AN: Time for the big reveal! Will Clarke go through with it, or will she change her mind at the last minute? How will Bellamy react? Will he even believe her? Read on to find out…

Chapter title from "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.

19

Every Whisper of Every Waking Hour

Clarke is happy to find that she has no signs of a hangover when she wakes up on New Year's Day. She did try to limit her alcohol intake, and they did call it a night pretty early, but still.

She's never seen Bellamy drink more than a few bottles of beer or some wine with dinner or on the couch in the evenings before, so she's not completely sure exactly how drunk he was last night. He'd been able to carry a conversation on the way home in the Uber without a problem, and hadn't had any trouble getting her out of her dress once they got home – the stick on bra had put a slightly confused frown on his face for second or two, though – before he proceeded to give her a very nice start to the new year.

He's still sound asleep next to her, but Clarke is too antsy to stay in bed, so she gets up as quietly as she can. She grabs a couple of aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and puts them next to the glass of water on the nightstand on Bellamy's side of the bed, in case he needs them, before she leaves the room and goes straight to the kitchen, where she puts on some coffee.

Hangover or not, she's going to need caffeine for the conversation that's coming.

Her stomach is grumbling angrily, so she pops a couple of slices of bread in the toaster while she waits for the coffee to be done. She's not sure she'll be able to eat for a while, depending on Bellamy's reaction, so better safe than sorry.

She's finished two large mugs of coffee and four slices of toast with Nutella (she needs the sugar rush, OK?) when the bedroom door opens and Bellamy appears in the room, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

"Hey," he greets her, slumping down next to her on the couch and closing his eyes as he leans his head back. "You're up early?"

Clarke glances at the clock and realizes that it's only a little before eleven. She's been up for almost an hour, and the last time she checked the time last night, it was almost three. So yeah, she was up early.

"Woke up and couldn't go back to sleep," she says with a shrug. "How're you feeling today?"

Bellamy gives her a one-eyed look. "I wasn't that drunk. Didn't even need the aspirin, but thank you."

"I wasn't sure. First time we're partying together, you know."

"No, it's not."

For a moment, Clarke has no idea what he's talking about, but then she remembers. Halloween.

"Right, but as far as I can remember, you had a total of two whiskeys that night," she says.

He smirks at her. "True. You, on the other hand… I think I dare say you were at least tipsy."

She had been borderline drunk when he showed up at the party, but she'd sobered up during their little star gazing session.

"I definitely was."

"But not last night? You seemed almost sober by the time we got home."

There it is again. Home.

"Yeah, I wasn't really in the mood to get wasted," she says with a shrug.

Bellamy watches her intently for a long moment. "How come?"

Right. She could take that as an opportunity to get 'the conversation' started, but… he really should have breakfast first.

"You hungry?" she asks instead, jumping to her feet. "I've just had some toast, but I can make you something else if you want?"

She feels his eyes on her as she goes into the kitchen.

"Just toast and coffee is fine."

She loads the coffee maker again and pops some more bread into the toaster.

"Nutella or strawberry?"

"Strawberry, please."

Clarke half expects him to come into the kitchen as she lingers, waiting for the coffee and toast to be ready, cornering her and asking what's wrong, but he doesn't.

She spreads strawberry jam on four slices of toast and pours coffee into his Christmas present from Raven before going back into the living room.

Bellamy's in the spot where she left him, Bas next to him on the couch.

"You know," she says as she sits back down. "I'm starting to think she likes you better than me."

He laughs before grabbing the coffee and a slice of toast. "I'm just more patient with petting her than you are."

"I guess."

She tries to busy herself with her phone while he eats, checking her social media and the news. Nothing good, as usual.

Bellamy's finished three slices and all the coffee when he pushes the last piece of toast away and turns to face her on the couch. "OK, what's going on? You've been on edge ever since I got up."

She takes a deep breath before meeting his eyes.

"I need to talk to you."

