A/N: I've been mulling over the idea for this story for quite a while now and want to get it out, so to speak, before the new season starts and there will be all kinds of new inspiration. The label is program. This is a mix of angst and romance and this chapter has all the Normero angst.

Warning: There is a scene that might be disturbing to some people. Not because of what actually happens (there is no rape or abuse) but because of the circumstances. Can't say more without spoiling you. So I'm just putting this here to be on the safe side in case you're sensitive.

Disclaimer: This wonderful show and its fan-freakin-tastic characters belong to A&E. This is just for fun. I'm making no money out of it.

Alex knows Norma will leave him the moment he hears her desperate wailing when they forcibly take Norman away from her to bring him back to Pineview.

Two signatures from relatives were required. He and Dylan signed the papers.

Dylan is standing next to him, clenching his teeth, looking straight ahead, anywhere but at his mother who is running up the stairs to the house now that the car with Norman inside has left. An incessant noise of someone relentlessly smashing things sets in.

"I should go," Alex says, pointing at the house.

"You know she will throw you out," Dylan warns him, aware that his mother will also cut all her ties with him after what he did, most likely for good.

There are two things Norma Bates won't forgive. Betrayal and hurting her youngest son, and as far as she is concerned, they did both in one go.

"I know," Alex states.

He remains standing next to Dylan for another moment because once he moves, life won't be the same anymore. They did the right thing. Norman is dangerous. Sooner or later he would have hurt Norma or even worse. His wife. Dylan's mother. Sometimes there is no choice.

Alex walks up to the house slowly. There is no need to rush. Things will end soon enough.

The hallway is a mess. Norma trashed whatever got in her way and what she didn't trash she simply knocked over. Alex can hear her frantic steps upstairs, most likely she is packing his stuff so that he doesn't waste any time moving out. He expects her to throw his bag down the stairs any moment, but he underestimated her anger. Alex hears a window break and then sees his clothes sailing through the air outside like ghosts looking for a new home. He doesn't care about his clothes, doesn't go upstairs to stop her. He just can't leave without seeing her one last time.

Norma freezes when she spots him at the head of the stairs. Then she runs towards him and hell breaks loose. The few hits she scored back then at his apartment when they had an argument were nothing compared to this. Norma is livid, all claws and hate and stronger than he thought her capable of. A force induced by love. Or hate. In the end it's all about perspective. Alex doesn't try to stop her, doesn't defend himself, just takes every blow. It feels as if he deserves it.

"GET OUT!" she screams at the top of her lungs. "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

At some point Norma gives up due to sheer exhaustion, dropping on the floor right in front of him. It breaks his heart to see her like that. Alex reaches out to touch her, but she slaps his hand away as if he was a stray dog. So he walks out, away from her, past his clothes that are scattered over her front lawn, down the stairs and out of her life.

Back at his house he studies himself in the mirror, a thoroughly beaten up man. Bloody scratches on his face as well as on his arms and chest, several bruises, and for a moment, he thinks she also broke his nose. He looks as if he has come back from a war zone.

Afterwards he waits for Norma to file for divorce, but it never happens.

Now and then Alex sees her in town from afar. She always switches to the other side of the street before they actually meet, though, avoiding eye contact. The message is clear. As far as Norma is concerned, he doesn't exist anymore.

The court appoints a legal guardian for Norman. Not Norma. A third party. Dylan and he made clear that she would be the wrong choice. Something else she for sure won't forgive him. For a while they are the talk of the town. The crazy stepson of the sheriff being in a mental institution, his crazy mother leaving him. In hindsight everybody saw that coming. There is also the one or other rumor about Norma making the life of Norman's therapist and the staff in general at Pineview a living hell because she believes they are not treating her son right. Alex smiles whenever he hears it. Norma obviously hasn't lost her touch; some things never change. It's a relief because it means what happened didn't break her, he didn't break her. But then he finds out that he did.

It's Christmas and there is no way Alex will not at least try to see Norma or talk to her. Of course she doesn't answer his calls. Therefore he drives over.

