A/N: I've been wanting to write this for a while and finally found the time to finish it. This is a journey through Norma's and Alex's story throughout the seasons, told from his point of view with a few additions here and there to keep it interesting (I hope). Most of all, I took the liberty to change the ending so that the world is a happier place. So basically what I'm saying is: Don't be afraid to embrace the angst since love always wins! Normero all the way.

Rating for language (some f-bombs) and sexual content. Trigger warnings for the mention of suicide, rape and incest to be on the safe side. This is Bates Motel, after all.

Disclaimer: You know the drill. Bates Motel belongs to A&E. No copyright infringement intended. This is just for fun and I'm making no money out of it.

It's your town, your rules. Everyone approves of that except her. Norma Bates. She moved to White Pine Bay only recently, a widow and her teenage son. Easy on the eyes, but there is something about her, something that sets off your warning bells. You have a good instinct when it comes to things like that. You're the sheriff after all.

So you know there is something going on when you meet her for the first time. Removing carpet in the middle of the night when her son has school the next day? It seemed weird to say the least, suspicious essentially. And in hindsight you were right since she was removing the carpet to get rid of Keith Summers' blood. The man she just had killed. Of course you don't know as yet that she is a murderer or that her teenage son is for that matter. You don't even know Keith Summers is dead. When you eventually investigate his disappearance, she is not intimidated in the least, standing on her front porch like some 30s movie star in a blue robe that matches her eyes, shamelessly flirting with your deputy, casually spreading lies as if this was a game. And on top of it all, she has the audacity to deny you access to her house. Not in your town.

You are back with a search warrant but find nothing, send your deputies to bring her to the police station for another round of interrogation, but she keeps lying her head off, still unimpressed as if you were no more than a nuisance and she only came by to drink your stale coffee. By now you know she is sleeping with one of your deputies. You tell yourself all you want is to convict her and put her in prison, but in between you catch something in her eyes, something she manages to hide most of the time and that makes you wonder what happened in her life that shaped her and turned her into that seemingly fearless heroine. At least on the surface. It will take you a long time to find out. For now, you find the bloody carpet. Sufficient proof to arrest her in the middle of the night. The handcuffs are a bonus, payback for all the times she tried to make you look like a fool. Funny, though, how the satisfaction you have been waiting for doesn't ensue. Instead, her perfume lingers in your car for days on end and the reproachful looks she darted at you whenever your eyes met hers in the rearview mirror haunt you in your sleep.

However, this is White Pine Bay and you should have known things always turn out in a different way than you thought they would. Every fucking time. The evidence against Norma Bates gets lost and the deputy she has been sleeping with gets shot. That's the short version. The long version is much more complicated. You are not stupid. Of course you knew about the illegal business Keith Summers and the deputy were involved in. Their deaths are not exactly a loss to society. It's not until you respond to her emergency call, though, drive out to the motel and find her there, standing in the rain, broken and battered but still beautiful, that you make a decision. Her face as well as the injuries of her sons tell a story of violence and survival and you cover this pile of shit up. Help her. Protect her. And don't even know why.

Something between you and her is shifting but if you hate one thing, then it is not being in control and this feels like it, has been feeling like it ever since you met her. Therefore you give her a not so polite brush-off when she visits you in your office, offers you to call her Norma, and asks for a favor. In fact, you even go so far as to threaten her because she has gotten under your skin, inhabiting your thoughts. You can't allow that, have to get the message across. You are not friends; she needs to understand that. But she is like one of those stray dogs. Once you fed them, they keep coming back. You helped her once and she recognized something beneath your hard shell. So she keeps calling you about motel residents allegedly harassing her by sending her flowers. Flowers. And yet, you show up because she has that pull you can't resist. And when you call her Norma for the first time, the sound of her name leaves a strange taste on your lips, tempting and bitter in equal measures.

She turns to you for help, but she doesn't trust you. That's why she hides at the scene to make sure you handle the situation like you promised her. As in kill the bad guy because that is the only outcome that will keep her and her sons safe in the long run. You live up to her expectations, kill to balance the power structure of the town. Or at least that's what you tell yourself. When she pops up, eventually daring to come out of her hiding place, wearing a dramatic scarf as if this was a fashion contest and not a crime scene, it feels good and right, however, that you are the one to tell her she can go home now because everything's fine. You might not have saved the world, but you have made White Pine Bay a safer place and you saved her. Again. Could get used to it.

