The next few days, the men in the steamworks were busy producing replacements and mending parts for Sandy as there weren't many spares available in a short time. Her tender was taken apart completely for the frame to be bent, rivetted and soldered back to its original shape as it had been completely warped after her accident. The Orient Express crest for the back of the tender was only repainted and refitted as it took the least damage. After works on her rear end were done, workmen started lumbering her boiler plating as it was a special kind of steel with that blue colouring to it called "Russian Steel" or "Russian Blue Steel", which wasn't available as spare parts anymore. Sandy also received new golden boiler bands since her old ones had to be cut off when the boiler plating was removed in the steamworks shortly after the accident. Her dome and builders' plates could luckily be fully recovered and the dents were all removed.
The connecting rods, draw bars, combination levers, return cranks and link rods had to be newly forged, which took the longest of all repair works done over the course of three weeks. Luckily, her wheels and axles weren't affected too badly and could be reused after some small mending works and ultrasound checks if there were any cracks. The cab has also been dented inwards slightly which was a quick fix too to the workmen's surprise. The rest of the parts needed had all been spares available without having to make them from scratch or in well enough shape to be reused completely.
While work was progressing, Sandy's friends were visiting her whenever they had enough time to spare and sometimes they even were allowed to stay overnight so she didn't feel lonely. They always reported about the days' events and incidents so she would know what was going on while she couldn't work herself.
After three weeks of busily working on her repair, Sandy was finally ready to leave the steamworks again. She had been cleaned and polished to perfection, not a single speck of dust could be seen, gleaming in the sunlight outside the steamworks. Her crew had arrived to apply her special weather proof make-up again as she had been without it during her repairs. Meanwhile, James had been sent by the controller to pick her up and shunt her back to the sheds to let the last touch ups of paint dry off properly and as not to make it too dirty with her own smoke and ash despite her newly fitted spark screen. His eyes nearly fell out when he saw her, he thought she looked more stunning than ever, but of course he attempted to not let his excitement show. Sandy wasn't all too happy about the fact he had been sent to take her back to the sheds, but had no choice. The two set off to Tidmouth sheds, oh how much Sandy had missed the company of more than just one engine at a time, though there was one engine that was pale as a sheet when she arrived: Gordon. Sandy noticed it but didn't care at that moment, she was happy seeing all of her friends again on a daily basis now. Those that didn't visit her in the steamworks asked her a heap of questions; she couldn't even answer all at once.
A few minutes later, the Fat Controller arrived to assign the jobs for the day. When he was done, he turned to Sandy "I see you recovered from the accident. For now, you will stay in the sheds, but I have scheduled a few trains for you for next week so you can come back to work again gradually. I also leased a new engine to help out with the work while you were at the steamworks. His name is Aindrea and he's from Scotland. He's proven himself very useful over the past few days and I hope you get along well with each other too."
"Thank you, Sir! I will try my best as soon as I'm allowed back out." Sandy replied, happy to be given another two days of rest.
"That's what I wanted to hear. Now off with you all, this railway won't run on its own," Sir Topham Hatt replied.
Everyone apart from James and Tina left the shed. Sandy sighed, why of all engines must James stay there? Why didn't the Fat Controller assign a job to him too? But at least Tina was there too.
"Is everything ok, dear?" the green engine asked her friend.
"Ja, I guess…" was all Sandy replied.
No, that didn't sound like everything was ok, and Tina tried to talk to her again, though the Austrian avoided her gaze and started to chew on her lower lip instead. Clearly something was bothering her, but she didn't want to reveal what it was. That was when Tina started whispering to James that he should do something as he's been the last to have been on a train with her. He sighed and asked his crew if they would bring him face to face with the smaller of the two females. When he started to approach, he tried to say something, but failed. Sandy didn't even notice him, only being aware of another presence when the other finally spoke up.
"M- may I know what the matter is, please?" James asked in a low voice.
Sandy slowly looked up at him, tears burning in her eyes, when she finally spoke with a shaky voice, "Why me? Why's it always me? Why can't anyone accept me the way I am?"
At that point, she couldn't stop the tears anymore. James just sat there, not knowing what to say as this somehow caught him completely off guard. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, and if he would've been able to he'd have shaken his head. Then he slowly inched forward, doing the only thing he knew would incite a reaction from her and pull her out of her current state. He softly touched his nose and forehead to hers, nuzzling her gently, and, to his surprise, she didn't react in the negative way he expected, but rather the opposite. Sandy slowly stopped sobbing, a feeling of comfort spreading over her, filling her with warmth, and it calmed her down slightly. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, James parted from her, but only to be able to look at her without having to go cross-eyed. Sandy sighed, a light blush spreading across her face, and then looked up at him, her tears having stopped but still visible on her cheeks.
"Danke…" she whispered, a hardly noticeable smile on her lips.
