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"If there was one thing that Gordon hated in life, it was change."
(A Forever and Ever Fanfic)
Thomas and Friends sometimes deals with the weirdest of issues like a fear of change or a fear of abandonment. The episode Forever and Ever plays Gordon's fears off as being silly, trying to compare willingly moving on to somewhere being the same as someone willingly moving away from you.
I've seen a lot of people say that Gordon acts irrationally in this episode, but as childish as the show presents his tantrum (as it's for children) it touches on this massive issue and glosses over it with Nia saying "I chose to move on which means you have to accept your friends moving on without you." I wanted to write something about this episode where it treats the problem with the respect it deserves.
If your two best friends move on without you, and you find out though it through other people it hurts. Not being the best at staying in contact I can relate to Gordon in this episode.
When people move on, especially when they leave you with no way to contact them, it is like they die. And let's be real, Gordon is a train, he can't just keep in contact with his friends. It all depends on other people.
Aka I made myself sad about Gordon for like a week and had to write a story about it.
*Disclamer* *I know very little about Thomas the Tank Engine and I have probably made a mistake about a backstory somewhere. My brief experience on AO3 tells me that people don't like this but bear with. I was very sad about Gordon and had to get it out of my brain. Take my writing with a pinch of salt.*
If there was one thing that Gordon hated in life, it was change.
So what if he did stay in the sheds forever and ever? What did he care? If they could all just be dismissed and replaced on the flip of a coin, would Sir Topham Hatt replace him if he refused to do his job? Or would he kick out another member just to replace him? Would he break Gordon down into spare parts, or just leave him to rust and decay? There would be no point sparing fuel on an engine that wouldn't do its job.
If there was no convincing Edward to come back, there would be no convincing Henry either. If Gordon refused, would they make Henry stay to pull the express, or would that just make Gordon's protest mute and foolish? What sort of engine was he if he would manipulate his friends just to get his own way?
Why would Henry tell him last that he was going to leave? They were friends, were they not? Why would he tell Gordon last? Perhaps he was just trying to spare his feelings, knowing he would take it poorly, one part of his mind spoke. Would Henry be intentionally malicious towards him?
But then again…
They were laughing about it this morning, behind his back. What if everyone knew but Gordon? What if Henry didn't even like him anymore? What if the common factor in his two best friends choosing to leave was Gordon himself?
He knew that he could be stuck up. He always had been, even before coming to work on Sodor. After all, he had worked on the London railway, and being proud made him stand out. Being proud had saved him and got him moved to Sodor.
And sure, he could be arrogant, but he had gotten past that with Edward and he had still left.
He stared at the wall in front of him angrily. He just wanted to be left alone. If he closed his eyes, would this all just be some horrible nightmare? He could wake up and nothing would have changed.
Then he heard her voice. Her annoying silly voice.
“It's not smart to sleep backwards, is it, Gordon?” she spoke. “How can you see where you are going?”
Nia. She had the gall to speak to him, did she? What did she know of Gordon's problems? After all, all of this mess was her fault.
“I don't care. I'm never going to leave this shed again.”
“You know, Gordon, all of my friends are in Africa, and I'm on a new railway, trying to make new friends. I know my old friends are still my friends, though.” She finished, “Edward and Henry won't even be going half as far as Africa.”
“You chose to leave, did you not?” Gordon spat at her. “You have a friend. You came back with Thomas and you made Edward leave. How dare you try to understand how I feel.” He turned away from her. “All of this is your fault.”
He screwed his eyes shut, refusing to look at her. He was still angry, angry at everything.
He fell asleep with the thought plaguing him. What if Sir Topham Hatt did change everything?
The dreams that haunted Gordon that night were not pleasant.
In one, Gordon found himself alone. Totally and utterly alone. All of the engines had left Tidmouth Sheds, leaving him totally and utterly alone. Even the humans had fled in this horrible dream, leaving Gordon alone with only the wind and creaking of timber to keep him company.
And in the other one, in the other one…
It was somehow closer to reality. Each train of Tidmouth Sheds announced that they were leaving, one by one, giving flimsy excuse after flimsy excuse to leave Tidmouth. Gordon couldn't follow them, held to his responsibility of pulling the Express. At the end, before he woke up, he was in the sheds and everyone was talking around him, and he was silent. Completely and totally alone.
