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1.
“So you called him after all.”
“I had to, old boy. We couldn’t keep this quiet from him for long.”
Gordon sighs. “I suppose not,” he says, watching as the Fat Controller walks to the edge of Tidmouth’s platform. His driver pats the side of his cab in silent reassurance.
“Good evening, Gordon. What is it that I need to see?”
It’s a few minutes after sunset on a cold, wintery evening. It’s not the only reason Gordon feels a chill in his boiler. Bracing against his rails, he pulls himself up to his full height. Remember your dignity, he tells himself. “Sir, I would like to introduce you to Tabitha.”
His driver steps onto the platform. Bundled in his arms is a ginger-and-white cat, squirming and lashing her striped tail.
The Fat Controller blinks. “Tabitha?”
“She stowed away in my tender on the Mainland, sir. My crew gave her that name.”
As he speaks, Tabitha stops squirming. Then she scrabbles up the driver’s chest, meowing over his shoulder at Gordon. Her tail flicks straight up in the air like an exclamation point.
Gordon feels his face grow warm. He coughs, shifting his weight. “She seems to be fond of me, sir.”
“Sat on his buffer beam and everything,” his fireman calls from his cab.
His driver strokes Tabitha between the ears. “She doesn’t have a collar. We sent inquiries back to the yard on the Mainland, but no-one’s claimed her, sir.”
The Fat Controller studies her with a furrowed brow. He offers a single finger to Tabitha, who sniffs before rubbing her cheek against it. “Well, she’s certainly not feral,” he says, his gaze softening. “Though she does look a little thin.”
“Does she, sir?”
“My wife sometimes takes in strays, and I think she would agree with me. There’s not quite enough muscle on Tabitha.”
Gordon stiffens. “Do you mean she was abandoned, sir?” he asks, his valves clenching.
“I’m afraid so.”
He thinks of Tabitha skulking through overgrown sidings, curling up to sleep in doorless, rusty smokeboxes. He thinks of her huddled up beneath a discarded tarp. He thinks of his own time spent under a tarp, in the back of Doncaster Works.
Gordon hisses out simmering, stinging curls of white-hot steam. “That is beyond disgraceful.”
“Indeed,” the Fat Controller says after a pause, his voice gentling. “I doubt she even has a home on the Mainland, gentlemen.”
The fireman leans out of the cab. “Could we be her home?”
“We were thinking,” the driver says, cutting a look at the fireman, “that she could stay in Tidmouth Sheds. There’s a mouse problem there, after all.“
“She could be quite useful, sir. We could give her a trial period to be certain of that,” Gordon says, regaining his composure. “I believe she deserves a fair chance, sir.”
He means every word of it. With Tabitha’s sharp green eyes locked on him, reflective like glass marbles, he has to mean it. He hopes she sees the warm steel that he saw in Scotsman’s face, through the holes in his tarp. And she is a dear little creature, he thinks. Perhaps she’d be something pleasant for us to fuss about for once.
“But of course,” the Fat Controller says, smiling. “Everyone deserves a fair chance.”
The chill in Gordon’s boiler melts, flooding him with fresh, cool water. “Thank you, sir.”
“We shall see how Tabitha thanks us. I only hope she doesn’t leave proof of her mousing abilities outside my office.”
“I wouldn’t think so, sir. She is a dignified animal with a love of peace and quiet — far too proper to do such a thing, really.”
Tabitha mews at him, straining in his driver’s arms. His driver crouches and sets her on the ground. “So like you, eh?” he asks, his voice dry.
“Quite.”
A soft snigger emanates from Gordon’s cab.
But Gordon has no time to react before Tabitha leaps onto his bufferbeam. She pads up to his face, butting her head against his chin. And like that, any other thought in his mind evaporates. All he can think is that she’s saying thank you. “You are very welcome, my dear Tabitha,” he chuckles.
Then she does something Gordon didn’t know she could do: she rumbles. He feels it when she flops onto her side, vibrations thrumming from her body through his metal.
He blinks. “How odd. It’s as if she has a diesel engine turning over inside her.”
The Fat Controller laughs, lacing his fingers over his stomach. “The Thin Clergyman said Diesel ‘purred’ for a reason, Gordon.”
“This is purring, sir?”
“Yes, it is.”
Gordon looks at him, then back down at Tabitha, who kneads her paws in the air. “That,” he says, stone-faced, “is a grave insult to my Tabitha.”
This time, the snigger from Gordon’s cab is loud and full.
His driver grins. “You know, old boy, ‘purring’ was used to describe this sound first.”