James looked at her, confused, "Uh, what did you say there?"
"I said 'thank you' in German," she replied, smiling a little more.
That confused him even more, he thought that only Germans spoke German. He didn't ask her though, he didn't want to ruin the moment, but smiled at her instead, deciding it was time to tell her about his secret.
"You know, I've known about your existence for longer than you may think. Back in the day when I was fresh out of the works and introduced to the railway I was to work on, my old crew often used to discuss Central European engines and famous trains. They always carried a book around with them and one day, my driver accidentally dropped it when in a rush to leave. The book dropped open on the ground, revealing a page with a huge photograph. The moment I saw that picture, I fell in love with what I saw. My crew kept mocking me about it as time went on and one day they decided to surprise me by hanging a big poster of that photo inside the shed wall for me to look at. I remember my fireman jokingly saying he'd never seen an engine pin-up before," he began to explain.
Sandy sat there and listened, curious about how it would go on. It amazed her that he told her all this after being so rude at first.
Then James went on, "I still have the poster up until today, stored away in my cab to sort of be my good luck charm. Though I think that now I don't need it anymore as a talisman… You probably already guessed who's on that poster?"
Sandy raised an eyebrow, thinking it must be a German semi-streamliner or something like that, "Urm… I'm not sure?"
James came a little closer, then whispered, "It's you! It's always been you. Ever since I've first seen you in that book, I wanted to know everything and get to know you. When you first arrived here, I didn't even recognize you because I was blind with rage due to that damned Midland Compound back in time that caused so much trouble. I will explain everything, but not now. I only realized it was you when you rushed past me with the express before your… uh… our accident. Again, I'm sorry for being such an ass and I wish I could somehow make it up to you…"
The blue engine stared at him, not sure what to reply now that he literally revealed everything about him. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come out. It caught her completely off guard and she needed a few minutes to get her thoughts together. James already thought she was angry because she didn't speak, but then she smiled again.
"Sorry for not talking, I had to process all this because it was quite a lot of information. Thank you for telling me about it, I really appreciate you being honest with me now. I also have to apologize for being so out of mind before, it's just that sometimes I get trapped within my own thoughts of the past. Experiencing both world wars with nearly getting bombed myself and seeing my sisters and cousins dying and then getting flashbacks of it is still tearing at me," Sandy explained.
James knew how bad the wars were even though he didn't experience them right in the centre of trouble, luckily. He wanted to tell her more, but he was afraid of ruining the fragile bond that was slowly forming now. He sighed, trying to surpass the awkward silence somehow, but all he could do was look at Sandy, trying to read her mind. She on the other hand just sat there, still lost to the warm feeling within her. Then Tina cleared her throat and asked if they planned to stay like this for the rest of the day. As a reaction, Sandy blushed and James started grinning, though his crew then decided that they had had enough time and already put him in reverse when he suddenly asked them to stop. Sandy raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was up to. She watched as he crept closer again, his nose touching hers. He then formed the word "angel" with his mouth before softly nuzzling her again. Way too soon for her liking, he pulled away again, his crew reversing him back onto the turntable and into his berth beside her. They looked at each other, both blushing and hoping Tina didn't notice too much, but she'd been busy talking to her crew that had just arrived anyways.
"God, you are beautiful," James mumbled, barely audible, "Even more so than what I remember from the photograph."
Sandy giggled as she had heard what he had said. Finally he was slowly warming up and bit by bit revealing the caring and loving soul that he hid behind an otherwise vain and arrogant attitude. She wanted to see more of this other side of him, wanted more of him as a whole. He started a fire inside her that was of different nature than the one usually burning in her firebox, a fire far hotter than anything else she ever experienced. It made her mind spin and her frames tremble and all that from just the small skin on skin contact they had shared. She was completely lost in her own world when a whistle dragged her back to reality. Tina was already on the turntable, ready to collect her stopping goods train and pulled her friend out of her dream world.
"I need to go now, dear. Should be back around teatime! Have a nice and relaxing day," she said, winking at Sandy.
Tina left the sheds, only Sandy and James remaining in their berths. An awkward silence had formed between the two, but they couldn't care less. Sandy looked over to her right, her eyes half closed and an oh-so-small sultry smile on her lips. James on the other hand looked along her boiler, her drivers, her cab and then stopped right at her tender. Until now, he had never realized how detailed it actually was with the Orient Express crest right under the number plate at the back, made of something that looked like pure gold in the sunlight. He blushed slightly as he felt her eyes on him, his gaze darting back to her face.
"S- sorry, I didn't mean to stare… again…" he mumbled, a little embarrassed.
"Found something interesting back there?" Sandy replied alluringly.
"N- nothing. Was just wondering how someone apart from me can be polished to such perfection," James explained with a rather shaky voice.
