I know this story is very late for any kind of update, but here.
Chapter 10: The Phantom Chase
Thomas and Emily traveled north up Edward's line leaving Brandom Bay. But instead of taking the main line west back to Tidmouth, their drivers took them north at Wellsworth crossing, up to Wellsworth yard, and from there, up the Old Goods Line. The plan was to use Toby's branch line to circle half the island, and come back down to Tidmouth that way. A journey that long would normally take hours, but as the engines were the only ones out, they could steam ahead full speed with all clear signals.
"You do know yer way around this island," Emily remarked. "Though begging for every odd job probably helped that."
"Hey! Once they let me leave Knapford, I never looked back! " Thomas told her. "A man can only take so much thankless shunting, let alone an engine. Can you really blame me for using any excuse I could to get away? Anyway, leaving Knapford meant I got to explore the rest of the island. You feel like an adventurer, mapping out the ends of the unknown with nothing but his wits and a torch."
"Is that what ya call it? And I just thought ya liked to show off."
"Oh, he does," Matthew confirmed. His hand was firmly on the brake lever, for what little good it would do. "And he absolutely loves picking up extra jobs without asking his driver first."
"Have I ever taken on more than you can handle?" Thomas was careful to put emphasis so that it sounded like a compliment. "Besides, it's not like I'm not doing all the heavy lifting."
"Hmph." The mustached man scratched at his upper lip. Thomas could have easily mentioned that, in a lot of cases, he just drove himself, too. Matthew had to do very little of the work once the E2 was puffing a healthy steam. Only when he was feeling generous, tired or simply lazy, Thomas gave his driver the illusion of control. And in this game of tug of war between man and engine that had gone on for decades, the engine was winning. Matthew had gradually switched to appealing to Thomas's senses to avoid calamity, rather than trying to force him to go where he didn't want to. Indeed, as he inched closer to retirement age, Matthew felt more and more like he'd been signed on for corralling a wild horse, rather than operating a locomotive.
As they emerged from the Haunted Forest without mishap, the engines crawled to a stop at an unmarked crossing. Thomas's driver shifted the controls to move onwards, but the engine wouldn't go. His brake lever was stuck with an incredible force that could only be the engine itself.
"Oh for Pete's—" the driver sputtered and leaned out of the cab. "What sort of game are you playing now, Thomas?"
"This is Old Baily's station," the engine explained. "Ffarquhar and the old main line cross here. Not many people know the rule since the old line isn't used as much anymore, but the tracks merge into one for a while, not too far up ahead. That means only one engine can go first. And if I remember correctly, Edward and I made the rule." He kept a perfectly straight face and backed up on a track a few inches. "Ladies first."
Stone silence.
Language packed up its suitcase and ditched Emily right then and there. Never, not in all the time she'd spent on Sodorian rails, had Thomas ever referred to her as a 'lady.' 'Girl' perhaps, but nothing more. 'Lady' was a word sparsely used between engines, at least nowadays, as terms of high respect were quickly becoming a thing of the past. And the way he said it felt implicative of a certainty of Emily's femininity.
Marty sat behind the gauges in Emily's cab, scratching his head before replacing his cap. "Well… If he says so!" the driver said cheerfully.
With Thomas waiting behind, Emily gently rolled on ahead, crossing over the tracks, so that she could no longer see him, and he, thankfully, couldn't see her increasingly perturbed face.
Why was she feeling this way? It was just the rules. Right? Thomas still knew the bits and bobs of this island a trifle better than she did. Could she really start an argument over something that could very well be right?
Once they were far enough ahead, Matthew leaned out of the cab again. "Do I even bother asking what the point of that was?"
Thomas spoke in a tone suggestive of a shrug. "Just reminding her that even a jackass understands the concept of chivalry."
The high-strung driver bit his lip. After staring at the side of Thomas's boiler for a long second he yanked his head back inside the cab. "You are a disturbingly smooth liar, boy. I'd clock you well and good if you were my son… and if it wouldn't break my hand in doing so."
David shook his head. He wasn't a crossing guard, but it seemed clear. "Right of way goes to whichever engine got there first, just like a road."
"Obviously," Thomas confirmed, smirking.
"And if they get there at the same time?" asked Matthew, albeit reluctant to find out.
"Mm… whoever spits onto the farthest sleeper board out."
" Good Grief ." The driver leaned out of the cab, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Tell me you're joking."
"Considering the only engines on the island when they laid out the track were boys," the fireman said. "I think that checks out."
"What do you mean, 'Edward and you made the rule' about Old Bailey station crossing?" Emily asked the second she heard Thomas catch up to her backend. "Since when did engines get to set the track rules?"
Lie or not, Thomas actually had an answer for that. "We made the rule because we laid down the tracks there."
"Ah, haud yer wheesht!"
"It's true! Edward and I worked on this line when it was being built—us and the crews we were carrying. We built a lot of the far off tracks and branches together when I first arrived. That was my first job here. When Sir Topham was satisfied with the lines, he assigned Edward to car corraller, and me to nab coaches."
"Hm." Emily hadn't known Thomas and Edward had been essential to help build the tracks she was using right now—well. Maybe not these exact ancient tracks, but the main line leading to it. "That's why you two are so close, then? Isn't it?"
"Well… yeah. He was my first ever friend. He was always looking out for me, and bust my axles, did I need it! Imagine what it's like to be a little engine in a strange, new place. So much of this island is this endless greenery. It's beautiful, but kind of scary, especially prior to the development it has now. It can make an engine feel completely off planet, coming from the big cities in the mainland. Then, a tender engine comes along who's willing to show you the ropes. Those years Edward and I spent expanding the rails is what settled me in here."
"But track layout still happens all the time. Branches are being added here and there... How come you have nothing to do with that?"
"Oh, I wouldn't have minded going back. I even petitioned to supervise at one point. By the time I got to pull my own trains and went back to the wild to explore, many more engines moved to the island, and worked on their own lines. I had experience to help manage the new track layout, but I was already picking up cars and passengers left and right. The other engines got on fine without us. My help just wasn't needed anymore. Besides, I like pulling long trains. And I busted my bunker for the right to do so!"
"You mean that you'd sooner have the chance to throw your muscle around." Emily rolled her eyes. "I see how you are."
"I'm not saying I'm strong." Thomas chuffed forward and bashed her buffers with his own, a bit like how he saw a schoolboy slugging his mate in the shoulders on the bridge once. "But I feel pretty useful when I rescue a Tidmouth engine when she runs out of water."
Emily 'tisk'ed. When push came to shove, Thomas's ego was just as bad as James' or Spencer's. Or any of the boys really, minus Edward. The only difference was that Thomas actually had accomplishments to be proud of, and had rescued other engines hundreds of times, including herself. He laid down the main track, earned his own branch line, and was now handed trains that should have been too big and heavy for a tank engine. His stubborn nature was the reason he was able to meet Emily at the platform the day she arrived all those years ago, and not still behind the yards at Knapford.
" Well. Great empires never last ," she told him sternly, if only to say anything. If only to fill the silence. Having their buffers touch and feeling him push from behind was making her feel weak and lightheaded. "Just remember, Napoleon: The bigger they are, the harder they fall. "
"I forget about this town a lot."