“That’s even worse! Daylight robbery, I say. I should lodge a complaint.”
2.
Rheneas sizzles at Crovan’s Gate, glancing up at Gordon. “Is she with you?”
Gordon chuckles. “She insisted on riding in one of my coaches. You will see her…” He pauses, counting down in his mind. His driver timed her appearances on the station platforms, determining it took her ten seconds to emerge. So very punctual, he thinks with no small amount of warmth. “Now.”
Sure enough, Tabitha slips out the door of a coach. She walks the length of the platform before clambering onto a bench. Her ears swivel back and forth, her glossy coat glistening in the sun.
Rheneas peers around the passengers boarding his train. He studies her, the stern line of his mouth unbending. “She’s well-looked after.”
Gordon blinks. For a moment, he doesn’t know how Rheneas could tell. Then he remembers something: In the background of an illustration in one of the Thin Clergyman’s books, there was a slender black cat. “You speak from personal experience.”
“Hm?” Rheneas jolts, looking back at Gordon. There’s a far-off haziness to his gaze. “Oh, yes.”
“Was it that black cat in the illustrations?”
“Skarloey and I asked the illustrators to include him at least once.”
Rheneas’ voice has a dull ache. Gordon winces, knowing what that must mean. But he also sees a slight smile, a hint of nostalgia, dancing on Rheneas’ lips. He knows those conflicting tracks very well. He remembers an invisible, heavy hand trying to switch him into an endless funeral train.
Steeling himself, Gordon offers a hand of his own: “He must’ve made quite the impression on you both.” He nudges the points open.
And Rheneas turns onto the new track. “Sooty impressed himself on everyone and everything,” he says, wistful. “He got his fur all over our buffers.”
“An attention-seeker, eh?”
“When he wasn’t yowling, he was underfoot and between our wheels. But he caught enough mice that nobody could justify tossing him out. Nobody wanted to toss him out, for that matter. He was a charming little scamp.”
“Well, not all cats can be as well-mannered as my Tabitha. I suppose every railway needs a decent scamp anyway. Though I daren’t tell Thomas that.”
Rheneas lets out a booming laugh.
Gordon grins, relieved and proud of himself. It’s not often that he laughs, he thinks. Perhaps I should set a better example for the preeminent engines of Sodor’s railways.
Before he can chase that thought any further, Rheneas settles back down on his rails. His face sobers. “You had better take good care of her. She might be here for a short while in our long lives, but you and your friends are her entire world.”
“Of course.” In his peripheral vision, Gordon glimpses Tabitha springing onto the back of the bench. “She chose me when she climbed into my tender. It’s only right that I continue to choose her in return.”
Tabitha walks along the thin wooden edge of the bench’s back. As if on a tightrope, she takes swift, dainty steps towards Rheneas. When she meows at him, he looks over at her. His sober face cracks with crow’s feet around his eyes. “Hello to you too, Miss Tabitha.” There’s a yearning in the way he leans towards her, softening his voice with an upwards inflection.
For a moment, Gordon feels a flash of slick, oily jealousy. Then he smothers it with dropped sand. Sighing smoke through his nose, he smiles. “I should be delighted to bring her to see you again.”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose—”
“Nonsense! She’s stretching her legs, growing more accustomed to her new home. It’s good for her to see more of Sodor.” It’s good for you to see her.
“…I’ll leave the decision up to her. If Sooty taught me anything, cats will do as they please.”
But Tabitha meows at him again, bright and cheerful. Rheneas breaks into a full smile at the sound, hope dimpling his cheeks. And Gordon thinks they’re both plenty pleased.
3.
Gordon hopes that someone else will take the fourth berth at Tidmouth that night. But when he hears the smooth chuffing of a large, powerful engine, he sighs. “Duck couldn’t make it this evening?”
Further down, Henry winces. “He had to go to the Works for a flat tire.”
James grunts beside Gordon. “I’d listen to his Great Western prattle any day over—”
A piercing whistle interrupts him. Spencer puffs into view, his long, streamlined shape lumbering onto the turntable. A smirk curves his lips. “Well, well. I suppose we’re to sleep under the same roof, but don’t fret. I’ll manage, as I always do.”
“You know,” Henry says, “there’s an entire roundhouse just over there. I’m sure you could ‘manage’ to move the several meters in that direction instead.”
“But I’m already right here, you see. And there’s an open berth. It would be wasteful of me to take up so much space in that grungy little roundhouse of yours.”
“Don’t fool yourself,” James says, scowling. “You’re a waste of space wherever you go.”
“Why, James, I’m surprised. I knew you were vain, but you needn’t talk about yourself so much.”
