A/N: How did we end up here, five years and eleven chapters later? Not a clue.

Am I mad about it? Not at all.

Thanks for stickin' with me through this journey, guys. (In case you're worried… no, this isn't the last chapter. I'm just feeling sentimental. ;) )

Also, for those of you who don't know, I've been slowly posting a rewrite of this story on my AO3 account. (Well, "rewrite" is a strong word — all the major plot points are the same, but I made some pretty heavy edits the writing throughout and hopefully it shows considering how far back this story goes.) I'm finally caught up so I'll be updating both versions at the same time from here on out, but if you need a refresher, I recommend checking out that version!

xo,

fbw

P.S. I learned a new vocabulary word while writing this chapter. Can you guess what it was?

P.P.S. Disclaimer: I've said this before and I'll say it again, I am no entomologist and I'm aware that much of my descriptions are anatomically incorrect. To be fair, ants also don't have four limbs as they're depicted in the movie, hence why I'm okay with treating them as though they have human bodies in this story. Do with that what you will!

Hopper

He felt the pain in his own wings when it happened. Freshly grown wings, delicate as petals, rendered flightless by his own hand.

By accident.

Hopper had felt those tiny fingers curl around his thumb, the one attached to Dot's wings and ready to yank at any moment, and some dormant part of his heart softened at that touch. So trusting, so innocent. In that moment he'd felt sickened by the reality of what he was about to do. Nothing, not even losing his power over the colony, could justify this level of cruelty.

He had been about to let go when the sound of a bird overheard startled him enough to make his hand jerk slightly.

Enough to hear a soft snap followed by a cry of pain, and then silence.

A royal ant who can't even fly.

It was an accident, but it didn't matter. He had done it, and now they were all going to die.

Atta

She didn't even know what happened.

One moment Hopper was dangling Dot in front of them, threatening to do unspeakable harm to her, and then Atta saw Dot reach behind her and the next moment the monster went silent. His expression flickered between emotions impossible to read, but there was something in his eyes that gave Atta the slightest hope that he was about to break and hand his hostage over in exchange for Flik, finally setting their plan in motion.

And then came an explosion of feathers and a screech that was the worst sound Atta had ever heard… until she heard the one that followed it.

The first one belonged to a bird.

The second belonged to her little sister.

Atta had heard Dot scream plenty of times before. She knew what her scream of frustration sounded like, had heard it after many a failed flight attempt. She could tell the difference between screams of fear and screams of excitement. Attar's favorite was Dot's happy scream, a short, high-pitched shriek usually reserved for Flik or Dim.

But this was a new scream, one that twisted Atta's insides with fear. This was a scream of pain.

"What did you do?" Atta cried. Hopper looked like he didn't even know the answer to her question. He was staring down at Dot's limp form with a glazed look in his good eye.

Flik gripped her upper arm and she turned to see his face contorted with a rage she had seen only once before, earlier that very night when he was staring Hopper down and proclaiming the colony's strength. One look at the circus bugs revealed similar expressions on their faces, fury mixed with horror and disbelief. For a moment it was as though time had frozen for the injured princess.

And then the chaos began.

"Tweet tweet! Tweet tweet!"

Tuck and Roll's warning shouts were barely heard above the sparrow's cries. Atta looked up to see her thrashing about in the branches inches above their antennae. The sparrow was fighting her way towards them with everything she had. She should have eaten them all by now, but the tip of one of her wings was caught on the jagged edge of a broken tree branch. They were safe, but their time was limited.

Hopper was looking up too, his mouth ajar and his eyes wide with terror as he watched the bird's frenzied attempts to reach them. He seemed rooted to the spot, ready to accept his fate.

Atta lunged forward, intending to tear her sister from the bastard's grip and fly her to safety.

There was an ear-splitting crack from above and suddenly Atta was staring at her own terrified expression in a pair of huge, yellow-rimmed eyes. She felt herself being grabbed from behind and yanked backwards less than a second before the sparrow's beak could snap shut over her.

"No!" Atta shrieked, lunging forward against several pairs of arms that pulled her back. Her near-death experience didn't even register. "We have to get to Dot!"