He stared at the back wall of the shed, watching the morning light slip over Sodor, and wished that things could go back to the way they were.
“Gordon.” A sharp voice woke him up from his dreamlike state. "Gordon, are you going to be sensible and pull the Express today?” Sir Topham Hatt stood in front of Gordon with his hands on his hips. “I've had enough of your nonsense. I want you to go back to work like a sensible engine.”
“I thought you were changing everything.” Gordon snorted. “Make Henry pull the Express.”
“Henry is leaving and that is final. The branch line needs him more than we do at Tidmouth. Now, come out at once.” Sir Toppham Hatt glared at Gordon.
“No, sir,” he replied.
“No, sir. No, sir. What do you mean, ‘no, Sir?’” he gestured widely. “I am the controller and you do what I say, Gordon.”
“I mean no. You said I could stay here forever if I wasn't going to accept the changes on the railway, and I'm not, so I'm staying right here,” Gordon spoke smoothly.
“This behavior is silly, Gordon. You are usually far more sensible than this.”
“Maybe if you didn't change everything, I could be more sensible about it.”
In the distance, the clock chimed, signifying the start of the work day. “I do not have time to argue with you, Gordon. You have one more day. My customers should not have to put up with the confusion and delay that your immaturity is causing.”
Sir Topham Hatt left the sheds, once again leaving Gordon with his own thoughts.
You see, the problem was not that Gordon didn't want to work. He wanted to be a useful engine and pull the Express. The problem was that he …
He couldn't even put it into words. Perhaps he was being silly. No matter what protest he planned, Henry would still leave and be replaced. He was sure, without a doubt, that that would be the case.
When Sir Topham Hatt came back later that afternoon, Gordon apologised and agreed to run the Express for the rest of the day. There was no point refusing to work. It just left him alone with his thoughts.
…
The next few weeks passed slowly for Gordon. He just couldn't find any joy in his work. One day, Henry left and didn't come back, without much of a farewell. The berth next to Gordon's sat empty, night after night.
The other engines tried to talk to him, sure, but Gordon didn't bite. After all, it would only be a matter of time before he annoyed them and they left as well under flimsy excuses. The best method would be to keep to himself and just focus on being a useful engine.
He heard the other engines talking behind his back, and it wasn't getting to him, it wasn't. He was sure that they weren't all discussing where they were all going to move to without him. Talking about who they would like to have replace him.
Every day felt like a struggle, trying to work through just to go back to the sheds to sleep again just so that he didn't have to think. Each night, the same dreams kept him awake, full of laughter and chatter. He was surrounded by people but still alone.
Customers stopped approaching him, stopped talking to him. His paint seemed to lose its lustre. Even his engine driver and fireman seemed to talk to him less and less, making Gordon feel more and more alone.
Perhaps people noticed he was miserable. Perhaps they didn't. He didn't really care.
Then came the day that they replaced Henry with a young, energetic engine who thought the best of everything. Her and Nia chattered continuously over his head, clearly becoming fast friends as the two new engines.
There was no finer way to feel invisible than that.
His firebox seemed to take longer to heat up each morning, his wheels harder to turn, until the day when his fireman and driver didn't bother with him and took Rebecca to pull the Express instead.
Gordon couldn't understand it. He was the Express engine. He pulled the Express unless he physically couldn't or was in disgrace. He hadn't even done anything wrong this time.
He sat in the sheds, cold. What if Sir Topham Hatt wanted all new engines and wanted to scrap him for spare parts? There weren't many of his engine type left. Most of the London railway had been outmoded for diesel years ago, so there wasn't a ready supply of parts anymore. What if another heritage railway had paid Sir Topham Hatt handsomely for the parts to fix one of theirs?
Worse. What if he had been sold off to another railway? What if he were to become a heritage engine, functionally useless? What if they gutted him and put him on display in a shed? He wasn't broken. He wasn't.
When this cycle repeated for a few days, the other engines started to notice. The indignity of being seen as useless. Maybe he was useless. A relic of a forgotten era.