Gordon will admit that he and James have their differences. But he still remembers how James came to the island with wooden brake blocks. He remembers the eager, needful way James boasted of his usefulness. So he snaps, “That’s quite enough.”
“Surely you have better things to do?” Henry asks, low and simmering.
“Yes,” says James, his voice a little too loud. “Like falling down a mine.”
Spencer has the gall to grin. “Oh, but we’re having a jolly good time.”
Gordon knows he won’t back down. Spencer never backs down when there’s an open berth, when he can amuse himself by needling the railway that embarrassed him. The only way they can get him to leave is to have an occupied berth. He’s on the blasted turntable, Gordon thinks, his mind whirring. No engine could get to the berth anyway. What does that leave us—
His gaze slides to the round cushion lying on the floor in the empty berth.
Ah. A relieved laugh brews in his boiler. How silly of me to forget. “I’m afraid you can’t join us tonight, dear ‘cousin.’”
“Why not?” Spencer asks, his grin slipping.
The jingle of a tinny bell swaying on a collar approaches them.
Henry and James start at the sound, realization dawning on their faces. Henry bites his lip to keep from smiling. James twitches with a stifled snort. And Tabitha makes her grand entrance around the corner of the sheds, trotting inside.
Gordon beams at her. “Ah, there you are. We wouldn’t want you to stay out in the cold.”
Tabitha nuzzles the bottom edge of Gordon’s buffer beam, purring.
Spencer blinks down at her. “A cat,” he says.
“‘This cat’ is my Tabitha, and she has her routines. She sleeps in that berth whenever an engine isn’t occupying it.”
As if to prove his point, Tabitha rubs against Gordon one last time before darting into the empty berth. She circles around her cushion, then climbs on top of it and curls up.
James doesn’t stifle his snort any longer. “I guess you’re too slow, Spencer.”
“Much slower than sweet Tabitha,” Henry says, grinning. “She’s a very fast and efficient mouser. You could say she’s excellent at keeping the sheds free of vermin.”
Spencer lurches backwards on the turntable. It groans at his sudden movement, shuddering as he heaves a furious hiss of steam. “You—”
Tabitha cracks an eye open to hiss back at him, her ears pinned back.
“I quite agree,” Gordon says, smirking. “He should be off and leave us in peace.”
Spencer glares at Tabitha. He looms over her, his steam billowing around her. She doesn’t even blink at him, doesn’t flinch at the clouds of steam. Fur bristles on her back. A growl rumbles in her throat, her muscles coiling to pounce. Her tiny body trembles with the stance of a lion.
Not looking away, Spencer reverses off the turntable. He keeps reversing back down the line.
He’s too shamefaced to even get turned ‘round, Gordon realizes. And the laugh bubbling up in his boiler bursts out of him. Henry and James join in soon after.
“Splendid work,” James tells Tabitha between gasps of laughter. “Just splendid.”
Gordon shoots a knowing smile at Henry. “ Splendid.” With that complement, I dare say she’s one of the family now.
4.
The sun is getting low in the sky when Gordon notices something amiss. It’s the laughter of the trucks that get his attention, making him pause in the yard. Frowning, he looks in the direction of the sound. There he sees a rectangular green engine deep in a siding, surrounded by trucks.
“BoCo?” he says, startled.
“Yes, it’s me.”
Gordon can’t see BoCo’s face, but his voice sounds raw. There’s a weariness in the way he slumps on his rails, shrinking in the sea of dusty gray trucks. His driver is nowhere in sight.
Questions flood Gordon’s mind. But as the trucks snicker amongst themselves, stealing sly glances at BoCo, he decides they can wait. “Well, this won’t do at all. Give me a moment.”
He sets about pulling the trucks out of the way. They’re empty, but they complain about him spoiling their fun, slipping on their brakes. The screech of metal on metal rings in Gordon’s smokebox. By the time he couples up to BoCo, a thick layer of coal dust smothers his running board.
“Thank you,” BoCo says as they puff out of the siding. “You went to so much trouble for me.”
“My dear BoCo, it was no trouble at all.” Gordon hesitates, catching his breath. “When will your driver return?”
He feels BoCo tense up against his buffers. “He won’t be coming back,” he says after a pause. “He shut off my engine and left for the night.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“I think he was cross with me.” BoCo huffs a mirthless chuckle. “He’s a new driver who thinks he’s got the hang of things already. He doesn’t, but he won’t listen to me. I’m ‘offending’ him.”
“How did he ever come to work on this railway with such horrid behavior?”
