Chapter 11: Blood in the Snow

For the engines, it was like a snap, and nothing more. Whether by divine power, or the merciful nature of all living things, they didn't experience more than a second of the actual, metal-crushing, ear-splitting horror. Every scratch, every bang, every agonizing twist of metal occurred with neither of them aware. Their gauges lay flat, their fires gone. Their faces almost smoothed over until they were nothing but featureless smokebox doors.

For the rest of the island, however, the accident was not so instantaneous. Over fifty thousand kilos of metal careening into something that weighed one and a half times as much. Almost a hundred and twenty thousand pounds of raw iron, brass and steel colliding at a final speed of thirty miles per hour. This is what the crewmen heard the moment their engines met. This is what it took to make the clap that caused them to go temporarily deaf. It was like God's own hands had extended down from the clouds, put a mile between His palms, and then rushed together to meet just below the town of Arelsburg.

A long, rattling boom, like the grandfather of thunderclaps, traveled down along the snow packed hills, through the nooks and crannies of the island, to the very bottom, even to land below sea level. It could be heard from every inch of the mountain, causing mini avalanches of snow and rock down the steepest slopes. The sound echoed across calm winter skies, to the villages crossed by train lines down below.

Those birds that had stayed on the island for the duration of winter, from owls and vouchers, fled their nests and soared up into the sky. Farm animals awoke and cried out in the night. Cows 'moo'ed. A great unease had settled on the bloodless, warless land.

Farmers were mostly unconcerned. The noise made many turn over in their beds. One farmer murmured to their spouse about landslides, while another griped about having to check for fallen trees on the property when they woke early the next morning. Arlesburgh northerners, most who had lived a long uneventful life on Sodor, believed that noise was just thunder, never once giving thought of how rare thundersnow was on this island.

Those few that were drawn out of bed to their windows saw only dark, black skies outside their home, facing the bottom of the slope. No storm, thundering or otherwise. Just an ebony abyss stretching to distant peaks. Unable to determine a cause, they went back to bed. The hullabaloo of breakfast and present openings come Christmas morn' was a job unto itself, after all. Not one of them knew the cause of the noise, and no one thought to send anyone to investigate. At least at first.

And only a few islanders even knew about the two tender engines stranded on country tracks, all alone on Christmas Eve.

"AAGH!"

"SQUEEEE!"

"AAH!"

Southwards on the island, James woke with a fright at the sound of the pig, squealing at the top of its tiny lungs.
The animal, who had been sleeping soundlessly in the corner of James' cab, had woken with a scream, because Edward had screamed. His mighty engine voice rolled straight across the flat empty landscape towards the nearest trees. The branches of snow-covered furs bent as birds made a hasty escape.

"What?! What?! What is it?!" asked James. "Edward, what's wrong?"
Before Edward could reply, the pig darted out of the red cab doorway, trotting straight ahead on the track to the other engine. He'd scrambled up the steps, as best it could with its stubby little legs, and into Edward's cab. Little hoofs 'tap tap tap' as it paced in circles.

James was not a small engine, but he felt very small. The black, lifeless expanse of flat ground and snow around the engines was terrifying. Trees dotted the meeting point between land and sky, but otherwise, there was nothing. As the night had drawn on, he was increasingly aware of how they sat vulnerable, alone. On an unattended, remote track. The burst of adrenaline warmed the coals inside him that had frosted over. "What is it?!" It drove James crazy that he could not see the engine behind him. "What'd you see?!"

"It's not—not what I saw! It's what I… heard… " Edward's breaths were short and choppy, and the last bits of steam from this evening's failed trek rolled down the side of his boiler. The wind down south was still, but the air was more frigid than ever, and by the time it reached his side plates, the steam droplets had turned to ice. "Oh. Nononono… It—it can't be…"

"What can't? What are you talking about?" Did Edward have some sort of nightmare?

"You didn't hear it, but it—no… it— can't happen."

"What can't happen? What are you talking about?"

"Not here. Not now." There was an infuriatingly long pause before Edward spoke again. "Oh… nevermind."

"Nevermind? Are you mad! You just set coals leaping right out of my firebox, and you're gonna try and tell me 'nevermind'?" James hated being treated like he had the attention span of a hummingbird. He was vain, not stupid, and he refused being treated as the latter. Maybe the others thought him too wrapped up in himself to sense when his friends were upset, but he thought Edward , at least, respected him enough to be transparent with him. "What were you going to say? What's going on? Eddie, talk to me!"

"Nothing. Just a nightmare. Just… try and go back to sleep." Edward sounded tired. Weary. Maybe even on the verge of tears, but that could easily have been James a few hours ago. This whole day was a nightmare, if James ever knew one. "Please. If we're lucky, m-maybe they'll come for us by daybreak."

The piglet was audibly sniffing about Edward's cab floor. James couldn't believe it, but he was actually feeling a little betrayed by the animal's abandonment. Neither could see the swine hunker down, close to the residual warmth of Edward's firebox, head tucked under his stomach to make himself smaller than he already was. But even the supposedly insensitive James could detect his unease, all the way from the cab behind him. Hm. Smart pig.

Toby had rattled on about how intelligent animals could be, and how people and engines alike didn't always appreciate this. James himself never really believed it, and it especially seemed hypocritical, given the same steam tram admitted runaway cows were trouble for engines on the country tracks. Not to mention the pig's crate had caused their own train to stop out here in the cold in the first place. Did the pig run to Edward because it was warmer in Edward's cab, or because he, too, suspected Edward was upset?

For whatever it was worth, Edward's breathing came back under control. His pants quieted, and he went completely silent again. Maybe having the pig there helped.

When he was yelling at me, about the cars, a few days ago… About the cars having taken control… I remember what he sounded like, then. But THAT scream, tonight? That's not like him. That's not the Edward that I know. That the rest of the Tidmouth engines know.
Edward was steady and predictable. He'd seen everything there was for an engine to see. From dark caverns high to spooky tunnels down below. From the depressing undertaker's feel of the smelters, to the influx of diesels that threatened his job and even his life. Nothing scared Edward anymore. At least nothing should.

