A/N: This fic started out as a T-rated one shot which was a way for me to get some feels out about a close friend but when i sent it to my awesome friend and beta (Drummerchick7) she demanded a smut scene :) I tried and tried to write it but for some unknown reason I couldnt and rather than leave her demands un-met, we decided to go all out and collaborate on the rest of the fic.

So yeah, this first chapter is all me but the rest of this masterpiece we worked on together. My co-author is awesome and she deserves just as much credit for this as I do!

Anyway, this is all written from Shepard's POV. Hope you all enjoy some Traynor lovin' :D

Dont forget to read and review!

I have no idea how long I've been stood here watching you. I'm talking to Liara in the corner of the CIC about the next mission parameters but my gaze always wanders back to you. You're gorgeous, intelligent, and all around amazing, and everyone but you knows it. I get to stand here every day and watch you fight, not literally fight since I would never allow you to be out in harm's way like that, but in your own way, fighting with your faith. I get to see your belief and your fiery spirit. And yet I can't touch you.

You connect everyone; connect everything in this war effort. You're as essential to me as breathing and I can't tell you, I can never tell you about this.

I love you.

It scares me in its intensity; the unyielding, burning urge to touch you, kiss you, run my hands through your hair and tell everyone how I feel. I would yell it from the top of the presidium and I wouldn't care who heard me. Every time I see you my heart jumps, my stomach churns and I always end up smiling. I could come back from the worst mission in the world and yet one glimpse of you in your form fitting uniform and my mood flips.

I knew when we left Earth. The first time we spoke, when you interrupted me and Liara in my cabin, I knew I was gone. You looked so nervous standing there, looked lost even though I felt like I'd just been found. You looked scared and intimidated and maybe even slightly awed at the sight of the two of us together. I knew right then that given half a chance I would do everything to make sure you felt safe around me. I wanted to be your friend. I wanted to get to know the person behind the uniform. Behind your slightly awkward exterior I knew you would be amazing. It's why I enjoy talking to you at every chance I get.

I see you in the CIC, leaning over the comm feeds and I want so much to be able to tell you how I feel but I know it wouldn't be fair. I can't ask you to care for me like that, especially given how I seriously doubt I'm going to get out of this war alive. I'm barely holding it together as it is and the way I'm forced to throw myself into the fray every day, there's no guarantee I'm ever going to come back. I can't make that promise and I won't make you worry, I won't hurt you. I can't ask someone to do that for me, even if it means I'm going just a little bit crazy without someone to turn to, to be vulnerable to.

But I've known you for five months and I already love you. Five months of tentative friendship for the both of us and total torture for me. Unrequited love is supposed to be one of the worst feelings in the world; I just never thought I'd know what it was like. It's like being the happiest I can be and being biotically punched in the gut at the same time.

I know I'm supposed to be the suave one, the cool, collected, confident Commander, but whenever I'm with you all my experience abandons me and I'm back to stuttering and stumbling over my words like a teenage boy. It's a first for me; even when I was inexperienced with women I always managed to bluff my way through, hiding my nervousness behind a confident swagger and a well-timed quip. But you... you mess that up. You have no idea of the effect you have on me.

You don't see yourself the way others do. We talked about it once, during our first chess game; I invited you up to my cabin despite my best judgement. I had to know more about you. I couldn't not - you were the enigma I had to unravel, the puzzle I had to figure out. I asked you that night about how you saw yourself. I think I told you that I liked knowing my crew, liked knowing more about them than their dossiers told me. It was a total lie. Yes, I like knowing my crew but that's not why I asked.

I had to know, had to know every little thing about you. You told me about your life with your family, joining the Alliance, your special science training in the academy, and all about your chess tournaments. I just sat there, listening to you talk, your voice washing over me. That accent of yours; every bit as entrancingly sexy as you are. I revelled in it.

Absorbing every little detail of your life, memorizing it, and admiring the way your eyes lit up when you found a topic that fascinated you. It was a shock to learn that you were from Horizon. That place holds so many tortured memories for me but knowing that what I did saved you-I know I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I've never really believed in destiny or fate, but that night made me question everything I already thought I knew, you were perfect…no, you are perfect.

You were so beautiful that night. That night I saw the real you. I saw the cautiously confident, teasing woman hiding beneath the surface of the shy persona you showed the world. Your self-confidence was so low. You didn't believe you deserved to be on board the Normandy; you didn't think you were good enough.

I don't understand how you could ever think you weren't good enough. You're amazing and fascinating and the most gorgeous person I've ever laid eyes on. It was that night I discovered the only thing that could make you more beautiful. It was that night that I first saw you blush. I told you that I wouldn't let you leave even if you wanted to. I told you that I wouldn't want anyone else to steal you away from me. The sight of the soft pink blooming across your darkened cheeks made my breathing hitch and my heart jump - a sensation already too familiar where you're concerned. That blush is the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

It didn't take me long to work out the truth. You can't take a compliment at all; you always blush and duck your head down with your beautiful half smile and your hair swinging across your eyes to hide your embarrassment. Naturally I couldn't stop it; I had to see that amazing smile burst through. I guess I thought that maybe, if I did it often enough, you would start to believe them. I end up flirting all the time; compliments and comments just to glimpse that side of you. And each time I do I just want to slap myself for being so stupid, for allowing my emotions to slip past my better judgement and make you uncomfortable. I should have better self-control than that. I do have better self-control than that-in every other situation.