Behind them, the trucks begin their chorus of wheezy cackling again. “Careful now, you galloping sausage,” calls one. “Throwing stones in glass houses and all that.”
“Would you prefer I throw you off the line instead?” Gordon thunders back, his face reddening.
The trucks stop laughing.
BoCo thrums with a more genuine chuckle. Gordon’s glad to hear it, even if he’s a little embarrassed. He clears his tubes. “Of course, I’ve learned and grown a great deal since we first met.”
“You have,” BoCo allows him, warm and fond. “I’d like to think a certain diesel helped you with that.”
“I—” Gordon sighs, his boiler grumbling. “You wouldn’t be incorrect to think so.”
“Mhm.”
“But if I might help a certain diesel in return, I’d suggest he not listen to any of his new driver’s drivel.”
“Oh, I know it’s all nonsense. I just…” BoCo trails off. “It’s all very tiring, at the end of the day. And I’d rather he not learn his lesson the hard way. It could mean very hard things for me too, you know.”
“I see,” Gordon says. His brow furrows in thought. What could I do? “I could speak to the Fat Controller on the matter, if you wish.”
“Thank you, but the Fat Controller knows already. He asked me to give my driver another chance. To be fair, it’s early days yet to see him as a lost cause.”
Gordon considers pushing the issue a little further. He considers promising to make the Fat Controller see sense, to suggest they go on strike. No matter what they tell me, that blasted strike worked, he thinks. We got the new station pilot we wanted, after all.
But he senses BoCo’s made up his mind already. Gordon himself despises when someone tries to change his mind about something. Perhaps he isn’t searching for a solution, per se, but some sort of reassurance.
“I don’t know where you plan to spend the night,” he says, “but may I suggest you at least visit Tidmouth?”
“I don’t see why not,” BoCo says after a pause, puzzled. “What’s at Tidmouth?”
“Please don’t press me any further as to the reason, dear BoCo.” Gordon smiles as he begins to pull BoCo backwards. “I would like to give you a pleasant surprise for a change.”
“…alright. I trust you, Gordon.”
“I should hope so,” he laughs. “I’ve never steered you wrong before, and I don’t intend to do so now.”
They’re quiet for the rest of the journey down the line. It’s all Gordon can do to keep from something as undignified as rushing, his boiler bubbling with anticipation. Really, I should have done this long ago. But I suppose this is hardly the worst time for them to meet.
He and BoCo rumble through the station, trailing smoke all the way to the sheds. Slowing to a stop, he blares his whistle in several quick, short blasts. BoCo jumps at the sound.
“My apologies,” Gordon hastens to say. “I only wished to call someone over to us — someone whose company you might enjoy.”
A short pause follows, broken by the sound of tiny feet pattering over the ballast.
“Who are you—” BoCo stops, going very still. “Oh, my.”
Tabitha is there, approaching his front end. Peering around BoCo, Gordon watches as Tabitha creeps over with her belly close to the ground, her tail low. Her muscles, rippling beneath her soft pelt, radiates a tense curiosity.
“BoCo, this is Tabitha. Tabitha, this is my friend, BoCo,” Gordon calls up to them, gentle and calm.
“Hello there,” BoCo says, lowering his voice to match Gordon’s. “Edward told me a little about a cat at Tidmouth. Though this is the first time I’ve heard your name.”
Tabitha meows.
“Yes, it’s a lovely name.”
She looks at him with wide green eyes, her dilated pupils shrinking back to their normal slits. Bit by bit, she eases off her haunches, straightening to her full height. Her tail curls into the air.
“That’s better,” BoCo murmurs to her, his voice curving in an audible smile. “See, I won’t hurt you. I’m glad to meet you.”
She steps closer to him. Her pink nostrils flare as she sniffs his front wheels, sneezing at the sharp scent of diesel exhaust. But after a shake of her head, she brushes up against BoCo again. Her whiskers slide across his front.
BoCo rattles Gordon’s buffers with a startled laugh. “What a strange feeling.”
Gordon raises an eyebrow. “I hope it isn’t unpleasant?”
“Far from it. It’s rather nice, actually.”
And Gordon knows that’s the truth. He feels it in how the coupling between them loses its slack, pulling taut as BoCo relaxes his full weight against the rails. His frames sigh.
Gordon smiles. “I would say it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world.” He thinks of the first time Tabitha slept on his running board, soothing him when he wafted thick, distressed smoke. And she is the finest medicine for any ill feeling.
“Thank you,” BoCo says after a beat, the rawness gone from his voice. There’s the softness in it that one finds in hot, fresh iron, still settling into place. It’s vulnerable in a way he isn’t very often.
