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"...Flik?"
His antenna twitches at a breath that takes the shape of his name. It's such a small sound, less than a whisper, he wonders if he heard correctly.
Maybe he imagined it? Hallucinated, even? That seems like a probable option given Flik's current state. He doesn't even have full hearing in his left antenna yet. Perhaps he won't ever again. Was that the side of his head Thumper had kicked? Or was it from colliding with the dirt after his jaw met Hopper's fury?
It's all a blur now, a twisted bundle of pain and rain and fire and feathers and screams fading into snapping beaks and splintering bones and Atta's face pressed against his collarbone and his hands pressed against his antennae but not enough to make the breaking stop and maybe it won't and maybe they'll be next and —
"Flik!"
It's unmistakable now. He's heard his name plenty of times, but none the way it falls from her mouth. Maybe "leaps" or "flies" are better metaphors.
The corner of his mouth quirks at the thought. She flies now, remember? She flew to find him. She grew her wings to bring him home.
As if on cue he hears a different sound, a buzzing that fills him with warmth. It's the same sound he heard while sitting on the back of a circus wagon, wondering how he had screwed up so badly that his own home didn't want him anymore until he looked up to see a tiny piece of home chasing after him.
Suddenly there's a flash of purple and weight where there wasn't before and his chest is damp. Why is it hard to breathe?
"Dearie, I know you're excited but you can't smother him. The poor dear has been through enough of that tonight, don'tcha think?"
Flik winces, unsure if Doctor Flora knows the dark truth behind her choice of the word smother.
He closes his eyes and tries to catch his breath as the hands circle his windpipe again, squeezing so tightly that the black sky above him begins to shrink until it's only a pinprick of light and maybe this was a bad plan after all and Atta is watching this and will Hopper crush her throat next and then will it be the Queen and Dot and Francis and Heimlich and Gypsy and Dim and maybe he'll just keep going until every friend is dead and it's all my fault and was that red in the corner of his eye blood or bird and then the hands let go and the screaming starts and it won't stop won't stop won't —
"Flik. Flik, it's me. Wake up!"
It's me, she said.
Of course, it's you. Who else could it be?
He opens his eyes and there she is, his little rock-seed-tree friend, lilac and curlicues and and nose sprayed with freckles and eyes that are almost the same color as him.
Her lower lip is wobbling and he can see how hard she's holding back tears for his sake. It does something to him, seeing this tiny ant who never stopped believing he could save them all, who kept believing in him even after his warriors were unmasked and her big sister banished him for the charade he'd carried too far. When the rest of the colony labeled him a liar and a traitor and a failure, she flew to find him and she showed him a rock and she called him hero.
"Dot," he says, his swollen lips stretching into a grin that hurts. "I'm so glad to see you."
She melts into him, tangling her arms around his neck and laying her cheek in the curve of his shoulder, and he truly doesn't mind that his lungs have to work a little harder if it means his friend can stay. Dot's eyelashes tickle his collarbone and her heart bangs against his chest like a drumroll and every part of her is shaking even though he's holding her as tightly as he can.
After a few minutes of this, of two ants lying on a daisy bed in a hospital room where bruises and bones are supposed to heal, Dot pierces the quiet with a confession that breaks his heart.
"I thought you died," she whispers. "When he took you up into that tree, I thought I was never going to see you again."
Then the fiercest warrior Flik has ever known begins to cry.
And he does, too.