After crawling up Narrow Gorge, the drivers had parked Thomas and Emily on a quaint stop atop a hill, overlooking Upper Arlesdale. At some point, the tracks had splintered into two again, and the tank engine was parked side by side with his reluctant company. Twin tracks overlooked the town, twinkling in the dark with holiday lights. They were just starting to go off, as excited children were tucked into bed, eagerly awaiting Christmas morning. "It's so peaceful. So pretty."
"It's alright," Even under the cape of darkness, the beauty of the island was impossible to deny, but it wasn't the romantic landscape that was capturing Thomas's interest. The light from his lamp cast shadows on Emily's peaceful expression, her lips bold and dark against her gently curved face. He knew this area, too, and he'd given Emily the portion of track facing the village over the cliff on purpose, so that he could gaze at her and no one would think anything of it. How could Edward not see what I'm seeing?
"Lights are going off, now. Everyone's gone to sleep." Her tired eyes flicked to Thomas. "Suppose the party's over, now."
"Not for us," Thomas replied. "Not yet."
Emily hadn't been sure about this detour plan. But of the party of six, she didn't want to be the only stick in the mud. And when Thomas had looked at her for approval, she just couldn't say 'no'. Something about his big, puppy dog eyes made her weak, even when she ought to still be mad at him. She was starting to understand why Matthew had such a hard time denying him anything.
Furthermore, something about his presence and its familiarity seemed to soothe the loneliness she felt following Edward's rejection. She knew Thomas like the tops of her wheels, and even with all their differences, and all their fights, and all the mean words, he was still stubbornly loyal. If there was anybody she had to venture out with in the cold and snow… well, he wasn't her last choice.
Even though he lost his primary drive to leave the island, Thomas still wanted to know about the world away from Sodor. "What was home like, Emily?"
The question caught her off guard. "Oh! It… was… lovely. Cliffs and beaches, kind of like Brendam. Just gorgeous, I remember crossing through towns like Aberdeen that the men would whine about gettin' louder and more crowded the more tourists discovered it and flocked to it."
"Sounds kind of like what's happening to Sodor."
"I guess i'tis. Maybe that's why I didn't feel as much like a fish out of water when I got here." Her tiny brows pinched together near the middle of her forehead. "I would spend all day and all night, pulling coaches along the rocky shores and not being allowed to do much else, even when I really wanted to. I wasn't built for heavy freight, they said, and all I could pull was people."
"Bulls and horses!" Thomas exclaimed. "You're no diesel rail-car! You're good ol' steamie!"
"'Old' is right," she muttered, not needing to be reminded. She was one of the oldest engines on Sodor, but only since coming to the island had she had any real work to age her. "Just when I thought my days were numbered, my owner got a telephone call from Sir Topham, asking for any healthy engines they wanted to offload. And… you can suppose who they picked first."
"Ouch." Thomas gritted his teeth. "Well, you just about showed them, didn't you? I mean, the day you first got here, you saved two tank engines from a massive crash, didn't you?"
"Hardly think you'd have forgotten about that." Emily glared at him. "Considering you were one of them."
"Not to mention you were nutty enough to go and try and hold Gordon from going over the edge of the cliff last spring, by yourself!"
"What else was I supposed to do? He would've been as good as chum if someone hadn't been holding 'em until help arrived!"
"I just think that's neat. That's all. You're crazy." He looked away. "In a neat way."
The engines crawled on, wheel next to wheel, in silence for a bit after that. Or at least until Emily got a mighty itch of a question. "You…" She looked at Thomas quizzically. "... You came from London, didn't ya?"
"Yes."
"Ya remember anything about that?"
"I was pretty young when they dropped me onto the island," Thomas admitted. "When I first woke…" He closed his eyes, drawing up the words to expertly describe the memory. "... there was a large expanse of open land, blocked in by the silhouette of black buildings in the distance. Like a giant playpen, filled with sheds and tracks. I think there were people—probably workmen—but I was afraid of them. I didn't know what they were or what they wanted from me, or what I was, or what anything meant. And engines—other engines. Huge. It was loud, and there was shouting everywhere. Laughter. I didn't know who they were or what was going on. There was smoke and steam, and the air was so thick with pollution…"
Thomas let off a gust of anxious steam before he went on. "I remember them saying something about getting an enormous jet-black tender on the ship to Sodor and not being able to. They were at it for a while, men going away, coming back. Something-something about the chains snapping. Lots of cursing going 'round. And then I remember some young kid somewhere behind me shouted, 'Hey, that nippy looking one over there. What about 'em?' And I just knew he was talking about me. I was petrified. I didn't have any fire for steam, and even if I did, I had no idea I could move myself, or I would've fought them. I know I would've. I had no idea where they were taking me."
"Grand story, Thomas." Emily felt stupid. I can't believe I actually told him something so personal, put my heart on my boiler, and he goes and makes something up. What was I thinking? "Be the first engine to ever publish a book."
"You would've missed seeing me in a state like that, you know."
"Shut up!"
"Cornered by a hundred men like a frightened cat."
Emily went a little while longer before looking back at him incredulously. "Wait. Y-you're serious?"
"They scraped off my paint, redid me in blue…" He pulled to a slow, unintentional stop, trying to gather his words. "… and here we are."
Marty eased on Emily's break beside Thomas. "So then you're here… by mistake?" Her eyes darted to Thomas's driver, peering out of his cab. "Is that really true?"
Matthew gave a firm nod, then pulled himself back in. "Better keep the speed, Thomas. It's the long way home for a reason, and we still have that gradient ahead."
"Sir Topham wanted an imperial quality stallion of an engine, and instead, he got a little donkey that can't keep his mouth shut," Thomas said as his wheels were back in motion. "Once I got comfortable enough to talk, anyway."
Emily had no words. Even her own re-location to Sodor had been an absolute certainty. The proud little tank engine had made himself so popular on the little-known island that it seemed impossible that his origins were just as embarrassing as her own.
When Thomas looked back at her a mile or so on, he was surprised to see her face full of remorse. "What?"
"How come you never told me?"
"And give you more mud to throw in my face when we have yet another inevitable fight?"
"I'd never throw such a thing back at yer face!"
Thomas thought for a moment. "No. You wouldn't. Even you wouldn't stoop that low… I guess I was just embarrassed to have you know. Besides, nobody wants to hear a sad story."
"I don't care for unhappy stories much," Emily admitted, thinking of her lost fairytale.
"But I'd like to think this one has a happy ending, now that I'm saying it out loud. I mean, if it wasn't for the mainland mix-up, I wouldn't be here. I would've never met Matthew, or David, Sir Topham, Percy, Toby, Gordon—"
"Mira," Emily offered.
Thomas closed his eyes, inhaled. Exhaled and let off a great big cloud of steam, funnel and mouth. "Yeah." Slowly, he opened his eyes. Looked back at her. "And, for what it's worth, I would've never met you, either—And you can just shut that yap right now! I know what you're thinking, but I assure you: No matter how much we fight, or what names we call each other, I'm… glad you came here. I'm glad that I got the chance to meet you. You're crazy… but a brave kind of crazy."
"You…?" Emily never finished her thought. It was something in the way he arched his eyebrows at her as he said that. The way he smiled. And that tone reached , like a warm hand touching her ice-cold wheel cover.
Without warming, flames in her firebox multiplied. The heat was so intense, her driver jumped back. "Jumping jackladders ! You're going to set yourself on fire and take us with you, missy!"
