I think I might continue this, but I could really use some help! I have so many fics going all at once that are pretty relative and could probably be condensed into this one. If you would like to beta and aid in the salvation of my sanity, please PM me!

Approaching two years after the end of the war and a little over one since the wedding, Gladys was still maneuvering her slim form through shadowy doorways and into Betty's arms.

During the war, it wasn't a big fuss for the girls to slip into each other's company at all hours of the night. They were just young things in the most exciting time of the century; youthful feet excitedly pattering the sidewalks during the wee hours of morning were to be expected in those times. But these days, a married woman couldn't be seen prowling about the neighborhood beyond her own white picket fence after 7 o'clock.

It came as an unimaginable relief when Betty bought the home in back of Gladys and James's own modest bungalow. James himself cosigned her papers (a girl only made so much in the factory, and it wasn't exactly easy to find a decent paycheck after the boys came home) and popped the cork at her impromptu welcome party, attended only by Betty, Gladys and James, and, in spirit (by telephone) dear sweet Vera, who had landed earlier that month in Hollywood to work as a wardrobe girl for the pictures.

"I'm so glad you have someone who cares about you so close, now," James had muttered into her hair in bed that evening. He took in a deep breath through his nose in a satisfied way. "I won't have to worry so much about you being home alone all day."

Gladys nuzzled into him and placed her hand on his chest. "No, darling, you won't," she said absently. She slid her slim fingers through his curls and imagined them instead as the ones nestled below Betty's naval, a favorite resting place of her left hand.

While the war was still in full swing and Gladys hadn't heard heads nor tails of her fiance in six months, she and Betty had curled into the warmth of one another for the umpteenth time in Betty's rickety boarding house bed, cool from the winter air but warm from whisky. It was supplied that evening by Vera, who had "borrowed" new records from somewhere and felt that a hallway party was in order.

"Oh, Betty. It's so wonderful to have you," Gladys muttered, heaving a sigh. "I don't know what I'd do, what with James gone and not writing."

Betty drew off a cigarette above her head and stubbed it out on the nightstand before she dropped ashes into Gladys's hair. "You could always get your kicks with a shore boy."

Gladys groaned comically. "Not Louis again. No, thank you." She chuckled.

"Hey, you're still supposed to marry him, remember. If James doesn't come home, you've always got another option."

Gladys swatted her stomach. "Don't talk like that!" She leaned up to scowl disapprovingly at the blonde before settling back into the mattress.

"I can't imagine what that must feel like," Betty began. "To have someone you plan to marry so far away and not know what they're doing, or if they're safe." She swallowed the lump in her throat. Now was not the time.

Gladys shrugged. "It's mostly just surreal. As if tomorrow I'd find him in Father's study like he'd never left." She shimmied her body closer to her friend's. "But I should imagine you feel the same way. About Kate," she said quietly.

Betty shook her head. "Honestly, I don't think that much about her anymore. It was like that at first. And then I was just angry about it. Now, life's gone on back to the way it was before she came."

They lay in companionable silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts . Betty broke the silence first.

"What do you miss the most?"

Gladys wasn't sure, really. So she opted for humor, something she'd learned from Betty. "The sex."

Betty snorted. "Was it really that good?"

Gladys thought for a minute. "Well, I'm not sure. I don't have anything to compare it to, except for maybe Louis's fumbling hands, and God knows that was unfulfilling."

A pretty girl like you could have your pick of shore boys, she wanted to say, but instead, they fell back into a long silence.

"What do you miss the most?"

"I suppose getting to do just this," Betty said, twisting her hands around in each other.

"I hope I make you a little less lonely," Gladys muttered.

Betty wrapped an arm around her. "You do," she admitted.

The slender brunette sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth and nibbled pensively. It couldn't possibly hurt to try. At worst, she wouldn't care for it, and all would return to normal. At best, the arrangement brought them both enjoyment and eased the dull aches of loneliness. A little tipsy but very much serious, she placed a hand on Betty's stomach. "Betty?" She ventured quietly.

"Hmm?"

"You know, I think you may… May be able to help me feel a little less lonely, too," she whispered nervously.