Someone torches your house and the decision to stay at the Bates Motel is instinctual. It's not as if you're moving in with her although it feels like it when she does your laundry and treats your wounds. By now you fantasize about her on a regular basis. A fantasy that has become very detailed since you saw her undress through her sheer curtains. Nothing, however, prepared you for the raw and untamed need you feel when she touches you for the first time, the fact that it is a rather maternal gesture because she is putting ointment on your laceration not alleviating your reaction in the least. She feels it, too, you can tell by the way her breathing changes when she pauses her movements for a split second to hold your gaze. Then she looks away and it's over. Or not, because from now on you take advantage of every opportunity to touch her, no matter how fleetingly – hand, arm, the small of her back. You take what you can get, literally, and she knows, leering at you but only in between so that she could deny it ever happened. It drives you crazy. She drives you crazy.

Somehow you had hoped she would stay away from men for a while after her not so nice encounter with your deputy, but that probably was too much to ask considering her looks and the effect she has on men. It's that mix of vulnerability, temper and flightiness. So you can't help but feel relief when you hear the gossip of the town that she is no longer dating that lawyer guy. Boring and suburban. He was no match for her albeit you understand what she was aiming for, that it was an attempt to fit in. It suffuses you with sadness to watch her try and fail, just as you have been doing all your life. You are afraid to assess what it means that you two are so different, and yet, very much alike. Misunderstood, guarded, bottling up your feelings until they boil over. It makes you wonder who she turns to at night when her demons won't let her sleep and you lie awake pondering on whether to go up to her house under a pretext just to talk to her, to get to know her better. By now, it has become a balancing act. You live on a razor-edge and could fall any second. Both of you.

Hence when she tells you she trusts you, totally trusts you, her admission makes you so ridiculously happy that you are not as vigilant as you usually are when you investigate her son's involvement in his teacher's death. That boy is not as innocent as he looks; one way or the other he has been related to three dubious deaths since he and his mother moved to White Pine Bay. That's a quite impressive statistic for a 17 year old. Her son passes the polygraph test, though, and everyone is happy to move on. If only you paid closer attention. If only you went with your gut. If only.

There is always so much going on, chaos swirling around her at any given moment, that it's exhausting to keep up with her speed. You know that she tells everyone the sheriff is a personal friend of hers whenever she gets into trouble, and knowing her, this probably happens on a daily basis. Your staff is making fun of it, but you secretly like it because it means you are somehow connected to her. Nothing but an illusion. She might call you Alex by this time. However, there is an invisible wall around her. Inside it's her and her sons, outside the rest of the world and that includes you. You hate to be outside.

But then the wall starts to crack. Maybe saving her ass not once but twice as well as rescuing her youngest son out of that hellhole of being buried alive has earned you that. And the drama that is Norma Bates' life never ends. Plenty of further options to get her off the hook. Another girl disappears, another time her youngest son is somehow involved, a displeasingly familiar pattern. You are only rudimentarily surprised when she pops up out of nowhere at a party, some even might call it an orgy, to do her own research. However she managed to get in; you have learned to better not ask some questions. She looks ethereal, wearing a strapless evening gown although it's freezing. Blue again, like the robe on her porch, underlining the color of her eyes, an iridescent blue that is unlike anything you have ever seen. How can she be that beautiful? And completely unfazed by danger? Whenever she has planted something in her mind, there is no stopping her. This time it's different, though. This time she confides in you. You're not sure what it means save that it makes you feel… too much. No one should be able to mess with your head and heart like that. It's almost a reflex when you get rid of evidence that shows her bumping into that bypass sign on purpose after she unsuccessfully tried to destroy it with nothing but her screams and willpower. It is just a minor crime, anyway, and no one knows the security camera on the crossroad already has been activated. To serve and protect. You have always had your own code of honor.

