The next morning, Thomas woke up bright and early. He wanted to make sure that Rosie's fear of Hector would be gone as soon as possible, so he thought that the earlier they met up with him the better. He looked over to his right and saw that Rosie, Percy and Toby were all still asleep. Very slowly and very quietly, Thomas moved slightly forward out of his berth and looked over to Rosie. "Wakey-wakey, sister," he whispered, trying not to wake Percy and Toby.
Rosie gave a small yawn and came forward alongside him. "Good morning, Thomas," she murmured drowsily.
"Good morning, Rosie," said Thomas. "You feeling ready to do this?"
"I think so," replied Rosie. "I feel much more ready to do it knowing that you will be with me the whole time."
"Well, just remember that you can always talk to any of us if you ever have a problem, because friendship is something we value very highly," smiled Thomas.
Rosie shook happily, once again feeling happy to be doing something with the one she idolised.
Soon, they were both off to the coaling plant. As they puffed along the line, Rosie could feel the bad first impression that Hector left on her continuously ringing in her mind, thinking endlessly about the intimidating frown on his face and the way he yelled at her.
... "KEEP AWAY" ...
She shuddered slightly at the thought of hearing those words again, but then remembered that she had to try and not let her feelings get in the way again, so she took a deep breath, let out a sigh, and kept her head as hard as she could for the rest of the journey to the coaling plant.
Eventually, Thomas and Rosie arrived at the coaling plant. Rosie's heart began to pound as she saw Hector close to the hopper. The big moment where she would see if he had reformed or not for herself was about to come. All the time, she could hear those two words she did not want to hear again keep ringing in her mind. Had Hector truly reformed and given up his horrid ways, or was he still going to be uncooperative and standoffish? She was about to find out.
Thomas puffed up towards Hector and greeted him. "Hello again, Hector!" he called.
"Hello, Thomas," responded Hector. "I see you've brought someone else here with you."
"Yes," said Thomas. "This is my friend Rosie, the one who was supposed to help me shunt you yesterday."
Rosie felt her nervousness beginning to spiral out of control. She knew that this was the moment she felt the most tense about. She shut her eyes, hoping for the best while also being prepared for the worst.
"Come on, Rosie!" urged Thomas. "Hector wants to properly meet you, and he has something to say to you."
Rosie took a deep breath and cautiously puffed forwards towards Hector. "Please don't let it be 'keep away', please don't let it be 'keep away', please, please, please don't let it be 'keep away' ..." she thought.
She waited for him to say what he wanted to say ... and then, to her great surprise ...
"Hello, Rosie!" said Hector warmly. "It's nice to properly be introduced to you after the whole ordeal we went through yesterday."
Rosie was both relieved and astonished. She was relieved that Thomas was right about Hector changing his ways, and felt good about the fact that she now had proof that this was the case. She was also astonished to see Hector being that nice to her, especially after what he did the previous day.
"It's nice to properly meet you too, Hector," she said, as she felt her confidence build again and let all her fear start to slip away from her. Thomas felt proud; he could see that his plan to help Rosie vanquish her fear was clearly working.
"I'm very sorry I frightened you," Hector continued. "You didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of such bullying."
Rosie smiled at him. "That's alright," she said. "You were frightened too. It's perfectly understandable that you would feel that way about doing something you've never done before."
"Friends?" asked Hector hopefully.
"Friends," Rosie replied.
Thomas just beamed. Thanks to him, his little sister figure had made amends with the one who had intimidated her only a day ago, and in the space of two days, he had now helped two people to overcome a certain fear - doing something new in Hector's case, and bullies in Rosie's case.
Hector then turned to Thomas. "And Thomas," he said, "I cannot thank you enough for what you did for me yesterday. If it hadn't been for you, I never would have had the wonderful experience of being filled with coal, and I therefore never would have been able to serve my purpose. For helping me lose my title as Hector the Horrid, I will forever be grateful to you. Thank you."
"You're most welcome," replied Thomas. "Trying to bring out the best in everyone is what I do."
"And you do an excellent job of it, big brother!" chirped Rosie.
"Big brother?" asked Hector. "Are you two siblings?"
"Not technically, since we're from a different class of engines," explained Thomas, "but we have a sibling type of relationship now. We got on each others' nerves sometimes, but we will always have the other's back in whatever the situation."
"Thomas is everything a big brother should be," added Rosie. "Supportive, protective and helpful."
"Aww, that's so sweet," said Hector, feeling endeared by what they said. "Well, you two be sure to utilise this dynamic well."