Obviously, James thought it was hilarious. James wasn't built to see the implications of the situation. Sir Topham Hatt didn't just stop using engines. There was some ploy to it, Gordon was sure. If Gordon was in the wrong, he would have been sent to pull the godforsaken trucks. He hadn't been used for anything. Anything at all.
Emily told Gordon it was because of his attitude. Nobody wanted to be pulled by a miserable engine. Gordon told her that they shouldn't really care as long as he arrived on time, like he nearly always did. People didn't have to look at him while he was pulling them, and he pulled them perfectly regardless of his attitude.
Percy, naive as always, told Gordon that they were just teaching Rebecca the rails and that they would give Gordon back the Express soon. Perhaps they were going to share the work to make Gordon's life easier. Gordon didn't need his life being easier.
And Thomas, Thomas really hadn't said anything much about it. The two engines held a deep respect for each other, and born from this respect was an ability for Thomas to understand Gordon in the way the others didn't. He knew there was nothing to say.
Gordon was sure that Rebecca and Nia had things to say about it as well, but Gordon didn't overly care what they thought. All of this was their fault in the first place.
…
With nothing much to do, Gordon found himself with way too much time to catastrophise.
…
“I've heard there's an engineer coming in from Wellsworth to take a look at your engine, Gordon,” Thomas said brightly one morning.
Gordon frowned. “There's nothing wrong with my engine.”
Thomas smiled. “Well, that's what the drivers think. I overheard my driver talking about it with one of yours.”
“My drivers are driving Rebecca.” Gordon looked off into the distance. “Nobody has been near my cab in days.”
“I thought you'd heard. They're pulling in a special crew for Rebecca. Anyway, she's a mixed class locomotive.” Thomas spoke quickly. “I think your crew want to get back to driving a passenger engine. I'm sure they think its a disgrace to drive a mixed traffic engine.”
“Perhaps, Thomas. My drivers are very proud.” Gordon nodded to himself. “Why not take me to the steamworks instead?” Gordon pondered. “That's where broken trains go to get fixed.”
“I'm sure you'll find out.” Thomas left with a grin. “By the way, I'm sleeping in Wellsworth tonight. Got to make way for the engineers to get here.”
Gordon frowned at that. “If you're going to leave, Thomas, you can just say it. Don't try to cover it up.”
“I'm not leaving,” Thomas said. “I don't want to leave Tinmouth Sheds.”
“If I recall, Edward said that, too. And yet, here we are,” replied Gordon angrily. “It's only a matter of time.”
Thomas drove off cheerfully, heading for his branchline. Gordon wondered if it would be the last time he would see him. Just like Edward and Henry.
The rest of the day passed, as many of the days before had, quietly. Gordon was sure that Thomas was just trying to make him feel less useless. There was nothing wrong with his engine, he was sure of it.
Slowly, the dusk rolled in, and each of the engines rolled in one by one, and Gordon closed his eyes, ready to skip forward to his next day of being useless.
…
“Gordon.” A voice startled him from his rest. “Gordon, wake up.”
“Edward.” Gordon couldn't stop the grin from splitting his face. “Please tell me that the last month has been a horrible dream.”
“I can't tell you that, Gordon.”
“Ah.” Gordon paused. “So this is the dream, then.”
Edward looked Gordon up and down. “Are you okay, Gordon?”
Gordon laughed. “No. I suspect that I'm not, and perhaps that I never will be again.”
Edward nodded, taken back at the honesty. “Wha-”
“You know that, Edward, because my brain has made you up to torment me. Had you and Henry been planning this all along? Are you going to tell me how I'm the reason that you left Tidmouth? Because I'm listening. I'm always listening.”
Of course, that explained it, Edward thought. The only person that Gordon wouldn't fear to admit his problems to was himself. He was too proud to show that he was suffering to any engine. Gordon obviously thought that he was dreaming.
“I didn't leave because of you, Gordon,” Edward said, levelled. “I left because it's closer to my branchline.”
“And now you lie to me. Just admit it. You won. You hate me.”
“Don't you think that's a slight overreac-”
“No. I'm the only engine who could be so insufferable that even his drivers-”
“Actually think that honor might go to Thomas when he drove into the-”
“And I drove into a ditch and put myself in disgrace.”
“That was a long time ago and-”
“Does it matter?”
