I need to preface this story by saying this is an AU historical piece. Having said that, this time period was subject to a lot of racism and sexism that just isn't present today. Thank God. If I were to ignore it or white wash it, it would be like saying this type of injustice didn't happen. So, I've decided to embrace it and make it apart of the story because it's real and it happened back then.

We can't be offended by it because these were just the attitudes of people that were wrong, but they happened. Also, in the next chapter, you'll see how Norma Bates runs her boarding house and you'll see how controlled women were and how they were expected to behave. Again, feeding into the sexism of the day.

It's not right, but it was accurate.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart

San Fransisco, California

February 1940

1.

~ "It's you." the Colonel's voice was groggy and Norma had almost kept walking. She felt stunned by all she had seen at the hospital. The sudden fire at the barracks had sent the dark sky ablaze and drawn out concerned citizens from their homes just to watch the horrible beauty of the flames against the darkness.

"Colonel Romero?" she said weakly although she wasn't at all surprised to see him. Nothing would surprise her anymore. He looked pale and almost greenish in the gurney. His body awash in a white hospital gown and covered in white sheets and blankets. The once formidable Air Force Colonel seemed almost small in the chaos of the hospital now.

"You look very pretty." he said in a dull, dry voice. His eyes looking lazily over her as she peered at him. "You're all in red."

Norma looked down at the coat she'd hastily thrown on over her night dress. She'd been in such a hurry to get to the hospital that she hadn't bothered to dress properly. It was three in the morning and her hair was a mess and her she looked and felt worn out.

But he wasn't lying, her coat was red. He must have recognized her from the last time they spoke. She'd worn the same spring coat then to.

"I had to get here in a hurry, Colonel." she said deciding to humor the officer she had so despised a few days ago. It seemed so long ago now. So much had happened.

"Why?" Romero asked.

Norma didn't want to talk about it. She didn't have the strength. Clearly Colonel Romero had no idea what was happening. He'd been a victim of the fire in his own barracks the same as these men were. He'd just been drugged by the doctors to forget pain as well as events. Officers no doubt got faster and better treatment. Although it was mystery as to why he'd been left in the hallway like this.

The hospital becoming so overcrowded with the waves of injured men.

"There was a fire." she told him sadly. "A fire at the barracks. My son Norman was injured. They won't let me see him."

She knew he wouldn't remember this conversation so she kept her voice soft and sweet. Like she was talking to a child.

"When?" Romero asked. His brows furrowing with concussion. She smiled and moved a little closer. He wasn't at all like the man she spoke with a few days ago.
"Tonight." she said. "It was very bad."

"Was anyone else hurt?" he asked lazily. "You have to make sure everyone is alright."

"I will." she promised hastily and covered his chest a little better with his blanket. Her own instincts to care for and protect kicking in despite her hatred for him.

"They took Norman to surgery right after he got here." she confessed. "I'm really scared. I don't know how bad it is."

"If they took him to surgery…" Romero said slowly. "That means his chances for survival are better than most."

"Really?" she asked skeptically. She felt his hands reach over the covers and finding hers. His hands were strong, but held hers gently.

"Yeah." he said with a sigh. "They wouldn't waste their time on a patient they didn't think would survive. They would just red X him and move on. If they took him into OR, that means his chances are good. These doctors have a lot of… experience working on battlefield wounds. They've worked on a lot of bodies."

Norma knew he was trying to comfort her, but it sounded macabre. Yet, it was also a good thing to consider. Romero, drugged or not, probably knew what he was talking about in these situations.

"You're a very pretty lady. You need to go home." he sighed weakly. "You shouldn't be around all these enlisted men… I… I'll talk to them. I'll tell them not to bother you."

"It's okay, Colonel." she smiled. "I'm going to find the nurse. "See about getting you a room."

"Is this real?" he asked.

"Yes, its' real. Wish it wasn't, but its' real." she told him.

