The camp had finally quieted down, the exhausted delinquents collapsing into their makeshift tents or sleeping in the dirt. Inside the dropship, Aleksander had just finished finalizing the details of tomorrow's supply run with Clarke, Wells, and a very stubborn Octavia.
"Get some rest," Aleksander had told them, his tone leaving no room for debate. "We move at first light."
Leaving them to sleep, Aleksander stepped out into the cool, dark air of the camp. The only light came from the dying embers of the central fire.
He noticed at the sentry point at distance sitting on a crate just a few feet from the flames, entirely alone, was Bellamy Blake.
Aleksander walked over, his footsteps completely silent in the dirt, and stopped near the edge of the firelight.
Bellamy didn't look up, his eyes fixed on the glowing orange embers. He poked the fire with a stick, his voice rough and quiet in the dark.
"I know she's going with you tomorrow," Bellamy said, breaking the silence. He finally looked up, his jaw tight. He hated that he couldn't stop Octavia, but he also knew better than to try and chain her down again. He looked at Aleksander, his expression shifting into a heavy, reluctant trust. "Just look out for her. As long as you're with her... I know she's going to be okay."
"She will be," Aleksander promised smoothly, his voice a quiet anchor in the night.
He stayed standing, his dark eyes analyzing the older boy. Bellamy looked exhausted, the weight of the camp and his own secrets slowly crushing him.
"You pushed the camp into a panic today," Aleksander observed softly, seamlessly shifting the conversation. "You manipulated them into taking off their biometric wristbands. You preached about freedom and being 'survivors,' but that was just theater, wasn't it?"
Bellamy stiffened, his grip tightening on the stick. "It's the truth."
"No, it's a smokescreen," Aleksander corrected, his hyper-analytical mind dismantling Bellamy's defenses piece by piece. "You didn't tear those bands off out of pride. You did it out of fear. You did something on the Ark—something so dangerous, or so violently against their laws, that you know the Guard will execute you the second they touch the ground. That is why you are so desperate to make them think we are dead."
Bellamy froze. He tried to maintain his tough-guy facade, to sneer and brush off the accusation, but the isolation and the suffocating guilt were finally too much. He looked at Aleksander—an "Alpha Station Elite," the exact kind of person who had locked his sister under the floor—and decided to just throw the ugliest truth right in his face. He wanted to push Aleksander away. He wanted the judgment.
Bellamy threw the stick into the fire and stood up, turning on Aleksander. His voice trembled with a volatile mix of defensive rage and unshed tears.
"You want to know? Fine!" Bellamy hissed, his chest heaving. "I shot him. I shot Chancellor Jaha. That's how I got on the ship. That's why we can't let them come down! Because the second they land, they're going to put a bullet in my head and leave Octavia all alone!"
Bellamy stood there, breathing heavily, bracing himself for the fallout. He waited for Aleksander to call him a murderer. He waited for the Alpha Station prodigy to try and arrest him, or to look at him with absolute, moral disgust.
Instead, Aleksander didn't even blink.
He stood perfectly still, his dark eyes fixed entirely on Bellamy. His reaction was so calm, so utterly devoid of judgment, that it completely derailed Bellamy's panic. The silence stretched for a long, confusing second.
"Did you want to kill him?" Aleksander asked quietly.
Bellamy blinked, completely thrown off by the question. "What?"
"Did you shoot him because you wanted the power?" Aleksander clarified, his voice smooth and steady. "Because you hated him? Or did you pull the trigger because it was the only door standing between you and your sister?"
The fight drained out of Bellamy all at once. His shoulders slumped, and his voice cracked, the raw, terrified older brother bleeding through the hardened rebel. "They were going to send her down here to die. I had to protect her. I didn't have a choice."
Aleksander stepped closer. This was where his hidden Dark Fey mindset—ancient, pragmatic, and entirely disconnected from human morality—shone through. He didn't care about the laws of men, Chancellors, or the political hierarchy of the Ark. He only understood the raw, brutal instinct of protecting your own.
"Then you aren't a murderer, Bellamy," Aleksander stated, his voice carrying the absolute weight of a universal truth. "You're a brother who paid the toll."
Bellamy stared at him. The heavy, suffocating weight that had been crushing his chest since he pulled the trigger faltered for the very first time.
"The Ark is a dying tin can floating in a vacuum," Aleksander continued, his tone dripping with quiet disdain for the Council. "Up there, they execute people for stealing medicine. They locked a child under the floor for the crime of being born. You think I care about their laws? You think the trees or the Grounders care what you did up there?"
Aleksander reached out, gripping Bellamy firmly by the shoulder. His grip was incredibly grounding, radiating that strange, unnatural warmth that seemed to seep directly into Bellamy's frayed nerves, steadying him.
"Look around you, Bellamy. This is Earth," Aleksander said, his dark eyes locking onto Bellamy's. "Out here, the only law is survival. The wolf doesn't apologize for killing to protect its pack. You did what you had to do to keep Octavia safe. It was ugly, and it will haunt you, but it was done in desperation."
Aleksander squeezed Bellamy's shoulder once, a dark, calculating gleam flashing in his eyes as he thought of the exact circumstances that would have allowed a janitor to bypass Alpha Station security.
"And it was done in manipulation," Aleksander added softly, planting the seed of doubt. "Someone pointed you at the Chancellor, Bellamy. You pulled the trigger, but someone else opened the door. We will figure out who used you when the time comes. But right now... you let the guilt go. You are exactly what your sister needs you to be."
Bellamy let out a long, ragged exhale, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. For the first time since the dropship launched, he didn't feel like he was drowning.
He had been carrying this secret entirely on his own, waiting in terror for the moment it would inevitably destroy him and leave his sister unprotected. Sharing it—and having it met not with condemnation, but with Aleksander's cold, validating understanding—brought Bellamy a profound, overwhelming sense of relief.
Aleksander before the talk had cast a privacy charm, just in case. Even though there is no one in distance, he didn't risk it.