It was complete and utter havoc at Knapford Station. The passengers had turned out from the cafe in droves, and were swarming around the ticket booth like angry bees.

"WE WANT OUR MONEY BACK!" shouted one.

"WHERE IS THE SPECIAL COACH?" shouted another.

"IF I WANTED SHODDY SERVICE AND NO TRAIN I'D HAVE GONE TO BRIGHTON AND TRAVELLED ON SOUTHERN RAIL!" shouted another.

"THIS IS A BAD RAILWAY!" shouted one and all.

The booking clerk retreated from the noise. "Excuse me just a moment," he said. He then went to make a phone call.

In the distance, Donald looked on glumly. This mess was his fault, and there wasn't much he could do. Bon-Bon and Douglas had already taken off with his tender, leaving him and Lyra with Douglas' tender in the hope of deflecting the blame.

A few minutes later, Sir Topham Hatt arrived and glanced about. The crowd from the station were there as well, still looking cross.

"As you can see," Sir Topham Hatt said, "the coach is not here. It appears to have vanished into the ether, as I cannot see it." He turned to Lyra. "Tell me, Lyra, have you seen the coach?"

"No sir," Lyra replied. "I have not seen the coach myself."

"But then why are you with Number 10?" Sir Topham Hatt asked.

"Bon-Bon needed some cover, so I agreed to it." Lyra was aware the excuse was flimsy but had no other option.

"We'd better find the coach, and the foolish engine who shunted it," said a passenger. "We should teach him a lesson he shall never forget."

"Or she will never forget," said another passenger. "The chances of the engine being female are approximately 50%."

"Are they?"

Donald knew this witch hunt would continue no matter what was said, and said possibly the hardest thing to say in that situation. "It was me, sir."

"Donald!" Lyra hissed.

Sir Topham Hatt looked in surprise. "It was you what?"

"I shunted the cooch into the wrong siding with the others," Donald said. "I wasn't concentrating on my work at the time, as my mind was occupied."

"No wonder this railway is a mess!" said a passenger.

"SILENCE!" boomed Sir Topham Hatt. "Now then, Donald, as you were saying."

"I was worried either me or Douggie would get sent away," Donald continued. "We chose to escape together with our drivers as we're twins, and the alternative wouldn't have been pretty."

"What do you mean?"

"Put bluntly, sir," Lyra said, "one of them would have been scrapped, and one of us would be out of a job so to speak. We couldn't bear the thought of that."

"Douggie and I are the only surviving members of our class," Donald added. "We're literally all we have left for each other."

Sir Topham Hatt was stunned, as were the passengers. "Allow me to extend a formal apology," he said. "I had no idea the situation on the mainland was so bad. But why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

"We thought you wouldn't believe us," Lyra sighed, hanging her head.

"At least we have that cleaned up," Sir Topham Hatt said. "Do you two think you can find our passengers a coach?"

Thomas the Tank Engine returned to the National Railway Museum after a long run. It had been a challenging day, to say the least. Not only had they run down a hill without crashing, they had also found an engine stranded in the forest, one whom everybody had seemingly forgotten about over the past 50 years or so.

But Thomas was conflicted in his boiler. Part of him felt that he should tell the others about the existance of Green Arrow, as that way they could work together and get him back into working order. But another part of him was worried. He knew that on Sodor things would work differently. Sir Topham Hatt would never scrap an engine, especially one who was completely unable to move and without any hope.

But this wasn't Sodor. The people on the mainland did things differently around here, and there was no guarantee that things would turn out so well if he spoke up. It was gnawing at him as to what to do, not least he was worried about that A4 who was causing trouble up and down the East Coast Mainline.

"What should we do, Twilight?" Thomas asked. "Should we speak up about him, or try to work on him ourselves?"

Twilight was silent for a moment. "I'm asking myself the same question, Thomas. I'm concerned the news would reflect badly on them, and we could suffer ourselves. That was pretty reckless, what we did."

There was another pause. "But if we don't speak up, a scrap dealer could find him."

"And he's the last of his kind," Thomas finished. "What would Billington do?"

In that moment both of them decided what had to be done. Both of them moved forward to find Spitfire, who at the time was working on Flying Scotsman. "Hey, you two," she said. "Have a nice run down to Heighington?"

"Well, we found something out there," Thomas said simply. "Near Shildon there's an engine in the woods, and he's unable to move. He may be in danger?"

"I think he said he was a V2?" Twilight said. "Either way, I and Thomas think he'd be a valuable asset to the National Railway Museum's operating fleet."

Spitfire's eyes widened. "A V2?" she said. "I thought those were all scrapped! Not only would an engine like that be really useful for our operations, it would fill a pretty big gap in the preservation pantheon. I'll send a recovery train out tomorrow so we can bring him back."

Spitfire was as good as her word. The next day, Green Arrow was drawn back into the shed, after having received stabilisation work to ensure he was safe to move. "Thank you, Thomas," he said. "It seems there are nice humans after all."

Thomas smiled in return. "Honesty is the best policy, after all," he said.

Author's Note

These two portions of story, although extensions of stories written more than a year apart, developed from a similar idea; what if a character had simply told the truth?

Several elements of the Donald segment are inspired by lore taken from Island of Sodor: it's People, History, and Railways and fantheories surrounding the Scottish twins. The other segment is a similar sort of idea.

The story will continue tomorrow, as two figures have a much-needed talk.