"I'm glad its' real." he said before drifting off. His breathing becoming heavy and sedated.

She smoothed out his blanket a little better and for the moment, all was forgiven between them. She'd forgiven the cold, stoic officer who'd stubbornly refused to release her son from signing up for the Air Force. For just a moment she forgave the newly weakened Colonel for telling her that her son was eighteen years old and a grown man who could serve his country.

She'd forgiven the harsh words they had exchanged in his office when he refused to nullify Norman's contract with the Air Force and claimed it wasn't suitable for a young airman's mother to come and try and get him out of his duty. That Mrs. Bates could see herself out and not to come back.

The Colonel wasn't that same man just now and if she couldn't look after her son, she could at least look after him. Colonel Romero didn't appear to have anyone. He'd been left alone in a hallway and he should at least be in a room where he could rest.

She finally managed to find the proper nurse who once she explained that the man in the hallway was Colonel Alex Romero, the same man who's base had caught fire that night, action was swiftly taken.

Two orderlies and a nurse moved his gurney to a room and a doctor pulled Norma aside and explained to her that Colonel Romero had broken his leg while helping evacuate airmen from the base.

"Sounds like something he would do." Norma nodded.

"We didn't realize he'd been left in the hallway, ma'am." the doctor said. "All this confusion."

Norma nodded and could feel herself getting sleepy again. She wanted to check and see if Norman was out of surgery. She felt the Colonel was correct when he said the chances were good if they saw him right away. After all, he'd probably seen hundreds of casualties in his years of service.

"He's been through worse." Norma said without knowing she was talking out loud.

She ensured the Colonel was put in a room with dignity. Even going to the trouble of helping the nurse change his hospital gown while he slept on. She didn't trust these hospital people.

They all looked at her nervously to. As if they were a little afraid of her now and she wasn't sure why.

She was given a form to fill out and it felt like she was writing in her sleep after so much had happened. She filled out a few dozen forms that night before someone from downstairs found her and said Norman was out of surgery.

~ Her son looked pale and fragile in the recovery room, but the doctor's pronounced that he would live.

"He'd been partially crushed by falling debris." the surgeon had explained. "It was a blessing he'd survived at all."

Norma smoothed her son's hair back and felt his skin to make sure he was still warm.

"You should go home, ma'am. Get some rest." the nurse told her. "We can call you if there are any changes."

~ Two Days Later…

~ Norma Bates was impressed by the ambulance that had arrived to bring her son back from the hospital. The fire that had hospitalized him was still making news, not because of the ten men who'd lost their lives, but because it had so crippled the potential war effort.

Even if their would be no grand march into Europe, the fire had severely dampened the moral of the city. Days later, she could still remember the way the fires had burned the dark sky away. How eerie it had seemed to have something so beautiful and so deadly that close to the city. To have her son be touched by it was even more traumatic.

She'd gone to see Norman everyday since his release from surgery but it was clear the doctors didn't think he was ready to be released. He seemed almost drunk from the pain killers they had given him.

The Air Force hadn't waisted anytime at all in clearing away the ruined barracks where the fire had started. She'd read just that morning that construction would be starting soon to replace the building. Never mind that so many of their airmen wouldn't be joining them in the war effort. They were burned or broken men now. Men who were hardly even men. Her son Norman was just eighteen and couldn't be counted as old enough to be apart of these grand war plans.

She'd formally requested, made a fuss and demanded her youngest son be released to her as soon as possible, but hadn't expected it to be this soon.

She also wasn't expecting the crisply dressed Air Force officers mindfully watching the orderlies open the ambulance doors. Their faces grim and apprising every detail of the other men's work.

If it hadn't been raining so hard, she might have been more impressed by the situation. Her son being brought home to be nursed back to health by his loving mother in a private ambulance and under the escort of two Air Force officers. But, as fate would have it, the rain had been pelting down ever since the fire.