“No thanks are necessary, my dear BoCo. Tabitha is happy for the company.”
As if in agreement, Tabitha flops onto her back, looking up at BoCo with a contented trill.
+1
Even in retirement from the express, Gordon has a habit of waking at six thirty. Ninety years of any habit is difficult to shake. Edward told him so the first time he snorted awake in a panic, thinking he would be late. “I was an express engine for a much shorter time than you. And I still backed down on the wrong train sometimes,” he recalled, chuckling.
So when Gordon stirs one morning, bleary-eyed, he tries to be patient. He peeks at a clock in the sheds. Then he lets his eyes drift shut again.
“Shh,” whispers Henry to his left.
“Emma, quit giggling back there. You’ll spoil everything,” Pip says in a hiss.
“I — I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
The exchange is a little odd, but Gordon’s mind is still sleep-sluggish. They want me to go back to sleep easily, he thinks, warm and drowsy. How nice.
“I know, it’s just—” Emma wheezes. “I can hear her from here.”
Gordon almost dozes off before he hears a soft rumbling. It’s too quiet to be anyone’s engine, too much of a pinprick of sound. Ah. His lips twitch, wanting to pull into a tiny smile. Something has Tabitha very happy.
Her purring has a creaky quality it didn’t have a few years ago. These days, Tabitha doesn’t chase mice or leap onto high benches. Her coat is thinning, her sclera turning cloudy. But she goes on slow walks through stations, riding along and dozing in Gordon’s coaches. She wants to keep going.
Bear went into that berth, Gordon thinks, beginning to drift again. He must be so pleased.
There’s a low, suppressed murmur from the berth in question. Gordon can’t make out the voice, aside from it being a warm baritone. But Henry seems to hear it fine: “Yes, that’s her name. I think it suits her.”
The voice speaks again, lilting upwards in a faint question.
“Gordon’s fireman.” Henry’s wheels squeak as he shifts his weight, stifling a snort. “Though Gordon insists he was a co-author.”
Tabitha pauses in her purring. All of a sudden, she lets out a chirpy, trilling meow.
Emma gasps. Pip makes a sound as if sighing through her nose, exasperated but fond. “Alright, alright. She’s very cute.”
“What is it?” asks the voice, picking up in volume. “Did you see a bird, Lady Tabitha? I’m afraid I don’t see it. But if I see it again, you’ll be the first to know. Consider it a repayment for your very, very close company.”
Gordon’s brow furrows. Gears turn in his mind, loosening the lingering blanket of sleep. Bear doesn’t talk like that. And yet it’s so familiar.
“She doesn’t usually crawl on people like this,” Henry says. “Nobody but Gordon, that is.”
“Really? I wonder if it’s the family resemblance.”
Family?
Gordon snaps his eyes open. Henry jerks beside him, startled. Pip and Emma yelp. And there, in the fourth berth, is the sheepish smile of Flying Scotsman. “Ah, hello,” he says through a rueful laugh.
Tabitha rolls over on Scotsman’s buffer beam, looking at Gordon upside-down.
Gordon stares at them all. He almost can’t believe it. “I — when—?”
“I’m in town with a rail-tour. Your railway and I decided to surprise you.” Scotsman keeps smiling, but his eyebrows knit together. “It’s been far too long.”
It was 1967 when they last saw each other. Gordon still has all their letters in the back of his berth, tied together with red twine. There’s the new paint, the fresh parts, from the latest overhaul Scotsman described. There’s new lines on his face. There’s memories in which Gordon can never share.
“You’re here,” Gordon says. His mind is coming up to full steam. He clears his tubes, blinking hard. “You’re here and in good health. That’s all that matters.”
Scotsman’s eyebrows unknit. It opens up his whole face, full and beaming. “Well said.”
Gordon beams back. “Really,” he says, straightening, “it’s about time you met my Tabitha. I thought I would introduce you one of these days, but…”
“She beat you to the punch,” Pip finishes, grinning.
Henry nudges him with a smirk. “I hope you aren’t jealous.”
“Of course not! This is only the welcome my brother deserves.”
“I feel very welcomed,” Scotsman laughs, looking down at Tabitha. “She was on me before I could even blink. You’ve taught her excellent manners, Gordon.”
“Oh, no. She learnt most things all on her own, dear brother. She’s as clever as she is sweet.”
And determined, Gordon thinks, watching as Tabitha licks her paw. She’s still here, scruffy and alive, on a brother he almost lost. For one reason or another, it’s a sight he never thought he would see. For now, he has all the time in the world.
He’ll take all the time the world has to offer.