But something had shaken the wise engine to his very core just then. And considering what it would take for old Eddie to burst out like that, that was enough reason to keep James awake for a while, wondering. Worrying.

"If we're lucky." A cold gust to the face made James shut his eyes and shiver against the chains. "Wouldn't that be a turn for the norm."

"... THEY CRASHED!... "

Another scream, this time stirring awake the engines at Tidmouth.

Heavily reluctant, Gordon cracked open an eye. "What in the…?"

"... The horror! The horror !... "

One by one, the other engines began to wake up.

"Who is that?" asked a drowsy Duck. He eyed the open wilderness beyond the berth he was borrowing for the night. But all he saw was snow and tracks and black skies.

"Errrgh… Thomas!" Gordon growled. "Just get in here and get to sleep! Plenty of time for yip and hoorah tomorrow!"

That voice was distant and hard to understand, but it wasn't Thomas', and neither was the whistle that came with it.

"Guys…" Percy said quietly, "... I think that sounds like Henry."

No sooner had he had put a name to the voice, steam clouds gathered on the track far ahead of the turntable. As the curtain parted, an engine emerged from the backdrop of night, instantly recognizable in his bright green paint.

Now, all the engines were wide awake. The sheds protected them from the wind and much of the cold, but the doors had been left open until the last engines arrived home safe and sound. Years ago, that would've included Henry, but he'd moved to Vicarstown with Rosie. He wasn't supposed to be here until early the next morning to celebrate. He wasn't who they were waiting for.

"That is him!" Toby's eyes sprang open. and he couldn't remember ever seeing Henry so distraught over… what? The possibilities sent a shiver up his cow catchers. "But what's he saying?"

"Parts strewn about everywhere!" Henry shouted between pants and puffs. "Broken buffers, twisted metal sprinkled between coal and blood in the snow! It's bad! It's awful!"

"Henry, you're just shouting nonsense!" said Gordon. He expected a bit more dignity from the engine who was inspired by his own greatness. His brother in blueprints. "Slow down, and start again!"

"They crashed!" Henry slowed as he reached the turntable, facing them. His eyes were frantic, and he was giving off tons of steam. Too much steam. Snow began to melt around the tracks at his wheels, and his fire, for once, was going completely wild. "They crashed and they're wrecked! Ruined!"

"What crash?" demanded Gordon. "Who?"

"Wasn't Edward taking James to the works?" asked Toby.

"Calm down, Henry, it's all under control." Duck was good at staying calm in the face of hysterics. "The workload's got you over-exhausted. I think you're starting to imagine things."

"N-no! Not them !" The often-ailing engine's wheels finally stopped. He was hot and breathless, but he made it. " Emily! Thomas hit her! Face first!"

"WHAT?" Percy rocked forward so hard, he almost rolled out of the shed. "No!"

"You're not serious," said Toby.

"I wish that I wasn't." Henry began to explain what he knew, but that wasn't much. After being coerced into a difficult last minute job with the fish before all shut down for the holiday, Henry refused to be shunted until he had a bath. He may pull the Flying Kipper proudly, but he couldn't stand the idea of sitting all day tomorrow, with gelatinous fish slime chilling to ice along his handsome green paint.

This kept Henry and his main driver out late enough to require a backup driver to take Henry to Tidmouth. And said backup driver came from the nearby village with a disturbing story that was just developing. A story that Henry now had to deliver to his friends.

He had barreled, signal after signal, without stopping, clear across the island for home. Thanks to his internal rebuild ages ago, it didn't take Henry long to get there. But working all day and into the night, topped off with this unsavory message delivery had taxed him of the last of his energy.

Everyone left at Tidmouth, Gordon, Percy, Toby, and Duck, had already been asleep for hours. They hadn't even noticed the missing Christmas Train engines. Now their absence was unsettling.

"Enough!" boomed Gordon, his voice echoing across the shed yard. As if his size was the lone qualifier necessary in being leader, he often appointed himself in charge when Sir Topham Hatt wasn't present. For whatever it was worth, though, Gordon was good at shutting down harmful gossip. "Henry, think before you come in here and start scaring the daylights out of these little engines with that crock!"

"It's not, I'm afraid." Finally, Henry's backup driver leaped out from the cab. The young man seemed winded himself, but not as bad as his engine, thus he could explain more clearly. "I came down from Arlesburgh north. They're laid out in the snow right now."

"Thomas? And Emily?" Percy echoed. To think of his best friend, lying helpless off the tracks, so far away. It was… unthinkable!
"Supposedly, their crews jumped clear," the driver said. "But they couldn't stop the collision."

"I don't believe it! A face first crash between two engines? Such a thing's never happened on this railway! Maybe back in the incompetent chaos of the mainland rails, but here—?!"

"There is," Toby interrupted, mournfully, "always a first time for everything." He looked to the ground. The strong country engine didn't care if he looked and sounded tiny and weak. The idea of his friends facing mortal injury, while he was stuck here, without a fire or driver, made him feel helpless.

"But it doesn't make sense," said Percy. "What were they doing on the same track?" It wasn't just that he didn't want to believe it, although that was a big part of it. Already, this story wasn't adding up, and he didn't care for once how much of a jerk it made him to be skeptical.

"They were supposed to go down to the bay and back!" Gordon reminded everyone. "What were they doing all the way up in Arlesburgh? See, even Percy can see it's nonsense!"

"Shut up, Gordon!" shouted Percy. "I'm sick of you putting me down!"

Every engine at Tidmouth drew silent. Percy had just shut Gordon down.

Percy, the tank engine who was afraid of his own shadow.

Percy, he who ran and hid before he had to deal with confrontation.

Percy, who was most intimidated by the brawny, proud, unassailable Gordon.
And Gordon did shut up, with a wide-eyed curiosity akin to being in a dream. The kind where engines flew and airplanes ran on steel rails.

