Kill me. (I'm the worrrrst.)

You’re a goddamn monster and I hate you.

“Do it,” the demon ordered.  Behind him the flames rose higher, gathering strength.

 “Clarke, no,” Octavia screamed.

 The sword shook in her hands.  The curse rang in her ears with terrible clarity.  Saving world will cost you the one you love most.  The words had chilled her to her very bones but Clarke hadn’t given up demon hunting, because that’s what Griffin women did.

They hunted demons.

 No matter the cost.

 So she’d withdrawn, making herself cold and aloof to protect her friends.  It was the only way she could go on; the only way she could think to survive.  Keep them at a distance so she would never have to sacrifice them.

 But the day Bellamy Blake walked into her life with his necromancer witch of a sister that all blew apart.  She’d kept him at arm’s length at first, bickering with him even as she came to rely on him.  He wormed his way into her heart and before she realized it she was throwing herself in front of a fire demon to keep him out of harm’s way.

 But no matter what, she wouldn’t say it.  Not when he kissed her, not when he pulled her out of the siren’s clutches just before her lungs gave out completely.  Not when he was inside of her, and not when he tenderly wrapped the deep cut on her arm from fighting the ice demon.  Not when he kissed her shoulder as they lay in bed together, and not when he challenged her to a sparring match with their swords.  She wanted to— every single time— but the curse kept coming back to her.  Saving the world will cost you the one you love most, it said, and she hoped if she didn’t say it out loud it wouldn’t be true.

 She should have known curses didn’t have loopholes.

 “Do it,” the demon ordered.  “Kill him, or watch the world burn.”

 “No,” she spat.  “I won’t.”

 Wind from the flames fanned Bellamy’s hair, but he kept his eyes on her.  “Come on, Clarke.  There’s only one way out of this.  You know that,” he said, steady and reassuring even on the edge of death.  “I love you, O,” he called, and then those brown eyes were back on her, anguished but determined.  “It’s what has to be done,” he said.  A sad smile crossed his face.  “But hey, at least now we know curses are real.”

 Clarke made a sound that was half laugh, half sob.  Of course he would choose this moment to make a terrible joke; it was why she loved him in the first place.  “I didn’t want it to be you,” she said, and a tear rolled down her cheek as she tightened her grip on the sword.

 “I know, princess.  I didn’t either,” he said.  She stepped closer and his shoulders tensed.  “Just do it fast, okay?”

 Clarke nodded and raised the sword.

 Octavia’s scream echoed in her ears.  Bellamy’s eyes widened and Clarke could have sworn she felt the metal pierce her own heart.

 And then he fell over.

 Dead.

Clarke dragged herself back to the group.  Raven was patching up Monty and Octavia was slumped over Bellamy’s body, murmuring.  Clarke couldn’t bring herself to look at him.  “Is it over?” Harper asked.

 “It’s over,” Clarke sighed.  “Just had to do a little demon clean-up.”  Her clothes were spattered in black blood and her throat felt raw from all the smoke, but at least they were alive.

 Well, not all of them.

 Not the one who mattered.

 “You saved the world, Clarke,” her mother said.  “I’m so proud of you.”  The tears started to fall and Clarke collapsed into her mother’s arms, broken.

 Six feet away, Bellamy coughed.

 Clarke was out of her mother’s arms like a shot.  She shoved Octavia out of the way and threw herself across Bellamy’s chest.  “It worked,” she murmured.  “It worked.”

Bellamy gave a hoarse chuckle and his hand curved around the back of her head.  “Of course it worked.  My sister is one hell of a witch,” he said.  Clarke laid her head over his heart, needing to hear it beat.  He coughed again.  “Could you let up?  I did just get stabbed, you know,” he teased.

 Laughing through her tears Clarke lifted her head and helped him sit up.  She kissed him— first his lips, then his cheeks, then his eyelids— and pressed their foreheads together.  “That was a hell of a risk you took,” she scolded.

 “I trusted you,” he said, and lifted his lips to press a kiss to her forehead.  “But hey, now we know curses have loopholes.”