The air grew silent as they processed what he'd said. "You...were married?" Edward asked finally. "To who?"
"Cressida, as I said. EMD GP9, worked the Denver & Rio Grande until she was brought to life in 1962, sent to Muffle Mountain afterwards and then to Mesa Roja in 1982." He sighed. "Kind. Loving. Understanding. She...she was the love of my life."
"And...did you separate?" Molly asked.
"No."
Molly gasped. "O-oh my...s-she's dead?"
"Has been since '97."
"Oh, Nick!" Molly sobbed. "That's horrible! How'd it happen?"
Diesel Ten looked at them. He could trust them. "Y'know how I told you about how I got my fear of sugar? I didn't tell you everything. Cressida drove off the guy who did it and took me to get cleaned up. I was really shaken up by it and wasn't even able to talk much for a while. But Cressie...she helped me get back on my wheels. That's where it started.
"When I staged my protest, she was the first to support me. When I wanted to pull a passenger train for once, she was the one who asked for it for me. I never really got why until...
July 14, 1988. Nick, with a passenger train, and Cressida, with a freight train, were waiting for Sanders to pass. He grimaced at them as he left.
"He's just jealous that he's not as high-class as us," Nick said.
Cressida laughed. "I suppose." She looked down, an unresolved tension. "Nick," she asked suddenly, "how much of an age gap should there be between lovers?"
"Gosh, I don't know...eight years max?"
"I mean for Lifers."
"It's weird for us since machines don't age like..." He realized what she meant. "You're talking about you and me, aren't you?"
"Yeah. I mean...you've grown to be a fine engine. Smart, kind, funny...I just hope you're not weirded out by an old bird like me."
"Nonsense! I've had like the biggest crush on you for years! Of course I'd be happy to be yours," he replied. His eyes widened. "Crap, I said that out loud."
"Don't worry. I'm just glad it's reciprocated." They locked eyes and smiled.
"We dated for two years, then got married in 1990."
Nick lowered his claw to Cressida's face, and she gently kissed the back of it. Nick had a magnetic bowtie stuck to his front bufferbeam, while Cressida had a white veil on her hood. Since she had a massive footplate, she could never kiss him on the mouth (then again, few Lifer couples could).
The various engines of Mesa Roja honked and tooted in approval. Nick remembered them all, even after all these years. They were Angela, the ex-ATSF Santa Fe Class 3460; Sierra, the ex-Southern Pacific AC-12; Roosevelt, the USATC S160 Class; Caroline, the USRA Class SR; Mikado, the USRA Heavy Mikado; Tim, the Timken Four Aces; Ashley, the ex-Norfolk and Western J Class; Virgil, the ex-Virginian EL-C; Zach, the ex-Milwaukee Road ES-1; Doris, the ex-Great Northern W1; Yolanda, the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad L5; Mastodon, the ex-Norfolk and Western Class M; Turner, the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad S1; Bob, Suzy, and Jim, the ex-Great Northern Boxcab 3's; Schenectady, the ex-New York Central ALCO PB; Hudson, the ex-Milwaukee Road F6; Alex, the ex-Soo Line ALCO RS-1; Nichole, the ex-New Haven GE 44-ton switcher; Quentin, the ex-B&O Baldwin AS-616; Enrique, the ex-Texas & Pacific Railroad EMD NW2; Luis, the ex-NdeM EMD FP9; Margarita, the ex-NdeM ALCO Century 424; Juan, the ex-ATSF EMC TA; Rena, the ex-ATSF EMD FP45; Chuck, the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad J1; and Wayne, the ex-Pennsylvania Railroad N1. Only Vinnie, the ex-Canadian Railroads U4a, Sanders, the ex-Milwaukee Road Class A, and Carson, the ex-Union Pacific P-13, were silent.
"Best. Seven years. Of my life."
Nick and Cressida looked at their favorite constellation, Hercules, together. Nick had his arm around Cressida. They sighed happily, basking in their love.
"So what happened?" Thomas asked.
Diesel Ten sighed.
It was May 18, 1997. A terrible rainstorm parked itself over Mesa Roja that night and refused to let up. Nick and Cressida had been caught in it on their way back from a delivery. They were on a hill in one of the area's few forests, near a city.
"This is really bad rain," Nick grumbled. "Where can we go until it stops?"
