A/N: When it comes to romantic love in my Thomasverse, the engines are certainly aware of love and can feel it for one another, but how exactly depends on their mental age and overall experience. So when Michaela asked Emily what romantic love was, she wasn't quite sure how to explain it since the subject of love is still somewhat unknown to her. After all, Thomas is the first engine that she's ever had a crush on (in this story).

We're busy, so busy

Our wheels dinnae touch th' ground

Dizzy, we're dizzy

With rushing round and' round

It's pulling this an' shunting that

No Sir, yes Sir Topham Hatt

We'll go here an' there and back

We're busy, busy, busy

Although the lyrics to the song didn't sound quite so happy, Donald and Douglas were, and they were singing cheerfully as they went about their jobs. Michaela smiled shyly, listening with content to the twins' voices ringing out harmoniously as they all bustled about in the Tidmouth Hault shunting yard, where she had been sent to work for the day.

After a few moments, Michaela sidled up to them and complimented them both on their singing voices.

Douglas blushed a little. "Och, 'tis nothing, lassie. Jist tryin' tae pass th' time while Donnie and ah work."

But when he had moved out of earshot, Donald whispered to Michaela, "See? Ah told ye he was a good singer."

He winked, and the iridescent engine giggled quietly.

"Whit's so funny?"

Donald and Michaela jumped as Douglas came back over.

"Och, nothin', Douggie…" said Donald.

Douglas gave his twin a suspicious look. "Ye wouldnae be talkin' about me, now would ye?"

"Well, actually—" Michaela began, but Donald cut her off.

"All good things, Douggie. Nothin' like last time…"

Now Michaela was curious. "What happened last time?"

Now Douglas was the one acting like he was trying to avoid a certain subject. "Nothin', nothin'… Nothing happened." He gave Donald an angry look that clearly had some kind of backstory behind it.

But Michaela gave the Scottish twins an even sadder look of disappointment that made them cave in a little.

"Alright, alright," said Donald, being the one to avoid eye contact for once. "Let's jist say… th' last time we fought in th' presence of a girl, everything went… downhill."

"Literally," added Douglas.

The awkward silence that followed was broken by Duck entering the yard.

"Hello, everyone. Michaela, have you heard the news?"

"No. What news?"

Duck smiled. "I thought that you would like to know that a famous singer is coming here to Sodor. She'll be arriving at Brendam Docks later this evening."

Michaela accidentally backed into some Troublesome Trucks too hard, causing both her and them minor pain. She yelped and quickly moved forward again, over to where Duck was. "Did you say a famous singer?"

"Yes. Her name is Allicia Botti, and she's an opera singer from Italy."

Michaela was ecstatic. "Yay! I can't wait! I've always wanted to meet someone else who loves singing as much as I do!"

"I don't know if you'll get to meet her, but perhaps if you get all your jobs done quickly enough, you'll be able to hear her singing at the concert tonight," said Duck. "Then of course, anyone can hear Allicia singing from any part of—"

"Then I'd better go faster!" Michaela immediately began to shunt as quickly as she could, but she wasn't being very careful.

"Ouch! What was that for?" screamed some trucks as she roughly pushed them into some buffers.

Duck cleared his throat. "Michaela, I know you're excited, but getting your jobs done carefully is far more important than getting them done quickly."

"Oh, right!"

Michaela began to hum as she slowed down and tried to be more gentle with the Troublesome Trucks, but the thought of being able to meet Allicia Botti was so exciting, she soon forgot what Duck had said to her.

Later on that day, Michaela had to take some trucks down to the Knapford shunting yard. When she arrived, Philip was there and said "hello" to her. As Michaela puffed onto a line next to Knapford Station, she spotted a little blue tank engine puffing towards her with a smile on his face.

He stopped next to her. "Hello! You must be the rainbow engine that Rebecca told us all about. I'm Thomas."

Although Michaela avoided eye contact with him, she was glad to have another friend. "Yeah, I'm Michaela… Wait, did you say Rebecca told you and some other engines about me?"

Thomas's smile grew, and she detected some cheekiness behind it. "Uh-huh. All of the engines who live at Tidmouth Sheds know about you."

Just then, a whistle sounded from behind Michaela. "Hello, you're in my way!"

The iridescent engine gasped and quickly switched onto another line, then watched as a red tender engine that was a bit larger than her steam past. "Finally! You're so slow. Then again, nobody on this island is faster than me—the fastest red engine on Sodor!"

Thomas sighed. "...That's James. He also has the biggest ego on Sodor."

"I-is he always like that?" Michaela's ears were still ringing from when James had told her to get out of the way.

The blue tank engine hesitated. "Well, no… Actually, yes. Most of the time. Anyway, I'm sure the other engines will want to meet you, too."

A deep whistle echoed through Knapford Station as a big blue tender engine arrived.