Clarke has never fully understood the expression that somebody's face falls – it can't really, it stays where it is – but suddenly, she does, because that's what happens. At her words, Bellamy's entire expression changes, almost like he slumps in on himself.

"Oh."

She frowns. "What do you mean 'oh'?"

"Just… as far as I know, there are only two sentences that can follow your girlfriend saying that you need to talk."

Huh.

"And those would be…"

"Either 'I'm breaking up with you' or 'I'm pregnant'. And you might not have been drunk last night, but you did drink, so…"

She can't help but laugh, which makes his expression lighten just a little.

"And you've had a lot of experience with the second one?"

Something flashes in Bellamy's eyes and he looks away from her. "Just the once."

This time, Clarke is sure that her face must fall. Is he saying…

"Oh. I didn't know you had…"

"No, no," he cuts her off quickly, looking up at her again. "No, it… we were nineteen. It was about a year after my mom died and I had just about managed to figure out how to juggle Octavia and my job and, well, life in general. My girlfriend at the time was just starting her sophomore year at NYU. We talked about it a lot and in the end we agreed that it just wasn't the right time. It was the right decision for both of us, and I wouldn't say that I've ever regretted it, but… you do think about it sometimes, you know?"

She doesn't, actually. She has no idea.

Not being able to have kids is an aspect of being a Soul Keeper that Clarke has never much thought about. She's not sure if it's just a natural consequence of the not aging thing, or if it's a conscious… design feature, so to speak. Either way, it's just how things are. She's never wanted kids – sure, they can be cute, but they're also a lot of work. She's never missed it, never longed for it.

Until now.

The knowledge that someone out there, she doesn't even know her name, got to have that part of Bellamy, even if just for a little while, makes a kind of envy she's never felt before rise inside her.

Why shouldn't she get that? She knows that she's going to lose him much too soon, but if she could have this, a small part of him, then maybe it would all be worth it.

Maybe she could. She can't get pregnant herself, but there are other ways…

Before her mind can run away with her, she pushes the thought down firmly. There's a reason Soul Keepers can't have kids. What kind of life could she give a child? Moving is one thing, but having to uproot your whole life, become an entirely new person, every six years or so? You can't expect a kid to understand that. And she's already dreading losing Bellamy when the time comes, she can't even imagine what it would be like to lose a child, no matter how long it got to live.

No. It's not in the cards for her, and she's fine with that. Really, she is.

"I'm sorry," she offers, and he shrugs.

"No need to be. It was a long time ago and, like I said, it was the right decision."

"Right… well, I am not pregnant, and I'm not breaking up with you," she says. He might want to break up with her once she's told him everything, though… "Just so we're clear on all of that."

"OK, so what is it?"

She's tried to come up with a good way to say it, but she hasn't been able to.

"I've never done this before so I don't really know how to start… It's going to sound really strange, OK?" she say, and Bellamy frowns at her.

"OK…"

"You'll probably have trouble believing me but just… try to have an open mind, please?"

He gives her a long, worried look. "You are seriously starting to freak me out here. Just tell me, whatever it is, I promise I'll believe you."

He says that now…

"OK, OK." Clarke takes a deep breath, looking away from him and down at her hands resting in her lap. She interlaces the fingers on one hand with those on the others, to avoid picking nervously at her cuticles or a loose thread on her leggings. "Right, so, when someone dies, that person's… soul, essence, spirit, whatever you want to call it, it leaves the body."

She looks up at him briefly, noticing the furrowed brows indicating that he's confused as to what she's getting at. No wonder…

"OK."

"To be able to move on to whatever it is that's after this life, the soul – I'll just call it that, OK? – has to pass through a sort of passageway."

"Right."

Clarke winces a little at his dubious tone but pushes on. She knew that he wouldn't just instantly believe her, no matter what he said a moment ago.

"There are people whose job it is to do that, to help souls pass from this world to the next. They act as a doorway, sort of, guiding the souls on their path."

"You mean like that TV show, what was it called… Dead Like Me? Grim reapers?"