Sandy smirked, she knew he took great pride in being the only red engine on Sodor and especially since the red would look better polished than the standard blue or green the other engines on Sodor where painted in. So hearing something like that from him made her somewhat proud of her appearance after having had issues with her looks over the last 6 decades due to constantly being mocked by the younger and more modern engines back home. She was lost in thoughts about the past when she heard a whistle and saw Gordon being backed up into the berth on the other end of the shed. At the same time, James was leaving to collect his stopping goods for the mainland that he should bring to Vicarstown where it would be picked up by Hiro. He whistled shortly and winked at Sandy before leaving the sheds. That left Sandy alone with Gordon who looked rather miserable. She still was a bit afraid of him because of his outburst of anger on her first day though she did remember him being pale as a sheet when she came back from her repairs.
Sandy still wondered why this had happened and so she took her courage and asked him, "Gordon, I know we didn't start off on the good side, but I noticed you weren't quite yourself when I came back from the steamworks. Normally you'd have glared at me or something, but you rather did the very opposite... you sank into yourself and wanted to appear as tiny as possible, why was that?"
'Oh damn, what do I tell her now? I couldn't quite tell her the truth now, could I?' he thought, then proceeded to speak aloud, but trying to avoid the topic, "I just didn't feel all too good back then and still am no better. I think I caught a cold."
"You know, I'm pretty good at seeing if someone's telling the truth or lying. You can't fool me, Gordon! Now tell me what the real reason behind this is," Sandy demanded.
"Alright, before you hear it from someone else…" he spoke and got even paler as though he'd seen a ghost, "You know, your accident... well, it was me. I was on a fast goods, my crew and I didn't check the couplings of the trucks properly as usually that is already done by the main shunting crew. A weak coupling between the third and fourth truck snapped. The trucks being on the loose built up speed down the line and we couldn't stop them anymore. My driver blew the emergency whistle signal but it obviously was too late as nobody could switch the runaway off the mainline anymore. That's how you got knocked off the rails and damaged so badly. Only the Fat Controller knows of this incident so far and my crew of course, but the other engines don't know yet and I ask you not to tell anyone. I'm normally not keeping things to myself, but I thought when it came out, the Fat Controller would send me to the scrapyard as this damaged you very severely. He doesn't tolerate engines that won't take responsibility for their actions, especially not when it comes to such a bad accident. I'm so sorry, I wish I could've warned you earlier before that crash, it could've been avoided. Will you ever be able to forgive me for making you suffer like that and not confessing to my actions?"
"Thank you for telling me the truth. We were going round a bend and I couldn't see ahead enough for my crew to stop in time and then I only heard, apparently, your whistle. My world went black immediately and I only woke up later because of the immense pain I felt. I don't remember much from then on apart from being taken to the steamworks. And sure, I will forgive you, though all this did leave me in quite a bad condition," Sandy answered.
"There's one more thing: I didn't mean to seem rude the first day. I just can't stand it when other engines come around and take my express without me even knowing. I was behaving like that because it happened quite often already. You proved to be nice and seem to get along quite well too. I never thought I'd say this, but I officially allow you to take my express when I'm not able to. I can also help you whenever there's something you need. We express engines have to stick together," Gordon said, he wanted to show his better side to maybe change her mind about his bad behaviour.
"Thanks, I appreciate that. And don't worry; I've met far worse attitudes, not to speak of Spencer who simply needed to be taught a lesson as he thinks way too high of himself," she stated.
"Ah, what happened between Spencer and you? I've seen him 2 days ago and he was quite diffused. I've never seen him like that before," Gordon told her.
"Well, he boasted about him being the fastest and you still thinking that you would be faster than him. I wanted to teach him a lesson and therefore suggested a race. He thought he'd win easily, but he had clearly underestimated me and he didn't remember the trains that were due down the line that day. I tricked him at the start by blowing a huge cloud of smoke at him which left him very irritated as the coal I had on my first couple days was still leftovers from Austria and Germany and not of a good quality as well as me also being able to burn wood which gives the perfect mixture for stinging smoke that will easily confuse engines that are used to better quality coal. And on top of that I overheard someone talking about a heavy coal train due before the passenger service would pick up at the sheds that morning. So he had overtaken me at first, but then was stopped due to a red signal at the loop junction after Crosby. Me winning the race, despite having to take these actions to confuse him as well as the lucky incident with the signal, might still be giving him something to think about," Sandy explained, a somewhat sinister smile on her lips.
"Ha, so someone finally defeated that loudmouth, even if it wasn't in a completely fair way! Congratulations, you made your position clear there. He sure will stop bragging about his speed for some time," Gordon was pleased to hear that Spencer will probably stop talking large and do his work properly.
The two express engines sat at the sheds a little longer and started to talk about their work, their hate for trucks and whatever else they could think of. Gordon thought that Sandy was actually quite nice and so he started to befriend her.