Thomas gasped. "Hey, that's Gordon! Let's go introduce you to him before either of you have to go anywhere else!"

Michaela was startled. "Wait, what?"

"Come on!" He began to puff away.

As they left the yard and approached the tender engine, Michaela began to get nervous. He was much larger than she was, and it made her feel very small and insignificant.

"Gordon," called Thomas, "look who it is! This is the engine that Rebecca was telling us about, Michaela!"

Gordon looked down at Michaela, and she suddenly felt even smaller. "So, you're the rainbow engine?"

"Um… y-yeah…" Michaela couldn't even look up at his face. *Gordon was radiating so much superiority that she felt overwhelmed by it.

Just then, a small green tank engine rushed into the station, interrupting their conversation. "Thomas! Thomas, did you hear? The opera singer Allicia Botti is coming to Sodor again, and Sir Topham Hatt wants me to take her to the concert!"

Michaela immediately perked up. "Allicia?"

"She's a world-famous opera singer," said Gordon, "and she's a coloratura."

"A what-now?" The iridescent engine moved forward with interest, bringing herself to look up as high at Gordon's mouth.

"It means she can sing high notes very loudly."

"It's true; we can usually hear Allicia Botti all the way across the island," said Thomas.

"And there was this other time, when Thomas was going to pick up Allicia to take her to Arlesburgh Castle, there was this big mouse in one of his coaches. Allicia Botti screamed so long and loudly, that all the glass windows at Brendam broke!" added the green tank engine.

Thomas gritted his teeth. "You really didn't need to bring that up, Percy…"

His friend looked confused. "Oh? Why not?"

The Number 1 engine's cheeks turned red. "It's embarrassing…"

Michaela didn't hear the rest of their conversation as she began to daydream. She dreamed of being the one to pick up Allicia Botti instead, taking her to Arlesburgh Castle, and hearing the opera singer's voice echo all around her as she looked up at the stars…

"Are you seriously in my way again?"

A harsh voice shook Michaela out of her thoughts, and she quickly went to find a spot to move out of James's way.

"Why does he have to keep yelling…" she mumbled.

Kennet leaned out of her cab. "It's a good thing we're moving again, though. We need to get back to Tidmouth Hault."

Michaela's eyes widened. "Oh, that's right! I need to get all my jobs done quickly so I can go to the concert and hear Allicia sing!"

Her driver's eyebrows furrowed. "Actually, that's not what I meant—"

She jolted forward and frantically sped back through Knapford Station. "I have to go now. It was nice meeting all of you, bye!"

Thomas, Percy, and James all stared after her as she disappeared, and Gordon huffed. "My, what a silly little engine she is. Most disgraceful."

Thomas frowned. "Michaela probably needs to be somewhere on time. Don't we all?" and he puffed away to get back to work.

Meanwhile, a certain red tank engine was puffing through Knapford Yards and had seen everything—but she was only bothered by one of the engines' attitudes and went to confront him over this.

"James!"

The red tender engine froze when he heard the girl's voice. "What, Rosie?"

She glared at him. "Why were you shouting at that new engine? She looked so sad when you told her to move!"

"B-but Rosie, she was in my way…"

"No 'buts', James. The next time you see her, I want you to apologize to her."

James gulped and lowered his eyes. "...Yes, Rosie."

She smirked, and her voice softened a little. "Good. I have to come here again tomorrow, so I'll check in with you and make sure that you did."

And Rosie puffed away, leaving James's cheeks as red as his paintwork.

"Miss Michaela, might I suggest that you—AAAHH!" Toad screamed as some trucks whizzed past him at a high speed and crashed into some buffers.

He breathed out and tried to compose himself. "Ahem… Might I suggest that you work, perhaps… a little bit slower?"

"No way, Toad." Michaela roughly shoved some oil tankers into a siding. "I have to get all my work done before Allicia Botti gets here so I can go to the concert and hear her sing."

"But Michaela," said Duck as he puffed through the yard, "every time you shunt some trucks into a pair of buffers, they hit them too roughly and spill some of their load! You must be patient and calm down before you cause any more confusion and delay." He narrowly dodged some screaming Troublesome Trucks.

"Right, right, right." Michaela winced when she bumped into some flatbeds and sent them all the way across the yard, but she didn't slow down in the slightest.

Oliver was humming quietly as he entered the Tidmouth Hault shunting yard. Suddenly, some flatbeds came speeding towards him at an unusual speed.

"Aah!" Oliver quickly switched onto another line and let out a sigh of relief as the flatbeds went past him.

Then there was trouble.

The flatbeds that Michaela had bumped too hard crashed through a pair of buffers and came to a grinding halt… only a few feet away from the Fat Controller's car.

Sir Topham Hatt slammed his door shut and walked up to the iridescent tender engine. He did not look happy.

"Michaela, what is going on here? I come to check on you at the end of the day, and a bunch of flatbeds almost smash into my car! And why, might I ask, are those trucks' loads spilled everywhere? Explain yourself at once!"