" GaAH !" Kyle, the fireman, was not amused. He flew back and hit the floor, scooting backwards in a panic. A tiny flame managed to catch the sleeve of his bright blue jacket. He beat the flame with his other arm, dropped and rolled, until there was nothing there but a black scorch mark. Scrambling to his feet, he looked at the poker in his hands, then threw it to the floor. "That does it! If this senile old man doesn't take you to The Works the day after tomorrow, then I am! This isn't normal!"
"Fire feeds fire after all!" David shouted from the other set of tracks.
Emily was feeling something all right, and it sure wasn't normal. But she didn't have long to stew on it. In the quiet forested village, she thought she was hearing something. "What's that?"
Kyle the fireman heard it, too. He whipped around, adjusting his glasses as he looked up towards the gauge wall, where Marty had his head pressed against Emily's cylinders. His head was buried in his sleeves. "Oh, you thought that was funny, eh?" demanded the fireman. "I'd like to swap jobs for the rest of the night, you see how much you light being lit like a wick!"
"You did say I was senile." At last, Marty pulled his head away from the wall. "But I think I know what I see when I see it! Blimey!"
"See what?" Thomas cocked a brow. "What's so funny?"
Marty wiped his forehead on his sleeve. His tan cheeks from hundreds of runs in the bright Sodor sun had turned red. His shiny, bald head reflected the fire light. "It's a wonder to me, how engines and humans are exactly the same! You put a girl and a boy who can't stand each other in the right conditions, and they get on just fine!"
"What conditions?" Matthew demanded. His frosty blue eyes went wild around the cab of his engine, as if there was something huge and obvious he was missing. "What are you going on about?"
"Why, a date," Marty said. "What'd you think I meant?"
"D-D-DATE?!" Thomas sputtered. His eyes darted to Emily. She looked like she could vomit. "What do you mean?"
"Date… " Emily's voice was a frail echo.
"Did you set us up on something?!" the male engine demanded.
"Not me. Him." Marty pointed across the way towards the fireman, David.
"DAVID? What—?"
"Hey, hey, I never said it was a date!" David shouted across the way at Marty. But he smiled playfully as he did so. "You just assumed that!"
"Whoopsie!" And he and Marty leaned on the insides of their cabs, laughing until they were both red in the face.
"Alright!" Matthew was having none of it. He put one hand on his hips, and the other snatched David by the collar of his jacket. "One of you had better start talking, before I get out a paddle and get answers out of you the old fashioned way. And you know who I'm going to start with." He set his eyes on David. "What is going on?"
"Well… surprise!" David snickered. "Ah, I guess we ought to have let you in on the surprise, hehe. I'm sorry."
"What surprise?" asked Thomas. "What is any of this?"
When opened, the bottle of schnapps had a powerful smell. Even though the men had only a few shots each—just enough to stay competent in helping operate their engines—it was heavily concentrated, and smelled of the spice for which it was named. As if the festive decorations weren't enough, the inside of Thomas's cab reeked of candy canes. David's stomach must've been empty, as he was feeling the effects way too well for how little he consumed. "Calm down, killer, will ya?" He looked at Matthew, but he was talking more or less to their engine. "I told Marty before he rolled Emily up at Knapford I wanted to take the engines on a little… outing to make up, for Christmas, y'know? Just platonic! Nothing funny. And I know you just love dragging this old boy around by the leash, Thomas—" he pointed his thumb at Matthew— "and I was just hoping Emily would agree to it."
"Marty! Ugh !" Kyle ripped off his hat and dug his hands into his hair. He was the youngest of several siblings, and the only thing he hated more than accidentally catching fire from his own engine, was being the last one to find something out. "You couldn't have warned me that this was being set up as a date?!"
"Date?" Matthew was lost, too. He let go of David, and his eyes became soft as he turned right and saw Emily's face, flush."What about Mira?"
"That big-nosed, tale-spinning vagabond? Forget it! She tossed him for some fancy new diesel! A thundering downgrade if ever there was one!"
" David !" Thomas exclaimed.
The awkwardness had Emily feeling frozen. She could barely find the strength to look at the mortified tank engine. "Thomas… is that … true?"
The male engine couldn't speak. His confession to Emily about what happened with him back in London was nothing, compared to this. His mouth had fallen slack, and it felt like he could sink into the earth, mine or no mine.
Emily turned her scathing eyes to David. " What is wrong with you?"
"Been asking myself the same thing for years," said Matthew. His voice was steady, eyes narrowed.
"This wasn't supposed to be a date! " David said again. "Do you really think I'd mess with Thomas's funnel like this, Matthew? Let's face it! Love is a joke, anyway! Manufactured by the fortunate to give all us ugly, low class blokes something to cling onto. To keep our noses to the grindstone!" With that last word, he swung the bottle and it splashed over the floor of the cab. The spill dripped into the firebox, pulling a few flames licking up into the cab.
Matthew's eyes went wide, backing up into Thomas's bunker wall. That was the final straw. "Give me the bottle."
He stood up and tried swiping the bottle from David's hand, but the fireman thrust it behind his back.
The men began wrestling for it. Thomas felt and heard the bodies shuffle around in his cab, the voice of his crewmates growing louder as something—some real, tangible tension—finally exploded, but he was helpless to do a thing about it. He couldn't speak.
Emily gasped for the both of them. She'd never seen a fist fight, but it sounded like there was about to be one right before her eyes. Marty the driver was too stunned to do anything but stare and blink, and at first, so was Kyle. But that soon ended. His heartbeat climbed higher and higher until he broke from his paralysis, and flung himself down from Emily's cab. Outside, he slipped and slid on ice and wet track as he ran between the engines, towards the other cab.
"David! This is enough! " Matthew sounded more angry than Thomas had ever heard him. More angry than he'd ever been at Thomas himself, even in his worst blunder. "Look at yourself! You don't look like a fireman! You look like a—"
" Go ahead !" the fireman shouted back. His soft brown eyes were bloodshot, cold and dark, now. David was normally such an easy going, free-wheeling soul. But with the light of the fire behind him, and the dark rings under his eyes, he looked and sounded staunchly different.
The liquor peeled back a different man. A jaded, frustrated man. "Say it!"
"STOP it!" Kyle shouted. Small and spry, he managed to slip himself between the older men, and stretched out his arms to make up the difference in height. Too often in the past, he'd used himself as a barricade in the effort to prevent his own brothers from pummeling each other to smithereens, and today was no different. "STOP this, right now! The both of you!"
"Like an immature, irrational drunk," Matthew finished, shouting above Kyle's arms. "You treat everything in life like a game on the playground, and it needs to stop! It's time to grow up!"
"What do you care?" David shoved him away. "You never thought anything of me to begin with. All you've ever done is chastise me!" David shouted over Kyle's shoulder. "'Cut your hair! Turn down the radio! Scrub your face! Stop wasting your weekends at the pub, and mailing letters to girls overseas!"
"I say these things because I care about you, moron! Do you really think I want to see you lose your job?"
"You'd expect it though, wouldn't you?" He staggered backwards, avoiding Matthew's swipe for the bottle. "Everybody does. You think I haven't heard the other drivers talking? Poor David, the forever-kid! Poor David, forever alone! Well, I'm sick of it! And just for your own information, it's over between me and Grace, so you can take your little 'schoolboy letter' comments, and walk with it!"
That made Thomas find his voice. " What are you talking about? Mira's Driver, when you write her back—?"