"Look!" Henry continued at last. He'd barely had a chance to catch his breath before he helped unpack the known information. "All I know is that they were flying down the rails well above speed limit, and they ended up on the same track. That same track led to a siding, or something, and Thomas boxed her in!"

"W-what-how could that have happened?" Gordon just barely found his voice again.

The engines sat in uncomfortable silence. In the end, it was Duck who found the bravery to ask the question point blank. "Beg your pardon, driver but… are they alive?"

Just like that, the collective heart of the shed skipped a beat, right then and there.

"I don't know." The driver's head was down.

Henry waited for the turntable to spin him facing out from his berth, but it didn't matter. He could stay facing in the sheds all Christmas, for all he cared, slime or not. So many questions, so little answers. He didn't even want to be out this late, saddled with Arthur and the last fish run, then bequeathed this unfortunate messenger boy rubbish. All he had wanted was a bath. Was it so much to ask?

"Hm." Gordon shifted suspicious eyes to the other empty sheds. Edward never returned from dropping James off at the works, either. He was supposed to spend Christmas morning here in his old berth at Tidmouth. He thought for sure he'd be back by now. But there was no Edward. His and James' berth on the far right sat dark and desolate, all four doors wide open with no one inside.

Gordon's nose pinched up, and he eyed the other vacant berth to his left. And no annoying little tank engine to gripe about the fish smell, either.

"There's something strange about all of this," Toby agreed. What were they doing up there? The fact that this apparently happened on his own line unsettled him. He knew those rails too well. He couldn't bear the thought of them being forever associated with the loss of his friends. "I'm worried about Edward and James, too.

"I'm worried too… two… three… ?" Percy sighed. "Oh, you know what I mean."

"But… I mean… It's those two. They're not made of wool and grass!" Toby offered. "I'm sure they'll make it."

"I hope so," Henry said as he finally rolled backwards into his berth. But he felt very conflicted as he said it. He was loyal to Emily after she stood up for him that first year she arrived, when he felt too unwell to pull freight. She was sensitive to the problems of others, and did her best to help. The very thought of losing her was a miserable one.

But Thomas, to him, was not a friend. He was a self-absorbed little arsehole who never once took Henry's ails seriously. Not to mention he never truly apologized for all the times he'd cut Henry down, as he himself climbed rank. Only making half-arsed apologies when Emily guilted him into it. Gordon may have made amends with Thomas, but Henry never did.

It was hard to believe that, after all these years of casual torment, one bad accident might have just nipped Thomas from the picture. But Emily was lionhearted. Even if this story ended up being true, and it was every bit as catastrophic as it sounded, she might just make it. Henry soothed himself with that thought.

And Thomas, well… he was too persistent to perish. Too annoying.

"Yeah?" Gordon muttered. "Well, I'll believe it when I see it." He closed his eyes, in defiance of the collective horror of the engines all around him. "Two double-engine crashes on Christmas Eve? Ridiculous! What is this world coming to? Now get some shut-eye, Henry. We'll deal with it the day after tomorrow."

"I wouldn't get so comfortable if I were you, Gordon," Henry's driver told him. He left the turntable's control box and ambled up to Gordon's berth. "The accident crew are on their way, and a fireman for you, too."

"A fire—what ?" Gordon's eyes sprang back open. "W-Why?"

"Why you think?" The young man frowned,holding his cap down at his waist as he looked up at the great engine. "To push the breakdown crane. You're on cleanup duty, old man."

In a snap, the world had gone from deafening whistles and screeching of wheels on tracks, and the blinding lights of each other's lamps, to absolutely nothing. Just darkness and silence.

Such a devastating wreck had the ability to end an engine outright. Especially one as old and heavily repaired as the E2 was. Playfulness and mischief may have kept him feeling young, but at the end of the day, he was antiquated. He had been repaired several times with parts that were getting harder to find as the years ticked on. He shouldn't have survived at all.
But as any wise driver knows, engines have the habit of throwing all humans know about science and technology to the wall. They run on their own logic, literally. Sometimes bold enough to run, without a driver. Although they ought to be smart enough not to get caught by the mass public doing so, lest War of the Worlds level panic ensues.

It shouldn't have been possible, but Thomas survived. And it very well could have been a combination of stubbornness and loyalty that made him come to as soon as he did. He couldn't lay there, not when he wasn't the only one affected. He needed to know what had become of the others.

Pain and cold registered vaguely, but a dense fog was keeping him disconnected from the meaning of it all. As the moments ticked by, the fog around him lifted, and the engine got his bearings. When Thomas opened his eyes, the world was sideways. Snow piled up high in his vision on the ground in front of him, and their only source of light besides the stars, the moon, and the reflection of the bright snow was a torch that kept haphazardly blinking on and off. He could only see completely out of his left eye. He was not covered in flames, thanks partly to the fact that his dying fire had been extinguished by the scattering of the coals when he landed sideways. Only a dull warmth that ran up his cab and boiler remained, and this was quickly being eaten away by the bitter, dry northerly wind, still howling at his exposed face. Aside from this, all was quiet.

The cold was bad, but pain was being redefined. His throat was a dried canyon. Shouting was pain. Everything was pain. A two-ton, cramping ache extended from his frontside, all the way up his body. So bad, he felt every last chip of paint.

"Matthew…!" He wheezed his driver's name. Humans were so much smaller and more fragile than engines. Thomas never personally knew a human who died as a result of an engine crash, but he always possessed the unpleasant understanding that it could happen. Unwritten code of engine operator respect dictated that the safety of their passengers, and their crewmen, came before everything else. If this crash had left him turned over and broken, there was a very real possibility that it had left his operators into a state incompatible with life. There weren't words in the English language strong enough to describe the horror of being the engine responsible for the demise of these men.

Jumping had been their only chance.

Drawing up the last of his steam, he worked up a scream. "MATTHEW! DAVID!"

And then, to a relief that could've made him cry, his call was finally answered. "Thomas! H-Here! It's-It's okay!"