"There's a tunnel not far from here with some sidings," Cressida replied. "We can hide in there until it lets up." A small tree toppled over in the wind right in front of them. Their eyes widened. "Preferably quickly," she added hastily.
Nick hefted the tree out of the way. "Yeah, let's."
And they raced off. But more small trees kept being knocked over, and Nick had to quickly smack them out of the way. The rain poured harder, lightning flashed and thunder roared. The tunnel came into sight.
"We can make it!" the two engines cried. Cressida had gotten in front of him...
And that's when a massive pine tree fell right on top of her.
Nick screamed "NO!" He got a grip on the tree and flung it away, giving him a full view of the horror before him as the lightning flashed in silence.
Cressida's middle had been completely crushed. Judging by the red pulp dangling limply from her broken windows, her crew had been killed instantly. Diesel leaked from her broken fuel tank, and brake fluid from her mouth. She coughed weakly.
"Cressida!" he said. "No, no, please be okay!" Tears began to fall. "Driver, call for help!" A series of taps. "What do you mean, your cellphone's out of battery?!" Another tap. "And my radio's bust?!" He growled to himself, before noticing a woman from the city taking a walk near the track. "Miss! Excuse me! My wife's hurt and I need you to call for help!"
The woman looked at him. "No," she said.
Nick's jaw dropped. "What? Why not?!"
"Because you're a diesel. If you were steam engines, you'd be worth preserving. But there are literal hundreds of diesels, she can be replaced." She sneered at Cressida. "Plus, her class doomed American steam to extinction. I say that she deserves this punishment." And the woman left.
Nick shuddered. "No...no...no!"
Five hours later, Nichole had been sent to find him. All efforts of Nick's driver to find help had failed. "Nick? What – oh my Edison!" She gasped in horror. "What happened to Cressida?!"
"She got hit by a tree!" Nick sobbed.
"I'll get help right away!"
But things didn't look too good. The next day, a mechanic was looking over her while most of the Mesa Roja fleet watched. Cressida's breathing had become pained and slowed.
"No good," he sighed, shaking his head sadly. "If we'd gotten her earlier, there'd be a chance of us stabilizing her while we rebuilt her. There are enough Lugg GP9's out there for that to be possible. But because that lady refused to call for help...Diesel Nine's not gonna make it. I'm sorry, everyone, but we've done literally everything we could've."
Nick rushed forwards. "Cressida...please...don't leave me..." he sobbed.
Cressida coughed. Her face was pale. "My darling Dominic. You gave me the best time of my life. I will never forget you, not even for a second."
"Please...don't die!"
"I have no choice...my damage is too great. It's...time. But listen to me, and listen well. Don't worry about me. You will be alright. And you will find love once again."
Her eyes closed and her breathing stopped. Her face dissolved in a flash of yellow sparkles, leaving a white square of paint where it had once been. She was dead now.
Nick sobbed and wailed, his friends looking on sadly.
"GET BACK TO WORK, ALL OF YOU!" Slim Lawson growled, killing the moment.
"Sir, have some decency! The kid just lost his wife!" Luis snapped.
"Bah, she's a diesel! There's tons of them!"
The engines glared at him. "You are a terrible man," the scar-faced Caroline snapped. "And you are a disgusting perversion of our railway's legacy. I hope you get your karma some day very, very soon."
With Cressida gone, all the progress she and Nick had made for diesel rights were swiftly undone. The steamers were given their individual liveries again, and in a cruel twist of fate, Nick was on scrap duty.
He sighed as, without any motivation, he dumped scrap metal into a gondola. "Don't worry big guy, we think you're okay," said one of them.
"It's not you who I'm worried about." Suddenly, some puffing. "Oh, not now."
"Hey hey hey, looks like your little stunt didn't work after all!" Vinnie grinned as he, Sanders, and Carson pulled up in front of him. They were back in their old liveries: Vinnie in gray and dark blue, Sanders in orange and red, and Carson in black and maroon.
"I gotta admit Vin, we look snazzy once again," Carson grinned. "And all it took was the death of a diesel."
"Good riddance, I say," Sanders growled. "I was nearly killed to make room for a DL-107 and an EMD E6."
"You were replaced by the Milwaukee Road F7, a steam locomotive," Nick deadpanned.
"But they were replaced by diesels!"
"Yeah!" Vinnie agreed. "Just a stupid motorbox on wheels. All of you!"