The house is dark and for a brief moment of panic he fears she left, moved away without telling him where so that he will never find her. The pain is raw and fresh, even after weeks of missing her. But when Alex lets himself in because Norma doesn't answer the door and he still has a key, there is a dim light in the living room. She is sitting there in silence, staring into space. No music. No television. Just her and the ghosts that live here. Maybe he is one of them.

It breaks Alex's heart to see her like that on Christmas Eve. Alone and sad.

"Norma," he softly addresses her although she must have heard him come in.

"What do you want?" Hostile but at least she is not screaming at him or attacking him.

"It's Christmas Eve and I just thought..."

"Alex don't!" She jumps up, turning around to face him and he is taken aback how exhausted she looks. Norma has always had a radiant aura, but it's gone, her skin grayish, her hair dull. Albeit she is still beautiful, she is merely a shadow of her former self.

"I hate the thought that you're on your own," he admits.

"Well, you made sure that I am."

"Have you at least talked to Dylan?"

She screws up her face as if he couldn't be serious and she didn't even remember the name of her firstborn anymore.

"I'm done with you. Both of you," Norma states and the finality of her words make him shiver.

"What if I'm not done with you?"

"That's your problem."

It doesn't matter what he says; she will spurn him every time.

"What did you do with my stuff?" Alex changes the subject.

"Burned it." He never came back to fetch it and can't tell whether she's lying or not. His clothes were not on the front lawn anymore. Norma wouldn't tolerate a mess for long. The house looks clean and tidy as always; she eradicated every trace of her tantrum. Save that this house used to be a home whereas now it feels lifeless.

"Maybe we can talk some day." He can't give up, can't give her up.

"About what? You destroyed everything. Everything, Alex. We were happy, Norman was getting better, but you had to get him out of the way." Her expression reflects something remotely resembling vulnerability, but it is gone again in the blink of an eye. "Just leave." She turns away from him, her body language as well as her words making clear that this discussion is over.

The Christmas tree Norma bought together with her sons and Emma is still wrapped, standing in a corner. A cruel remainder of a time when she believed they would celebrate their first Christmas together this year. The tree is huge; there is no way Norma will be able to get rid of it without help. Alex walks over, grabs the tree and drags it out. She doesn't intervene, just lets him do it.

"I'll come back to fix the window," Alex says on his way out.

Norma covered the broken window upstairs with cardboard. Alex saw it when he walked up the stairs to the house. It's much too cold to live in a house with a broken window. She will freeze to death.

His announcement is met with silence.

Only when Alex is sitting in his car again, he realizes Norma didn't question that he still has a key.

Alex does as announced. A couple of days later he comes back and fixes the window. And then the drain of the sink and the lock of the backdoor that the wind keeps pushing open. When he sees Norma in town buying radiators, he shows up at her house half an hour later and repairs the heating. While he is in the basement he sees that someone has been trying to manipulate the old furnace. That thing is dangerous. If Norma had put it into operation to replace the broken heating, she could have gassed herself unintentionally. But then Alex notices that the traces of manipulation are not recent. Norman. It was him. Alex's hands are shaking; he didn't know it had been such a close call. A heating contractor removes the furnace on the same day at Alex's request. Norma is not there when the contractor comes over, but she never asks Alex what happened to the furnace.

They have some kind of truce. She doesn't talk to him, isn't even in the same room when he is there, but she lets him fix things and sometimes he even finds a sandwich or a glass of water in the kitchen waiting for him.

Then, one day, he sees it. An envelope with his name on it on the dresser in her bedroom. He assumes the ring of his mother is in there since she is not wearing it anymore, perhaps along with a letter. Norma comes up the stairs at this very moment and catches him standing there, staring at the envelope. When he looks at her, it is the first time that she lets him see it – the pain he caused her, pain that made her take off her wedding ring and put it in an envelope as if she could get rid off her love for him along with it and seal it in there so that it wouldn't hurt her anymore. Then her mask is back, but not before something flitted across her face, something that looked like the visual equivalent for I'm sorry. Or maybe he only imagined that.