"Well, not exactly like that, but sort of." Clarke had wondered, briefly, if a Soul Keeper had been behind that show, but in the end, the differences were just too many. Which, of course, could have been intentional. But this isn't the moment to think about that. "The souls don't walk around like ghosts or anything, you can't see them, and they don't need to find the light or whatever. They just leave the body in the moment after death, and pass through the Soul Keeper assigned to that particular case. A lot less dramatic, honestly."

It's quiet for a long beat after she stops talking, before Bellamy clears his throat.

"OK, so why are you telling me this?"

"Well, that's what I do. I'm a Soul Keeper."

"You're a… Soul Keeper. Who goes around… transporting souls of people who die?"

"We call it Transferring," she corrects him. "But yeah, pretty much."

He looks at her for a long moment, as if expecting her to laugh and yell 'got you!' or something. Which, of course, she doesn't.

"So what's with that name?" he finally asks. "I mean, you don't hold onto the souls, so shouldn't it be Soul… Transferrer or something?"

She's tried to prepare herself for any questions he might have, but this one hadn't even crossed her mind.

"I don't know, honestly," she admits. "As far as I'm aware, that's always been what we're called in English. I know the Swedish name is more along the lines of… Soul Carer. Which is a term they also use for a priest or someone in the church who offers spiritual guidance, actually, but I'm not sure where it originated, which came first. There are some languages where it's more like you said, Soul Mover or Transferrer or something similar, and others where the focus is more on the passage part, like Spanish, where it's basically Passage of Souls."

"So let me get this straight… you're a Soul Keeper, you don't work at the library?"

"No, I do. Well, I volunteer there, I don't get paid or anything," Clarke clarifies. "Being a Soul Keeper is my actual job."

Bellamy lets out a laugh at that. "Right, I'm sure the pay is great."

"It is, actually," she tells him with a shrug. At his raised eyebrows, she continues. "We do have to actually live, you know. We might not age like the rest of you, but we need a place to sleep, food, the basic stuff everyone needs."

"Wait, wait, wait – you don't age?"

He's looking at her like she just revealed that she's really an alien, which, she supposes, is probably right up there with not aging.

"We don't. I think it's out of practicality, so new Keepers don't need to be recruited as much."

He sighs. "I am trying really hard to give you the benefit of the doubt right now, but you're not making it easy."

"I know, sorry."

"Let's just say I do believe you. How long have you been a Soul Keeper?"

"Since 1868."

Bellamy's eyes widen almost comically. "Seriously?" She just nods. "So that means you were around during the Civil War."

She raises an eyebrow at his statement. "Please, we both know the Civil War ended in 1865."

A ghost of a smile flashes across his face. "Good save."

"But I was there at the opening of Yellowstone," Clarke says. "I saw the Statue of Liberty go up. I was technically around for both World Wars, but I was here in the US during that time, so I can't say it affected me that much. I was at Woodstock, I've seen The Beatles and Elvis in concert. I watched the moon landing in real time. I was at the fall of the Berlin wall."

"That's… that's a lot to take in."

"I have pictures," she offers. "I mean, I know it's really easy to fake those these days, but I can still show you. If you think it would help."

Bellamy just nods, so she gets up and goes to get a photo album from one of the bookcases. She has a ton of pictures, of course, but a lot of them are just her with Raven or one of her other friends with nothing that really indicates the time it was taken, apart from the clothes, so she went through them the other day, trying to find photos to show him that would actually be useful and put together them in one album.

She sits down a little closer to him when she gets back to the couch, to be able to show him the photos better, and she's relieved that he at least doesn't move away from her. That's something.

"OK, so a lot of these aren't exactly obvious, time wise," Clarke says as she opens the album to the first page, a photo of her and Raven in front of Raven's house in San Diego in 1912.

"That's Raven," Bellamy notes with a frown.

"Oh, yeah, she's a Soul Keeper too."

"And Zeke?"

