A/N: So, I guess Michaela is actually my trainsona, but I didn't decide that until my plans for this story had developed a lot in my mind. I originally had a different trainsona, but her story was too AU, so I switched over to Michaela, since I could also relate to her more.

I also wanted the drivers and firemen to have bigger roles like they did in the earlier seasons of the show, so I made Michaela and Kennet interact that way with a close bond—kind of like father and daughter, or older brother and little sister. Speaking of Kennet, he is British and speaks with a British accent (but Michaela has an American accent). And if you're having trouble picturing him, just look up Tom Holland.

Michaela yawned and slowly opened her eyes. The sun was just beginning to rise on the Island of Sodor, and the birds nesting in the trees nearby chirped merrily as they began to stretch their wings.

Suddenly, the iridescent engine's eyes flew wide open with a gasp. "Today's the day I start my new job!"

She squealed and rocked back and forth with anticipation.

*Oliver laughed as he pulled out of his berth and went to get Toad. "Somebody's excited."

"I am!" Michaela rolled forward as much as she could by herself… which was only a few inches. "Oh, I hope Kennet and Sam get here quickly so we can start!"

"Really?" Michaela's driver rounded the corner with her fireman in tow. "Whatever happened to your anxiety and 'Oh, I can't remember anybody's names and I'll never get used to my new surroundings'?"

She scowled at him, but the expression on her face looked more cute than angry. "Not in front of them, Kennet…"

He chuckled. "Sorry, Michaela. I couldn't resist, but I'll try not to embarrass you anymore."

"Where are ye headin' off tae, lassie?" Donald asked.

"Hm?"

"Where are ye goin' tae work?"

"Oh." She thought for a moment. "I think Sir Tuppence Hat said I was going to work at a yard somewhere…"

Michaela looked up when she heard the Scottish twins break out into a peal of laughter. "What?"

"Michaela…" Douglas tried to stifle his laughter, but it was no use. "H-his name's 'Sir Topham Hatt'."

"Oh!" Her face turned red, and she tightly closed her eyes.

Douglas's smile softened, and he moved onto the turntable as he followed his brother to their first job of the day. "Dinnae worry about it, lassie. Ah'm sure ye'll git his name right before ye ken it."

"Before I 'Kennet'?"

Her driver coughed and leaned out of her cab. "He said 'before you know it'."

She bit her lip. "Oh…"

Duck pulled out of his berth and waited for the turntable to align with his rails while he spoke to Michaela. "So, are you ready to see the Little Western?"

"I-I think so."

"Great. Then follow me!"

Michaela had only been inside of a tunnel three times in her entire life (which had only just begun a week earlier). They had to go through another one in order to leave Tidmouth Hault and see the rest of the branch line.

As she and Duck puffed through the tunnel, Michaela curiously let out a chirp of her whistle. The resounding echo startled and overwhelmed her, and she yelped and accidentally bumped into Duck from behind.

"Michaela! Are you alright?" he asked.

She took several deep breaths to calm herself before responding. "Yeah… sorry. I just scared myself."

Duck hummed and led her out of the tunnel.

When they finally came out, Michaela saw a pond off in the distance to their right.

The pannier tank engine saw where she was looking and grinned. "That's Dilly's Pond. We call it that after the duck that lives there. She's very friendly with all the engines, but Donald's her favorite. She's also very loud."

Michaela chuckled and kept following him down the line.

Next, they crossed a bridge—which Duck called "Bulgy's Bridge"—and then they crossed another bridge and passed through a seaside village known as Haultraugh.

After they had left the village, Duck and Michaela drove past a field as they crossed yet another bridge. "That field down there is called 'Bulgy's Field', also named after the bus that I told you about earlier."

Michaela smiled, then suddenly frowned as she realized that she had forgotten half of the names of the locations that Duck had told her on their way to her new job.

She sighed. Maybe Kennet will remember where we are and how to get back. I just can't memorize all these new places right away.

The iridescent and pannier steam engines passed through Bluff's Cove and continued up the line, where they finally reached their destination: Arlesburgh, a large town next to the sea.

"And that, Michaela, is the Little Western for you," said Duck. "I'll take you to where you're supposed to work now."