You dread the day the renovation of your burned down house will be finished, delay craftsman appointments as long as possible. But eventually the work is done and you have to move out. Have to. That's exactly what it feels like. Even more so when she allows you to embrace her as goodbye. She hugs like she does everything, with full force as if her life depended on it, clinging to you in the best possible way. You never want to let go and it's over much too soon, a cold wind tearing at your clothes, your body missing the warmth of hers. It's not until she stops your car when you're about to drive away and tells you that she always felt safe when you were there, though, that you realize how much you hate going back to your house. It's just a house, not your home anymore. Home is wherever she is. So you drive back to the motel every night, park your car in the shadows, and watch. Make sure nothing bad is happening, neither to her nor her sons, make sure she's safe.

For a while this is enough until it isn't anymore. Until the missing girl dies right in front of her motel and you realize she is hiding something from you. Again. It stings because you thought you had left that behind but have to accept that she is like that – unpredictable, nurturing one moment, selfish the other. So despite everything you've been through, to use her own words, it takes her a while to come around and tell you the truth, her excuse that sometimes you're Alex, sometimes you're a cop the biggest bullshit you have ever heard. She was forced into a corner and had no one else to turn to. That's the harsh truth. When she needs you, she uses you as it pleases her. That doesn't mean she doesn't feel something for you, whatever that might be. You have no idea what to make of her random displays of affection that are as volatile as her mood. And yet, you hold her after your vocal fight, let her cry at your shoulder, and accompany her when she goes to see Bob Paris about her crazy blackmail plan. Because as ballsy as she is, that man would have her killed in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the unspoken protective shield you have spread over her. Everyone in town knows.

That pool she asked for and that Bob Paris allegedly has his men digging outside of her motel is a fucking pit. A hole so deep you could bury the entire town in it. But here she is, still believing it will all gonna be good. When? How? But you can't stand to see her being sad. So you get her car back after she traded it in for that red vehicle that's just not right for her and you call her when you are drunk and you pour out your heart to her, and still… and still… she won't let you kiss her. Somehow you think that's sweet, tell her she's beautiful. There's no way to deny it: You are flirting with her, not hiding your attraction anymore because it feels like things are evolving between you. Until Bob Paris spills her secrets. Obviously she is only shy and restrained when it comes to you, not when she picks up men in bars or sleeps with a therapist. Whose therapist was it anyway? Hers? Her son's? How are you supposed to know? She doesn't tell you shit! Especially not that this innocent looking kid killed his father. How about that? You get drunk again, much more drunk than you ever have been in your entire life because you need to drink her out of your system. As if. You wake up on the floor of your living room, however you ended up there, with a blinding headache and an intense repulsion against yourself and for one brief moment your imagination tricks you into seeing her, standing there in your doorframe, looking as beautiful as she did when she refused to kiss you in that motel room. Then you wake up completely and she is gone. You hate your life. You hate her.

There is a line and she crossed it. Made you show her your weaknesses and desires and offered nothing in return. This has to stop. Either she's in or she's out. So you confront her, give her one last chance, appropriately enough on her front porch again. But she lies and denies and slips like water through your hands. So you leave even if the way she shouts your name breaks your heart.

She won't let things go, though, comes to your office and makes a scene. By now, everyone thinks you are sleeping together, the way she storms in and confronts you obviously a lover's quarrel. But you're done with her, send her packing. Save that she goes straight to your apartment to ransack it, looking for that damn thumb drive you were arguing about. You just can't get rid of her. And albeit you might be cold and dismissive on the surface, there is a storm raging inside of you. You hurt so bad; all you want is the pain to stop. You lose it, hold her against the wall, yell at her that she should stop lying to you until she breaks down, and it feels good, so good. Your hands are in her hair, your body is pressed against hers, your lips are on her neck, her face and almost, almost, on hers until she whispers please don't touch me and it might as well have been a scream because it makes you stop dead in your tracks. Knowing what Keith Summers did to her, there is no way you are going to do anything that could frighten her. And she walks out on you, out of your life. Just like that. Isn't that what you wanted?