"I burned the bloody envelope, Thomas!" David laughed bitterly. "Along with the letter! I don't have a way to write her back! Because as much as I don't want to admit it—" He lowered his arms, and put them at his side. Kyle kept his arms up protectively, but everyone felt the mood change, as David choked back a sob. "—Your driver's right. I'm wasting my life on a long distance relationship that's bound to go nowhere. And I'd never have opened my eyes if I hadn't watched your heart break in the shed back there. Besides, do you really think I'd betray my boy like that? By pulling Grace, after what her engine's put you through?"
Kyle lowered his arms, and stepped to the side, turning around to look at the drunken man. He was a head taller than Kyle and decades older, but at that moment David sounded so small and beaten down, he resembled a child. Beside him, Matthew stared at the man he'd worked beside for years like he was a martian. He'd been the one to criticize the long distance relationship to begin with. But it was Thomas's demand for the letter to be burned that inspired the fireman to burn the envelope, too. His only record of Mira's driver's current location along with it.
Now he had no way of contacting that woman again, and she had been special to David. Matthew had to wonder how long David had been stuffing these feelings down, keeping his eyes to the flames.
Thomas could barely form the words. "David… your future… how could you?"
It was hard to say who felt more guilt, as Matthew knew his harsh words had played a part in this breakdown. "You're a fool," he told the fireman, smoke wafting from his lips. "A pillock. You—"
"Nevermind!" David cut him off, putting up his free hand, and turning for the door to the cab. "It's all said and done. And no more liquid bliss to cope with it." He finished off the bottle, and chucked it out of the cab door. "Let's just go home. Father Christmas awaits, and God knows I need more coal."
When he leapt from the cab after the bottle, Kyle lowered his arms, blinking behind his soot covered glasses in bewilderment.
Matthew ran to the doorway after David. "Where are you—?"
"Fireman shuffle!" David tossed over his shoulder. Across the tracks, he climbed into a stunned, comment-less Emily, kneeling down close to a silent Marty, and set to work. He dusted the ashes on the floor with a hand broom, and put Emily's fire back to a steady, predictable burn. Marty splayed his hands across the tracks at Matthew and Kyle, and slowly moved his hands back to Emily's controls. Neither Marty nor David said a word to each other.
Kyle turned to Matthew, and raised his soot-dusted glasses to look him in the eyes. "Let him be. He's not got a problem with Marty, so he's no harm to 'em. I'm positive. I'll take care of Thomas."
Matthew folded his arms across his chest. "You sure you can handle him?"
The university kid shrugged. "A firebox is a firebox, ain't it?"
"Fortunately," Matthew acquiesced. "At least until Thomas decides he's good enough to make his own fires, too."
Joke or not, nobody laughed.
The engines slowly shifted back into motion, pressing on back to Tidmouth sheds on their long way back but now in total silence.
In between tending Emily's fire, David attempted to sober up a bit by sticking his head up and over the roofless cab wall, letting the blistering winds claw at his face. As ineffective as it ought to have been, after a little while, he began to feel as if he could think clearly again. But by the time he realized what he'd done, it was too late.
Nothing was said for a long time. The engines kicked up their speed until they left Arlesburgh Town proper behind, and reached the Breakaway Hill. As they left the highest elevation of the line, the engines felt the cold of midnight finally seeping through their metal, as bitter winds went from drifting across their boilers, to pummeling it relentlessly.
Thomas squinted against the oncoming wind. He hadn't done an all night job in the middle of winter in a long time, and the temperature on the north of the island was significantly worse than the south. It was so cold it was making his nose sting and even his eyes hurt. When a particularly brutal gust passed, he opened his eyes to find Emily staring at him. "What?"
Her cheeks and her little nose were faintly red. Jack Frost had completed her makeup, and he hated that it made her look even more delicate and vulnerable. This was Emily , for coal's sake! An engine's worst nightmare, at least for an engine with any sense of fun and harmless rule-breaking. There was nothing vulnerable about her. She might as well have been one of the boys. "Nothing. I'm just… sorry. That's all."
"Yeah." Thomas didn't thank her for that.
"I didn't know she'd done that to you. Had I known, I wouldn't've—"
"It's fine. You didn't know. How could you have known? You said way back when that she'd wreck my world, and… she did. So… you were right. So just forget it."
Emily went quiet for a while. "How did you manage to bounce back so quickly?"
" What ?"
"I mean if it was a few weeks ago, I could see you having gotten over it." She thought about his laughter down at the docks. The way he howled with Arthur down at the crossing. Thomas wasn't behaving like someone with a broken heart should be. "But if it was just tonight—"
"Maybe I'm over it, maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm just trying not to mope about it, and drag the world down with me about it, alright?"
"Oh." This cut through Emily's pity rather effectively. "What you mean is, like how I was ?"
"You see?! This is what I meant! I can't tell you anything! You act like my friend, just like you're Henry's friend, or James' friend, or… Edward… and then as soon as you find out I have a weakness, you jump on the first opportunity to rub my nose in it!"
"I wasn't trying to rub your nose in it! I wouldn't've brought it up if I didn't care about you, too!" She 'cluck'ed. "Weakness? It's not my fault your ego's as fragile as a truck full o' lightbulbs! But if ya feel that way, I guess we'll go back to not talking!"
"Fine by me!" Thomas would rather she be mad at him than give him that sickeningly pitiful look she was giving him. He couldn't stand the thought of her feeling sorry for him . It was bad enough when the other engines used to tease and mock him for being so small and fussy and subsequently, easily annoyed. He'd tolerate Percy's pity, Toby's pity, sheesh, maybe even Gordon's. But not hers . Not Emily's.
Ahead of them, the hill moved inward from the left, and Emily's track merged with Thomas's again as the width of the incline narrowed. The workmen who built this road probably weren't confident that there was enough stable ground between the small width of the path for two sets of engine tracks, so they had no choice but to narrow it to one.
And there, just after where the lines converged, sat a small, boxy thing on the siding. From their distance, it looked almost like a freight car, and considering the remoteness of their location, it wasn't too strange to think that might be it.
"Thomas… you see that?" asked Emily. Her lamp was bright, but it was too far off to touch the object.
"I hear that." Whatever it was, was alive. It was jarring enough to make Thomas forget he wasn't supposed to be talking to her. He pushed as much power to his lamp as he could, but it didn't help much.
It was talking, too. "... Don't …!" Correction: It was shouting at them. " ! " Whoever it was could see or here there were a pair of engines coming and it wanted their attention.
No, not an object… a train car.
Thomas listened carefully, but between the crunch of snow and ice between the sleepers as they rolled over track and the whipping of the wind in his ear as they elevated, he couldn't make out what it was saying. "I don't know if it's because I'm so tired, or if it's just a mirage, but if I didn't know any better, I'd swear that was—" The tank engine jerked to a halt, reversing his wheels so sharply, his men rolled backwards on their heels. " TOAD ?"
"G-gha!" Matthew grabbed for the left side to keep upright. The driver of all people should know better than to ride the impatient engine without hanging onto anything. He got steady, and stumbled on woozy legs to the doorway. "Toad?"
" Mr. T… mas !" came the voice that, sure enough, belonged to the missing breakvan. Complete with Toad's habit of turning everyone's name into surnames. " ... sss. Emily! "
At last, the engines were close enough that their headlights could identify the face on the vehicle ahead, and the whites of his wide set eyes. No doubt about it.
"That is Toad!" Emily cried. She'd known about the story Oliver told Percy down by the quarry, and she did not get it from Thomas. By now, almost all the Sodor engines knew what had happened.
