A FRIEND IN NEED

Based upon the episode by Phil Fehrle, Jonathan Trueman and Abi Grant and "Rabbits" by Christopher Awdry

Adapted by Zack Wanzer and Rachel Ravens

The following morning, Thomas, Annie and Clarabel were getting ready for their first train of the day.

"I hope Jack will do better today," Thomas said to his coaches; they had heard all about yesterday's incident.

"He'll get it right," said Annie, confidently. "You did learn a lot from Edward about pulling trains." Thomas blushed and looked away at that compliment.

"I do wonder how Jack's getting on with everyone," added Clarabel. "Especially Alfie."

Down at the construction site near Maithwaite, Jack was put back to work and was helping Alfie load Max and Monty.

"That's the spirit, Jack!" smiled Alfie. "Keep up the good work."

"I sure will!" laughed Jack. "I'm glad to have met you, Alfie."

"You too," grinned the green excavator. "Two shovels are better than one for digging."

"Yeah," agreed Jack, before a worried look crossed his face.

"Is there something on your mind, Jack?"

"Oh, it's just that I don't know if Miss Jenny will let me stay after yesterday's stunt…"

"Don't worry about that, my friend," smiled Alfie. "You're already doing great today."

"Yeah," remarked Max. "Great at making us dusty."

"I can't believe you managed to tip yourself over on day one," added Monty.

"Oh, stop it, you two!" sighed Alfie. The two dump trucks simply laughed as they drove quickly away. "Just remember, I've got your back. Most of the Pack could say the same thing."

"Thanks, Alfie," smiled Jack, weakly.

With the foundations finally done, the next thing was for the frames of the station building that needed to go up.

"Kelly, I'll need ye ta help me here," said Miss Jenny.

"On my way, Miss Jenny," the blue crane affirmed; they quickly began to lift the frames into position.

"Excellent," smiled Miss Jenny. "With any luck, the station will be completed in time for summer rush."

"Oh, that always gets busy," chuckled Alfie, turning to Jack. "You should see Thomas in his races with Bertie the bus."

"Thomas races a bus?" asked Jack. "I never heard of a steam engine racing a bus before."

"It's quite a frequent occurrence along the branch line," said Alfie. "More often than not, it catches Annie and Clarabel unawares."

"I imagine that they're never too happy when that happens," chuckled Jack.

"As long as they're careful, it's okay," said a steam shovel.

"Oh, I don't think I met you yesterday," said Jack. "I'm Jack. What's your name?"

"I'm Ned," the steam shovel replied. "Good to have you aboard, Jack."

"Thanks, Ned," the front loader replied, before sighing. "Although… I'm not sure if I'm going to be a member of the Pack."

"Why, what's happened?"

Jack quickly explained the events of yesterday.

"Oh, I see," said Ned. "Don't let that get to you; nobody's perfect. And you did want to help somebody. That's a good thing."

Jack gave a smile.

"Ned!" called the foreman. "Could you load some rock into Max, please?"

"Coming!" he called and went to do just that. "Just remember what I said, okay, Jack?"

"I will," the front loader promised. Jack watched as Ned began to load Max full of rock. Unfortunately, he had scooped too big a shovelful, and the load falling into Max's dumper caused the dump truck to shake in his frames.

"Careful, bumble bucket!" he snapped.

"Sorry!" called Ned, cheerfully. Jack and Alfie had to chuckle in amusement.

As the days passed by, the engines on the Ffarquhar branch line could see Maithwaite station progressing in its construction. Percy, Toby and Mavis helped in bringing in supplies for the Pack while Thomas and Daisy sometimes made stops to drop off the workmen. Toby would sometimes have Henrietta with workmen too.

"The station's looking great, everyone," said Toby.

"Thanks, Toby," smiled Isobella, before frowning. "I just wish Elizabeth would have seen this too…"

"Who's Elizabeth?" asked Jack.

"She was my sister," explained Isobella. "She was even Sir Topham Hatt's personal lorry."

"Oh," said Jack. "How come I've never seen Elizabeth being driven by Sir Topham Hatt, or anyone else for that matter?"

"No one's seen her since Maurice was scrapped," said Kelly. "He was one of the Coffee Pot engines around here."

"He and his siblings used to run on this branch," said Henrietta, "but like Maurice…" She sighed, unwilling to finish the sentence.

"Elizabeth was so close with them," sighed Isobella.

"Oh, Isobella…" sighed Jack. "I'm so sorry…"

"Thanks, Jack…" she said quietly as a tear pricked her eye.

As was known to many, spring weather had brought along many new baby animals, ranging from newborn lambs to calves and even foals. But one baby animal would bring more trouble than what it was worth…

"Aww!" cried Percy as he puffed down the branch line. "Baby rabbits. They're so cute."

"Indeed they are," said his driver. "My kids were begging me for one recently."

"They may be cute," said a female voice, "but just be careful with them."

"What do you mean, Constable Regaby?" asked Percy, seeing her riding over on her bike. "What harm can cute and fuzzy bunnies do?"

"Well, they can… wh-whoa!" Barbara Regaby fell right off her bike.

"Constable Regaby!" cried Percy, braking to a halt. "Are you okay?!"

"Ugh, there was a hole in the dirt path," Barbara groaned as she stood up again. "As I thought. A rabbit dug this."

"Well… that answers that question," sighed Percy. "At least you're still able to walk, and it's not affecting our railway."

Little did Percy realize that he would soon be proven wrong…

Following Barbara Regaby's incident, there were several more sightings of rabbits; some were near the construction site at Maithwaite.