It makes you wonder. If that was it. You manage to drive by her motel four times until you give in and pull over the fifth time. And there she is, coming out of her office. You don't apologize for what happened, neither does she, and yet, it feels as if you both do. Then she tells you about her son, about Bob Paris' threats, her fears, and you know she is right. You are doomed. Doomed to do whatever it takes to protect her. There is no doubt what will happen next when you get in your car and drive away, her figure getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. You already have blood on your hands, but this is the first time you will take someone else's life for no other reason than to keep her safe. She is right again. Fate always wins in the end.

Whatever you do for her though – threaten people, destroy evidence, murder someone – it's never enough. The condition of her youngest son gets worse and if she was a whirlwind before, she has become a tornado now, closing in for the kill. Her son needs insurance, you have insurance, so let's get married. She tells you that at 7 o'clock in the morning, standing on your doorstep, ignoring that you refused her admittance to your house because you have realized that this can't go on, that you have to find a way to undo that spell she has put on you. When she notices you are not exactly excited about the prospect to marry her, something that didn't even seem to have crossed her mind as a possibility, she casually ups the ante. She knows you are attracted to her; so she will sleep with you. Her words take your breath away but not in a good way. You were knocked down, shot, almost killed, but her words feel like a kick in the gut and cause the worst pain you have ever experienced in your entire life. You reject her, send her away, shut the door in her face, and yet, you can't stop thinking about her fatal proposal after she is gone. What if?

Then things come thick and fast. After a sleepless night you eventually give in to your weakness and check on her. Screw pride or self-control. You should have known by now, however, that whatever she tells you on her front porch is a lie. Like that she's not afraid of her son, that he's not dangerous. What she doesn't say, can't admit to herself, confirms your fear. You know what mental illness can do to a family. It can tear it apart, sometimes even leave a deadly void. You witnessed it first hand when it happened to your mother. There is no way you will stand idly by and watch it happen to her. So you tell her you will marry her and just saying these words lift a weight from your soul you didn't even know was there. When you come home that day, you collapse into bed and immediately fall asleep. Something that never happens. You wouldn't admit it, not to yourself or to anyone else, but you are plain happy. She is going to be your wife.

That happiness almost kills her because it makes you sloppy. You didn't notice the battery of your cellphone is empty so that her call in the middle of the night goes straight to voicemail. Thank God you added her number to your priority contacts so that her message is forwarded and someone from the night shift in the sheriff's office calls you on your landline to alert you. You don't dare to think about what would have happened otherwise. The tone of her voice and the finality of her words sounded like a goodbye. She didn't expect to survive the night. You don't panic, you are trained to keep your cool no matter what, but your hands shake when you burst open the front door of her house and your voice almost breaks when you call out her name because you can't find her at first. She is in the basement, she and her son both are, visibly shaken but unharmed, well, physically at least. You have no idea what happened other than that you seem to have walked in on some kind of standoff. Here and now, you don't care. All that matters is that she's alive.

You take her son away, bring him to the best place there is to help him, and marry her the next day. It feels surreal, all of it, like a dream. Knowing how close she and her son are, you can't even begin to imagine how surreal it must feel for her. None the less you have to make it look real so that people don't get on to you. That's why you have to move in with her. Or so you say at least. She is too confused and broken due to the whole situation to question or even refuse your demands and you are no saint. You have been wanting her for what feels like forever. If there is any chance this could become more than the charade it is, then you have to take it. So you do the right things, just in the wrong order. Marriage, moving in together, first date. It's torture to sleep under the same roof and not share the same bed, but there are lines you won't cross; she has to do it. And she does.

For the wrong reasons perhaps but as is often the case, things that happen for the wrong reason lead to the right places. She comes back from visiting her son, a visit that went horribly wrong. She is devastated, crying, and in all honesty, you don't have any ulterior motives when you hold her to comfort her. She kisses you and not vice versa, she assures you not once but twice that she wants to do this, it's not you who talk her into it. And the way she kisses you, the way she grabs the back of your neck leaves no doubt as to what it is she wants or rather needs. You don't have to think twice. In fact nothing could be further from your mind than thinking. You scoop her up and carry her upstairs. Whenever you imagined this, you imagined a slow, seductive scenario that would allow you to cherish every second, devouring every inch of her body with your eyes before you would let your lips and hands follow. As it is, you don't even take off her clothes, just fuck her hard against her bedroom door and watch her lose control. It's the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. The second time you make it to the bed and this time you take it slow. She is yours, yours, yours and you need to claim it all. Her body, her bed, her house, her everything. You want to draw a red line in front of the myriad of stairs that lead up to the house to warn everyone else to keep out. This is your house now, your home.