"Well, I'll be." Marty stepped down from Emily's cab and came around the side of the tracks for a better look. "The silly little fella's been left out here all by his lonesome. Guess it wasn't so bad we came all this way, was it?"
"Hold on, Marty, I'm coming too," said David. He and Marty began inching their way along the side of the tracks to the left. Just a few hundred feet away, the missing breakvan sat on a lonely siding, maybe ten feet from weak, wooden buffers, ending in a sudden drop down the high hill.
"-ily... way! … come... by!" Yep. The voice most definitely belonged to Toad. But it was so hard to understand him with the wind howling through his sentences.
"I can't believe we found him! This is great!" Thomas sounded a friendly, cheerful whistle in Toad's direction. Without waiting for Matthew's instruction, Thomas began rolling forward, over the merge of the tracks. "Toad! Buddy! They've been looking everywhere for you! You've got Oliver worried sick!"
But Emily did not follow after. "Thomas, stop."
He only made it a few feet before her wary voice brought him to a rocking stop. "What's the matter with you? Let's go and collect 'em! Bring him home, safe and sound! Oliver will backflip over his funnel! It'll be the best Christmas present ever !"
"Thomas, there's somethin' not right about this." Her voice warbled with nerves. "We ought to turn back and call for backup."
"Oh, come on! " He wheeshed an annoyed gust of steam. "Don't tell me you're pulling the 'safety officer'-spiel again! It's just an excuse to be a wet blanket."
"I'm not bein' wet blanket!" she fired back. It hurt that he would undercut her job like that. A sickening feeling was filling her boiler, and she couldn't for the life of her say what. "Don't you think there's somethin' a wee bit suspicious about finding Toad out here in the country, scared outta his mind?"
"Of course he's scared! He's been out here all alone in the cold for who-knows how long!" His coupling rods jerked forward half a rotation, his wheels still in place. But he wasn't about to wait much longer.
"I guess it's a possibility…" Emily said quietly. "It is."
"Poor thing was likely stolen by some other engine and abandoned here," said Matthew, "To avoid the consequences." He peered out the cab door. "Either that, or fell off the back of someone's train, and they didn't even notice he was— Dagnabbit it, Thomas, would you wait for me for once?!"
" What are you afraid of, Emily?" Thomas crawled forward again. "Look around you! There's nobody out here!"
"That's my point!" Emily looked left and right, but aside from Toad, there was no sign of life out here. No piles of sleepers for rebuilding the rails, no trucks or cars or carriages. Nothing to indicate these rails had seen significant traffic in a long time. In fact, if it weren't the enormous evergreens lined up on the left side of the line like a shield, the snow drifts would've definitely covered the tracks. Nobody except Toby used this line. Or was supposed to.
So why was Toad here?
But Thomas wasn't seeing the problem. And unfortunately, neither was anybody else. Emily began to sweat as she watched David and Marty getting closer to the siding too. Beads of water clung to the outside of her boiler from her funnel. Stumbling across Toad out here in the open like this just felt too convenient. Far too convenient for comfort's sake.
And then, there came a voice in the back of her head. A voice that did not belong to her. Stop him, Emily. She choked on her own breath. She'd never heard that voice before in her life. Who…?
Get Thomas. Get everyone and leave. Now. While you still can.
Was it really just in her head? Was she really the only one who heard it? She blew her whistle. "Thomas—"
"I'm not listening to you anymore," he snapped at her.
"Wai—!" But her voice was muted by the howling wind. Her lamp was pointed vaguely in Toad's direction, but even before Thomas's bunker blocked her view, she could barely see the breakvan, or the tracks more than ten feet away. It was so dark, even the starlight was no help. And while she'd been called brave in the past, the truth was, she was too afraid to override her break lever. It wasn't an Emily thing to do. She was lawfully obedient that way.
"Mister—!" Toad's words were chopped by the wind, too. "—rap !"
"Calm down, calm down." Thomas cooed. He made sure to approach the frightened brake van with a smile, despite being infinitely annoyed at the she-engine shouting and blaring her whistle behind him. "I'm almost there. You're safe now. Everything's going to be okay."
"—rap!" Toad screamed over Thomas anyway. Over the cruel, muting mountain winds. "Bob— rap!Leave, Emily. Said the unfamiliar voice in her head, more desperate now. Do not go an inch further.
"Thomas, come back!" How was she going to explain this? This ominous voice in her head? This sudden chill in her tank? He was going to think she was lying! Or that she'd gone mad.
Who brought Toad all the way out here? Emily asked the voice silently. If this omnipresent… girl… thing knew something was wrong, she'd better explain herself! What does this mean? How do I know I can trust you? Stop bein' so cryptic! "THOMAS! Come back!" Emily slammed on her whistle, and shouted as loud as she could. She knew her voice could carry much louder than a breakvan, and definitely much louder than a human. Rocks from the hills began tumbling down as her voice echoed. They were lucky if she didn't cause a rock slide.
But Thomas kept his attention on their friend as he puffed forward, faster now. Toad was shaking like a leaf, his wheels practically hopping the rails. "Toad, what's going on? What on earth are you talking about—?"
"B-b-b-b-boo-booby t-rrap!" He cried. At last, the winds had reneged, and Thomas, now ten feet from the breakvan, was close enough to hear him perfectly. "It's a bo-booby t-t-trap!"
"Bobby trap…?" Thomas whispered. Only then did he ease on the breaks.
Don't move. Go any further, and you both will be doomed. An old foe awaits you up in the forest, and it will hurt you.And just as soon as she'd answered, Emily felt some… thing evaporate, and leave her head. As if her boiler had been occupied by another being and she hadn't even noticed it had crawled in. And now it was gone. The unknown voice was water in her tank might as well have turned to ice. With neither David or Marty at her controls, the engine that never stepped out of line did something she almost never did. Something she only did in emergencies. She unlocked her break, and began to roll forward, all on her own. "THOMAS, STO—!"
The second Thomas had made sense of Toad's words, the second her desperate cry reached his ear, Emily's wheel had just rolled over it. It was a tiny, metallic square, practically undetectable between the snow and the black of night.
Emily felt—heard—a 'click'.
With an ear-rupturing explosion, Emily rose into the air. And then the darkness of night closed in around her.
Thomas heard the blast just behind him with sickening helplessness, like all the water in his boiler had rushed to his mouth. He felt the distinct rush of heat from a cloud of combustible materials touch his coal bunker. His wheels locked up, and he froze in place.
With a horrific groan of steel, Emily's front buffers tipped skyward, propelled by a cloud of thick, black smoke.
Heartbeats were all that were heard, until gravity took hold. After holding at a fifteen degree arc for what felt like an eternity, the engine came crashing back down onto the tracks with a boom of steel, her wheels barely lined up with the rails. She said, and did, nothing.
All the voices that had talked over each other, human and machine, had stopped. To the left, rocks slid down the slope and tumbled into canyons, and then the hillside was quiet.
"Emily?" Thomas sat there, motionless, as the cold night air made him numb. His eyes darted left and right, but he could not see what had become of her. " No. "
" Emily !" Kyle leaned out of Thomas's cab, ripping off his glasses with one hand-something he never did. Kyle always preserved the hinges by using both hands to take off his glasses. Heart pounding, he found his crewmate coming up on their left. "Marty!"