Michaela was terrified. Her eyes began to well up with tears, and her lips began to tremble. She closed her eyes and began to cry, but she suddenly felt somebody else's buffers press against her own, and Michaela opened her eyes to see Oliver in front of her.

After a few moments had gone by, she reluctantly pulled away and faced Sir Topham Hatt. "I'm sorry…" She sniffled. "I just w-wanted to get everything done quickly so that I could go to the concert at Arlesburgh Castle and hear Allicia Botti sing… I-I've always wanted to hear what a real singer sounds like."

The Fat Controller hesitated, then he covered his eyes with one hand and sighed. "Oh, dear… Michaela, I don't know if anybody told you this, but Allicia's singing voice is so loud that she can be heard from any part of the island, including right here at Tidmouth Hault."

Michaela blushed as she recalled Duck trying to say something along those lines earlier that morning when he had first told her about Allicia coming to Sodor.

"Michaela," continued the Fat Controller, "I hate to say this, but you have caused confusion and delay. You'll be able to hear Allicia Botti's singing at some point later tonight, but right now you must clean up this yard—and do it carefully this time."

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir…"

"It's alright, now. You just remember that no matter how quickly you think you must go to complete a task, you have to be patient and go at a steady pace until the work is done."

"I will, sir. Thank you."

"Now then, I have to go to Brendam Docks to meet Allicia Botti and take her to the concert. Oliver, will you help Michaela sort the yard?"

**"Of course, sir," said the tank engine as he moved next to Michaela.

"Very good." Sir Topham Hatt turned and went back to his car.

Just as the Fat Controller had asked her to, Michaela cleaned up every last bit of the mess—and this time, she was careful not to bump the Troublesome Trucks or speed around the yard. But she still felt awful that the accident had happened in the first place, and that she had let herself get out of control over something that was pointless.

When Michaela arrived at Knapford Yards with the last set of trucks that needed to be taken where they belonged for the day, James was there and saw how sad she looked. He thought that she was still depressed from when he had yelled at her, and he decided to do what Rosie had asked him to do.

"Hey, um… you're Michaela, right?" asked James as he approached her meekly.

She looked up with surprise, still avoiding eye contact. "Yeah…?"

James felt very awkward, but he knew he had to apologize. "I'm sorry about earlier when I yelled at you… I shouldn't have done that."

Michaela smiled a little, the first time since Sir Topham Hatt had scolded her. "It's okay. I forgive you."

James smiled back. "Friends?"

"Friends."

Michaela, Douglas, Donald, Duck, Oliver, and Toad were all resting together at Tidmouth Hault Sheds, talking about the day's events and little else.

Suddenly, a heavenly voice traveled across the night breeze and to the engines' shed, and they all fell silent and listened.

After a few minutes, Michaela quietly asked, "Is that Allicia?"

"Yes, Miss Michaela, that's her," said Toad.

A few minutes later, she commented again, "I've never heard anybody sing like that before." Pause. "I like it."

"That's opera for you," said Duck, who appeared to be enjoying it as well.

As the stars slowly began to appear in the skies above them, Douglas whispered to Michaela, "Ye ken… although Allicia Botti's a good singer, ah'd still much rather listen tae ye."

Michaela's cheeks turned pink. "...What? R-really?"

"Aye. Ye've got perfect pitch, and at least ah kin actually understand what yer singin'."

She listened for another minute. "...You're right, I can't really understand her, either."

The two of them laughed, and for the first time in her life, Michaela felt perfectly happy and content as she gazed up at the stars and listened to the lovely musical voice that rang out across the Island of Sodor.

Perhaps one day she could finally see and ***hear herself the way that her friends did: as a wonderful person who was different from others in a good way and just as deserving of love and respect as anybody else—and she would reflect that love ten times back to them if they gave it to her.

A/N: According to an article I read by Temple Grandin, there are three categories of autistic thinkers: visual, pattern, and word thinkers. In the pattern category, there are two subcategories: math and music. Michaela is a music thinker, and I take this to mean that she thinks in abstract patterns that often relate to music. In Michaela's specific case, she has perfect pitch, and when she hears words, she sometimes hears music in her mind that to her would describe and/or be associated with the words being spoken. (I don't know if that happens to other music thinkers, but for Michaela, it does. Personally, I am a word thinker and have a vast collection of verbal facts on... anything, really, but specifically things pertaining to my special interests.) Michaela's special interests are singing, shunting, and learning more about what life is like for humans.

*Some autistic people are very sensitive to others' emotions, including ones that they appear to radiate as part of their complex.

**Oliver is kind of like an older brother figure to Michaela.

***The reason I said "hear herself" is because she's pretty modest and doesn't really believe it that much when somebody compliments her on her singing voice, like Douglas did a few lines earlier.