He couldn't see him. But that all too familiar voice hit Thomas' ear like music. "Matthew!"

He knew Matthew was attempting to stand up, but something else kept causing the man to collapse down in the snow bank with a grunt. "I'm coming! Aaagh… It's okay!"

The engine was never so grateful to hear a voice call back to him. "You're alive! But… what about… "

" ...Matt… ?"

Thomas choked out his fireman's name. "David!"

Before Matthew's eyes, his fireman stuck his head out from behind a nearby snowpile, and crawled to his feet. He looked about as dazed as a man could be and still recognize their own name, and shivered as the snow melted onto his soot covered overalls. But he was on his own two feet. He turned to the tracks behind them, bloodshot eyes widening. "Marty? That you? H-how bad is it?"
Marty's figure found its way to the other men, holding his arm as if it would fall out of its socket if he did not. The tiny, old man trudged through the snow by the tracks on his lanky, short legs to stand at an angle where the E2 could see him. "Broken." That was all he said. This man had seen the first world war, as evident by the cross pinned to his NWR uniform. He'd been injured in battle, but that was a long, long time ago.

At last, the crews were completed by the appearance of Kyle. The young fireman scurried up to them. Unlike the others, he'd waited for a plush enough pile of snow to launch himself into. While he'd taken a battering of ice and dirt to the face as well, he emerged from the crash with no more than a few scrapes to the skin. "Marty? Matt? David?" He was out of breath, though, and rested his hands on his knees, recovering from his sprint back to the accident site. He gave a sympathetic wince at Marty's condition—the old man was like a second father to him. "So… we're here. We all are."

Thomas let out a final wheesh of steam in relief. They had jumped clear at the last minute. They weren't dead. None of them were.
Matthew limped over to stand right before Thomas' face. While the engine marveled in the man's aliveness, the driver was far from a state of perfection. He walked as if it was painful to put weight on his foot. And his hand...

Thomas gasped. "You're bleeding!"

"Hm." Matthew held up and inspected his hand for the first time. The inside was scraped raw, cut from the top of his palm to the bottom of his wrist. Two trails of blood pooled at the tips of his fingers. When he held his hand up to his face, the blood dripped down his arm, pooling into his stainless bright blue sleeve. Drops hit the snow.

Thomas had never seen more than a small cut. Far from a human anatomy expert, he still knew that blood was something that belonged strictly in the body. Like coals once they were inside his firebox, it was never supposed to be seen. "You're hurt!"

Matthew shook his head. "Calm down. It's not bad." He gestured his hands for the engine to lower his voice. "It's just a scrape, that's all. My hand caught some jagged rocks or something when I landed. Although I'm afraid someone here's going to need a doctor."

"So much for eating all those apples." Marty braved a smile. Kyle gave him a consoling pat on the good arm, then removed his jacket and wrapped it gently around his crewmate's shoulders in lieu of a blanket.

Matthew hadn't shed a tear since the day his daughter got married, but bloody hell, did he come close that night. "Oh… Thomas." He looked his engine up and down, funnel to ground. "Look at you."

Look at me? A bleary Thomas didn't understand. They were alive. The humans survived the unthinkable, and he just flipped off the track. So what? This was annoying, but fixable with a crane. Why did Matthew sound as if…?

Oh…

His one usable eye rolled down, trying to see his bottom half. And then, he knew.

… right.

Even in the meager starlight, it was obvious that his bright red fender wasn't there. It was detached, clean from the same crack where it had been welded back together last spring, laying in the snow just a hundred feet away. He didn't know why that surprised him. Of course, a previous repair would give into such force so easily. He wasn't supposed to do anything to cause that fender to break like that. There was a round shape sitting in the snow on his left that he had mistaken for an old wagon wheel. Now he realized, grimly, that that wheel was blue. It was his wheel.

Even his lamp was broken. It no longer gave off any light to help illuminate the rest of the carnage. Busted and useless, Thomas recognized it mangled in what was left of his footplate.

The tank engine let out a whimper, finally understanding the reason for his agony. I'm wrecked.

"Mister Thomas!"

"Toad?" Thomas rolled his eyes as low as they would go, but he couldn't see the brake van. Just hearing his voice was enough for now. "You too?!"

Kyle ran to the right and out of eyeshot. Soon, his voice called back to the rest. "He's in the ditch of the snowbank, but he looks fine! Hey, don't cry, buddy. Everything's going to be alright."

"I h-hesitate to c-complain, but I am f-frozen to the f-f-f-frame, sir," said Toad. Evidently not crying. Just shivering. This lad loved winter, but from his frosted wheels and dusted panels, and now chattering teeth, he was long overdue for warmth and shelter. And that was just the beginning of what he might've been through since Oliver lost him.

Toad lay on his right side in the ditch where he'd rolled, once his coupling with the tank engine had broken. The lack of a firebox must've been particularly miserable on a living object left to the elements. Thomas felt the cold, but not as bad as Toad must've. It was just a miracle he'd survived the shockwave of collision and landed, totally unhurt.

As much as Kyle would've liked to pluck him up and put him back on rails, even the empty break van weighed too much a couple of men to lift on their own. "W-where's… where's… w-where's Ms. Emily gone?" Toad asked.

Emily. For a moment, Thomas felt like he was falling through the earth. She was the only one who hadn't responded yet.

Hearing Matthew and David speak was so insanely relieving, he forgot about the engine that he had crashed into! The one who had taken the full force of the impact, had yet to make her aliveness known. The fact that he couldn't move, couldn't see, made him feel twice as helpless. For all he knew, she'd blown to pieces. His eyes strained to see over the snow, to the track's siding. "Emily? Emily? Say something!"

She was barely visible, but when he rolled his eyes far, far upwards, he could see the vague image of her form up against the siding wall. Emily sat with her eyes closed. Perhaps because of her tender and all its remaining coal keeping her balance, she'd managed to stay upright after the impact. Although she'd hopped the rails and was at a significant angle from the sleepers. The backend of her tender was crushed from the force of hitting the wall, and her front was still singed from the explosion earlier. Somehow, her banged up lamp was still trying to work, throwing off those flickers of light that had confused Thomas when he first woke. In fits and bursts, they lit up the darkness before Emily, giving way to all these unsettling details. Her painted face now looked haunting and unfamiliar, features almost totally sunken into her face plate. Not even a hint of unreleased steam escaped her funnel.