“Gordon, stop acting like a child and listen. Look at this logically.”
“Logically, I'm fit for the scrapyard. Logically, I'm a relic of a bygone era. And technically I'm not even a proper tender engine. I'm a prototype tender engine. Nearly all of the other engines I worked with in London are scrap by now. Logically, I've annoyed everyone to the point where they can't even stand to sleep next to me. Logically, I've somehow become… useless.”
Edward sighed. “If that was true, why would you a have maintenance technician looking at your engine now?”
“To value it?” Gordon continued after a pause. “For spare parts.”
“Do you think you've been overthinking this?” Edward trailed off. “Wait… you think you've annoyed Henry and I into leaving?”
Gordon made the train equivalent of a shrug. “Logically.”
“You are a silly engine, Gordon.” Edward laughed.
“I take offence to that, Edward.”
“You are. Sometimes, I forget how young you are. You don't act like it until you do something silly like this.”
“I'm glad my misery amuses you.”
“Your misery, nobodies misery, amuses me. I don't want anyone to feel miserable.”
“If that was the case, Edward, why won't you come back?”
“Do you remember leaving to go to Sodor?” Edward asked suddenly.
“They replaced all of my brothers with diesel engines, as they closed railways in the Beeching Axe.”
“That explains a lot…” Edward trailed off. “So when you arrived, you felt… ?”
“Relieved. Grateful to be considered useful. Lucky to be considered…” Gordon paused. “Guilty because I knew others would be scrapped and they could be here in my place. How could you choose to leave, Edward, without someone making you? I don't understand.”
“When I left for Sodor, I was excited. It was an adventure. Moving to Wellsworth has been an adventure. I've made new friends.”
“But what about your old friends?” Gordon cut him off. “Something could happen to you and I'd never know. Moving away… It’s like someone dies when they move away. You never see them again and we have no way to even keep in contact. It's like you and Henry died, Edward. I felt… I felt like I'd caused it. I felt responsible.”
“We see each other, Gordon.”
“Not enough,” Gordon snapped.
“You know, just because I moved away, doesn't mean I'm not your friend anymore.”
“Nia said that because her friends were in Africa when she chose to leave.” Gordon said sarcastically. “It's different when you choose to leave, rather than get left like rubbish.”
“Let me rephrase. I didn't leave because of you, Gordon, I didn't leave because of anyone here. I- I needed to leave to feel useful again. Here, I have nothing to do. In Wellsworth I'm wanted. Do you see my point, Gordon?”
“The past month has taught me how being useless feels, Edward. I understand.”
“I needed to move on, Gordon, but it doesn't mean that I've died and it doesn't mean it's your fault. Leaving was scary, I can't lie, and I miss you all. You're all family to me, but… I needed to do this, Gordon. If you can't understand, I want you to respect that.”
“I can respect that, Edward.” Gordon smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks. “I'm going to suggest that this isn't a dream because you're being too nice for me for it to be.”
“It's not, Gordon, but I won't ruin your reputation… yet…”
The two engines chatted to each other until the dawn light rose slowly over the sheds, signalling a new day. Engine by engine was started up to begin the day until at last Gordon's and Edward’s firemen and drivers stood in front of the two trains.
“Do you think these two missed each other?” they joked as they got the engines ready for the day.
“I'm sure he missed looking young compared to your relic,” Gordon's driver joked back jovially.
And when they lit his firebox and Gordon rolled out of the sheds for the first time in days, he left with a smile on his face, glad to be a useful engine once again.
…
I'd like to tell you that things went back to normal immediately for Gordon, but that would be a lie. Change, like grief, can be hard to expect.
But day after day, week after week, they got better, and Gordon learned to embrace the changes.
Sure, he still couldn't stand Nia, but he learned to get along with her. If he subtly suggested that Nia and Rebecca should sleep next to each other so they didn't have to chat over him and keep him awake, no one was any the wiser.
And every time Gordon felt alone or felt abandoned, he just thought of Edward and Henry, proud to be useful in their lives, and thought of how much he enjoyed his own.
Things were going to change, no matter what Gordon did. As long as he enjoyed hauling the Express, he was going to be staying where he belonged at Tidmouth while being proud of Henry and Edward for being brave enough to embrace new lives.
