She has almost convinced herself that she doesn't need to hear it. That the couple of times he's spat it out mid-quarrel was enough to know. She has almost made herself believe that the chasm between them, even when fighting side by side, was fine with her.
She's gathered the shroud of this fantasy around her for so long that it startles her when he says it. He curls his fingers around her hand, brushing his thumb over the place where her trigger finger is slightly callused. He holds it to the slight scruff of his cheek, and for the moment there are no reapers or Cerberus agents. There is no devastation. There are no aching memories of everything that went wrong between them after the first Normandy exploded and she was spaced and the one where he walked back aboard the ship. No tears shed at his bedside. None of it exists for that space of time.
One moment, brief and fleeting, but theirs. After so long, it's enough, and all she needs.