Something inside Nick snapped. He could feel the souls of many engines who were killed for petty reasons, killed by other engines who never got punished for it. And right at the front was the voice of his beloved wife, only without her usual warmth:
Avenge me.
Nick's eyes turned red. "DO NOT DARE SPEAK ABOUT DIESELS THAT WAY!" he roared.
"Oh, I'm so scared," Carson said sarcastically. "Not! Get a life, loser!"
As the three steamers left, cackling madly, Nick lost it and swung his claw at Vinnie's tender. It made a bong noise and lightly scratched the paint. But it was enough to snap Nick out of his trance. "What have I done?!" he asked himself. "I promised Mother I would never harm another Lifer."
"You. Are. DEAD!" Vinnie snapped. Nick panicked and ran away, but Vinnie chased after him, his friends egging him on. Eventually he caught up and rammed Nick off the rails and into the dust.
"Hah! I'M the champ around here!" Vinnie boasted.
"You hurt Vinnie!" Slim growled after Alex and Zach had come to rerail him.
"Vinnie got a tiny scratch! I got a major dent in my side!" Nick protested.
"Well, I don't like you, so there! In fact, I never liked you, so I'm sending you away to Britain where your kind belongs! I've been meaning to do that forever, I just got a chance to now!" The engines stood there, slack-jawed. "You're a stupid engine, Diesel Ten! Now LEAVE AND NEVER RETURN!"
Nick sighed as he left, shaking and sobbing. Alex and Zach were about to go with him, but Lawson stopped them. "And you two! Get back to work!"
Once on the boat to the UK, Nick thought. "He's right, Pinchy," he said to his claw, trying in vain to keep his wife's memories alive by treating his claw like it was alive. "I AM just a stupid engine. I don't even deserve my name." And from that day on, Nick was no more.
He was now just Diesel Ten.
"So that's my story," Diesel Ten said in the present. "And to this day, I have to wonder: can a freak of nature ever have any hope to fulfill his wife's final wish? I think not. Of course, I don't think many of you can relate."
The others stood there silently. But then one of them broke it. "Actually, I do."
Lady wheeled forward and buffered up to Diesel Ten. "Cressida was from my railway before yours, remember?" She started crying. "I knew her. I...I loved her like you loved her." This caused some raised eyebrows. "It's a terrible way to come out," she laughed sadly, "I know, but I was just so broken when I found out she died..."
The same time that the drama at Mesa Roja was happening, Lady was sobbing. "N-no...she can't be dead!"
"She is," Stone confirmed. "I wish she hadn't." He patted her bunker.
"Heh, good riddance! Who gives a crap about a diesel?" Kim boasted as her friends pulled into the yard.
"Uh, another diesel?" Taylor guessed.
"I suppose, but not us," Miley replied. "We're better than them. So sleek...so chic..." She sighed blissfully.
"Oh, and lookit that! The little tank engine misses her! Sheesh, what a freak," Kim groaned.
Lady growled as flames began to flicker out of her mouth. "That. Is. IT! I am SICK and TIRED of having to deal with you three! You know what? I'm gonna say it. You're NOT sleek or chic! You are the most unattractive engines I have ever met! See that caboose over there?"
"Hey, no need to drag me into this!" Brown, the old and mostly decrepit ex-PRR N6b, protested.
"Your faces look just like, no, they're even UGLIER, than his cruddy, rusty, crumbly old–"
"ASSUMING you were justified, you swore in public!" the manager of Muffle Mountain, Lydia Crawford, growled at Lady.
"They get away with much worse!" Lady protested.
"I don't care! Lady, you are hereby BANISHED from Muffle Mountain! Go back to the GWR where your blueprints came from."
"FINE! I don't care about your crappy railway anyway!" Lady huffily puffed away. As soon as she was outside its limits, she broke down crying.
"And many of us have lost, too," Lady said sadly. "Most of us have no other family except this one. Nick, please. You don't have to be alone any more. You never had to be..."
Ten couldn't hold it in any longer and cried heavily, with Lady following suit soon after as they grieved together.
"Tomorrow," Sir Topham Hatt said sadly, "shall be a day of mourning. For all of us, but especially for this poor man who lost everything and who we all should've done more for."
The Steam Team solemnly agreed.
The next chapter will be another song, this one original.
So now you know the horrible truth. How will the engines mourn? Will Diesel Ten fulfill Cressida's wish? Or has he already done so?
All this and more in the next chapter – The Ballad of Dominic!