To his relief, as well as Matthew's, Emily's driver had still been curiously meandering up to Toad, just behind Thomas. His arms were crossed over his chest. He was cold, but unhurt. Neither he nor the fireman had been inside Emily when the explosion happened. And the look on their faces said they both understood how fortunate it was.
" Marty !" Matthew leaned left out of Thomas's cab at such a sharp angle, the cold metal dug into his ribs. " David! Are you two okay!? "
Marty's wide eyes locked on the residual smoke of the explosion that just sent his engine skyward. David came to Emily's driver's side, holding him in place as his feet swayed. But the old man was more scared than he'd ever seen them. A veteran of the Great war was not to hear such an explosion and be unaffected. "Sweet mother of God." His voice rattled as visions of battle played before his eyes. "What was that?"
Kyle was already out of Thomas's cab. He hit the ground running, sprinting as fast as he could, not to Marty, but towards his engine.
Matthew sputtered with fatherly panic. "Kyle! Are you mad? Get away from her! It's too dangerous!"
"To hell with that!" Kyle shouted as he sprinted. "I'm seeing if she's alive !"
Alive? "Emily? Emily?! " Thomas tried out her name. The call of another engine was enough to bring another around, but this time, it was to no avail.
Thomas's driver gulped, but he understood all too well. The only thing stronger than the engines themselves on a railway like this was the loyalty between them, and their crew.
Kyle scrambled up the steps and into Emily's open roofed control deck, slipping over and kicking clumps of coal that had rolled from her firebox. Marty joined him soon after, aided by David, who helped him up, and then climbed inside. Together, the three men worked together to try and diagnose the problem.
"Emily? Emily !" Thomas blew his whistle, but she didn't respond. The last of her steam wafted off the top of her funnel, and then she was cold. The explosion had been so powerful that it knocked Emily unconscious. And she was a tough engine, heavy and made of lots of steel. If it had hit Thomas , he would've been history.
"Ms. Emily!" Toad cried. "Oh, no… " It was an awful feeling. Sickening. He knew all about the trap, had tried his best to warn her, and he had to sit and watch her roll right onto it, anyway. He felt as helpless as he ever had. "What will happen to her, Mr. Thomas? Is she…"
And then, he trailed off. They all, men and engine and breakvan alike, heard a cackle. A cackle that echoed as if from a cave, higher up in the forest.
"Come on, Em! Come on!" cried Marty. "Get up!"
"What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know!" Her driver sat up in her cab, his heart felt like it would beat out of his ribcage. "Every gauge is flat! She's not responding to anything!" He pointed to the fire box. "G-get-get her fire started again, quickly!"
"I'm on it!"
Kyle left Thomas and went to help. A firebox was a firebox, but he knew Emily's better. They donned their heavy duty gloves, and together, they scooped up all the hot coals that had fallen out of her box and packed them back into the hole. Careful at first, and then gradually more frantic.
The ominous cackling sounded again, and this time it didn't sound nearly as distant. "You all hear that, right?!" Kyle asked, hands shaking. "I'm not just going mad?"
The men turned their eyes to the sky above Emily's open cab. Only Matthew, alone with Thomas in front of them, spoke. "It can't be…"
"What was in that mine, uranium ?" asked Kyle frantically. "C4?"
"I don't know." David wasn't even sure what the difference was. He grew up poor, having never gone to university. "I just hope we're not sitting on top of another one," said David. With one hand on Emily's level, and his back throbbing, he reached down, scooped up the last hunk of coal in sight and tossed it into the firebox. But her fire would not light. And her eyes did not open.
Bang, bang, bang. Far and away, Thomas detected the sound of another engine on the tracks. A suspiciously puffless one, too. Cackle. Cackle. And the voice of one.
"Mr.-Mr. Thomas! You've got to wake Emily up!" Toad shouted. His eyes kept darting from Emily, to the side. Something was coming, but if they couldn't get Emily to wake up, they had a bigger problem. Thomas felt a tightening sensation in his boiler, like his water was about to dry up. He backed up to her front buffers, kicking her with his buffers. "Emily! Emily, wake up !" He blasted his whistle, long and loud and as annoying as he could make it. "We have to get out of here!"
But even with Thomas yelling for her with his booming engine voice, echoing and extending into the great forest, she wouldn't come to.
And it sounded like their trapper was coming for them.
"That's it," Marty sighed, his tired arms dropping to his sides. The jolly, old fool had lost his smile. "I've tried everything. I'm afraid she's…"
"Then it's up to you, Thomas," Matthew rubbed his chin. "We've got to get everyone out of here, and I only have one emergency coupling chain here in the cab. Do you think you can shunt Emily and pull Toad?"
"I can pull Toad, and I can push Emily from the back, but…" His eyes went as far to the right as they could, but he still couldn't see her behind him. Emily was deadweight, but not dead. He had to tell himself that. "I can go backwards, too, but not while pushing a tender engine, and definitely not fast enough! There's got to be a way to turn around…" Thomas's gaze darted left and right. It was so hard to see in the darkness, and with the snow covering the tracks. " There! " His eyes locked on the start of a derelict, old turntable! Starting with a set of— " Points! Right there! David, do you see—?!"
"Say no more." David leapt from Emily's high cab, buckling to his knees as he landed, and sprinted across the merging track.
Matthew darted from one side of Thomas's cab to the other. " What are you doing?"
"Resetting the points!" He didn't even slow as he shouted an explanation at Matthew. "There's a switch lever buried in the snow over there! Thomas has got to turn around! It's the only way he'll be fast enough to get out of here with everyone!"
"Eeugh!" Matthew wanted to rip his hair out. "We don't have time!"
"Time! Why? What's going on?" Marty was lost. He turned his gaze to the trees, but he couldn't see anything. "Why are we in a rush? We've got to revive Emily first, haven't we?"
"It's the cackling!" Kyle said. "You mean you don't hear that?"
"Cackling?" Marty strained his ear, aimed to the sky, to listen. "That's not just a jolly little fox?"
" Hahahahahaha…"
The cackle was loud. It was coming from the forest to the right, it had to be. And yet it felt like it was coming from all sides, from speakers on all four corners of the trap they'd just rolled into.
"That's no fox." Feeling certain now what he was hearing, even if it shouldn't have been possible, Matthew appeared at the door to Thomas's cab, a chain in his hands. "That's too powerful to be one tiny fox. That's an engine's voice. We're out of here."
With the points changed, Thomas wheeled forward, biffing Toad gently and with consoling words as he set him to the side, helping himself onto the turntable. "It's going to be okay. Trust me. I'm going to get you home, safe."
"I trust you, Mr. Thomas," replied Toad. "If you are Oliver's friend, Mr. Thomas, then you are mine."
After a struggle with the ice coating the old lever, David at last managed to push it down! Thomas felt his nerves turn the water in his boiler into spikes as the cackles drew closer. Almost before the table stopped, he backed up and ran close to Toad, who'd been shunted to the back of the old siding. Matthew jumped out and chained the back of his engine to the breakvan in record time. "Done! Let's go!"
The second the men had their feet planted inside, Thomas was on the escape. He ran out of the siding, over the track merge, his buffers against Emily's, his bunker and poor Toad left exposed to the cackling in the forest, and the loudening chug-chug-chug of something loud and heavy thundering down at them.
"Alright, pal," Thomas told Emily, knowing she couldn't hear. "Time to repay an old favor."
