A/N: This came about while I was reading through some Fem Shep and TIM romance. I had never considered the pairing until I looked up stories with the Illusive Man and found so many of those 95 involved a romance with her. So I had three stories pop into my mind, and this was the first. Now, my Shepard had the most depressing back-story to me that I could think of (because I'm a character sadist, and love it). She was raised as an orphan on Earth, and served at Akuze. She's the Survivor, and I chose Akuze especially for that name. Because that's what I wanted the savior of the galaxy to be in ME1. A survivor. She's also just a basic Soldier.

But Despite that drive to live, my Shepard is...well, you'll see. This is how I could envision a romance happening between the Illusive Man and a more...not chaste, not really, but a little less explicit Shepard. And no, this doesn't follow canon, because in ME3 I gave up on canon for anything but personalities, because many things. I have not read the graphic novels with TIM in them, or that give more background to him. To show this, he is named Remington. Remington Harper (just because I always thought Harper was a cool name and he seemed to work as a Harper...even before I learned that that is his canon surname).

Rated MA for sexual references (alright, sex...), swearing, and insidious thoughts on both sides.

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What was it about her? Here he was, lying in his own blood, so sure of death...and she should be saving the world from his folly, from his mistakes...and here she was, weeping over him after shooting him, kissing him...his dark angel. And she was dark...she had fallen so many years ago, as he had. The gangs had molded her, and it showed. She was only thirty-five...but her eyes, so bright a green they were like his...they were far older. He felt so ashamed that part of that was his fault...that he had ever let anyone try to hurt her...

"Marie? Marie...you have to go...save them...save them all...save them from me..." he whispered, feebly reaching up to stroke her cheek. She kissed him, holding him close...so close his body burned again, the cybernetic implants unable to dull the burning passion he still felt for her...by all rights the Reaper's should have locked that from his heart, he should hate her, break her neck-

"Go! Marie, you have to go...before their whispers rule me again...I'm so sorry..."

She was bleeding...part of him knew that she might die too...she might not succeed anymore than he had, but she was right!...she was right...

He became aware of her fumbling in his suit-pockets, searching for something. He hadn't the energy to tease her, to ask her what she sought now, when time was all that mattered. When humanity needed her to be her strong self, to ignore her feelings just...just one more time...

She smiled weakly, and pulled the silver cigarette case from his suit jacket, and his lighter from another pocket. And she lit the cigarette, and handed it to him.

"You need a smoke...and I want that to still be burning, and you still breathing when I get back...I'm not leaving you here, Remington...You're not dying on me...not now..." she whispered, and he dropped the cigarette with a weak chuckle, enjoying her passionate kiss as he weakly reached a hand up to stroke her black hair, her cybernetic eyes so fiery with her need to keep him alive.

"I'm quitting...can't guarantee the bourbon, but I'm giving those up, Marie...you always hated them anyway..."

She smiled weakly, tears running from those bright green eyes. He knew they had some cybernetics in them...but he recalled thinking, even on the vids when she was made a Specter...he recalled noting how green those eyes were even then. How fiery and passionate...and so attractively bright...

"I thought you said you'd never quit?"

"Never say never, Marie...go on...I'll smoke this last...and I'll be breathing when you get back. But hurry back..."

That's what it was about her...that girlish...chastity. That innocence and idealism and hope. The whispered words in his mind had made him hate her, made him want to hurt her for defying him...but they couldn't stop his longing for her. Every night, even with the words in his mind, the thoughts that were not his...even then, nights spent hating her turned to dreams of her in his arms again, him soothing some fevered nightmare, him waking her when the night-terrors gripped her once more. When her experiences bit back at her strong soul and caused her so much pain. Her chastity had made him intrigued, it had drawn him in...and he'd seen that cynicism that covered it so well, so obvious in her sarcastic and witty comebacks to his taunts. But underneath that, such a layer of true, genuine compassion...a genuine belief in the goodness of people, in their ability to get along and co-exist.

She still believed that...still believed that of him...he who had hurt her so much, who had made her shoot the one man he knew was a father to her. Still she loved him...

When had it started? He wished nothing more than to let his last moments be spent thinking of her...perhaps her hope was infectious, because he hoped so fervently that by thinking of her, he could hurry her, and she could save them and come back to his arms...maybe die there, together...maybe live. But he hoped to hold her again...he wanted to hold her...

When had it started? He'd been intrigued by her from the start, but...had it been when she first demanded to see him? To be brought to his base again and see him in his office, demanding answers of him, searching him with a gaze as piercing as his own? Had it been then, when he'd seen that fiery passion in person? That had started his interest...that had made him call her more frequently, intrigued to push her buttons and see her reactions. To manipulate her and twist her and force her to do as he wished-

No! That had not been the intent! He had wanted to know how and why people followed her so loyally, how she defied him and yet did as he bid, how she was so good a soldier, and how she had survived all she had been through. What made her tick? That had been what started it...simple human curiosity...and an interest in the human psyche. Something they both shared, they had found quickly.

His dark angel...his fiery, dark-haired, fallen angel...he could die happy, if those green eyes were the last thing he saw, and that broken nose was wrinkled slightly in amusement at some tease or other...or those red lips were pressed to his...He could die happy if she could find it in her caring heart to forgive him for everything he'd done...to her, more than to humanity. Humanity could go fuck itself...if they lived, and he doubted it so highly...he wanted to live with her. Just...live. He was one of the richest men in the galaxy...a nice house, a large yard...a stable even, he knew she loved riding...a room for dancing, not the bar-dancing everyone criticized her for, but the proper, ballroom dance...of one form or another. She had been so very fetching when she had danced a flamenco with him...perhaps children, if she wished it...she deserved to have something soft to love...something she could defend but that would love her back. Or just them...he knew she loved dogs and varren, and horse riding...maybe that would be all, them and some pets...but it was a dream he would cling to, as long as he could stand to think of it...

He absently began to smoke the cigarette, savoring it, knowing it could never be his last, but willing to try and make it. It may be his last if he died...and it had to be burning when she got back...he couldn't be dead and break her heart like that.