A/N Autumn going to Sodor with Sawyer in early summer.
It was a day in early summer, shortly after Aika, Autumn's adopted baby sister came home. The baby was napping, so Autumn went down the road to Sawyer's after telling her mother Sawyer invited her over.
Sawyer was holding a handkerchief. "Allergies," she said, blowing her nose gently and wiping her watery eyes.
Autumn pulled out her Thomas toy and the girls played with Sawyer's Lionel Thomas set. She asked her friend, "If engines could get sick in the ways we do, like if Thomas could catch my cold when I come to Sodor with one, would his crew wipe his nose?"
Sawyer, wiping her allergy eyes, said, "They do comfort and help their engines."
Autumn and Sawyer drew themselves if they were engines after their little conversational exchange.
The girls used Autumn's toy to visit Sodor. They looked at the Thomas toy and daydreamed of his island home, then found Thomas when they arrived. Autumn gave him a big hug and Sawyer gave her own greeting.
Autumn said, "I know you don't take ill in the same ways I do, exactly, but would your driver wipe your nose if you did get a runny nose?"
Sawyer said, "I know your crew monitor and do what they can to help and comfort you as needed." and blew her nose. "Allergies and the steam in the Sodor air are making my nose run.", wiping her nose. "They talk about inhaling steam helping your sinuses to drain, so Sodor proves it for me.
Thomas said, "He wipes other fluids, like when he dries my tears, so I think he would.".
Autumn said, "If you had a runny nose, I'd wipe it and help you blow, if I had tissues and you could blow, because I care about you."
Thomas said, smiling softly at the girls in response to Autumn's "My crew are coming back on duty. We're taking a train to the seaside."
The girls waited as everything was done to get the train ready. Thomas took on coal and water for his journey and then, when he had enough steam, shunted his coaches and went to the station. Autumn and Sawyer boarded with the other passengers, including Stephen and Bridget Hatt.
Autumn and Sawyer played at the seaside for a while, then made their rounds. The girls found Emily crying in her shed. She was sobbing and sniffling, her face covered in thick tears.
"M-My cr-crew a-are o-off d-duty a-and I-I'm s-so o-overwhelmed," she sobbed.
Autumn said, "Let my friend Sawyer wipe your eyeballs and I can wipe your face.", as she pulled out her handkerchief. Sawyer pulled out a clean hanky, then they softly dried Emily's tears.
The girls climbed on Emily's buffers and Sawyer held her hanky to Emily's weeping eyes. Autumn wiped Emily's tears, too, rubbing her cheeks.
Emily cried more, letting out another big sob as a torrent of fresh tears spilled from her eyes. "K-Keep w-wiping", she said. She sniffled again, hard, coughed as she choked on her loud sobs and hiccupped. She gasped and gulped, shaking with sobs as her tears poured out, not once stopping and let the girls comfort her.
Autumn said, as she and Sawyer continued to wipe the tears away, "Let it all out, Emily. You've got us to wipe your pain away, so just cry.".
Emily sobbed and sobbed, weeping non-stop until she had no more tears to cry. Autumn gently wiped Emily's cheeks until they were dry and Sawyer, in the same way, wiped Emily's eyes dry of tears. Autumn hugged Emily and the girls tucked their sodden hankies away.
Emily's crew came back and Autumn said, "Emily was overwhelmed and sobbed until she could cry no more tears, but we wiped all her tears away as best we could." and Sawyer added, "I didn't want Emily to rust. I felt bad for her, poor engine crying, just sobbing her heart out, her eyes with constant tears she couldn't wipe away, but we could.", then wiped her watery eyes and runny nose with her other hanky and said, "I have bad allergies and the steam makes my nose run.", referring to the steamy Sodor air. The girls then watched as Emily's crew gave her a drink from a mobile water tank, then went on with their rounds.
Autumn and Sawyer went back to Thomas and told him good-bye. Autumn hugged her engine friend and he whistled. Sawyer held her hanky to her eyes, wiping the allergic wateriness, then wiped and blew her runny nose loudly, finishing with a final wipe because of Thomas's steam.
It was time for Sawyer to go home.
As Sawyer left, Autumn's mother asked her to hold Aika, telling her, "She's crying because she wants to be picked up, but I need to cook dinner.".
Autumn sat in her little rocking chair and held her adopted little sister as she held her baby dolls and stroked the baby's face with a tissue without covering her nose or mouth as she rocked. I practiced being a big sister with my favorite baby doll, Autumn thought.
Autumn and her parents had their food and Aika had her baby food. After dinner, as her parents watched the news, Autumn played with Aika, being a watching big sister and letting her crawl around, then getting the colorful baby toy train out, a gentle, creative, empathetic, protective and intuitive big sister.
After the news, Autumn was relieved of big sister duty as their mom took over caring for the baby and Autumn watched some videos of Thomas with a cold.
Aika's bedtime came and Autumn told her a whimsical bedtime story. When big sister Autumn's bedtime was coming, she went through her bedtime routine, including reading herself The Runaway, during which she pretended her toy Thomas had to blow his nose, so she held his face to the tissue sticking out of the box by her bed and then falling asleep with her cuddle Thomas.
Autumn, as she slept, dreamed of Thomas with a cold.
Thomas's crew told her, "He can't be left alone, but we need a break. Can you take care of him, like help him with blowing his nose when he sniffles?" and Autumn agreed.
Thomas sniffled, so Autumn pulled out a wad of tissues from the box on his buffers, wiped his runny nose and told him, "Blow." and Thomas blew his nose like a child into his tissues held by Autumn.
"That's good," he said, when he was done blowing. Autumn gave his nose a final wipe and threw his soggy, used tissues in the bin. Whenever he sniffled again, the process repeated. She provided comfort, empathy, compassion and creative distractions to lift his spirits until his crew came back. Then, her dream ended.
A/N Sawyer has Lionel Thomas because Lionel tracks are compatible with Autumn's Bachmann Thomas. Autumn's night dream of Thomas having a cold is inspired by a YouTuber who's shown that in her videos and that YouTuber's directly alluded to when Autumn watches videos of Thomas having a cold, as the videos she watches are from that YouTuber girl. Because of Thomas being like a "child eternal", he's like a child with a cold in Autumn's dream, sort of. My dad says "allergy eyes", when his allergies bother him. I found stroking a baby's face is calming, but they don't like their nose and mouth covered and something about a father who tickled his baby's face with a tissue as a calming trick, so I had Autumn do that. I gave Autumn a favorite doll, because she started out a mix of kid me, but dreamier and certain other different aspects for plot convenience, like some things she's done are similar to things I did, but with a Thomas twist, like her Bachmann Thomas, her cuddle Thomas, the amusement parks she's been to and her train rides or pure plot convenience things like her British dad and now the requests are added to the hodgepodge. Her behavior as big sister's based on her INFP personality typing by my FanFiction buddy, as is her night dream behavior.