"Him too," she confirms. "And Wells and Sasha and Jasper and Monty and Harper and Maya."

"Do you have any friends who aren't Soul Keepers?" he asks incredulously.

"Well, the whole not aging thing makes it hard to form lasting relationships with Norms…"

"Norms?" he cuts in.

"Normal people who aren't Soul Keepers. They tend to start questioning why you look the same ten years down the line… so yeah, I do only have Soul Keeper friends. And you… I hope."

If she was looking for reassurance on that part, she's disappointed. Bellamy just nods and looks at the photograph again.

"When is this from?"

Clarke tries not to let the lack of response affect her, but her stomach, which has been churning ever since she started talking, drops a little, and she has to swallow before she can answer.

"1912, San Diego. Raven's always been all about technology, she got a camera as soon as they were commercially available. I mean, the year isn't clear in the photo or anything, but…"

"It's obvious that it's old," he notes, hesitantly touching a worn edge of the picture.

"Yeah." She turns the page, revealing one photograph of her and Lexa from Grand Canyon and one of her and Raven with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. She remembers the photo of the Grand Canyon being taken by the El Tovar Hotel at the ten year anniversary of its opening, so it must be from 1915. The cars in the background of the second photo, and the fact that the bridge wasn't opened until 1937, make it obvious that it's from the late thirties.

"Who's that?" Bellamy asks, pointing at the photo of the Grand Canyon and pulling her back to the present.

"That's Lexa."

He takes his eyes off the album to level her with a questioning look. "You mean the ex-girlfriend who took off for Australia a while ago?"

"Yeah. Not so much a while ago, more like… eighty years?"

She's not sure why it comes out as a question. He's quiet for a long moment, eyes back on the photos.

"So what you're saying is that everything you've told me is basically a lie?" he eventually says, voice flat, completely devoid of any kind of emotion that could let her know what he's thinking.

"No!" Clarke exclaims, a little louder than she had intended. "I mean… technically, a lot of the specifics – years and stuff – I had to fudge a little. I mean, what would you have said if I told you Lexa and I broke up in 1936?"

Bellamy ignores her question but does look up at her, eyes hard. She almost wishes that he would look away again. "What else have you been lying about?"

She closes her eyes for a moment and presses the heels of her hands against her lids. She knew there was a big chance he'd react like this, if he even believed her – that he'd be angry she's been lying to him. She thought she had prepared herself for it, but apparently not.

"I don't know… sometimes I've said I have a double shift at the library or that I'm meeting Raven when I have a Transfer. It's not like I could tell you what I was really doing, could I?" He nods once at that, whether in agreement or just acknowledgment she doesn't know. "Wells… we weren't a couple back in high school, we started dating when we were both in London in 1955 and broke up in 1971. I didn't inherit this place from my parents when they died, because they didn't, I've never actually had parents. And, obviously, my nonexistent grandfather didn't buy it, I did, back in the forties. I… I don't know, there are other things, but please, I never wanted to lie to you, I had to. If I told you the truth from the start, you would have run the other way."

He doesn't look appeased. "I guess you may be right about that," he does admit though.

"And nothing I have told you about how I feel about you has ever been a lie, OK? Please, tell me you believe that."

He looks away from her. "I honestly don't know right now."

Clarke has to bite the side of her cheek to not say anything else, and her fingers itch to reach out to him, but she doesn't, instead fists her hands so hard she's sure her nails are going to draw blood. Not that it matters. It'll heal in a moment.

"Is this from the opening of the bridge?" Bellamy asks, pointing at the photo.

"No," she replies after a moment, voice shaking a little. She swallows before she continues and actually manages to sound pretty much normal. "I was in New Orleans at that time, so I couldn't make it out to the opening. I think this one's from that summer, so a couple of months after. Lexa left for Australia in November the year before and Raven decided we needed a girl's trip to take my mind off it or something."