Trouble is, when it comes to you, I can't control anything. It's that goddamn uniform, and that smile, and that adorable blush. It's like an addiction I have to feed; a bad habit I can't kick and I'm not entirely sure I want to. I like making you happy, making you smile. I love your laugh, the way your eyes light up and your entire body relaxes, and for a brief second I can let myself forget that I'm supposed to be your friend and nothing else. I forget that I'm your commanding officer and I forget about the Reapers and the billions of people dying every minute I waste on myself I should feel guilty about it but where you're concerned I can't bring myself to. I really want to forget. I want to just lose myself in your eyes. Lose myself in your touch. Fuck. I have fallen for you so hard.

You have no idea how much I care about you. How much I watch you from afar: in the CIC, when you're bent over your console; during briefings in the war room; even in the mess or through the windows of the med-bay. You could accuse me of stalking and you wouldn't be far from the truth, but I can't stay away from you - it's like gravity, you physically draw me in.

You've become my personal nicotine patch and caffeine stim rolled into one without even knowing it. You're the only one I'm holding it together for. I smile and fake to others, pretending that I'm okay, when inside I'm a tangled, burning ball of grief and pain and loss. I'm a mess. I'm not sleeping, not eating, and the times when I do, the faces of those I had to leave behind flash into my mind and I'm left feeling sick, knowing that I'm the only one who can save them. Its nights like that that I find my thoughts turning to you. Wishing I had the courage to love you and let you love me back. Wishing I had the nerve to tell you how I feel, to trust you with everything that I am and know that you will help hold me together when I'm tearing apart at the seams.

Of course all this wishing doesn't do me any good. I don't even know if you'd be interested. As a self-proclaimed lab rat why would you want a soldier as damaged as me? You could have anyone you wanted. Hell, you spend enough time with Ashley and you'd have to be blind to miss the looks she throws your way. I'd be happy for you both, you'd be good together - you might even be able to tame some of that Williams family fire. I hate that I can't tell you; hate that I could miss my chance with you purely because I care too much to risk the relationship we've already built. It kills me to know that if you did get together with her I wouldn't try and stop you. I want you to be happy and if the person that can do that is Ash then I'll suck it up and remind myself that you were never mine to begin with. I just have to remind myself that it's hopeless so I can stop torturing myself. Dammit.

Sometimes I forget not to hope. I forget that you have no idea how I feel and those are the times I end up wrestling with my already battered self-control. I'll catch you looking at me or I'll catch your eye and the smile that lights up your face makes me want to hug you and touch you in ways that would never be appropriate for a friend. You're already shy enough, and every day I'm constantly reminding myself to be careful, to never give more than a hint of my feelings, at least no hint that can't be passed off as playful teasing. I don't want to scare you away.

You are perfect to me and every day I wish I could tell you, but, I know I'll never have the courage. I can take on the most horrific beings that exist in this galaxy, and face them down without even a flicker of fear; but when it comes to you, I'm defenceless. My nerves of steel waver and I doubt everything I say and do. I'm so terrified of a rejection that I'm certain would come if you were to know that I can barely enjoy the time we spend together.

During the time I've known you, we've become friends. Close friends. It's great and amazing because I get to spend time with you just relaxing; just being Shepard rather than The Commander that I have to be the rest of the time.

We have our chess nights and you always win, although I admit, I enjoy your victorious smirk too much to really do much to try and beat you. Not like I could beat you if I tried, mind. When we play I can see you planning and strategizing, every move reflected in your eyes before you obliterate my weak defences, blasting straight through the walls I've built without batting an eye. It feels like that whenever I see you. Every time I think I've got a handle on this maelstrom of emotions that you stir up, I see the small pout of your bottom lip when you're faced with a new challenge from a reckless move on my part and longing almost tears me up inside.

I almost wish you'd just ask me about the glances I throw your way, or the ridiculous, chivalrous instincts I only seem to possess when you're around. I want you to ask. Need you to. It's the only way you could ever know the truth. I could never lie to you. Would never lie to you. I'd sooner face a Reaper alone than ever betray the trust you have in me. If you would only ask, things would be so much better, so much easier.

I could make you happy but only if you wanted me to. I'm too selfish to believe that if you wanted me I would tell you 'no' for your own safety and emotional well-being. I care too much, I'm too human, to be that selfless.

I could die any day and each time I step into that shuttle and hear your voice ringing across the comm system signalling for take-off, I wish with all that I am that I had told you how I feel. I never know which mission will be my last, and if I were to die without you knowing, then my sacrifice would have been for nothing; you would never know that it was for you. That everything I ever did was always for you: to keep you safe, to get you through this waking nightmare of a war without being hurt or touched by the horrors that rage on the burning worlds all around us.