"Oh yes, that's right!" Michaela thought for a moment. "I think Sir Topham the Hutt said I was to do shunting in a yard?"

**This time, it was Michaela's fireman, Sam Gamgee, who struggled to hold back his laughter.

She grunted and bit her cheek. "Okay, that's it. From now on, I'm just going to wait until somebody tells me what his name is, because apparently I can't pronounce it right."

Duck chuckled and motioned with his eyes for Michaela to follow him. He led her to a large shunting yard, and she stopped short when she saw just how many trucks needed to be sorted out. Kennet had explained a little bit about shunting whenever Duck stopped talking long enough for him to do so, and Michaela was a little worried about what she would have to do, but she was determined to get the job done.

Duck switched onto another track and let Michaela pull up next to him. "You know, the only tender engines that I've ever seen shunting before are Donald and Douglas, and that's not even their job, really. They just get their trains themselves and don't fuss like the other tender engines—the ones who claim that 'tender engines don't shunt'."

"Oh, really? How come tender engines don't shunt?" she asked.

Duck closed his eyes as he tried to answer the best he could. "Well, first off, I guess it's a bit trickier for tender engines to maneuver the right ways to get the trucks where they need to be. They're also longer than tank engines, and tank engines don't need to be repositioned all the time to make it easier to move.

***"Secondly, the engines I speak of are usually too proud or stubborn to get their own 'cars and trucks and things that go'."

"Oh… Then why did Sir Tops what's-his-name send for me?"

"I don't know, Michaela. Perhaps you're going to be better at it than any other kind of tender engine? I mean, you have a smaller tender than most, so that might make things more convenient for you."

Michaela glanced back at herself and saw that it was true—she was, in fact, smaller than any other tender engine that she had seen in her life so far, and her tender was especially small.

Duck puffed forward. "Anyways, should we get started? It looks like there's a lot of work here that needs to be done."

"R-right!" Michaela puffed forward, but then she stopped short. "Wait… What am I supposed to do?"

Duck got a certain look on his face. "Well, you're supposed to do things the Great Western way."

"The what-now?"

"You see, Michaela, there are two ways of doing things: the Great Western way, or the wrong way."

She turned this over in her head for a moment. "So… the Great Western way is the right way?"

He beamed. "That's right! Now, come along, and I'll teach you how to shunt."

Duck made things look way too easy… or at least, that was what Michaela thought.

Some of the trucks were alive, and the Great Western engine called these "Troublesome Trucks". They were very rude and noisy, and more than once Michaela went to shunt them in a line to form a train, and they were so loud and chaotic that she immediately reversed and tried to avoid them by organizing the other trucks wherever Duck wanted them.

The pannier tank engine tried to be patient with Michaela, but he eventually started to get fed up with her avoiding the Troublesome Trucks.

"Remember, Michaela, they can only bother you if you don't stand your ground and manage them properly, no matter how troublesome they may be!" he finally shouted across the yard to the iridescent engine when she panicked and darted away after the fifteenth attempt to sort them out.

"I-I know, but… but…"

Duck sighed. "Michaela, look. How about I take half of them, and you get the other half?"

"Okay…" she whimpered from behind a building.

But when she buffered up to one of the trucks, he signaled all the other Troublesome Trucks nearby, and they all started shouting and laughing maniacally. Michaela screamed and bumped into him roughly, sending him underneath the coal hopper.

Duck groaned. "Here we go again…" He raised his voice. "Michaela, those trucks aren't supposed to be filled with coal, remember? They're for the… the…"

But it was too late. The truck was suddenly filled with coal, and when Michaela went to retrieve it, she accidentally hit it too hard and got some coal all over herself as well.

The iridescent engine puffed sorrowfully back to Duck with tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry… I don't think I'll ever be able to do this the Great Eastern way, or whatever you called it… I guess I'm just not meant for shunting." And she puffed away to cry in a corner of the yard.

"It's the Great Western way," Duck corrected her. He watched Michaela go, wondering what to do now. "Oliver should be here soon; maybe he'll know how to teach her the right way."

Just then, Donald pulled up next to him with a goods train. "Hallo, Duck! How's everything' going wit' Michaela?"