The unimaginable happens several weeks later. Alex fixed something that didn't really need fixing just to be close to her. He is running out of jobs to do around the house or the motel. They both know it, but neither of them has mentioned it yet. When he is about to leave, Norma appears out of nowhere and kisses him. Not a hesitant kiss to test boundaries. It's a full-blown kiss, tongue and all, like they'd used to kiss before he signed his name on a piece of paper. Alex is so stunned that he freezes. Then his body remembers her. For a moment it's as if none of it happened – Norman's committal, their separation. Their bodies haven't forgotten the sensual dance that leads up to their union. Alex is surprised when Norma obviously wants to skip foreplay. Then again, it's been a while. If she missed this only half as much as he did, then no foreplay will be needed. He trusts her; she knows her body, but he should have known that this is different. When Alex enters Norma, he realizes that she is not ready, not even close. Even then, though, she wraps her legs around his hips, urging him to do it and with a sudden clarity he knows what is going on. It turns his stomach. She wants him to hurt her.

"Norma, stop!"

They ended up on the kitchen table. It has the perfect height. Alex exchanged the old one for a new table a while ago because he couldn't imagine sitting down on a table to eat that was a requisite in the rape of his wife once.

"No!" she whimpers, clinging to him. "You don't understand."

Alex has stopped moving. There is no way in hell he is going to participate in whatever twisted game she wants to play.

"I think I do," he states. "And I'm not going to do this to you. Why do you want me to hurt you?"

Her breathing is erratic, but it's not desire as he assumed when she started this. It's pain. Emotional pain Norma desperately wants to replace with a physical component. He pulls out of her, stepping back, adjusting his clothes. The situation is awkward to say the least.

Norma remains sitting on the table in front of him, the hem of her skirt pushed up, several buttons of her blouse ripped off in the heat of the moment, her panties on the floor. There are red blotches on her pale neck where he kissed her passionately. She looks violated.

"You have no idea how guilty I feel that I still love you," she breathes.

Alex's heart aches with relief when he hears her admission. No matter how hard Norma has tried to push him away, their bond is still there. Frail, wounded, but not severed. And yet, this is about Norman, not about him. She left him because of Norman and now she wanted to punish herself by tricking him into semi-raping her. Despite the relief, her reluctant love confession on top of her actions feels like a stab and rouses Alex's bile. This is too much.

He needs an outlet, looking around to see what would cause the least damage, his eyes focusing on an empty glass on the sink. Alex smashes it on the floor, kicking against one of the chairs that topples over.

Norma has been silently crying, but now she is sobbing audibly and flinches, scared by his breakout.

"I'm sorry," she repeats over and over. "Please stop."

The fear in her face calms him down in an instant. This is not the first time Norma experiences a situation like this. She didn't flinch simply because he startled her but because she expected him to hit her as it for sure happened countless times before. Home life was torture, he remembers what she told him about her past, about her family and ex-husbands. It was not good. He was an asshole.

Alex raises his hands in a defensive gesture.

"I would never hit you, Norma. I will never hurt you. And hate me if you must, but I did what I had to do to protect you because I love you, because I always will."

He starves for nearness, wants to hold and comfort her, but he doesn't dare to do it, watching her wrap her arms around herself instead in a futile effort to put herself at ease.

"Norma..."

Alex steps closer, reaching out his hand to test her reaction. The moment she leans forward imperceptibly, he takes her in his arms. Even if the situation is horrible, being able to feel her lifts a burden from his shoulders. He lets her cry, her tears soaking his shirt. When she eventually quiets down, Alex senses the tension creeping back into Norma's body and knows what she is about to say before he hears her muffled words, her head still resting on his chest.

"Don't touch me."

It's nearly impossible to let go of her, but he knows he has to. The moment he releases her, Norma jumps off the table in a flash and runs upstairs. Alex hears the door of her bedroom slam shut. She left her panties on the floor and he picks them up, for a brief moment considering to bury his nose in them just so he can smell her. The emotional turmoil hasn't diminished his arousal; no other woman has raised his passion like Norma. Every fiber of his body longs for her. She is all he can think of when he's awake and she inhabits his dreams when he's asleep.

Alex clears up the kitchen, puts the chair that toppled over back at the table and sweeps up the flinders. Then he looks at the front door, pondering on what to do before he walks into the living room to make himself comfortable on the couch. This is his wife upstairs. She is most likely crying herself to sleep right now. He can't leave even though she won't allow him to come near. Yet.

To be continued