She looked absurdly peaceful, like an angel. A stone statue angel, whose face was disappearing.

"Emily!" Thomas shouted again. "EMILY!" Answer me! Tell me you're alive. Tell me I didn't…

… Kill you.

Kyle's worried eyes whipped 'round the night sky. "Where is he? W-Where's the diesel?"

"Diesel?" That's right. Diesel 10. The thing that made them turn around and run for their lives. The thing that made them crash into each other. "Matthew, is he…?"

Thomas' driver hobbled until he could turn around, looking up the mountain slope. If Diesel and whoever was manning him was still on the chase, certainly, they would've arrived by now. Together, he and David looked in all directions, turning their ears to the wilderness, but all that they heard were the hoots of owls, and their own shoes cracking on layers of melted and refrozen snow.

Matthew, at last, made the declaration. "He's gone. Must've slinked back up into the forest. Coward."

It was a small consolation, but this knowledge brought a sense of peace in the aftermath of the disaster. It was boggling, and at the same time, it kind of made sense. Whatever the diesel had wanted to accomplish here, whether it was to scare the daylights out of a couple of steamies and their crews—which Thomas doubted, seeing as Toad was definitely stolen.

But that left so many questions. Where did the diesel even come from? How did he make it back to the island? How could he have known that the two steamies were coming to that area? At this hour, at this day of all days? The entire island was supposed to be shut down for Christmas. No one was supposed to know where they were, not even the Fat Controller.

How could the diesel know his chase would set something this awful in motion?

Unless he didn't know at all. Perhaps he just got lucky.

Even then, what was Toad's role in this? Thomas strongly doubted it was a coincidence the stammering, scared break van was left there by accident.

So many questions. It made Thomas furious to think the Diesel X might have finally gotten what he wanted: To finally hurt, and if Emily didn't wake up, end a steamy.

Either way, the extent of the crimes couldn't be known until there was a repair attempted on Thomas. Not until Emily woke up.

She will. No engine that had the capacity to move engines twice her size would perish from a mere blow to her fender. It couldn't be.

"Agh! David!"

Thomas' eyes flicked back to the men. Matthew had taken but one step towards where Kyle stood near the bank, and collapsed to his knees. "Eegh! My ankle is broken!"

Nothing more need be said. After helping Marty back into Emily's cab, the fireman sprinted back to him, steady on his feet, despite the snow and ice. "You've just rolled it, otherwise you wouldn't be standing at all. Done both as a kid jumping off stone staircases back at the church near where I grew up, I know the difference. You big baby." He gently helped Matthew to his feet. If anything sobers a man off a little holiday merriment in an instant, it was seeing the man he'd worked shoulder to shoulder with for decades in pain. "I'll call for help."

"You?" Matthew's eyes bulged. He nearly shoved the other man's arms away until he remembered he needed the fireman to stay upright. David was walking fine, talking fine, but... "You reek of liquor! What are the police going to say?!"

"And I... don't go alone..." Thomas pleaded between breaths. Why did he have to lose his front wheels? Why'd he have to be flung from the track? No matter how damaged he was, no matter if he was a mangled mass of metal that barely went two miles an hour, as long as he were upright and mobile, he'd follow his crewmen until the edge of the earth if it meant offering whatever meager protection he could.

The Diesel 10 may have been gone for now, but nobody knew where he was. Or if he was really done with them, yet.

"Someone's gotta go. And I don't know if our boy Kyle here knows the way down to the nearest town from here." David looked up to Emily's fireman for confirmation.

Kyle removed his glasses, one of the arms bent at a sharp angle, and shook his head. "I'll go with you."

"No! Stay here and take care of these two. Here, help me get them inside Emily!" David helped a shivering, wet driver to his feet, and then walked him away from the snow piles, and into Emily's roofless cab.

A wise engineer would know better than to hang around the engines after such a collision, and if they weren't at risk of exposure, they'd never have done what they did. But Emily was stone still. She wasn't hissing any steam or leaking any water. And because she was still upright, and because her floor was still level with the earth, she was the closest thing around them for shelter.

Though the back end of her cab was exposed, coals had filled her cabin like a mini avalanche, walling in some of the residual heat from the now-gone fire.

Her cab, even with its exposed back, became their best chance at refuge from the bitter cold outside for three of the four crewmen. And they dug out a door from the coal hill inside her cabin, and hunkered up close against her gauge wall.

If Emily had any idea what was happening, she'd be glad to be of some use to their crew in this dire hour. Despite all they didn't have in common, Thomas and her, this crew-first sentiment was universal.

With Kyle's help, David helped Matthew climb into and settle on the floor of the cab, shoulder to the gauge wall. Without a first aid kit or any sort of towels to soak up the blood, David reached for a clean handkerchief and wrapped it loosely around the cuts on Matthew's hand.

Without intending to have taken charge of the situation at all, the immature, self proclaimed loser of a fireman leaped out and ran back along the tracks to get to a phone. It was dark, and he had nothing in the way of a lantern. Combined with the area being away from their familiar branch lines, and Matthew usually being the one to call for help, David was not up for this task. But he trudged downward along the lonely snow-dusted tracks anyway, freezing, exhausted, and body aching with its own set of bruises. Much goes on in a man's mind as he walks away from the scene of a disaster that nearly cost him his life.

Such was the case with David Cohan, who'd made a promise to himself before he finally stumbled across the salvation of a railway phone box.

All the troubles of his empire lulled by a tall glass of bubbly, Topham had finally tried to get some sleep. But he had only laid his head down on the pillow for an hour before there was a clear, distinct knock on the outside of the bedroom door.

