babeltwo:

I know that we’ve grown apart and that’s as it should be. We learn what we can from certain people, then we move on after we’ve taken what we need. When we learn nothing new about ourselves in a relationship that’s when the relationship is over. Or it’s over the moment we’re afraid to learn something new about ourselves. But what I have been learning about myself… whatever it was inside me that was sparked and challenged when I first met you… is deeply connected to this story. I’m an unfinished man, Doctor, like a suit of clothes hanging on a display rack waiting for the final touches that may never come; I need to tell this story to make a peace with those parts of me that were left unfinished. A healing. Indulge me, if you will; I need you as a witness.

-  Garak to Bashir in A Stitch in Time by Andrew J. Robinson.

“I’m fine, if that’s what you’re asking,” Leeta said, her hostility plainly evident.

“And your friend, Ezri,” her mother said. “Is she well?”

“She’s not my ‘friend’, Mother, she’s my wife.”