Betty, having a sense of where this was going, readjusted the position of her head and shirt collar nervously and tried to play unassuming. Feeling a familiar warmth spreading from the pit of her stomach, she held the brunette closer and answered in a voice too low. "How could I do that, Princess?"

Gladys nuzzled her nose into Betty's neck. "I trust you," she began quietly, shakily. "And I need to-. Well. I…"

Betty slid her hand under the hem of Gladys's blouse and rubbed circles on her back. "I'm a little out of practice," she whispered with a smile.

"Then I won't feel quite so inept," Gladys whispered giddily, resting her face against Betty's ample breast.

Betty rested her chin atop Gladys's head, now lightly dragging her fingernails per the soft skin of her lower back where it dipped inward ever so slightly. It was an intimate gesture, she realized, but appropriate, after all.

"What's gotten into you?" It was more of a quiet statement, subtly humorous.

"I need to feel, Betts."

Betty chuckled. "And here I thought I'd done good on my missionary work."

Gladys smiled against the blonde's skin. "Maybe you have." She kissed the bit of her collarbone peeking out above her top. "But mostly, I just trust you."

Nearly six years later, Gladys Dunn, as she know was called, found herself fumbling with the latch of a gate in her backyard, installed to allow convenient passage between her home and Betty's. Thankfully, she had thought to locate the key to the backdoor while still in the light of her own kitchen.

"What horrible time of night is it?" Betty grumbled, groggily pulling Gladys into the warmth of the rumpled bed.

"Half-passed ungodly," she replied, rubbing her toes the length of her bedmate's legs.

"I told you to quit doing that. It hurts."

Gladys stilled her legs. "Sorry," she mumbled, inserting her upper half into Betty's arms.

"What's James going to say in the morning when you're not there to cook his breakfast?"

"That I couldn't sleep and bothered you by telephone until you let me in."

"Oh." She pressed her lips to her companion's forehead.

Gladys closed her eyes and sighed. "Sometimes I want to thump his head into the wall."

Betty snorted. "What happened?" She chuckled quietly.

Gladys lazily wound her fingers through Betty's hair. "He's such a bore these days and on and on about children. Could you imagine? Me with brats?"

"I'd rather not," Betty chuckled.

"Besides, I couldn't bear to be all fat and wobbly for a year."

"Have you mentioned this all to James?"

Gladys disentangled her wedding ring from Betty's hair. "I've tried. But there's no telling that man 'no.'" She stared at the ceiling, thinking about just how few times she had ever denied him anything. The most recent had been in the last two days, and she'd refused sex in the light of the afternoon, lest he find the patch of "love spots" between her breasts where Betty had gotten a little carried away the day before.

"Do you get jealous?"

Betty reached blindly for the water on her nightstand. "Of?"

"James. My marriage. Anything."

Betty took a very long drink and did not speak until she replaced the glass on the table. The wait for a response made Gladys fidget.

"No, I can't say that I am," she said honestly. "But I suppose I can see where I should be."

Gladys turned on her side to face Betty and settled her nose into her companion's neck. "What are we, Betts? What are we doing?"

Betty grinned and slid her hand into the waistband of Gladys's pajama bottoms to rest on the skin of her thigh. "We're the breast of friends."

It took a moment, but when Gladys caught on, laughter poured from her lips and into Betty's hair. "Do you suppose other friends do this?"

"Some friends get together for tea. Some call each other every day. Some going shopping. But we, my dear Gladie, we fuck."

Gladys shrieked and howled with laughter. "Betty!"

Grinning like the cat who caught the mouse, Betty said, "What? We do. And I wouldn't have it anyway else." She draped her leg over her friend and held her in place. "I-. Hmm," She began. And then, a little more thoughtfully, "I do, you know, care about you, " she said. She locked her eyes with those in front of her. "But you don't exactly make my heart stop." She pulled Gladys's hand to her lips and kissed it.

"You don't make mine stop, either," Gladys whispered with a grin. "But you can make it flutter."

Betty touched her lips to Gladys's. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yes. With infuriation. I think it may be a medical condition."

Betty snorted and shoved at her friend. "Get out of my bed!"

Gladys's grin grew wider and she pulled Betty into her arms. "Darling," She began with a sigh, "I'm suddenly overwhelmed with sleep, so if you would turn off the lamp..."