Next to him, his wife tossed onto her side. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Brandon..." Lady Hatt groaned. "What does he want?"

When her husband didn't respond, she rolled over onto her side, and gave him a gentle nudge. "Bertram."

"Princess, it's too early for this," he muttered sleepily. "Leave the bow on the pony and go back to sleep."
"No, Bertram! The door! It's Brandon! Go see what he wants!"

Sir Topham sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He warned the butler not to wake him unless it was urgent, but he was so groggy he was beyond annoyance. "I'm exhausted, dear," he muttered as his eyes began to close on him, still sitting up. "You go see what he wants."

"I will not! I'm in my nightgown!"

"Then put on a robe!"

"GO!" She yanked the covers over herself and off of him.

Finally, Topham sighed, kicked away his side of the covers, and reached for his robe.

By the time he opened the door, the effects of the wine had abated, and he was not at all happy about it. "What in God's name is it, man? It's after midnight!"

"Pardon my waking you, sir," came the pitiful explanation of their butler, wringing the strings of his night robe in his hands. He, too, was still in pajamas. "But you're wanted on the telephone… It is rather urgent."

"So urgent that it can't wait until tomorrow?"

"Er, the police will not wait until the morning, sir."

"The police? What on earth could have—?" He tossed a considerate glance over his shoulder, towards the bed. "Nevermind." Topham stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. "I'm coming."

Possibilities swirled in his mind when he picked up the black rotary telephone in his home office. "Erm, evening… this is Sir Topham." And he listened carefully for a few moments. "Officer White, what's this emergency?"

Brandon quickly prepared the fireplace, then went to leave the office. But Topham took him by the shoulder. "No, old man. You stay here," Topham told him. "I might need you."

This was new. Brandon blinked, boggled, and stood with his arms folded behind his back, listening with intense curiosity. He could only imagine what was being said on the other side of the call.

"Well… well, yes, I understand that!" Topham told the policeman. "But wh-what on earth could have happened this late on Christmas eve?"

"Er, Christmas morning, sir. Pardon me for the correction," whispered the Butler, pointing to the clock. 3:37 A.M. Christmas was here.

"Shush!" Topham put a finger to his lips, then went back to listening to the officer. His expression went from annoyed, to surprised, and then… abject horror. "Oh… OH, Lord!" He cried, slapping a hand to his chin. "No!"

"What?" Brandon asked. "Oh, don't leave me in suspense, sir! I can't take it at my age! My heart—"

"Quiet! " Topham ordered him fiercely, covering the receiver with his palm. "And stay there!"

Feeling his blood pressure rise, Brandon stayed exactly where he was. Sweat was collecting under his brow. Over two decades of service, Brandon couldn't remember seeing his master so worked up. He could only imagine what sort of bad news was being relayed to him, and imagination could be a brutal thing.

It might have just been the poor office lighting, or the reflection of the ornaments of the large Christmas tree in the corner, but it appeared that Topham was turning green. "But how is that even possible? Their job was done!..." He stayed quiet on the line for a long time, and then swallowed a bit of bile that was collecting in the back of his throat. "Well, let me ask you this," he said, finally, his tone resolute. "How many were killed?"

Brandon's eyes became as big as Topham had ever seen them. Despite this, he obeyed the order and remained silent.

"Thank God!" Topham turned his eyes up at the ceiling and briefly closed them. He opened them to check on Brandon—who only at that moment regained some color in his plaster-white cheeks—and then looked back down at his desk, studying the pattern in the wood as he listened. "No, that is most fortunate... Well, alright. How bad is the damage? Do you know?" A very long pause followed, and some of Topham's relief washed away. "But, they're still alive?... Good. Very good. Well, fine work getting the men who were injured to a hospital. For the engines? Hm… aagh… I'll give my supervisor at Arelsburgh a call, to get whoever they can and to push them into a shed. Something warm, if possible. We won't be able to do anything else with them until the day after tomorrow. Everything will be closed and—" he was cut off by the voice on the other side. "Yes?... Yes. I'm fully aware... Oh, bother. A formal investigation… Well, very well. That's a whole other situation to deal with. I'll start the arrangements on my end." He sighed. "I'll make the necessary calls and I'll visit the crew men in the morning… Yes. Merry Christmas to you, too. Officer."

And with a potent 'CLANK', Topham slammed the receiver back onto the base. "Merry Christmas indeed!" He sighed and plopped down in his wheeled desk chair. "Now I've got about a dozen phone calls to make, and a hundred more, tomorrow, assuming I can get through to anybody. And that's just the beginning!"

"Any way I might ease your burden, sir?" Brandon had more questions of course, but he believed his place was to start here.

"Not unless you're a fortune teller, and you can assure me this is all going to end well, because I highly doubt it."

"Darling?"

A pair of footsteps entering the room brought his eyes up from the desk. Both master and butler realized that they had been joined by Topham's wife. "Jane, what are you doing?"

She was clutching her plush bath robe closed, iron curlers still wound tightly across her scalp. "Whatever could the police want?"

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, dear. Go back to sleep."

"If it concerns you, it concerns the both of us." She planted her slippers firmly in place and folded her arms across her chest. "I don't wear this ring just for show."

Topham looked at his wife, then at Brandon, and then sighed. "Well, I suppose it could've been a lot worse."

"What could've been a lot worse?"

"There's been an accident. A rather nasty one, too. No casualties, but two of the four crewmen are being rushed to hospital."

"Who on earth could've been out this late—?" And then, Jane remembered. And she clamped her hands over her mouth. "Oh no…"

The very same two engines who had driven Topham and his wife to Brendam Bay were still out there. And they were the only engines who were supposed to be out.

Topham could see that she realized, and nodded his head sadly.

"Emily… Thomas… What happened?"

"Front-on collision," he said, tossing up his palms. He never felt so helpless. The police might as well take him away to be inspected, for as rotten as he felt. "Both derailed. Never in all my years—never in all of my father's years—has something like this happened! Not like this. I mean, I knew somehow, that the railroad's becoming more active could cause something like this to happen. It's just a hard pill to swallow."

