Thanks to all who reviewed! Now, let's get under way with the next episode!
Cue the theme!
...
Okay, so I'm going to need you to not start threatening the rest of my recording staff with peace and love.
You mean you don't want them to be happy?
Just read the goddamn thing.
All right tiger.
...
Every day since Truckgate (As the Sodor Gazette was now calling it), the Fat Controller came to the non specific station to catch his train. Which train you may ask? Well it tended to vary. More often than not, it was Gordon, whom Sir Topham Hatt also wanted to shoot in the face.
"Hello!" he always said to Thomas, in a tone of voice that made it clear that Thomas needed to sleep with one eye open. Edward gave him a sympathetic look, and Henry, who was on another track, sighed in sadness. "Remember, don't be impatient Thomas."
"I got that sir." said Thomas humbly.
"Remember, you can never go as fast as Gordon or be as strong as him."
"You really like rubbing that in sir."
"But you can be a really useful engine. Don't let the silly trucks tease you."
Thomas, with his teeth grinding against each other, hurried off before he could say something he would regret later to the Fat Controller. Henry backed up and smiled wisely at Edward. Edward nodded back nervously, he felt on edge with Henry as of late. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he was more than likely to get ill and demand that Edward help him wash again.
...
There were lots of trucks. This message brought to you by the no duh broadcasting company. Thomas worked very hard pushing and pulling them into place. Thoas was, ironically considering his desire, a bit of a artistocrat who didn't want the rabble to rise up.
There was also a small coach that smelt of wee and sex, and two things that his driver called cranes. The rest called them eyesores, and in fact on several occasions Thomas had woken up with a hangover and believed the shadows of the cranes to be the Loss Ness Monster come to gobble him up for doubting in his mere existence.
"That's the breakdown train." he told Thomas helpfully, as though he was a school teacher educating a particularly thick pupil. Actually, that's not far off. "The cranes are for lifting heavy things like engines or coaches or trucks."
"Or Sir Topham Hatt?"
The fireman let out a loud laugh at this, and stifled it at the look from the driver, who had not forgiven him for abandoning him.
...
The next day, Thomas was in the yard, staring moodily at the signalbox and composing poetry. Suddenly he heard a whistle.
AHEM. SUDDENLY, HE HEARD A WHISTLE.
Hold on, teething troubles. Why aren't you on, it's your cue!
"SAY MY NAME!"
Oh right, that's it. Hold on. Right, Thomas?
"Yes?"
"In a minute, the Red Engine's going to rush through here, except now you're going to know his name randomly for some reason despite being in almost every other episode with you before this one. So just roll with it.
"Fine."
Good. Ahem. Suddenly he heard a whistle!
"HELP HELP!" hammed up the whistle. A goods train came rushing through, much too fast! He was breaking the speed limit. The engine's name was James-
"YES! YES!"
-and he was frightened. His brakeblocks were on fire!
"They're pushing me they're pushing me!" he screamed, his voice having risen several octaves since being pushed.
"On! On! On!" laughed the trucks, delighted to get some form of vengeance against another engine, even if this engine was an incredibly loud and camp one. And still whistling "HELP HELP HELP!" poor James disappeared. It was like a magic trick. Except without a rabbit at the end of it.
"I'd like to teach those trucks a lesson!" said Thomas the Tank Engine. He was already getting his boxing gloves on in his mind when soon the alarm sounded!
A signalman rushed out. "James is off the line!"
"Maybe he just doesn't want to return your calls, Larry!"
"Don't be a smartarse. The breakdown train, quickly!" He looked at Thomas and quietly cursed his bad luck.
Thomas was coupled on and off they went. After a few tries, as Thomas hadn't waited for the crane to be lowered. There were now little lumps out of the roof of the work shed.
...
"Bloody hell this is heavy!" Thomas wheezed as he pushed the train on. But those Winston Cigarettes weren't going to advertise themselves!
Thomas was working hard though. "Hurry hurry hurry!" he called out. He wasn't just pretending to be Gordon, he really meant it. Despite the fact that he was the one pushing the cranes. Still, at least he remembered to bring them this time.
The coach that had all the actual workmen on the other hand...
"Bother those trucks and their tricks! I hope poor James isn't hurt."
"OH NOW YOU REMEMBER MY NAME!" screamed James, his hearing exceptionally good all of a sudden.
...