She clearly enjoys the sex. You find out that there are many different ways she says your name depending on whether it's your tongue between her legs, your hands driving her crazy, or just you inside of her. She likes to be on top and set the pace just as much as adjusting to your rhythm. The only position she doesn't seem to enjoy is from behind and when she eventually tells you why, you feel horrible. You don't want her to be reminded of other men sexually assaulting her while you are making love. But she assures you that it's different with you, and when she eventually insists to have sex that way, it is so much more than a physical connection. It is her manner of showing you she trusts you like no other man before.

She seems to enjoy married life to some degree, too. You are very well aware, though, that compared to you she is simmering while you are engulfed in flames. The reality of being with her exceeds your expectations by far. It's not just the physical component; it's the opportunity to be close to her in general and at all times. Sitting next to her at breakfast or dinner, waking up by her side, coming home, knowing she is there. When you have to take the mandatory pictures at the Winter Lights Festival nothing about it is as annoying as it used to be because she is with you. It makes you proud to see people looking at her, admiring her beauty. They can look all they want; you are the one to take her home. And it feels as if she is also slowly getting there, letting her guard down. Sometimes you catch her studying you after you slept together, an expression in her eyes that gives you hope. Yet, it's only when she believes she is about to lose you that she tells you she loves you. It's one of those occurrences in life you solely understand in hindsight. Listening to her confession breaks your heart. Everybody has secrets but her history of incest and rape would have destroyed anyone else. To see her still standing, and moreover, worried about you instead of herself because someone threatened to use her secrets to humiliate you... This is not the same woman who lied to you on a regular basis only weeks ago, who felt the need to hide things from you and the rest of the world, and you are not the same man anymore either. So here you are. You don't know where you're going, but none of you will have to go there alone.

You should have known your luck would run out soon. As if life had been waiting for you to be as happy as you never would have dared to imagine just to take it away. Her son comes back home and it's a nightmare. You didn't know it was a choice between him and you. But once you've realized that, you make her choose. It ends in a disaster. She chooses you and her son takes a swing with an ax at you. This is worse than you expected. And yet it gets so much the worse when you decide to go behind her back to get her son admitted again because it's the only responsible thing to do and she won't do it, not in a million years. As soon as she finds out, hell breaks loose. You have a terrible falling-out in your office, her words cold and final when she tells you that she will never trust you again. It pulls the rug out from under you. You know she has a temper, but somehow you hoped to be able to reason with her considering how close you are these days. You were wrong. So wrong.

After she is gone, you lash out, devastating your office, a futile attempt to substitute your emotional pain with actual physical injuries. It doesn't work, of course. You consider getting drunk, but that won't work either. It's too much. No amount of alcohol will make this better. So you sit in your office until day turns into night, uncertain what to do. Your hesitation will haunt you later. Precious minutes that could have saved a life. When you eventually drive over to her house, or your home, you don't know what it is anymore, the house is too dark, too silent. She always leaves a light on somewhere. Something is wrong; you are highly aware of that, all your senses on alert even before you find her and her son unconscious in the bedroom. This is not happening. That's all you can think as you carry her out of the room that is filled with toxic carbon monoxide. She is not breathing; you have to resuscitate her, feel a rib break as you push too hard and breathe life into her lungs. Come on, baby. You are ready to sell your soul, to give your life away. Anything to let her survive.

She does not die but her son does. The doctors tell her when she comes out of a coma two weeks later. Her wailing will haunt you for the rest of your life. You have never heard or seen someone in such agony. She doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, doesn't talk to you aside from the accusation that you didn't do enough to rescue him. She is right, your sole defense that you have only two hands and you used them to save her life not his. It's all about choices and she makes another one. This time she chooses her dead son. She wants a divorce.