I should tell you. You deserve to know, even if that means taking a risk and making myself vulnerable, I feel far worse hiding this from you. I feel as if I'm lying not only to myself, but to you through omission, almost as if the very foundation of our friendship is based on a lie.

I can see you now, leaned over that infernal console. Your dark hair falling around your face and the graceful movements of your fingers across the display as you try and track down another lead through the endless streams of information directed at you. You're so beautiful. You really have no idea. I'm going to tell you. I have to tell you. I can't hold back this barrage of emotion anymore. My heart is pounding and I know I'm sweating; so much is riding on this. You turn to look at me with a small playful smile on your face with just a hint of that old self-consciousness, a small smile that blossoms into a full blown grin when our eyes lock and I know you're remembering the humiliating defeat I suffered during our last chess game. You can't help the superior, triumphant look that you get whenever you well and truly beat me.

God I have to tell you.

I reach you finally and tug on your sleeve to get you to follow me. You look confused at first but that's quickly replaced by a look of, what I realise with a pang of guilt, is one of absolute trust. We ride the elevator up to my cabin silently. I'm fidgeting the hem of my shirt and words have completely abandoned me. Shit. I'm going to need to be somewhere comfortable if I'm going to have the guts to do this, somewhere we won't be interrupted by prying eyes or roaming ears. The door to my cabin slips open and you follow me inside. I still haven't spoken to you yet but I swear it's not for the lack of trying. I swallow down the dryness in my throat and offer you a drink before downing my own shot of brandy. Whoever invented Dutch courage was a genius.

I indicate for you to sit down on the couch before I slide closer and grasp your hands in my own. I'm trembling slightly again and my stomach is turning somersaults.

I love you.

Did I say it? No. The words are still stuck in my throat and it's impossible to force them out. God, I swear I'm going to be sick. I had no idea that just three simple words could be so hard to say. You look at me a little bit concerned before I shake my head, mentally kicking myself into action.

Sam

I whisper your name, caressing it with my voice, relishing in the shiver you try and suppress. Maybe I was wrong. God, do I hope I was wrong, because here I go.

I love you

This time it works. The words tumble from my mouth and before I know it, they've been said and I can't take them back. You look stunned. A beat of silence passes. Then two. Then three. Fuck. Now it's just getting awkward.

Even if you don't feel the same I would have hoped for at least some sort of response; something, anything, to show that you heard me. To tell me that I'm not an idiot for daring to put my feelings into words. You haven't moved. Haven't said anything, you just look completely dumbfounded as if you can't comprehend what I just said. I shift awkwardly and make to stand, about to open my mouth and tell you that you can leave before my emotional walls completely collapse and you see me sob, but I'm cut off as you barrel into me, pinning me back down to the couch. Your lips fasten to mine; cutting off any thoughts I had about pushing you away. I'm frozen. Transfixed. Everything I've ever wanted is literally in my arms and in my lap. My brain has short-circuited; the immediate sensory overload that is you too much to handle.

My paralysis leaves me, and I slide my hands up your back to pull you closer, tugging you to straddle my lap properly as your tongue slips between my lips to dip inside. Sweet Jesus, this is actually happening. I'm willing my brain to catch up but in all honesty I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is real, that this isn't a dream. You taste amazing. Feel amazing. Your scent. Your everything. You're perfect, although I already knew that. I'm so happy that I'm surprised my heart hasn't exploded out of my chest yet. You pull back and I can't help the pitiful whimper that escapes me at the sensation of my own version of heaven being yanked away so soon. You giggle slightly and lower your forehead to rest against mine, offering one last gentle kiss to my lips.

I love you too…

Surely I imagined that? In all the scenarios in which I've imagined this happening this is the one that I honestly never expected, the one I had yearned for the most but I had never dared to hope would happen. You laugh at me again, at the dumbfounded expression on my face, the look of shock and awe I know I'm not hiding.

I love you Shepard. I always have. I just never thought you would ever love someone as unimportant as me.

I can't hold back the laughter at that. I can't believe how oblivious we both were. They say love is blind but I think we've found a whole new meaning. I kiss you again, pulling you as close as possible. I'm already addicted to your taste and I'm certain I will be for a long time to come yet. You thread your fingers through my hair, tugging at the short, fiery red strands as I suck your tongue into my mouth and slip a hand under the back of your uniform shirt. I have to touch that perfect strip of skin; it's been torturing me for months, the hem of your shirt riding up slightly whenever you bend over or sit down in the mess. You moan into my mouth at the first skin-to-skin contact, and again, I wonder at how long it took me to woman up and tell you I loved you.

Your words from earlier come floating back. 'I never thought you could love someone as unimportant as me.'

No, you are as far from unimportant as it gets: you are my life, my everything, and you have been from the first moment I saw you. You have to know this? You have to at least have suspected? A warm glow fills me up, healing the self-inflicted lacerations on my heart. I smile into the kiss, feeling your lips do the same. You need to know. I need you to know.

You're not unimportant Sam. I love you so much. You are my world, the one I get up every day for. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner…

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the start, the next chapter is already set to go and we're working on sorting out a third to wrap it up. Please leave some reviews! Its a real confidence boost especially after such an emotional piece!