A kaleidoscope of color exploded before her eyes, and the sparrow screeched and jolted backwards with fear. Gypsy had finally come out of hiding and was fluttering about between the rescue party and the bird. Atta knew the other side of Gypsy's wings were painted like a pair of snake eyes. It wouldn't fool her forever, but it could distract her long enough to buy them time. Maybe if she flew under the bird and came up on the other side where Hopper was…

"Atta."

Gypsy's unusually harsh voice commanded her attention. She looked into the moth's violet eyes and felt tears prick her own.

"You need to go with them," Gypsy said softly. "You'll find a way to get her back. But you need to go now."

Atta swallowed the protests rising in her throat, knowing her friend was in the right. She looked past Gypsy and caught glimpses of Hopper between the bird's wingstrokes. He still had that look of paralyzed fear on his face, but now he had Dot clutched against his chest with all four arms. If Atta didn't know better, she would have thought he was trying to protect her.

Atta wrenched herself free from her friends' grip and flew as close to Hopper as she could with the bird still between them. "Get her out of here!" she ordered, and she felt her heart break with each word. She knew there wasn't another choice, but it still felt like giving him permission him to take her sister away. Again.

His eyes met hers and she could have sworn she saw the smallest of nods before he turned, leaped from the branch, and descended into the darkness below.

Somehow she ended up on Dim's back, leaning into Flik's arms as her body was wracked with the sobs she'd kept at bay since Dot was first taken. A voice in the back of her mind told her to pull it together, that this wasn't the way a future queen should act, but she pushed it away. Now wasn't the time to be a queen or even a warrior.

Now was the time to be a big sister.

Francis

"This is bad. This is very very very very very bad."

"Ya think?!"

Francis was flying faster than he'd ever flown before, and still it wasn't fast enough. They were heading back towards the tree, the one where Flik and their friends were supposed to be having a showdown with Hopper at this very moment. For all he knew the bird could have found them already and swallowed them all whole, but Francis had to push his naturally pessimistic nature aside for once and just focus on getting there to warn them.

They were almost to the tree when Slim's body jerked, nearly causing Francis to lose his group on his friend.

"Francis!" he hissed. "Look!"

Francis followed the direction of Slim's pointed finger until he saw it. It made his blood boil. It was Hopper, descending along the trunk of the tree toward its roots. He was alone.

"He's supposed to be in a web right now!" Francis spat. "How'd he get away?"

"Um, I think I might have an idea," Slim said slowly, pointing in a new direction.

Oh, Mama. There she was, the key piece to their brilliant plan, only she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Francis wasn't sure if he imagined them or if he could really hear his friends' screams as the mother sparrow dove in and out of the upper branches of the tree.

"This is some déjà vu, huh buddy?" he joked weakly.

But Slim wasn't paying attention to him. "Fran, look again," he murmured, disbelief in his tone. "He's not alone."

Francis squinted harder at the distant figure of the grasshopper and felt his jaw drop. If the sight of Hopper himself made the ladybug's blood boil, the sight of him holding a tiny, purple bundle in his lower arms turned it to steam.

"No," Francis breathed. How was this possible? They'd all understood when they were forming the plan that there was a chance that when all was said and done it would be Flik who ended up in Hopper's clutches. It was the risk he was willing to take to keep Dot safe and they'd agreed, however reluctantly, to go along with it. Everyone knew the inventor was the real prize and the princess was just the bait.

So how on the island did he still have her?

"What are we gonna do?" Slim cried.

Francis shook his head, his eyes fixed on Hopper's moving form. "I don't know, pal," he said slowly. Fiercely. "But I do know that somehow, we're gonna get my Blueberry back."

Hopper

It was a miracle they made it out of the tree alive, considering the past few minutes were a frantic blur of thunder and screeches muffled by the sound of Hopper's own heartbeat in his antennae. As soon as the sparrow showed up he'd been useless to do anything but stand and stare and wait for the end to come. It felt like poetic justice after what he'd just done.

And then Atta's voice cut through the chaos, demanding that he get her sister to safety, and something in her tone propelled him to obey the queen-to-be.

So here he was at the bottom of the tree, hiding within the tangle of roots and attempting to regain some semblance of regular breathing. If the gang ever saw him in this state they would lose all respect for him.

