Chapter Text
When Douglas finally came around, it was in the pale light of dawn. He moaned as he pried open his eyes, barely able to focus on his surroundings. He ached all over, as if he'd come off the rails badly and his trucks landed on him as he went.
Was that what had happened?
Damn trucks. Fecking -
There was a bang and a scream from somewhere to his left that jarred him back into clarity. It was only then that he became aware of the rusted out husks around him and the growl of a diesel engine somewhere nearby.
He was in a scrapyard.
“You're awake, then. I had thought they'd killed you for a while there.”
The voice, scratchy and hoarse from disuse, came from his right.
“W-what?” He asked, eyes searching in the dim morning haze for the source.
“I thought I was the only one. It seems I was wrong. They do not care as much as they make themselves appear to, do they?” It spoke again, bitter, the voice almost recognizable.
Douglas spotted it, then. A big, hulking thing. Six big driving wheels, four front trailing wheels, two rear. Short funnel, pointed nose. Full cab. In the shadows of the scrapyard, he thought it looked green, and that the number, a single digit painted on its tender, was a three.
“Henry? W-what happened?”
The bigger engine caught his gaze. The face was the same, but something was off with the rest, he thought. Henry shouldn't be here. He was the island’s main goods engine, the backup express engine.
“You know my name. The others - do they still talk about me? Remember me?”
Douglas was starting to get freaked out by this. “What are ye on aboot, laddie? I dinnae understand what ye mean.”
The other engine looked him over. “You are from the Isle of Sodor, no?”
“O’ course I am, ye ken that! ‘Tis where we first met!” He snapped back.
‘Henry’ looked at him quizzically. “They must have bumped you around harder than I thought.” He muttered, half to himself. “No, I've never seen you before today.” He added, louder.
Douglas didn't know what to say. Had he been bumped around? It felt like it. He glanced around, trying to get his bearings. The sky was brightening, the sun beginning to rise, allowing him to make out more details of his surroundings.
The first thing he noticed was Henry. His shape was all wrong, he had too many wheels, too small a firebox. His once bright green livery was nearly non-existent, ruined by patches of rust and layers of grime. His cab windows were smashed out, his hand-rails bent.
He looked as if he'd been there for years.
“Ye're no’ Henry.”
“No, I am.” Said the engine, Henry but not.
Douglas frowned. “No, that's no’ possible. I just saw Henry yesterday, pulling a goods train. There was nothing wrong wi’ him.”
It was the big engine's turn to look confused. He stayed quiet for a moment, thinking. “They must have replaced me with another engine called Henry, then.”
Douglas jerked back in surprise. “No, no. I just met ye, on Sodor. Same face, same voice, livery. . .”
The derelict engine beside him didn't reply right away. “What do you know about me, ten?”
Douglas swallowed. “The others said ye couldnae steam properly, that ye go’ intae a bad wreck and were taken away for a rebuild. They turned ye intae a black five from. . .” He looked over the other engine, realization dawning. “A botched A1 pacific. Ye werenae rebuilt were ye?”
Henry closed his eyes against some years old agony, a most horrific betrayal. “Fat Hatt lied to the others too, then. I had wondered.” He opened his eyes. “I was built from stolen plans - Gresley’s prototype plans for Gordon, in fact. My builders didn't do a very good job. They fucked up my insides and gave me an unsuitably small firebox. Fat Hatt bought me thinking he was getting an Atlantic - he got me running on Welsh coal and that was okay. Then I wrecked with the Flying Kipper.”
He paused, letting out a wheezy cough. “He said he was sending me to Crewe, for a rebuild. ‘A fine place for sick engines’, he called it. The next thing I knew, I was here.”
Douglas, horrified, didn't quite know what to say. It was one thing to send a sentient engine for scrap, but it was another entirely to tell one he was going to be repaired - rebuilt - only to turncoat and dump him in a scrapyard. Why had the Fat Controller lied to Henry about his fate? And then - and then! To replace the poor engine with another who could pass for his twin, and give it the same name as its predecessor! The horror!
“What about you?” Henry - true Henry - spoke again when Douglas didn't. “Why didn't they want you? You don't look damaged or botched by design. You're a MacIntosh 652, no?”
Douglas, finally, stumbled back into his senses. “How d’ye ken I'm fro’ Sodor? I didnae tell ye.”
Henry’s eyes fixed on the smaller engine’s tender. “Your number, of course. The NorthWestern Railway is the only one I'm aware of to number their engines as they do.”
This was true. They not only had their own numbering system separate from British Rail, but the numbers themselves were painted large in bright yellow and bordered in red, making them very distinct.
“Of course.”
Henry went on. “So, why didn't they want you? They went to the trouble of giving you a number, you must have meant something to them.”
Douglas sighed. “They only gave me a number so’s tae tell me apart fro’ my brother. We - well I wasnae meant tae be there. They bought him and I was slated for scrap. Donnie and our crews smuggled me out, tae Sodor, but they didnae want tae keep us both. We tried tae make it so they had tae, pretending we lost our original number plates and didnae recall them. I guess that failed.”
