Betty swings her legs onto the floor, crosses to the dresser, takes out some pyjamas and throws them at Kate, who barely manages to catch them and has to move the cigarette out of the way. Betty turns her back as Kate shrugs off the dressing gown Betty loaned her.

It occurs to Kate that Betty could have given her the pyjamas in the first place, rather than the dressing gown but it's the habit from the boarding house that stops her from questioning Betty. The sleeves are too long; Betty's always bought large pyjamas and Kate has to roll the sleeves up several times. Kate thinks it's nice; the pyjamas smell like Betty and it's the most comforting thing she's ever worn. Kate pulls on the pants and starts buttoning the jacket as she tells Betty she can turn around.

It's nothing Betty hasn't seen before. Kate's sure Betty's seen every single scar, every single inch of her body in the showers at work but she still manages to blush like a mountie's uniform when she sees Kate's uncovered clavicle. Kate catches the look on Betty's face before Betty ducks her head. It's not a look she's seen on Ivan's face; he was frank in his admiration of her. It's a look she's only seen on Betty, and it speaks more of shame than indiscretion.

"Thank you." Kate says finally.

"They're just pyjamas," Betty shrugs.

"Thank you for taking care of me tonight."

"Seems you can take care of yourself. Heard most of what went on. Real proud of you."

"Couldn't have done it without you." Kate finds herself saying. Betty makes a disbelieving face, so Kate continues. "I knew you wouldn't let anything happen to me. The service, as long as they got what they needed, would have let me drown in there. You were the only one on my team."

Betty rubs the back of her head with her hand. "Aw, it was nothing."

"It wasn't to me. And now I'm here, and not in my room that still smells like him. With my favourite person, who is the only person I can talk to about what just happened, and anything that's ever happened." Kate knows she's rambling a little, but she's so relieved to be somewhere safe with Betty. She's also trying to convey the thanks she was never able to explicitly verbalise for Betty's willingness to do jail time for a crime Kate committed.

"D'ya wanna talk?" Betty asks cautiously, pouring a glass of whiskey. She pours another, knocks it back and refills the glass before bringing both glasses to the bedside table. She retrieves her cigarette from Kate and flings herself back on the bed. Kate sits next to her again, pretending not to notice when Betty shuffles away from her. Kate picks up her drink instead, passes Betty hers too.

"I thought he was onto me, I thought I was… I thought I was going to have to… to… let him…" Betty pauses before resting a hand on Kate's shoulder, the way she always pauses before touching Kate, to make sure she has time to move away before contact is made. But Kate doesn't move away; hasn't moved away since Betty got out of jail. Mostly she leans into the touch, to let Betty know it's welcomed, and she does that now. Betty's hand rubs gently across Kate's shoulders.

"It would never have come to that. I woulda killed him myself if the boys hadn't gone in."

"I never want you to kill someone for me." Kate says seriously with a shudder, but she understands what Betty means; Betty would have burst in ready to fight if Kate had so much as whispered 'help'. Kate knows that, and it was one of two reasons she agreed to the set-up, having Betty in a room nearby.

The other reason was Ivan. They were just repairing their friendship when this man ripped the life away from a man she had loved. Not just Ivan either; many of the girls were wounded. Kate's patriotic, but it wasn't patriotism that had her agree to the arrangement; it was comradeship and the promise of Betty's proximity.

"I never wanted you to kill someone for me either." Betty replies, emptying her glass again. She doesn't sound angry or upset, she sounds like she's saying something she thought she said a long time ago and is a little surprised that Kate didn't already know.

"I never wanted you to go to jail for that."

"I never thought you did. Just couldn't stand the thought of you in there, when you finally had everything you'd been missing for so long."

"I had nothing once you were missing," Kate says a little bitterly. Betty stands, refills her glass, pounds the drink down and pours herself another, like she can't do this sober.

"You had Ivan," Betty says mildly.

Kate downs her own drink. "Ivan left me once the rumours started. He never asked if they were true, he just broke it off. Maybe he saw something I didn't, but from then on I just had the factory and the taunts." She stands next to Betty, holds her glass out expectantly and sits back down once Betty pours her another.

"Your mother?"

"Went back to North Bay. She writes. She understands, I think. I told her. I told her what I did, what you did for me."

"She sent me a cake. No file in it, but a good cake." Kate nods. "Gladys?" Kate shrugs.

"She left the factory and I barely saw her." That surprises Betty a little; Gladys was in the visitor's room waiting for her every Sunday. For a prisoner, Betty got a lot of cake. Kate showed up a few times, but Betty never wanted Kate to see her like that; face bruised from another yard fight, ugly uniformed clothes, tired face. She didn't want to let Kate even think what it was like in there because she knew Kate, knew she'd go over that place in her mind, imagine what it would be like for her instead of Betty. So Betty hid out, ashamed of herself. She gave Vera and Gladys her new address when she got out; if Kate really wanted to see her, Betty had no doubt she knew who to ask.

Betty didn't have too rough a time of it in jail, but the rumours surrounding the case didn't help her any. She got jumped in the shower a few times but she took care of it herself. Another girl passed on a phone number and an address when she was getting out; she used to be a boxer and thought Betty had potential.

"There was nothing left for me out here with you in there." Kate says simply and finishes her drink, puts the cigarette in the ashtray. She slips under the covers and looks at Betty expectantly. Betty finishes her drink too, pulls on her dressing gown and sits herself in the chair by the door. She reaches over, turns on the lamp and turns off the overhead light.

"Goodnight, Kate," Betty says quietly as she digests that thought.