Then again, Hopper didn't even know how much of a gang he had left. He had watched many of them flee for their lives once the colony revolted, but the fate of those left behind was unclear. Even in their anger the ants didn't seem like the violent type, but if anyone could testify what years of pent-up rage could do to an insect, it was Hopper.

Speaking of ants… Hopper looked down at where the smallest one was draped across his arms, her skin a ghostly shade of lavender and her breath coming in shallow gasps like his. They were both in bad shape.

He'd avoided coming to terms with it as long as he could, but Hopper couldn't take the suspense anymore. Tearing a clump of moss from the root overhead, he knelt to spread it on the ground and laid Dot on top of it, then turned her onto her side and cupped her silvery wings in his hand to get a closer look.

There it was: the tiniest of tears, right at the base where her wings sprouted from her back.

Hopper let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. It had hurt the kid like hell, but he knew he hadn't done permanent damage. Kids were resilient — give it a season or two and she'd be back in the air like it never happened.

You're softer than I thought, Hop. What does it matter to you if the brat ever flies again? Weren't you ready to turn her into an orphan an hour ago?

Hopper shook his head. It was incredible how he could still hear his father's voice, clear as creek water, after all these years. Pop wouldn't have hesitated to rip the wings off a child to get a point across. Hopper had believed the same was true of himself until Dot proved him wrong. Nuisance though she was, the damn princess had wormed her way into his heart.

And now, irony of ironies, Hopper was charged with the task of keeping her safe.

He felt her stir and heard a soft whimper that made him cringe. For her sake, he'd hoped Dot wouldn't wake up until she was back in the hands of someone who could properly care for her.

The whimpers were escalating into groans. Hopper rubbed a hand over his face and looked around for something he could use to set the wings. If all those grueling training sessions with Pop counted for anything, he had at least come away with basic first aid knowledge.

Hopper rose to his feet and made his way towards a bramble bush about a foot's flight from their shelter. He scoured the outside until he located the smallest thorn he could find, then snapped it off along with a nearby leaf. After a pause, he reached his free hand up to pluck a couple of drupelets from an overripe blackberry hanging above them, then flew back to the shelter and went to work.

After rolling Dot onto her stomach, Hopper used his upper hands to gently pinch her wings together. After checking that it was the blunt end facing her back and not the sharp one, he positioned the thorn beneath her wings so it was supporting them. He then tore a small strip from the leaf in his lower hand and wound it tightly around the base of the thorn and her wing stem, securing it with a knot.

Hopper tried to operate with as much delicacy as possible, but every once in a while the princess would twitch or wince in a way that betrayed her pain. He did his best to ignore this, particularly the pangs of guilt he felt each time it happened.

The final result was a crude, somewhat oversized pair of splints that would keep the wings steady enough to minimize the pain, but by themselves wouldn't bring much relief.

That was what the berries were for.

Dot was beginning to shiver now. Hopper picked her up and tucked her into the crook of his upper left arm, wings facing outward, then scooted backward until his wings met tree bark and gazed through an opening in the roots at the world beyond. The rain had slowed considerably and the thunder had settled into low, distant rumbles. He wondered how many of his gang members had made it back to the sombrero during the storm. He wondered if Molt was among them.

"Hopper?"

He looked down and saw a pair of confused blue eyes blinking up at him. Dot pressed her hands weakly against his chest and attempted to push herself upwards, but this smallest of movements proved too much and she collapsed again with a cry. Hopper stiffened at the sound.

"Where are my friends?" The princess whispered, her eyes shining with tears.

Instead of answering, Hopper handed one of the berry drupelets to her. She took it without question but proceeded to stare at it like it was her first time seeing a piece of fruit. He rolled his eyes in spite of himself.

"Eat this. It'll help."

Dot raised an eyebrow. Hopper sighed and bit into the other one to prove it could be trusted. After a pause, Dot did the same. Hopper took a swig of the fermented juice and felt his chest flood with warmth. This would do just the trick for his little patient.

He was right. Within minutes the girl was slumped in his arm again, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. Hopper closed his own eyes and leaned into the rough bark behind him. The events of tonight had caught up to him and the thought of succumbing to the urge to sleep was tempting, but he had to fight it. At any moment the bird or the bugs could show up and he needed to be ready.

Ready for what, exactly?

It wasn't until this moment that Hopper realized he didn't know the answer to this question anymore.