Peter had excitedly decided to show the rest of them around his and Falcons old railway. Skarloey agreed, as long as they stayed within the valley and promised to come back imminently if they found something. Most of the others had decided to go, leaving Edward, Skarloey and a still unconscious Shale together.
Part of Skarloey wondered if Peter wanted to give him some alone time or if it was just him wanting to explore his old home. Either way, he was grateful.
Edward hadn't moved from Shales side since he cleaned her cuts. Skarloey wished he could do more, but any of his knowledge on human care didn't extend to this. The most he knew was about treating burns from handling coal and maybe a little about broken bones. But that was it.
Skarloey was placing the vials back in the bag when he noticed some papers sticking out. Having nothing better to do, he pulled one out and started to read. He couldn't understand some of the words but he could understand what it was about. His insides went cold and he grip on the paper tightened, leaving creases on the sheet.
"Edward, do you know know where Shale found these?" He handed them of to him. "They were written by one of the scientist that did this to us."
The other only nodded but kept silent. Edward placed the papers back in Shales bag. "Shale didn't tell me where she found them. I didn't even know she had them."
Skarloey just laughed bitterly. "It seems like we can't do anything unless someone tells us what to do, huh?"
"I guess, but it's different now." Edward said
The raised an eyebrow at this. "How so?"
"Well, before we couldn't choose where to go or what we could do. But now we have all the freedom we want, we just don't know what to do with it." He stated. "The humans have a phrase for it, what was it called?"
"I think they called it 'fish out of water'?" Skarloey guessed.
Edward snickered at this. He moved his hand to cover his mouth. "Yes, I think that's what it's called."
Skarloey smiled to. "I doubt James or Henry would appreciate that phrase if they were here."
Edward stoped smiling at this and his expression morphed into more of a grimace. He ducked his head and moves his hand to rub his temples, groaning quietly. Skarloey took notice imminently and crouched down to try and meet his eyes.
"Edward? What's wrong?" He moved to hold his hand but was swatted away almost immediately.
"N-no, I'm fine. It's okay, just-" Before he could finish he cried out again. Grabbing his head with both hands and curling in on himself further.
Because of his previous reaction, Skarloey didn't know what to do. Panicking, he tried to grab his arms so he could face him. "Edward? Please, tell me what's wrong? Can you hear me?"
"Shut up!" Edward screamed. He started to flail violently and practically threw Skarloey onto the ground. "Don't hurt him, leave him alone! Leave us alone!"
The elder engine was taken aback by this. He recalled what Shale had said about him having panic attacks like this, but he never expected them to be this bad. He sat back up and tried to restrain himself from saying anything else. Instead, he waited for Edward to calm down by himself. His head began to rock back and forth as he kept shaking.
"Not again, please, just leave them alone. Don't take them again, please, not again." Edwards screams started dying down into quiet whimpers. Skarloey took this as a good sign and started to move in.
Bad idea, Edward heard him stepping forward and screamed out again. Skarloey froze imminently, having lost any idea of how to comfort his friend.
He decided to stay where he was, only moving if Edward asked something. So he just stood there and watched his friend. His gaze shifted to Shale and he noticed how her hand started to twitch.
Slowly, excruciating slowly, he crouched down to shake her shoulder. He'd hope she'd be awake by now, she'd probably know what to do having spent the most time by him.
He bent down and whispered in her ear. "Shale? Please, I need help. I don't know what to do. Edwards having another panic attack, I don't know what to do. Please, we need you."
Skarloey could've sworn that he saw her eye twitch again. But other than that, there wasn't any sign she was awake.
He looked up back to Edward. He'd stopped whimpering but he didn't move from his position. Skarloey still didn't decide to make any advances.
So he just sat, watched, and waited. It felt like an eternity before Edward spoke again, but it had only been a few moments after.
"Hello? Shale, are you here?" Skarloey almost bolted up but managed to keep himself restrained.
"Edward?" He asked. The other engines head turned up immediately towards him and stared, terrified and shaking. Skarloey was shocked by his expression and for several seconds he just stared. He tried to compose himself and gave Edward a forced smile.
"Hey, it's me, remember? I'm your friend." Skarloey waited but kept himself planted in place. "Listen, your safe, it'll be okay now. They won't find you again, promise." He could hear Edward muttering again. He was repeating 'no' over and over again, each time louder.
"They'll find us again, they'll take us away again. I couldn't help them, it's my fault they're dead, there all just scrap now. There all gone, gone because of me. They should've just take me."
"Eddy, look at me."
Both Skarloey and Edward looked down to Shale, who was now awake. One of her eyes was swollen over and the bruises had overtaken most of her skin colour but she was awake.
Shale sat up on her elbows and grimaced at the pressure. Skarloey was about to ask her to sit down but he knew that she was there best bet at calming there friend.
"Listen, you couldn't have done anything back then. And I'm sorry for that. But don't blame yourself for there death. Your friends would've wanted you to move on, keep living on for them."
She pulled herself up and set her hands on Edward.
Edward face broke into a small smile. "Shale?"
"Yea, I'm here." She tried to smile to but it look more akin to a grimace. Shale noticed how his arms were lifted slightly. A silent invitation.
She pulled her arms over his shoulders and pulled him in for a loose hug. "I can't promise that I'll be here forever. But I can promise that I'll help you however I can."
Edward latched around her and buried his face into her shoulder. He held her tight enough that is became slightly painful, but she just ignored it and let him stay.
Skarloey felt better knowing that his friend was feeling better now. But he couldn't help but feel useless in knowing that he couldn't do anything to comfort him. Shale looked up towards him and nodded for him to move closer. He stepped beside them and sat down.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" Edward began to apologize but Shale cut him off.