Even if they'd had another chain, there was no time for coupling up with Emily. Thomas would have to shunt her back up the hill, and hope for the best, but at least he had forward control on his side, now. As his wheels gained momentum, he stared into her unconscious face, and continued talking to her. It was hard, running on no sleep, pushing the weight of a tender while pulling something else, but somehow, seeing her in this state made him even more determined to do what he needed to do.
Matthew worked the necessary controls that got him rolling, but then it was all on Thomas. The engine felt the struggle of pushing the weight of another engine, but once he had the decline's momentum on his side, he was rocketing.
It was hard, pushing her and pulling Toad at the same time, but fear propelled him. His coupling rods practically disappeared, wheels spinning like fan blades. He was going as fast as he possibly could, and his driver, for once, did not ask him to stop.
"As long as we keep hitting down signals, just move , move , MOVE!" His fireman cried.
"Faster, Mr. Thomas!" Toad cried. "He's gaining on us!"
"I'm going! I'm going!" Thomas was putting every last puff of energy into those wheel turns. It was a hefty task for a tank engine, even one every bit as fit and bullheaded as Thomas, and the strain began taking its toll. His cheeks were burning, and he was starting to pant.
Meanwhile, Emily's crew were doing everything they could to revive her. Thomas did his part, calling her name, trying to bring her to the surface. He couldn't keep doing this on his own. Diesel was going to catch them. He needed her help! " Emily, wake up! "
Thomas blasted his whistle, long and loud in her ear.
"Ms. Emily, please wake up!" Toad pleaded, too.
"Thomas, it's no use!" Matthew shouted. "Shouting in her face isn't going to help!"
"Yes it will!" he fired back. "Engines always come around for the shouts of another! I'll shout at her until I lose my voice! Come on, Emily! Come on ! Get up , get up , get UP! UPPPP ! "
Emily was far, far away. Everything was dark and silent, when a familiar voice was just persistent enough, just agitating enough, just annoying enough, to break through to her.
" ... up … Emily … get up… please… "
Wha…
Where am I?
At last, her eyes began to open. When she came to, three things were certain straight away: They were in motion, her undercarriage felt like it had been punted by a T-Rex, and the engine that was pushing her had been the voice that had called her back. "... T-Thomas?"
" She's back! " Marty cried. The driver was as delighted as he was bewildered. "Her gauges just sprang back on!"
"And I got a fire going!" said Kyle.
"Wh-what's going on…?" Emily looked left and right above Thomas's boiler. Her memory was coming back, but not fast enough. By the time she remembered where they were and what they were doing there, all she could think about was the giant mass in hot pursuit of them in the starlit sky, shaped like a giant, metal arm, ending in a toothed pincer. "And… what is THAT?"
"It's it's-it's a d-d-d-di-di-diesel whatchacallit, M-m-ms Emily!" Toad cried.
"And... it's trying to... kill us !" Thomas panted in between every few words.
"What?! Why?!"
"Long story!" Thomas moaned. His face was flush with the effort of propelling the engine and van down the mountain slope.
"Well what do we do?!"
"Just pump your wheels and help me get us out of here! "
Emily dropped her questions and almost instantly, Thomas began to feel the strain begin to lift as Emily began pumping her own wheels backwards. Soon, she was moving herself, and Thomas only had the weight of Toad to deal with, and he was a feather, by comparison.
Or… was it the gradient, heading downhill, now, that was making this suddenly easier?
Either way, the engines rocketed down the track. Because they weren't coupled, they should have come apart, the heavier tender falling away from Thomas. But Emily was only waking up and very confused. And Thomas was at full power, and his wheels were going as fast as they had gone in his entire life.
"Wait-wait! C-can't we... I don't know, t-talk to him?" she asked in between breaths. "Ask him what he wants?" She was surprised that Thomas, of all engines, wasn't trying to talk this out with him.
"Not this time!" He didn't care if she was awake. Thomas was still pushing her with all his might. She didn't understand what they were dealing with, what they were running from. "The diesel's not well! He's not right in the head! You can't reason with him!"
"Well, what about his driver?"
"He doesn't need one! He doesn't HAVE one!"
"That doesn't make any sense! Diesel can't run without drivers!"
"This one can !"
"It's b-b-b before your time, Ms. Emily!" Toad tried to help. Nobody was sure if he was stuttering from the prolonged exposure to the cold or panic, but it could've been both. "It would behoove us t-t-t-o get as much distance between us and him as possible!"
"Toad, do you still see him?!" Thomas asked. He looked back as best as he could, but he could never see behind himself. He was seriously wishing he'd take Bertie up on the idea of getting side view mirrors, stupid as they would look. "How close is he?!"
"No-no! I don't believe I do!" Toad strained his eyes into the darkness surrounding the track as it extended beyond him, but the ominous silhouette of a metal arm was no longer popping against the night sky. "It appears we-we've lost him on the slowdown hill!"
"David!" Thomas wasn't above. He didn't dare slow down, not yet. "Get onto my cab and see if you can see him!"
And the fireman wasn't above taking orders from his own engine. "On it, chief!" He left Thomas's firebox alone, even as the coals were growing weaker, the flames tired and small as Thomas's exhaustion set in, and hooked his foot into Thomas's left side window, climbing onto the cab. Matthew gaped as he watched the other man climb to the engine's roof, but for once, he had nothing to say.
Toad was still coupled to Thomas from the back. But because Emily wasn't coupled up to Thomas, the pair did come apart. Thomas was getting tired, even the downhill incline wasn't helping. Emily, however, was heavier, and wide awake with fear, now. Thomas felt their buffers start to slip apart, the distance between them growing. An inch, a foot, two feet. And then a yard.
Emily realized at once what was happening. The tank engine was panting harder and harder. His funnel cloud was getting weaker. He was finally losing steam. "Thomas!" Emily didn't want to abandon the pair. But if she slowed down so they could stay together, she'd risk Thomas crashing into her. "You've got to keep up!"
There she went, ordering him around again. But he knew she was right this time. He had to keep up. His crew knew so, too. But his axles were aching and his puffs were getting weaker. He was out of breath and he desperately needed rest. The strain of pushing Emily and pulling Toad along the tracks had quickly worn him out. He suddenly felt as old as his age.
"I'm… slowing… I'm slowing down!" he panted helplessly. And on top of being a smaller engine who wasn't intended to be particularly strong, he's already been in a major accident. He wasn't finding the secret energy reserves that he used to, back when he ran from Diesel X the first time. "Go on! Get-get gone! I'll… catch up! I'll keep him back! Take Marty… Kyle … get away from here!"
"No!" said Emily. "I'm not leaving you behind!"
And then, the unspeakable happened. Thomas felt his heart in his throat the moment he saw her backend turn to the left, off of Toby's track going straight ahead.
"No…"On their right, the forest finally ended, near lower Arelsburg station, Emily swerved onto a different set of tracks—ending at three hundred feet, to a shallow siding, blocked by a massive, twenty foot tall stone.
This can't be happening.
Marty felt the track change and slammed on her breaks with all his might. With both arms and his body weight leaning down on the lever, Emily's coupling rods flew backwards, her tires screeching in retaliation, sparking against the rails. Emily gasped and heard her driver stumble and fall to the floor. Kyle abandoned the firebox and caught him by the shoulder and ribs before his head hit the floor. And he held him tight.
There was nothing more they could do. Emily was slowing down, but not quick enough, and her back end hit the brigade.
