Set fifteen years before the events of 'Bates Motel".

When Sam Bates drags his wife Norma and her two young sons to the town of White Pine Bay, the family is immediately met by Deputy Alex Romero.

Romero finds himself drawn to the headstrong young mother and the lives of her two boys.

When forced to make a split second decision, Alex changes Norma's life forever and he's forced to live with those consequences.

TEAM UNICORN LOVE FOREVER! This is for my Normero obsessed ladies on Instagram! Hope it helps! 3

That Same Color Blue

1.

~ Norma bit hard on her bottom lip and imagined stabbing this man over and over agin. She thought about how the blood would feel coming out of his bloated, useless body. How it would be hot and thick and run freely through the open wounds. She smiled slightly at the thought of how easily he would bleed. Sam was on blood thinners for his heart so he would bleed out quickly. He would surely bleed to death before anyone could stop it.

The idea of her husband, so recently married, bleeding to death while she watched soothed Norma Bates. It soothed her in the same way hearing juicy gossip about someone she hated soothed her. A dark and tormented place in her mind where she was only really happy when she was miserable.

'What would I do without you, Sam?' she mused happily. Her fat balding husband had pulled up his pants and was waddling over to the gas station to pay for their gas. It had rained non stop on them since they crossed the state line into Oregon and she hated the way the heavy wetness made her hair frizz. Added to that the stress of all day driving with two small children and very little money.

'Well, I would collect all that life insurance you think I don't know about.' she thought with a giddy smile. 'I would buy new clothes to. Nice ones, from a pretty and expensive shop. Not these trailer park fashion line from the local discount store.'

She liked the idea of being dressed well. In all her life she had never owned nice clothes. She was barely a woman before she was a mother. She was a wife before she even finished high school. She was a mistress before her first baby was walking. Now she was plotting murder before the age of 25. Such a life should be against the law. Or at the very least a movie of the week on cable.

She fell her heart sink a little.

"Coming this summer, Norma Bates: A Cautionary Tale". she said at her own reflection in the side mirror. She had been avoiding mirrors the whole trip. She, Sam and the two boys had been sleeping in the car to save money and the wear on her face was evident. She wasn't even into her mid twenties and she looked so haggard and worn down.

She stared at her own reflection for a while. Her dark roots were showing again, she would have to color them soon. Sam liked the blond because he thought it made her look like Marilyn Monroe. Norma disagreed. She thought it looked trashy. She didn't want to be trashy anymore. She looked over her face and caught her own sad blue eyes looking back at her. Norma had her mother's eyes and she was always told that her eyes were her best feature. Never her smile, because she never smiled. Never her body because of her shapeless cheap clothes, never her bottle blond hair. Her eyes were what set her apart. But the blue was always sad. Like a storm was coming on a high and lonely sea.

"Baby!" Sam shouted and Norma was forced out of her little world of storms and seas and eye color to see Sam hobbling to the old Buick. Her husband hoisted up his pants and grinned at her.

"Only an hour or so till we reach White Pine Bay." he said. His voice sounding like he had personally lead a wagon train through the mountains instead of getting lost twice to avoid toll roads on the main high way.

"Oh." Norma breathed. "Good." she glanced in the back seat at her sleeping boys.

Norman, good, sweet, perfect Norman, was asleep in his car seat. The two year old covered with the blanket she had made for him. His brown hair, soft as bird feathers, calling for Norma to smooth down. Her heart swelled at the sight of her boy. He was her own precious jewel. A beautiful creature that had grown inside of her and became the best thing she had ever done. At just two years old he was way ahead of the other kids. Norma was sure of that.

A sickly cough rumbled from beside Norma and she snapped her attention to her oldest child Dylan. The five year old glared at her with eyes that made her sick to her stomach. Dylan was his father in miniature and that wasn't a good thing. She recoiled away from her first born out of instinct. A self preservation she had learned when she was too young to know these horrible things. She avoided touching her oldest and couldn't help but glare at him.

The child, knowing he was unloved glared right back at her. His father's eyes accusing her. Hating her and wanting love from her she just couldn't give.

"Dylan, we're almost there." Norma said. Her voice cracked slightly.

It had started to rain again and the cab of the old Buick echoed each heavy rain drop and cast the sound out louder.

Norma hated this car. This old rusted piece of junk that Sam called his 'baby'. Sam's real baby, Norman, went without decent shoes and wore clothes too small. But there was always money for beer and parts for the Buick and trips to the strip club once a week.

'When you're dead I'm getting myself a nice car.' Norma thought. She glared at her husband while he finished pumping the gas and climbed back inside.

"We'll be at the Seafairer Motel in no time." Sam said proudly. Norma could smell the drink on his breath. He had been brown bagging it all day. As if she were to stupid to notice.

"You're sure your friend has a job for you?" she asked nervously. She didn't want to worry Dylan with their money problems. Her oldest child always seemed like he knew too much. Dylan never talked when he was younger and Norma worried he might be retarded, given his paternity. But he scored above average on tests and eventually spoke whole sentences. Always wanting something he couldn't have and Norma couldn't give him.

"Keith Summers has a great job for us, baby." Sam said. Her husband was a little too happy. He must be loaded.

"Maybe I should drive." Norma offered.

"Shut up!" Sam snapped. His mood changing so face Norma felt her face burn hot from embarrassment.

She looked away from her husband and back to her own sad reflection. Her eyes the color of a violent tempest on the rise.