"I could watch them all day," smiled Jack. "I wish I were a person so I could cuddle them."

"Me too," said Alfie. "They're so cute when they twitch their noses and hop around."

"Come on, you two," interrupted Kelly. "Miss Jenny wants you to move some gravel out of the way."

"Sorry, Kelly!" both diggers cried at once. However, this wasn't going to be the Pack's final encounter with the rabbits that day…

"Well, paint me green!" exclaimed Ned. "They're breeding like… well, rabbits! I was sure I counted eight yesterday… now there's almost double."

"They're getting everywhere!" cried Isobella. "Oh, mind you don't leave any 'presents' on my flatbed!"

"Never mind that!" cried Buster. "Look at the railway near our construction site!"

Everyone looked over to see that just below the railway line were several small holes. Then, a rabbit popped out of one of them, shortly followed by another, and then another.

"Never have I thought we'd be dealing with an adorable obstacle," remarked Poppy.

"What harm could those holes do?" asked Jasmine. "They're so small, and the engines are huge."

Just then, a whistle sounded out, and it didn't belong to Buster.

"That's Thomas!" exclaimed Jack. "He's coming downhill with a passenger train!"

Up the line, Thomas, Annie and Clarabel were unaware of the danger that they were heading towards when they heard the sound of several horns honking - and Buster's whistle blowing - at once.

"Hello, everyone!" called Thomas, but then he realized their honking and whistling sounded frantic. "Uh-oh… driver, fireman, we'd better slow down!"

The driver didn't need telling twice, especially upon seeing the foreman waving a red flag. He eased off on the regulator and began to apply the brakes, but it wasn't enough as Thomas began to feel himself tilting to one side.

"Get clear, and uncouple Annie and Clarabel!" cried the tank engine, and his crew obeyed. Thomas screamed as he thought he and the coaches, as well as the passengers and guard, would tumble cab over wheels off the tracks, but then he felt something holding him up right on his side tanks.

"Jack?!"

"Don't worry, Thomas! I'll keep you safe!" The front loader was resting his bucket against Thomas' side tank and revving his engine to keep him from tipping over. While this was happening, the driver and fireman uncoupled Thomas from Annie and Clarabel, and the guard led the passengers out of the coaches to safety.

"That should be everyone," said Thomas' driver, "but what about Jack? He can't hold Thomas forever!"

While all that was going on, Kelly had already made their way over to Thomas. "Hang on!" they called. "I got you!"

"Please hurry!" called Jack. "I think I'm almost out of petrol!"

Kelly's cable was quickly attached to Thomas, and the blue crane pulled as hard as they could. They panted and strained, but finally, Thomas felt firm rails under his wheels once again. Annie and Clarabel had had chocks put in front of their wheels to prevent them from rolling away.

"Thanks, Kelly," panted Thomas, relieved. "And thank you, Jack! That could've gotten ugly had you not jumped in!"

"Glad to… help out…" Jack panted, breathlessly. He looked at his arms; they had bent under the pressure of keeping Thomas in place.

By evening, all of the rabbits had been cleared away from the construction site, and Jack had been brought back to the Pack's yard. But he was worried; what would Miss Jenny say about him damaging his arms?

"Miss Jenny," he said quietly, "I'm sorry I jumped in when I didn't belong…"

"Ye've nothing ta be sorry fer, Jack," assured Miss Jenny, raising a hand for silence. "If anything, I'm proud of ye for preventing a nasty accident fer Thomas an' his passengers! It's off to the fitters with you tomorrow, Jack. The Pack can't have a front loader with bent arms!"

Jack's eyes widened with amazement at what he'd just heard! "You mean I can stay?!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Miss Jenny grinned.

"I'm sure a certain tank engine would be very grateful," said Jasmine.

"We're a cracking crew!" laughed Kelly.

"And all the better for Jack's being here," added Isobella.

"Welcome to the Pack, Jack!" cheered Alfie.

Jack was so happy he couldn't think of anything to say. So he just revved his engine and bounced his bucket.

"Yes," said Isobella, quietly. "Welcome to the Pack, Jack…"

Meanwhile, Thomas had been sent to the Steamworks to have his dents and scratches looked over. He was very happy for Jack when he heard the news from Percy.

"He sure has earned it," smiled Thomas. "And I sure hope this branch line will get this rabbit problem under control."

"I've heard Sir Topham Hatt and Constable Regaby were proposing a sanctuary for the rabbits away from the railway lines," said Percy. "That way, they won't be a bother to us in the future."

"Thank goodness," sighed Thomas. "I guess it's worked out for both the Pack and our branch line. We're getting a new station, and the Pack has a new member."

"Though the main line has been getting busy lately," said Percy. "Emily told me this morning."

The tank engines were left in thought about where help for the main line would come from… but that's another story.

THE END

Author's Comments

Here's the second half to the Pack duology of Series 6-7 Redux! Expect them to show up more often as, like I've already explained, we'll also be throwing in episodes from the Pack spinoff into the mix. It helps to add some variety to the redux and make the world of Sodor look bigger than it is. Originally, we weren't going to include elements of "Rabbits" from Thomas and the Fat Controller's Engines, but we ended up doing so as the climax of the original episode wouldn't have worked out in its original form as all of the bridges on Thomas' branch line go over water. Rachel and I had to get pretty creative with our solution to this problem; plus, it was an excuse to partially reference both My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and DC Super Hero Girls because they each have an episode that shared the same quote - "Time to take out the adorable trash!"

Upcoming stories:

- Gordon and Spencer

- The Sky's the Limit

- Salty's Secret

- Oh Gnome!

- Jack Owns Up