James himself was lying sprawled in a field, staring at a bunch of nochalant cows chewing grass. His driver and fireman were feeling him over to make sure he wasn't hurt. Aside from the fact that he had just had a huge accident.
"He said my name!" He crowed to them.
Sighing, the driver patted him on the boiler. "Never mind James, it wasn't your fault. It was those wooden brakeblocks, we always said they would cause trouble."
"Then why didn't you fix them!?"
"Hey, the economy's screwed up as it is mate, don't take it out on me!"
Thomas pushed the breakdown alongside James (Who was now singing I'm a Little Teapot in his dazed state) and then he pulled the unhurt trucks away. Said unhurt trucks were regretting not going out in a blaze of glory and dying the truck death they wanted.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" they groaned.
"Serves ye right, serves ye right!" Thomas shouted as he began punching the living hell out of them. He had some anger issues, especially considering that he recognized some of the trucks as being the ones that had caused his accident.
He was hard at work puffing backwards and forwards all afternoon. Well, not all afternoon. The union laws meant that he had to stop halfway through so his crew could have their tea. James moaned in agony, but the callous drivers laughed at him.
"This'll teach you a lesson! This'll teach you a lesson!" He would shout at the trucks as he hit them repeatedly. They answered, because they feared that he would actually start breaking them (They wanted to a martyr but not that much) "Yes it will, yes it will!"
At one point, he hit a truck so hard it smacked into another truck being lifted up by the crane. The crane swung around and smacked Thomas in the face. It amused James greatly.
...
Eventually, they were mostly done. The broken trucks were left for the rest of the cranes to take care of, and with two cranes they started to lift James up to put him back on the rails.
James had, by this point, suffered a concussion, so as he was lifted, he started ranting about the Martians and how one day there would actually be women engines on the Island. Most of the chauvinistic men scoffed, surely that would never happen, right?
"Oh for god's sake, DON'T TAKE YOUR TIME!" roared Thomas.
At last, James landed back on the rails with a clang.
He tried to move, but he couldn't.
Thomas paused for a minute, looked at James's sad face and sighed. He coupled up. "Come on James, let's get back home."
James smiled for the first time genuinely.
The cranes were left behind to take care of some of the broken trucks and the mess the drivers had made while drunk.
...
In the sheds, the other three engines waited anxiously. The Fat Controller paced up and down, until at last he could see the two of them in the distance. Thomas came to a stop and whistled. The other three engines whistled back.
"Well Thomas-" he started.
"OH DEAR GOD SIR I WASN'T TRYING TO BE IMPATIENT!"
Sir Topham Hatt wondered sometimes whether or not he was ready to take care of all the over-emotional children that hid deep inside his engines. He exhaled. "I've heard all about it and I'm very pleased with you."
"Hell yeah!" shouted Thomas's slightly hung over driver, and held out his hand for the fireman to pay up.
Thomas smiled. Which got wider when Sir Topham Hatt said something else.
"You're a really useful engine." The Fat Controller looked at James. "The Red Engine-"
"Uh, James."
"What?"
"Well, his name is James, I figured he wants to be called as such...sir."
Thomas looked at Hatt in a anxious silence. Then the Fat Controller smiled in a genuinely pleased and proud way. "Well said Thomas." He turned back. "You hear that you lot!?"
"Yes, welcome back James!" Edward said with pride.
"Feeling okay, James?" asked Henry with concern
"...sup Red En-" Edward whistled sharply in Gordon's direction. "i mean...glad you're okay, James."
James beamed.
"James will have some proper brakes and a new coat of paint. And you Thomas-" Sir Topham Hatt paused dramatically "-SHALL HAVE A BRANCH LINE. All to yourself."
"Oh thank you sir!" Thomas whistled happily. And suddenly the other four engines were letting out whistles of congratulations.
It was the best day of his life.
...
Now Thomas is happy as can be. He has a branchline and two coaches of his own called Annie and Clarabel. We will hear more from them another time. Not the least because they've already started on to Thomas about his dirty habits of smoking cigarettes. He tends to puff proudly backwards and forwards all day.
He is never lonely (At least that's what he tells the girls!) Henry and Edward often tend to stop by to tell him the news.
"So I heard that Marklin is under investigation by the police-"
"You NEVER!"
News being a subjective term, of course.
Gordon is always in a hurry to ignore Thomas, but he never forgets to say "POOP POOP" to Thomas. And Thomas never forgets to say "Peep peep!" in return.
Because he knows what Gordon will do to him if he misbehaves.