You argue, yell, and beg, but in the end, you give up and sign the divorce papers. There is no getting through to her. She won't let you touch her, won't even look at you, an empty shell of the woman you used to know. On some level, she has to know that it was no accident, that her son tried to kill her as well as himself. However, she needs someone to blame, an outlet for her pain, and it's you. Whenever she looks at you, she is reminded of the fact that you saved her and not her son. You have become a persona non grata. Even if you still are the sheriff of White Pine Bay, nothing makes sense anymore. You think about leaving, but where would you go? How are you supposed to leave her behind?

So there is only one thing left to do and that is giving her the papers in person. You haven't seen her for some weeks; she is back at her house. Walking up the stairs brings back so many memories, good ones and bad ones, that you have to draw a deep breath for more than one reason. You still have the keys, let yourself in because she doesn't answer the door. Everything is different. She always kept the house obsessively tidy, her energy as well as her perfume swirling everywhere. Now there is a layer of dust and the air is stale.

You find her in the living rom, staring vacantly into space. She has lost weight, her skin pale, her once shimmering blonde locks dull. When you slowly walk into the room so as not to startle her, she looks at you as if you were a ghost. Maybe she expected to see someone else.

"I wanted to give you that." You hold the signed divorce papers out to her, but she doesn't take them, doesn't even seem to understand why you are here. "And I..." You rummage around in your jacket pocket, producing her marriage ring. They took it off in the hospital and you kept it since she didn't ask about it. "I want you to have that."

There is a flicker of recognition, a stirring of emotion in her eyes that makes you remember why you fell in love with her. She once was the epitome of determination and vitality.

"Even if…," your voice threatens to break. "Even if we won't be married any longer, I want you to keep it. It was my mother's ring and um… I don't know, it's probably stupid, but I believe if you keep the ring, it will protect you whether we're together or not."

You never told her it was your mother's ring. Somehow you have never gotten around to that, always thinking you had more time. This is the worst moment to tell her; you're not even sure she understands what you are trying to say. When you look up from the ring you have been fiddling with right into her eyes, though, the intensity of her expression blows you away.

"Alex," her voice is breathy as if she hasn't talked for a while. She tears up, reaching out to you, and you have pulled her up and into your arms in a heartbeat. You have missed her so much, holding her so tight that she eventually begins to struggle. "You're crushing me."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." You let go of her or at least let your hands drop to her hips. It feels too good to touch her.

You don't know what you're supposed to say or do. Is that goodbye? Does she expect you to just leave the papers, the ring and walk out?

She is standing right in front of you but shirks from your look, staring at the floor. When she eventually speaks, her voice is hardly audible, "I know it wasn't your fault, but it was so hard to accept that he..." She can't say it, will probably never be able to. That her son she loved more than anything in the world tried to kill both of them, ending up taking only his own life. You wonder whether she is suicidal, considered killing herself to be with her son again. The mere idea makes your fingers clench, the movement bringing her eyes back to your face. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to live. I didn't even get to be at his funeral."

The doctors didn't know how long she would be in a coma. At some point they had to decide when to bury her son. The funeral had taken place the day before she woke up. It's cruel. She clings to you, crying, letting you comfort her.

"Let me help you. Let me just be there for you." It's all you want. It's all you've ever wanted.

"I don't know if I can."

"We could move, leave it all behind, maybe to Seattle." Her other son lives in Seattle. He came to White Pine Bay in between but couldn't stay long since his girlfriend has health issues. More choices.

You hold your breath when she doesn't immediately refuse your idea, seems to consider it. Then...

"Anywhere but Oahu."

You can't believe it. Maybe this means that fate doesn't win in the end or simply that this is your fate and you're not doomed anymore. "Ok," you try to sound casual while your heart is pounding, your pulse quickening.

"Ok." She leans back a little so that she can look at you. Was that the hint of a smile? You can't be sure, just pull her closer to hold her again without crushing her this time, her words a breathy whisper next to your ear, and yet, the most beautiful thing you have ever heard when she asks, "So, where are we going?"

For now, I consider this a one shot although there might be potential for a a multi-chaptered story. We'll see...