He nods and turns the page, which reveals several photos from Las Vegas in the late forties or early fifties. Most of them are of buildings that have long since been torn down, but in one, she and Raven are standing in front of The Golden Nugget, arms around each other. The sign isn't quite as glittery as in real life, since the photo is in black and white, but it's still clearly identifiable.

"Las Vegas?" he asks, and she nods.

"Yeah. Nothing like it is today, of course, but it was quite an experience back then."

They continue flipping through the album, Clarke explaining each photo – most of them aren't obvious, though some, like the ones from Woodstock, are.

The last page is from the last time she was stationed in New York and Bellamy stares at one of them for a long time – Clarke, Raven and Zeke at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers clearly visible in the background.

"This was before…" he starts, but doesn't finish the sentence.

She nods.

"Did you… were you here when it…"

"No. The last time I left New York was in 1999, and I was in LA when it happened, so not close enough to get called in," she tells him.

"So you weren't… assigned to that?"

"No. Monty and Harper were, though… they've never talked about it."

"I can't even imagine…"

It's the last page of the album, so she closes it and puts it to the side.

"Disasters with a lot of victims are always hard," she says with a sigh. "I mean, all Transfers are more or less emotionally draining, but that's worse. We don't get them too often, luckily."

"You've done others?" Bellamy asks, looking up at her. His eyes have softened a little, which she chooses to take as a possibly good sign.

"I have," she confirms. "I was in San Francisco during the earthquake in 1906. Hartford in 1944, a large fire during a show of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. And Chicago in 1979, the American Airlines Flight 191 crash."

"But usually it's just one at a time?"

Clarke nods. "Yeah, the majority are single Transfers, some doubles, occasionally smaller groups. Anything over three at a time you have a partner for."

"How does it work?" he asks, and she thinks that his tone of voice has changed a little, not as harsh or disappointed anymore, more… curious. "I mean, you obviously don't just go wandering around the streets of New York, waiting for someone to drop dead. You said you were assigned cases, who does the assigning?"

"I don't know, someone higher up, I suppose."

Bellamy gives her an incredulous look. "You've never wondered about that?"

She has, of course. In the beginning. But it's just the way it is, she's gotten used to it over the years.

"I used to, but there's no point. It's just the way it is."

Clarke can tell from the look on his face that he doesn't buy it.

"And what happens to the souls after you transfer them?"

"They move on to whatever's next, I suppose," she says, earning another incredulous look.

"You don't actually know what that is?"

She shakes her head. "No. I mean, there's obviously something, but as to whether it's heaven, hell, reincarnation… I have no idea."

He huffs at that.

"Considering how long you've been doing this, there sure are a lot of things you don't know," he notes.

"I guess so," she agrees, because it's true. "When I became a Soul Keeper, I already knew what I was supposed to do, I knew how everything worked. But nobody knows what's behind it all or what happens to the souls we help. Sure, I was curious in the beginning, but after a while you just… accept it, I guess. You just can't go around questioning and second guessing everything you do, year after year after year."

"I guess I can understand that," Bellamy grudgingly agrees. "So how do you become a Soul Keeper? What's the recruitment process like? Do they have, like, posters like the army – 'I want YOU for the… Soul Keeper Brigade' or something?"

Clarke can't help but chuckle at that. "Of course not. It's… OK, I don't want to say that I don't know again, but I honestly don't. I woke up on June 6th in 1868. Like waking up in the morning, nothing strange about it. I knew my name, I knew how old I was, I knew I was a Soul Keeper. All the information I needed – what that meant, how it was done, what was expected of me – was already in my head."

"So you just… came into existence like this?"

"Well, not exactly. My hair was longer, I think I was a little skinnier… but other than that, yeah. Just like this."

"So you guys aren't frozen in time, like vampires? You can still change?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "You did see the photos, right? Yeah, my hair grows – I have to shave my legs and armpits – my nails grow, I gain and lose weight… I put on, like, fifteen pounds when the first Dunkin' Donuts opened in New York."