Lady Hatt was having a hard time processing it. Whether it was because of lack of sleep, or her usual estrangement from her husband's work, the railway's management and the engines themselves, the fact that she'd just spoken with Emily one on one less than a few hours ago made this news particularly disturbing.

Brandon was in a similar boat. He was unfamiliar with the engines themselves, but he respected them as conscious creatures, due to Topham's kindness with them. "Are they quite salvageable?" he dared to ask. "The… er, engines, sir?"

Salvageable. A word he never wanted to use in relation to one of his loyal engines. "From what they told me, Emily's footplate got mangled, more side damage than anything," Topham told him. "but it sounds as if the tank engine took the worst of the damage. He's hanging on, they said. But barely."

"He is the little one," Lady Hatt said out loud quietly, her hands slipping to her chin. "Oh, those poor dears."

"Dreadful," Brandon declared. "Utterly unthinkable. My condolences, sir. Might I make you some coffee?"

"Good man. Thank you." And Sir Topham nodded at him as a dismissal. He knew Brandon was itching to get back to sleep, and Topham would send him back to bed as soon as the refreshments arrived.

Topham walked from the phone into the neighboring study. On the walk hung a portrait of his late father, one of the original founders of the railway, and an early Sudrian settler. Like Topham, he was bald, pale and round, with sharp blue eyes that could catch a lie and a scam a kilometer away. "This would've never happened in his day,"

"Likely not." Lady Hatt came from behind and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "You're just as hands on as he was. Always on the scene of every accident, dishing out engine jobs yourself. This empire wouldn't be without you. Topham, I know you're taking this deeply, because you know these engines like you know the men under your employ. Three times as many engines, and you still got to know each of them personally, and care about them in such a way in turn." She pressed a hand to his cheek. "And that is why you are taking it so hard. Because you see them like people."

Sir Topham's eyes flicked upwards from the well-polished floor. "Thank you," he whispered. "You always had a gift for words, my darling dear."

"But what I don't understand is… " his wife began. "You… said no one should have been out at that hour! Not on the holiday! What could they have possibly crashed with?"

"Apparently," he said slowly and deliberately, as if trying to make himself believe what he was saying, "each other."

Brandon returned with the coffee in record time. He set down the tray on the far wall table just as Topham said the last words. "Might you serve yourself, sir? I think I need—aaaa…"

And with a hand to the back of his head, he spun in a semi-circle, and fell with a ballerina-like grace, to the floor. Legs upright in the air, before they clapped flat onto the floor, too.

Topham shook his head, as if it were a daily occurrence. "That was my fault, for not making him eat a little something first."

"And he was so close to the fainting chair, too." With motherly care, Lady Hatt lifted their butler's head, and put a soft throw pillow from said-chair under his neck. "At least he's used to falling."

"Ring my mother's nurse down from the guest house. Tell him Brandon's fainted."

Sir Topham was about to plop down in his desk chair, but at the last moment, Lady Hatt reached out and snagged the desk chair, wheeling it toward her. "Ah-Ah! I'll call Lisa, but you serve the coffee." She sat down in the chair daintily, but put her elbows on the table in a domineering manner. "Get two cups. If you're to be up all morning, so will I."

Topham stood back, putting his hands on his hips, looking his wife over with a refreshed set of eyes. "Three lumps, no cream, then?"

Dragged from a warm, closed shed, tired, cold, and confused, Oliver rolled onto the scene. "What in the hell… ?"

He asked no one in particular, and he wasn't sure there was anybody to ask. This far up the island, help was a long way away.

Coincidence, the nearest engine to the crash sight, and who was the first to arrive on the scene to help was the Great Western. The tank engine slammed on his breaks when he was still thirty feet away. Horrified, he and his crew swept their gazes over the wreck. He'd seen his share of accidents, but this was different. This looked deadly.

He rolled up on the left side track, right of the unconscious Emily, and left of the grass, where Thomas lay, broken, dazed and swallowing moans of anguish. One by one, the three men, all wet and partially shivering, climbed down from Emily's cab. He might have noticed the absence of one of the necessary firemen, but he didn't get the chance, as at last, his eyes found the little brake van, turned over but still alive. "Mr. Oliver!"

"Toad?!" Oliver looked over at the snowbank, and he couldn't believe his eyes. "Is that really you down there? Are you alright?"

"I'm f-fine sir! V-very good, s-sir, in fact! I m-m-mmissed you very very much, s-sir!"

Oliver puffed up closer to his best friend. He was so filled with emotion that even his normally gruff disposition couldn't hide it. "I can't believe it. I really began wondering if I'ds lost you forever, little buddy."

"I'd always wait for you, sir." Toad declared, loyally. "I'm fit for no-no other engine. You know that."

And after their moment of joyous reunion passed, Oliver backed up and took a better look at the crash victims. His driver stepped out to speak with the stranded crewmembers. The little great western had too many questions. "How's you get all the way up here, lil' guy? What were you doing?" He glanced back at the two very sorry-looking engines from Tidmouth. "What are they doing out here?!"

"I just talked with the workmen." Oliver's fireman ran back to join him and his driver. "Thomas fireman ran down the hillside and phoned the police. It's like one big game of telephone gone wrong, but what I heard was the engines found Toad out here all alone, and claimed they were in pursuit by his captor."

"They were supposed to be back home after leaving the bay!" A workman, one of the first responders, arrived. "Somebody's in a lot of trouble. It's just a matter of who."

"Are they… ?" Oliver asked Toad. "The engines, I mean. Are they—?"

"Thomas is pretty bad off," the driver relayed from the workmen, to Oliver. "But at least he's conscious. Somehow. Emily? Well…" he turned his head to the tender engine, her eyes still closed. "... We'll have to wait and see."

Oliver felt nauseous. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to lose a fellow engine right out, over an accident. He could only imagine the events that might've led up to this, but the facts would have to wait. The time to help was now.