"Terrible!" the pannier tank engine burst out. "She seems to be moving some of the trucks alright, but every time she gets close to a Troublesome one, they make a lot of noise and scare her away!" He sighed. "Oliver's coming to take over soon. He'll need all the luck in the world to teach her, I should think."

Donald bit his lip. "Och, about that…"

"What?"

"There's been an accident. Oliver's been sent tae th' works tae be mended, but he willnae be able tae replace ye today. So it looks like yer th' one who'll be needin' that luck, Duck."

"What?!"

Donald was uncoupled from his train, then he puffed forward and glanced curiously at the iridescent engine crying by herself. "Ah wonder…" He steamed towards her. "Wait a minute there, Duck. Ah jist might be able tae sort this out…"

When the Scottish engine returned a few minutes later, Michaela was following him with a look of uncertainty on her face, but there was a spark of determination shining in her eyes.

After a moment of hesitation, she puffed up to a Troublesome Truck and glanced over at the boys. Donald smiled at her, and she smiled back, then she slowly began to shunt the truck where it belonged with the others despite its loud protests.

"What did you say to her?" Duck asked in shock.

"Aye, well… Ah asked her whit was botherin' her, and Michaela said that 'twas th' sound that was scaring her. Ah asked her if there was somethin' that keeps her calm, an' she said tha' she likes singin'. It'll help her keep her mind off th' noise, an' ah also told her tha' she can jist move quickly away when she's done shunting th' trucks."

"It's helping so far," commented Duck as he watched her sing softly to herself while going to get the next truck.

"Aye." Donald whistled. "Ah'd best be gettin' back. See ye later, Duck!"

The pannier tank engine watched him go, then he puffed over to Michaela and observed her for a moment in silence.

Michaela was vibing in a world of her own when she suddenly noticed Duck sitting there and looked up—then glanced back down when she briefly made eye contact with him. "What is it?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry for getting angry with you. I didn't know what it was that was scaring you, and I want to help you be able to do things by yourself."

She was silent for a moment. "...I'm sorry, too. I should have done what you said and just gotten it over with, but… I get overwhelmed by loud noises easily."

Duck smiled. "That's alright. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by certain things, too."

Michaela's jaw dropped. "You? Really?"

"Yes. In fact, I don't like it when certain things touch me, like cold water."

"Wow, I never knew that."

"Most people don't. I've never told them."

"Until now."

They both laughed, then Duck went to help Michaela get the rest of the yard organized, all the while chatting about their similarities that they never knew they had until now.

"Y'know, I just don't understand why it's considered normal to look other people in the eyes," Michaela said to Duck as they headed back to Tidmouth Hault Sheds.

"Me neither! And especially when it sometimes hurts to do so. It almost feels like…"

"Lasers," they finished in unison.

Michaela was so excited to finally have someone understand how she felt, that she began to rock happily from side to side. Not in a dangerous way, but one that indicated that she was happy.

When she glanced over at her friend, he was doing the same thing, whether he realized it or not.

Douglas greeted them when they arrived at the sheds. "Och, yer back! How was yer first day at work, lassie?"

Michaela looked up at the pinkish-orange sky. "It was… hm… yes."

"'Yes?'" the Scottish engine echoed with a look of amusement.

"Yes."

"How'd everythin' go?" Donald asked Duck as the engines all settled into their berths (except for Oliver, who was still at the Steamworks).

"Just fine." Duck beamed at Michaela. "As it turns out, she might need a little more help than the average engine, but she gives it all right back—and more."

"Och, really? How?"

"By being a really great friend."

A/N: You might have figured it out by now, but Michaela is a Level 2 autistic. She doesn't realize it yet, and neither does anybody else in the story so far, but I figured I might as well say it, since April is Autism Awareness Month. I know I'm way too late with posting this, but... Happy World Autism Awareness Day, or as I like to call it, Autism Appreciation Day!

*I redesigned the layout of the Tidmouth Hault Sheds, so as to accommodate more engines. It originally only fit three.

**The name of Michaela's fireman is a reference to two fictional characters: Fireman Sam, the titular character of the TV show; and Samwise Gamgee, the best friend of the main character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Apparently Sam's parents were big nerds (or maybe his creator was, lol).

***Yes, this is a reference to the book that I grew up reading.