"We will, Hector," said Thomas. "We will."
Just then, the Fat Controller pulled up in his blue car. "Hello there, you two," he said. "You're just the engines I wanted to see."
"Good morning, sir," said Thomas. "Hello, sir," peeped Rosie.
"The quarry is going to be a lot busier than usual today," announced the Fat Controller. "I want you both to help Bill, Ben and Mavis with the arranging of some coal and china clay. We've had no fewer than five loads come in today, and it will be much too difficult for any engine to handle it alone. You'll need Hector, too - you can use him for loading the coal."
"Yes, sir," said Rosie. "No problem, sir," added Thomas.
"And Thomas," added the Fat Controller, "not too long ago, I heard from your crew about what you've been doing for Rosie lately. It was very considerate of you to comfort your friend after she got scared, and very sensible to hold a meeting with everyone involved so amends can be made between them. I'm proud of you, and am also quite happy to know that Rosie now sees you as a brother figure."
"Thank you, sir," said Thomas modestly. "It's the least I can do for the railway, and for you."
The Fat Controller laughed. "Well, you two," he said at last, "you'd better hop to the job quickly now, we don't want any confusion or delay during the job." He got back into his car and drove off.
Thomas, Rosie and Hector all looked at each other and gave winks. "Ready?" asked Thomas. "Ready," replied Rosie and Hector successively.
"Let's go, then!" said Thomas resolutely, and he ran around and buffered up to the back of Hector. Rosie placed herself in front of Hector, and together the three friends set off.
Thomas, Rosie and Hector did have a productive day at the quarry. With the combined efforts of each other as well as the help of Bill, Ben and Mavis, the job was completed within the space of a few hours, and within that time, Hector also made amends with Bill and Ben for his behaviour towards them, and they in turn were quick to forgive him as well. Normally, this job would have taken more than a day to complete, but Hector managed to keep them in line with a firm approach to leadership, and the engines all felt grateful to him for make the job so much easier.
What Thomas and Rosie felt most proud of all is how they had managed to get through a hard situation and come out unscathed. Rosie would always be grateful to Thomas helping her with his brotherly love, and up until now never could have imagined that he would persuade her to make amends with someone who bullied her. She and Hector are still great friends to this day, and Thomas is still very happy to have helped them both. Thomas was also happy that he could now see his relationship with her in a whole new way; it had never occurred to him before that Rosie would see him as a brother figure. Hector, meanwhile, is happy that he managed to put his bad reputation behind him thanks to Thomas' kindness to him, and was glad to have a new friend in Rosie despite what he did to her. All three had a formed a bond through conquering different fears - fear of new activities, and fear of the horrid.
So, that's it, guys. I've seen "Hector the Horrid" a few times now, and this little aftermath story has been kept in my head for a while now; I thought it would be nice to see Thomas comfort Rosie after Hector scared her. To me, Rosie has always seemed like the kind of character that Thomas would often get annoyed with a lot of the time but would always comfort and sympathise with if she was down in the dumps, which I find is quite sibling-like, hence the reason they start calling each other "brother" and "sister" in the story. It's a bit of a shame that Hector doesn't appear much after the episode, since I feel that him developing a friendship with Rosie would have had a lot of potential if he had been used more.
I will be doing more TTTE fics in the future, but just to give you a heads-up on what will happen in them, here are some of the things I want to point out about my continuity:
- The timeline of the earlier episodes goes in line with the timeline of the Railway Series (e.g. "Paint Pots and Queens" takes place just after "Down the Mine", and "Henry and the Elephant" takes place during the time when Henry was in his old shape).
- The dialogue of my stories will be based on the UK dubs of the series, as those are the ones I grew up watching.
- Some episodes, movies and specials from the series are not canon in my Thomas universe, like "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" and most episodes from the "Big World Big Adventures" era, although characters from them will be appearing - Diesel 10 will still be a recurring villain, Nia and Rebecca will be minor characters who appear every so often, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Lady yet, but I'm thinking about it.
- Some of the engines have specific nationalities based on where their basis was built - for example, Thomas is from Brighton, James is Lancastrian, Duck and Oliver are from Swindon, Wiltshire, Henry is from Cheshire (which is, coincidentally, the location of Crewe), and Rosie is Pennsylvanian.
More will come in the future, but those are some of the basic ones I want to talk about. Anyway, don't forget to let me know what you think of this story by rating and leaving a review, and I'll see you next time.