~ Deputy Alex Romero liked the night shift catching the speeders of White Pine Bay. He was good at it and he was ruthless in never letting anyone off with a warning. A night like this, the streets were wet and black from all this rain. It always made driving hard. It was only a matter of time before some asshole hit the slickest part of the road, spun out and killed everyone in the car. All because they had too much to drink or couldn't slow the hell down.

'Where do these people have to be in such a damn hurry?' he wondered to himself. 'The Wal-Mart outside of town is open 24 hours now.'

He almost smiled at his own joke, but Alex had given up smiling a long time ago. He had given up prayer to. He blinked hard at the idea of turning his back on praying. It felt like he had been slapped to remind himself he no longer believed in God.

His mother was the only person he knew who truly believed. She had taught him from an early age how to pray and how to let that special light into you heart and mind. When he was young, she would have him write down all his wishes in her little notebook at the kitchen table. She would have him write down all the bad things he wanted taken away to. How Bobby Paris had pushed him on the playground, and how fat Keith Summers and beat him up and spat in his face. His mother saying gently that they would grow up to be broken men. Her son would be a whole man.

Alex had always been closer to his mother than his father. His father, the former Sheriff of White Pine Bay, had been like a bear of law enforcement. Where he marched, lesser beings trembled and hid. The Former Sheriff Romero had a reputation and he let that reputation do most of the work. The old man's voice was soft and business like, just like Alex's, but the words that came out were like venom. Sheriff Romero could make even the hardest and tightest of drug gangs turn on each other in a matter of hours. With a confidant little smirk and telling the suspect what he feared most was happening. Crooks sang songs to old Bear.

But then, six years ago this summer, Alex had come to the house to take his mother to church and found she had taken a combination of someone else's sleeping pills and her own anxiety medication. Theresa Romero's son found her in bed. Her lips blue, her skin grey. She was beautiful in that moment of death. She looked just like she was sleeping. She hadn't thrown up in a final attempt to live. She had just gone to sleep and never woke up. Her blue lips curled into a delicate smile as she let go of life.

Alex's father had spent the night before at one of his many girlfriends. It was no secret he was unfaithful. It was even expected of a man like him to see other women while his saintly wife stayed at home. Alex knew his father was responsible for her death. He had done this to her just as surely as if he had killed her. Hell, the old bear probably gave her the pills and dared her to do it.

Alex shut his eyes at the memory of that summer day. He hated that memory. Hated the sunlight casting cheerful rays through the window of his mother's bedroom. Hated that the ambulance was so slow. Hated the looks his neighbors gave him when her body, wrapped in that black body bag was wheeled out of their home. Hated how his father didn't even know about his wife's death till hours later.

Rather than show emotion, Alex let his face remain indifferent. He sipped his coffee and read over his homework from class. He was in the final home stretch of exams to a promotion. Despite everything, Alex had done extremely well as a cop. A military background, honorable discharge, a bronze star for bravery in the Gulf War. As a civilian he shocked no one when he went to the academy. Aced every test, every physical and been promoted to sharp shooter. Hell, even the FBI wanted to recruit him.

But Alex wanted to stay in his home town. Where the people were horrible, but the fishing was good. Not everyone was horrible in White Pine Bay of course. Just the vast majority of the people Alex knew. He had a dream of burning them all to the ground. Scorching the earth of all the bad things till nothing but good things grew. A silly dream. Alex knew there was no such thing as good and bad; there was only winners and losers. The winners decided who the good guys were. That's the cold hard facts of life.

When the Old Bear Sheriff Romero was arrested three years ago for drug trafficking, corruption, murder and a laundry list of other charges, is seemed like the town had turned itself inside out, trying desperately to save itself from disaster. Alex survived the carnage of the FBI investigation that gutted the towns drug trade and made room for new bosses to push themselves in. They had nothing on the young cop anyway. Even if he was the Sheriff's kid, it was painfully obvious Alex wasn't the kind of man bad guys trusted. During the raids and arrests, Alex had gotten used to old friends talking to him for no reason after so many years of indifference. Their voices louder than normal and asking leading questions about the drug trade or someone's murder. It always meant they were wearing a wire and trying to trap him into confessing something. Alex saw them coming a mile away and got to where it was a game after a while.

'Oh so and so was doing that all this time? Wow, I had no idea.' he would say with wide eyed innocence.

Such behavior saved his career and kept him free of any charges, but it didn't earn him many friends. Which was fine with him.

He leaned back in his seat and re-read the paragraph about misdirection. The cleverness of it appealed to him. He pictured himself using all these techniques in an interrogation someday. His voice would be calm and steady just like the Bear of White Pine Bay and he could hold his own on reputation alone to.

Not that Alex wanted to be like his father. The opposite in fact. Alex desired to dismantle his own father's legacy and make sure the old man knew it was his only son who had taken apart the web of crime and power he had helped build and protect.

Alex saw dimmed headlights cresting the turn from his cozy speed trap. He closed his book and judged the rate those headlights were coming in was too fast.

He felt mild annoyance at the recklessness of the driver. It was pouring outside and his headlights were too old to properly light the rain slicked street. Plus there were patches of road that the rain loved to flood. All of which could cause the car to hydroplane into a ditch. Alex turned on the engine, waited till he could hear the sound of the older car, and allowed it to fly past him.

Alex clocked the car going over 80 in a 55 mile an hour zone and was quick to follow. The lights from the police SUV flashing and sirens blaring behind a battered old Buick.