SLAM! Went her backend painfully into the rock face, the wooden buffers blown to smithereens. The force was like lightning, zapping her from impact sight, to the heart of her firebox, paralyzing her completely with shock, then pain. Her tender swiveled to the left. Coal launched off her open top tender, a fine black dust coating her freshly cleaned paint from boiler to nose.
The force knocked Kyle and Marty apart. Kyle flew back against the front of Emily's tender wall, Marty sprawled out on the floor of the cab, once again surrounded by fiery, hot coals. This time they were showered upon by even more coals as the tender dumped out on top of them.
With nobody in the station tower nearby, and nobody around for miles, there was nobody to switch the points before Thomas crossed right over them, too.
Emily was cornered, and had nowhere to go.
Her fellow engine, the one who'd tried so hard to save her, was heading straight for her on a downward slope. And there was no way to stop it.
He felt his driver slam back on the break with such force, he winced in pain. Thomas aided it with the last of his power, as far as it would go. Sparks lit up the tracks like fireworks as his wheels locked up. He willed himself to stop with all his might, but it was no use. The tracks here were clear enough, and any rocks or coal that would've knocked his wheels off or even slowed him down had been cleared by Emily's pass through. The momentum alone kept him going, aided by the slope.
Thomas knew he'd never stop in time. When he dared to look up from his buffers at her, sparks reflected off of the whites of her eyes.
Emily knew, too. Her eyes got wider and brighter in Thomas's lamp. Too scared to scream.
They were doomed, but the men weren't. " JUMP!" Thomas shouted at the top of his voice, hoping the volume alone would scare them to leave him. " JUUUUMP ! "
Matthew and David leaped from Thomas's cab, one after another, aiming for the soft mounds of snow that had piled up near the tracks from previous plowings. He heard bodies hit the snow, having no idea where or how they landed, just that his cab was definitely empty.
Emily's crew didn't need to be told to follow. They had no choice but to abandon their engine, and Thomas watched Marty and Kyle as indiscernible, shadowy figures climb down from the cab, slow, achy and dazed. The young fireman scooped his older driver up from under his arm, and together, the two men hurried off to the right, as far from the siding as they could get.
They were alone now. The two steamies, on an inescapable, rapidly approaching collision course. Thomas and Emily. Just for a moment, time slowed. With nothing more they could do, they stared each other down.
The light from the lamps closed in, rapidly growing brighter and brighter. Details blurring. The last thing Thomas processed was the mortal fear in her eyes. And the last thing he did , the only thing he could do, or had time to do, was convey a silent, desperate apology with his own.
I'm sorry.
Then time resumed. And the next instant, everything was blackness and silence.
On top of the work and changing hyperfixation excuses, I have some somewhat embarrassing confessions to make. Firstly, it might be obvious but I haven't actually been referring to a map in writing the story thus far, as dumb and inexcusable as that is. The thing that got me hooked on Thomas in the first place was the character relationships, and that's basically what's driving the writing. This has led to very vague descriptions of locations and distance/time thus far, and stuff that I straight up made up the fly, such as the specific 'old signal tower' that James and Edward crashed into, and where exactly they were going. Buuuut this is the point in the story where location is starting to become somewhat important, so I am going to refer to map locations going forward. Given I'm probably still gonna be confusing at least some readers of this fanfic, and this confession may have lost some of you already, I'm gonna try my best to rely on the generally agreed upon map layout (Tidmouth and Knapford being to the west of the island, Vicarstown and the narrow gauge engines to the east, Brendam Docks at the southernmost point, etc.).
Since this is a TV show based fanfic I'm basing this mostly off the Unlucky Tug and the Great Sodor Mapping Community's Map, aka this one: media/GYRc0WPakAErUTF?format=jpgname=4096x4096
So if at any point you're wondering how the hell the engines got to X place, well, I'm roughly basing it off how the lines work here. It doesn't matter exactly where the crash happens, but that I need Thomas and Emily to be way off and away from civilization (where the should NOT be if they were coming home the conventional and direct way, this is important later on, you'll see) , and around Arlesburgh Town when the incident happens. But still on a route that circles back to Tidmouth, even if it takes all night. If normal gauge engines can't use the narrow gauge railway, then putting them up there north in the Arelsburg area made the most sense given the forested area and that it could still be remote, especially in the dead of night on Christmas when nobody else is supposed to be out. The more troubling question I'm hoping any readers have should be WHY the drivers agree to take them there at all.
I do cherry pick show lore and what little I've been informed about the book lore. There are things characters have done in the later seasons which seem completely OOC that I mentally just delete.
For example, coming back to finish up chapter 10 now, I had to go back and rewatch some of the episodes because it's been forever. I like that the show went out of their way to show Emily's pompous and competitive, as the guys are. But holy hell, do they forget to balance out her positive and negative attributes in the later HIT episodes.
I guess you could chalk this up to less than stellar writing. I just wish it was more balanced. Emily in season 7 is such a sensitive, good hearted character, it's easy to root for her. But by season 8 and 9 you'd think all her maturity she displayed in 7 just went out the window, and you kinda get why some people don't like her. And the CGI episodes have her lose her edge because everybody kinda loses their edge, and well, yeah. Again, I want her to be flawed, but in the way all the characters except Diesel should have positive attributes, I want her mama-bear protectiveness to be on display once in a while too.
Poor James never really has any sort of character growth, at least up to the point of the show I watched. He 'learns' lessons, but a lot of the episodes that focus on him are redundant in that his vanity is his downfall. I think of him like Thomas, if Thomas never got fed up enough to prove the big engines wrong and shut them up. This is another reason I wanted a fic to partly focus on him. I want him to go through something that's so humbling that it finally wakes him up. We'll get back to him and Edward in the next chapter.
Any feedback at all, including criticism, is totally appreciated. I know without a shadow of a doubt I've got some details wrong somewhere, and not because of cherry picking details, but just because I overlooked or misremembered something. Describing action is also not my strongest suit. I did my best, but I realize it might not be the clearest.
With all that out of the way, on with the show! Hope it was worth the wait. Owo
Quick note, but this is where I might've lost some of my readers already, with the introduction of Lady as a background character, and Diesel 10, one of our antagonists. And I say that as someone who has a particular feeling about Thomas and the Magic Railroad…
I don't remember anything about Shining Time Station from watching Thomas on TV as a kid. It feels like if SpongeBob SquarePants had a crossover with a short lived nicktoon like Pelswick or something (yah, remember that one?). I gotta read the wiki alongside watching the movie NOW to grasp what's going on. I vaguely remember watching it in theaters when I was a kid being utterly lost. I'm not a weed kinda gal but if I were, oh this movie...
This is one thing I gotta give credit to the CGI era for: As dumbed down as the writing can get, they're Thomas movies that actually focus on just Thomas and the engines, and I kinda like that.
As a concept, I like Lady and Diesel 10 a lot. I like their ability to function as a dichotomy in a Thomas story, the watchful spirit and the vengeful demon. If you have to have something like spirituality and magic in Thomas, Lady is not *too* bad. I think ghosts definitely exist in Thomas TV series lore, and to present Lady in the form of a spirit guide. And I love me some dichotomy, yum yum. I also just like the idea of Lady talking to Emily rather than Thomas, and being totally baffled by what and who she is, since she wasn't there for all that. Later Thomas has to find this out and untangle what all this means, so that will be fun.
Join me in chapter 11 when we find out what has become of the engines and their crew after the crash… o.o