Henry chuckled darkly, his face cast in shadow as the sun dove behind a cloud. “You were there illegally, I was built illegally. I guess we're even, huh? So what's your name?”
“Douglas.” He replied.
“Well Douglas.” Henry went on. “Sodor doesn't often reject an engine. We must be something special.”
Douglas gave a low Scottish noise in reply. “No’ the good kind o’ special, I take it?”
Henry laughed - it became a hacking cough. “We’ll make a game of it, shall we? Whoever gets scrapped first wins. My coal’s on you, I've been here for decades and they've hardly spared me a glance.”
Douglas’ lip turned up in a snarl. “I wilnae be scrapped! My brother will come for me!”
Henry scoffed. “You don't realize how many other engines have come through here saying similar things. It never happens, so don't get your hopes up.”
“Donnie saved me from scrap once, he'll do it again, I ken it!” Douglas snapped back.
Henry just rolled his eyes. “He might try, but I doubt he even knows where you are, Douglas. Hell, I'm not even completely sure where we are, and I've been here thirty odd years!”
Douglas would have wheeshed, had he any steam. “Ye dinnae ken my brother, Henry. He'd search every scrapyard in the country tae find me, as I would for him. Donald will come, ye'll see.”
o0o
By all accounts, then, Donald would come.
He had said goodnight to his brother and gone to sleep with knowledge that Douglas was safe in the shed beside him. So, when he awoke to find the neighboring berth empty, he tried not to panic - Douglas could have easily been called out in the night for something.
When he saw the look on Duck’s face - Duck being on his other side - that forced calm went out the window.
“Where's Douglas?” He asked.
No one spoke. Duck looked away, his crew pretended to have not heard him as they inspected the western engine’s wheels and side rods. Donald could feel his own crew shifting about his cab in tense silence and knew something wasn't right.
“Where's Dougie?” He demanded, voice going up an octave in his fear.
Duck bit his lip. Donald's driver coughed nervously. A bird flitted past the shed, nearly brushing the engines’ noses.
“Duck?!” It came out as a plea in his increasing panic. “What's going on? Where's my brother?”
Duck, then, couldn't hold the silence any longer. “He's gone, Donald.”
Donald, if such a thing was possible, choked on his own breath. At least, that's what it sounded like to Duck - a raw, struggling sort of sound, like something breaking.
“W-what?!”
Duck closed his eyes. Why did it have to him breaking this news to his friend? When he opened his eyes again, he forced himself to look at Donald, stark black and blending with the shadows of the shed.
“They hauled him off in the night. A mainland diesel on direct orders from Fat Hatt. I don't know how, or from whom, but he found out Douglas was the ‘truant’. He's gone, Donald.”
All the color drained from Donald's face then, which was a feat in itself since engines didn't have a lot of color in their faces to begin with.
“No. . .No!” He cried, and his low, accented voice was sharp like shattering glass.
There was the crunch of ballast as Donald’s crew climbed down from his cab and walked alongside him.
“‘Tis true, I'm afraid.” Said his driver. He rested a comforting hand on the engine’s buffer beam. “We got calls from his crew earlier this morning. They weren't even notified until Douglas was off the island.”
Donald, shocked, stumbled over his words. “That's no’ - they cannae -”
“They can.” His fireman pointed out.
“No!” Donald snapped back. “Dougie cannae go back tae Scotland, ye ken that!”
The driver shook his head. “They're no’ taking him back tae Scotland, Donald.”
Both Donald and Duck stared. “W-what?!”
Donald's crew looked forlorn as they replied. “Apparently, Fat Hatt spoke to our old manager and he didn't want to be bothered with having Douglas transported back to Scotland. They've taken him straight to a scrapyard here in England.”
There was a moment of tense silence before Donald jerked forward in his berth. “No! I wilnae let my brother be scrapped!”
His crew exchanged a look. “Donald, I dinnae think Sir Topam Hatt is going to change his mind now -”
“I dinnae care!” Donald exclaimed. “We have tae go after him!”
His crew might have argued, Duck thought, but the look Donald sent them was enough to make them back away, mouths snapping shut. Then, he considered, maybe it was Donald who had orchestrated the entire mission to get Douglas out of Scotland and the other involved parties had simply gone along with him.
“That's better.” Donald settled, and Duck had never seen an engine crew yield to their engine in such a way. “Go and contact Douglas’ crew, have them meet us at the station. Duck -”
“Go.” Duck interrupted. “Just go. I'll gather the others for an indignation meeting. We won't stand for this.”
Donald blinked in acknowledgement and pulled out of the shed and across the turntable, intent on meeting his and Douglas’ crews at the station. When Duck arrived at the station a few minutes later with his coaches, Donald was just leaving, all four crewmen crammed into his cab.
“I hope you find him.” Duck told him.
“Aye.” Donald replied, spent steam hissing around him as he pulled away.