"So the only thing that's different about you is that you don't age," Bellamy summarizes.

"Well, not exactly. We don't get sick, for one. I mean, we're affected by our surroundings to a certain extent, so we don't get out of everything, but we don't catch colds or other communicable diseases. We don't get hurt as badly as Norms and we heal much faster. And we're not… fertile."

"You mean you can't have kids?" he asks with raised eyebrows.

"Nope. Though on the plus side – no periods." Clarke tries to laugh but it sounds more like a huff than anything. "I mean, forget once a month for thirty-five years, I'm pretty happy I don't have to deal with that every month for all eternity, you know."

"Yeah…" he agrees thoughtfully. "So if you don't get sick and don't get hurt the way we do and heal really fast, you're basically immortal?"

"Basically," she replies with a nod. "Not completely."

"Explain, please."

"Well, we can die, it just has to be… by our own hand."

She watches his face closely as he takes in that piece of information.

"So to die, you have to kill yourselves?"

She nods. "Yeah."

"And there are Soul Keepers who do that?"

"There are, yeah." Clarke shrugs. "I haven't known any personally, but the oldest Soul Keepers that are around at the moment are only about 700 years old. I know that sounds ancient, but considering how long the world and humanity has been around, it's really not. Raven says she knew someone who was over a thousand years old, but he… he was gone before I became a Keeper."

Bellamy frowns a little as he lets that sink in. "I suppose that sort of makes sense," he says after a moment. "It must be hard in the long run. I can imagine it's difficult to adapt to the times after a while, you start feeling like you don't belong. Out of place."

That's what Clarke's thought, too, when she's considered it. It hasn't happened to her yet, but who knows what the future might hold?

"But what about before?" he then asks, making her frown.

"Before what?"

"Before you became a Soul Keeper? I mean, did you have a life before and just don't remember? Did you die, but instead of moving on to whatever's after, you were recruited or picked for this or something?"

"Like I said, nobody really knows," she says with a shrug. "I think most of us believe that Soul Keepers start out as normal people who, when they die, are either chosen to become Keepers or get to make that decision themselves. It only makes sense, considering we're all different – different ages, appearances, genders, ethnic backgrounds… But it could be something else entirely, there are other theories. The craziest one I've heard is probably that we're all sculpted out of wood and then brought to life somehow, kind of like Pinocchio."

Like she hoped, Bellamy snorts a laugh at that.

"Yeah, that's pretty out there," he agrees, then sighs. "But then again, so is everything else you've just told me."

"I know." He doesn't say anything else, just stares at the closed photo album on the table in front of them, so eventually she continues. "But you believe me?"

He looks up at her then, and she can see the conflict in his eyes.

"I don't know, I… I think I need some time to think."

Clarke quickly nods. "Of course. Do you want me to… I can take a walk or something, leave you alone for a while."

"No, you don't have to do that," he immediately replies, getting to his feet. "I'll just…"

"You don't have to leave!" she interrupts him, terrified that he'll walk out the door and never come back, that she really has scared him off. "I won't bother you, I promise. I'll give you all the time you need, just don't… please stay."

"I'm not leaving," he assures her, voice calm, giving her just a tiny bit of hope that maybe he will be able to forgive her. "I'll just be in the bedroom, OK?"

She lets out a relieved breath. "OK."

He offers her a smile that looks more like a grimace before leaving the room. Bastet, who's been curled up next to Bellamy the whole time they've been talking, stretches and gives Clarke a look that can only be described as reproachful before jumping off the couch and strutting after him. Traitor.

She slumps back against the couch, squeezing her eyes closed against the hot tears that are building behind her eyelids.

Just give him some time, she tries to tell herself. It's a lot to take in, he just needs a little time to wrap his mind around everything. It's going to be fine.

Still, as the first few tears escape, she can't help but think that she's just ruined everything.

Warnings: mentions of abortion, references to suicide

In case there are any Swedes reading this, the Swedish word I'm thinking of is "själasörjare"