When his driver returned, Oliver traveled down the track until he reached the siding, his crew switching the points, so that he could get onto Emily's track, and then, coupled up to her, pulled her away from the broken wall. Trying to ease her tender back in line and onto the tracks. "Come on, girl! You're not about to let this stupid little fender-bender be the end of you, are ya?"

Emily said nothing, and her brown eyelids didn't so much as flinch, let alone open. Oliver didn't know if she'd heard him, but he'd heard talking to the unconscious helped. He remembered how she'd saved him on her very first day on the island. And now here he was, scooping her up after her own collision. The irony was nauseating. Failing to have been there to return the favor? Twofold.
Instead, Oliver heard the whistle and soon after, the unmistakable thunder of a bigger engine quickly approaching from the bottom of the hill.

Gordon had arrived, with unintentional hoopla. His smoke appeared thick and gray-black with too much coal, thanks to an inexperienced fireman, and his face was set with resentment for being there. Henry can be such a drama queen. I can't believe I'm missing out on my one day of uninterrupted rest all because of another little crash—

But the instant his eyes crossed over the hill, he saw the little tank engine sprawled out in pieces on the snow. By the sound of his voice, you'd think his heart had ripped in half. "THOMAS!"

"Gordon." Thomas could only barely utter his name loud enough to be heard at the top of the hill, but he sounded touched. "You came."

Harvey was next on the scene. Being the resident crane engine meant he'd seen everything in the way of accidents on Sodor. Or so one might assume.

His driver took one look across the coal-dotted snow at Thomas and let out a sigh. "Gonna need six chains," he said into his radio. "And a flatbed."

"What-what's happened?" asked Harvey. He pulled up next to Gordon on the second track downhill.

The wrecked engine managed a pained smile. "I'm in disgrace," he winced. "What else is new?"

"I can't thanks you guys enough for finding Toad."

When he'd done all he could, and it was time for him to leave, Oliver pulled alongside the track, opposite Thomas flatbed. "You're real brave, you and Emily."

"I woulda been donefore if not for her and Mr. Thomas!" Toad was smiling bright and wide, upright and coupled to Oliver's back, he felt safe at last. "I cannot express myself in such a way to thank you properly for saving my life. And now. look at you two, wearing the scars of heroes!"

"Hardly think... s-stumbling on him... that that counts as a rescue or... something." Thomas rasped. It really was a trap. Just like Toad tried to warn us. But what'll happen now? The Diesel fled! "Glad something good came of this..."

Considering the state of things, however, that wasn't saying much. That intrusive fear, that 'what-if' he made himself swallow like a bug flying down the line, telling himself would never happen, had just been fully realized. He'd came apart at the scar, the welding job on his front buffer plate from saving Gordon this spring having come apart like model glue, his replacement tie rods for his two frontmost wheels smashed to a thousand pieces. On his flatbed, Thomas was righted up, but his smokebox was pointed downward, towards the bed he was chained to. If only there were steal beam or something to rest on. At least then he'd have the dignity of looking straight ahead, rather than towards the ground.

Only when he strained his eyes upward could he see the faces of his rescuers. "The men! Where are... ?"

"Hospital, but they'll be fine," Harvey called to him. He was coupled to Emily's tender, coupled to Thomas flatbed. "I know how you feel. I'd be worried about my crew, too. But you've got to worry about you right now."

"Trying not to."

Once and Emily were finally towed away from the accident site, inching carefully down the hill, towards something akin to shelter.

But Thomas didn't even care if he had been laid out in agony all night, cold, rusting and ready for scrap. The fact was, he'd come to, and she did not, and Thomas wasn't sure what that meant. He wondered if he'd even imagined her waking up in the middle of the chase. He wished she hadn't. If he could take away the horror of him having crashed into her, he would.

"Emily," he tried again. Her face was just above him. He gasped after every other period, trying to speak rather than groan. "Hear me. Wake up... Tell me you'll pull through. Please."

Maybe Matthew was right. Maybe talking to her didn't do anything. He was certain of one thing: if she never opened her eyes, he'd never forgive himself.

Thomas sighed, his pain making it hard to think.

"What's something Emily would always reply to?" asked Harvey, pulling both the engines. If anybody knew about engine accidents and what was myth and not, it would be him. "Something she'd always have a response for. You know, like an in-joke between you two? A quote you might bounce back and forth?"

Thomas squeezed shut his eyes. It's not like they had a clubhouse password, or an inside joke, or a common quote, like he and Percy and Toby had. Emily didn't usually have patience for those things. And Thomas didn't exactly have the patience for puzzles right now. The pain felt more real the wider awake he became. He was doing all he could to keep from whimpering.

Realizing this made him only feel worse. He'd known her for years, but there's nothing he could really think of that would automatically demand a response.

Not unless it was a retort. And there was nothing this engine loved more than a hearty round of 'I told you so's. "Well... You did it. You told me so... I didn't listen. Silly engine, right?... A big, minging disgrace. I'm the court jester... fool... one man band... now I don't even have enough wheels... wheels left to stand on. Heh. What do you think of that?"

Emily was quiet and still.

"But... you know," Thomas went on, carefully dripping pretense into his words through gritted teeth. "This would've happened if you'd've just told me you forgot the Smelters—"

"Nuuughhh."

"Emily." Thomas couldn't remember a time he uttered a name like that. Relief swelled inside him as he watched her features sharpen, her face coming back into full form. She was alive.

But far from alright. Her shaded eyelids were puffy, her gaze unfocused as blinked away grogginess. For the second time in less than two hours, she'd come, too. "What-what—agh!" Only this time, when she tried to take control of her wheels, she bit her lip in pain.

"Oh. No-no. Don't move," Thomas told her softly. Emily had never been in a wreck before, at least not this bad. "Let Harvey—he's doing the work."

When she finally opened her eyes again, she looked at his condition from funnel to wheels. As if she couldn't believe he was talking to her so calmly. "If you... even for a second think of askin' me if I'm alright, wheelbarrow boy... " she croaked. "... I'll knock you off yer flatbed."