglas whined.

"Nae true." Donald said incredulously. "I let you up front all the time!"

"Absolutely not!" Douglas scoffed with a bump against his brother's buffers. "You think that just because you're the number 9 that you can just take lead whenever ya feel."

"I do not!" Donald gasped and he returned Douglas' bump with an even harder shove. "Why must you always be such a damn liar!"

Duck was unimpressed with the twins' behavior as he puffed forward with a whistle. "Boys!" He shouted, but neither of them heard. They were too caught up in their own bickering to notice Duck. The green tank engine huffed in frustration and drew closer to them with yet another whistle. "Donald! Douglas!"

"You're such a greedy little cunt!" Douglas growled. He had buffered up to Donald and their noses nearly touched. "You always have to do things your own way. You leave me with no say at all."

"Nae true!" Donald hissed back through clenched teeth. "And who are you calling a little cunt you daft motherfucker!"

"BOYS!" Duck laid hard onto his whistle; he nearly blew it off. "That's enough, the both of ya!"

Donald and Douglas backed away from each other, both of them visibly seething. Thunder rolled through the graying sky and Donald glared at Douglas. "Look what you did now! Your pissin' and moanin' has made us late and now we likely will have to deliver in the rain."

"I wouldn't be pissin' and moanin' if you'd just give me more chances to be at the front." Douglas growled

"I said that's enough!" Duck shouted again. "Seriously? …Donald, let Douglas drive the train, please. You do get to be at the front quite a bit."

Donald scoffed. "Ugh, fine. But only because you were nice in your asking."

"I asked nicely, too." Douglas retorted.

Duck glared daggers at Donald who wanted to snap back, but he kept his mouth tightly shut. The Great Western engine had a pretty intense glower and Donald had no intention of upsetting Duck further.

"You two need to learn to like each other." Duck started in. The twins sighed. "You don't want to end up in a tiff like Gordon and Flying Scotsman do you?"

"No," Donald and Douglas said in unison.

"Good, now you two better set off if you want to try and avoid this rain coming in."

"Yes, Duck." Said Donald.

"Aye." Agreed Douglas and the engines parted ways, but as the twins were driving away, Duck picked up on quiet grumbling between the bull-headed 9 and 10 engines. He shook his boiler but chose to ignore it. As long as they weren't shoving each other through a shed he figured a little discourse between the two was acceptable.

Meredith was shunting at Knapford with Thomas and Philip. The air was muggy from the impending storm. She decided to let Daisy run her passengers along the coast. She needed hard work to take her mind off Gordon and Scotsman and organizing cars was exactly the thing to distract her. "Have either of you two heard of hot dogs?"

"Hot dogs?" Thomas stopped after piecing together a heavy goods train for James. "Like… actual dogs?"

"No, no." Meredith said with a giggle. "They're little sausages that people eat, but no one can say definitively what's in them."

"That doesn't sound very appealing." Philip chimed in. He had just brought cars of stone from the quarry.

"No, it's not." Meredith said as she stuck her tongue out. "My driver was eating one earlier and he tried to give me some but the way it kind of just flopped around wasn't… well it wasn't appetizing."

Thomas laughed. "You probably shouldn't be eating people food anyway, Mer. Engines don't need food for energy."

"I know, I know." Meredith said as she lined up log cars. "I do like to taste things though, and my driver is pretty keen on sharing. Oh! Have you ever tried coffee?"

"No?" Thomas arched his brow.

"It's disgusting, but it gives you this tingling rush in your boiler. I felt like I could go faster than Gor-" she stopped and bit her lip. "Well, I felt I could go pretty fast."

Philip raced between the two tank engines in a huff of dark exhaust. "I don't need coffee to go fast!" The little box cab called excitedly as he zoomed to the other side of the yard.

Thomas and Meredith both snickered at Philip's shenanigans. Suddenly a bolt of lighting struck the ground just outside the yard, startling the two steam engines onto a siding. "Ahh!" Thomas yelped as he accidentally bumped into the front of Meredith. He looked the little white tank engine in the eye and he suddenly felt very shy. "Uhhh…sorry about that." His cheeks ran red with embarrassment.

"It's okay," Meredith said with a giggle. Then she felt sad. The last engine she was that close to was Gordon. She missed him. Her boiler ached at the fear of never seeing him again. Her eyes drifted to the stormy sky as the rain began to fall. It soaked her face and she smiled once more, thankful that the downpour was there to hide her tears.

Sorry if that was a bit dark, but I figured that was a good place to end it. And to address racefangurl, Thomas was more worried because he had a better understanding of just how serious their fight was. He knew it wasn't just a build-up of stress or heat exhaustion. So he essentially is worried it'll happen again though I didn't mention it. As far as James' size, in The Adventure Begins it's addressed that James is bigger than Edward and when standing beside each other the difference is noticeable though not entirely significant. James' overall height is also comparable to Gordon's and Edward is clearly shorter than the big engine. Those are just my observations of course. Gordon is the kind of engine to think small engines are just overall useless. (except Meredith. Heh) He's a bit discriminatory when it comes to an engine's size regardless of their true capabilities.

Also regarding whether engines can feel if they're being touched, I think they can. It may not be on the level of humans but they do feel it. I kind of feel that that's why people tend to not put their hands on an engine. It would be similar to placing their hands on another person they don't know. We know in real life little kiddos would be trying to climb all over these steam engines, but in Thomasverse it's probably considered rude and invasive. But they can feel when a part of theirs breaks and they can feel when their boilers are dry. So they clearly have a sense of self and touch. Their faces I see being the most sensitive part of them (other than some... unseen parts. *wink wink*). It's the most vulnerable part of an engine and also the softest so I'm sure it's packed with nerve-endings.

I could go on about my ideas on the more "sensitive" anatomy, but I've already rambled enough so I'll save that for another day! Thanks for reading and don't forget to review. I love answering any questions y'all may have.

Much love;

Bumble