"Eddy, you don't have to say sorry for anything. You weren't the one who stuck your friends in those tubes, right?"
Edward just nodded silently. "So you shouldn't blame yourself."
Skarloey decided to add his two cents. "We're all struggling to cope with these changes, Edward. We'll be here to, if you ever want to talk then just ask."
Edward nodded again. "Okay." He lifted his head and smiled at them both. "Okay."
"Right, you fellin' better now?" Shale asked.
"Yes, thank you both." Edward said
"Good. Mind if you let go now? I'm gettin' a little sore." Shale patted his back and Edward suddenly looked extremely bashful.
"Oh, sorry!" He let go imminently. "I didn't hurt you again, did I?"
"Nah, I'm fine." She looked down to see the scraps of blue and red fabric around her arms. She then saw how the ends of Edwards shirt were torn. "Did you do this?"
"Yes." Edward said, picking at some of the loose threads. "That's what your supposed to do if humans get hurt, right?"
"Yea, that right. But why are they wet?" She brushed the fabric and licked the tip of her finger.
"Oh, we found some vials in your bag. We thought it was some kind of medicine." Skarloey pointed to her bag.
"What?" Shale dug through her bag and pulled out the vials. She saw how one was almost empty. "Oh shit."
Both engines were immediately alarmed. "What! What's wrong? What did we do? Are you okay, do you ne-"
"Edward, Skarloey, relax. I'm fine, at least for now. It's just, I found those vials at same place where they did the experiments. I think Skarloey was there." She said. Seeing the Elder engine wince only confirmed her. "I don't know what that stuff was though. But I guess we'll find out what it is if I'm still alive next week."
Both of the engines started to panic again but were surprised when Shale started to bark out a laugh. "Geez, that was a joke. I'm pretty sure I'll survive this. If it were a poison then I'd already be dead. 'Sides, not the first time somethin' like this has happened."
Edward seemed to relax, but Skarloey had more questions. "But if you didn't know what was in those vials then why would you take then?"
The street rat just shrugged. "Meh, I though I could use it as a bargaining chip."
"Pardon?"
"Just means that I could've used it as a trade for information. You'd be amazed what some people'd take to get high." Shale explained. She braced one hand against the wall and stood up. "Anyways, where are we? Is this the place your guys were talkin' about?"
"Shale, please, sit down. Your still damaged badly, you need to rest." Skarloey stood up and tried to urge her back down onto the patch on jackets.
"Look, this isn't the first time I've taken a beating. I'll just walk this off in a day or two." Shale wasn't technically lying. She had been beaten before, though those were controlled circumstances and it had only ever been against one person at a time. Not to mention she had her knife.
Shale only kneeled down to grab her jacket but winced when she felt a streak of pain run through her side. She tried to stand back up but Skarloey pushed her back down. Putting up a fight would've been both futile and counterproductive, so she complied.
"Shale, please. Just rest for now, you need to get better."
Her fist balled up some of the dirt but Shale tried to remain passive. "Fine." She spat out. "But we've still got a lot of stuff to do now if your gonna make your base here. And I don't intend to sit around all day."
Both of the old engines glanced at each other and shared the same though. 'Doesn't she remind you of someone.'
"Alright, but let the rest of us do the heavy lifting." Skarloey said.
"Okay," Shale pulled out a piece of paper and pencil and started to write. "I might have some stuff we can use back at my base but it's definitely not enough for all of us. I don't think it would be a good idea to try and steal that many supplies from town, it'd cause us to gain to much notoriety. We could stop by the library and see if there's anything we could learn in there bout survival."
Shale started jolted down a small list of all the things they might need. Food, Water, Bedding, Building materials, etcetera.
"Do either of you know how big this place is? I want to see if there might be anything useful around here." Shale asked.
"Peter Sam and Falcon know the area. They took the others around, we can ask then when they come back." Skarloey said.
"Great. Eddie, anything we might have forgotten?" Shale asked.
"I, I'm not sure. Out of all of us, your the one with the most experience surviving like this. But what about you? Are you sure your alright?"
"Edward, I'm fine. If I can still stand, then I can still help. Though I don't think I'll be climbing anytime soon." said Shale. She tapped the pencil against her chin before pointing it towards Skarloey. "Hang on, if this was part of a railway they do you think there might be a yard nearby? They might have some good loot."
Skarloey hummed in deep thought. "I don't recall this portion of the railway very well but there were some tracks close to the laboratory we ran from."
"Any other options, Scar?" said Shale
"Not that I know of, no." The elder narrow gauge engine then raised an eyebrow at the nickname. "Scar? Isn't that a tad intimidating."
Shale rolled her eyes. "That's the point, mate. You wanna have somethin' that makes people think twice bout' tangling with you. Besides, if those bastards are on the hunt for you, they'll recognize your name instantly. Your all gonna need new names soon, or at least very vague nicknames."
"Ohh." He whispered. "That does make sense." Skarloey went quiet for a few moments before another question came to mind. "Then is 'Shale' really your name?"
She stopped writing and tipped her head backwards and closed her eyes. "Yea, long as I can remember. I don't think I ever got a name from my real parents."
"So did you choose it yourself? Or did someone else pick it?" Edward asked.
"Heh, actually both. I got help narrowing it down."
"From who?"
Shales expression turned sour. She crossed something of her list. "Just someone I knew. We don't keep in touch nowadays. Let's leave it at that, please."
"Okay."
Skarloey nodded to. Though he still couldn't help but feel suspicious. But he decided to leave it for later. As of now, he was just grateful that things finally started to turn up for the better.