She'd gone to the hospital the night of the fire and been horrified. A place with it's patients on gurneys in hallways, the smells of urine and disinfectant, the smell of burn hair and flesh was everywhere and knew her son belonged home. She could care for him better than any hospital could. Stave off infection and Norman was barely 18. Too young to be away from home.

It was one thing for Dylan to join the Air Force at 18 and leave the nest. He was different from her youngest child. He'd always been bold and outgoing. Norman wasn't a soldier.

Norma looked behind her at the eager faces in the windows of the three story building. Her girls were excited to see the ambulance and the men in uniform. Not young men in uniform either, but real men. Wide shoulders with beautiful whips of gray in their short cropped hair and their bodies filled out with muscle. These officers escorting her son home were far away from the notions of silly, prideful young men. Perhaps that was what was so appealing to the girls.

"I have all his medications to help with the pain, Missus." the orderly was saying when they pulled the stretcher free from the ambulance.

An officer quickly stepped forward with his umbrella and shielded her son's face and body from the rain. A gentleman's courtesy that Norma nodded with gratitude at.

"I've his bed ready for him." she told the orderlies opening the door to her boarding house.

The twins were huddled together at the front desk where the girls collected their mail and where the bank of three phone booths were.

The officers looked curiously around the foyer, and she was quick to shutter the front parlor from the prying eyes of men. No doubt, they had never seen a ladies boarding house before and had noticed the eager, smiling faces looking down the flight of stairs at them.

"Dorothy? Helen?" Norma nodded to the twins who hadn't moved from their position at the front desk. Their dark eyes wide and staring and they'd taken on an almost frightened rabbit like appearance. "Will you go upstairs and check on the girls?"

She kept her voice kind and normal. Today was just another day.

Dorothy and Helen nodded and moved away from the officers and orderlies holding Norma's son up in the now cramped foyer.

"You have colored women working here?" one of the officers asked her. He hadn't even waited for the twins to finish climbing the stairs. Dorothy looking back at him scornfully as she followed her twin sister.

"Yes." Norma said smartly. Her irritation rising up at someone questioning who she hired and who she rented rooms to. "This is a large boarding house, and it takes a lot of work. Meals to be made, laundry and cleaning."

"They live here?" the officer asked skeptically and Norma turned the key to her apartment. The front hallway deceptively hiding it's owners main place of residence.

Unlike the foyer with its' dark wood on all sides, Norma Bates' apartment was awash in color. Yellows on her table cloth, jade green on her dishes, candy pink colored flowers on her table and rich green walpaper. It was alarming to see so much brightness in a place after being on the gloomy streets in the rain.

"In here." Norma said coldly to the orderlies. She was done with the Air Force officers. How dare they question her about who she hired. Leave it to the military though, they didn't care who they insulted.

She waved to the dining room which had long ago been redone as Dylan and Norman's bedroom. They sadly didn't have a door, but a secure curtain rod and thick, heavy curtains provided ample privacy for them. The boys had never complained about the shared room or lack of a door. Besides, when they lived in New York before Sam died, they had it much worse.

When Dylan had left home, Norma had been using his side of the bedroom as a much needed sewing space. Her red sewing machine gleaming brightly next to the pile of sheets and curtains she would have to hem that week. The washing, the mending, the cooking and the cleaning never ended here.

She noticed the two officers looking over her small apartment curiously. No doubt they were judging her for not only hiring and boarding negro women but for living in and running a perfectly respectable boarding house for women. It was a perfectly sound business. A needed business. Who were they to look down on her for it?

"Something wrong?" Norma snapped before she could stop herself.

The two orderlies has moved Norman towards his old room and the apartment, like the hallway was becoming cramped with the sudden influx of people.

"Sorry, ma'am." the other officer said. He'd been silent so far but just a judgmental. Norma could tell by the look on his face.

"We just weren't expecting… a boarding house." he said at last and gave her a polite smile that she saw right through.

"I run a very clean, very respectable business that helps single women maintain a residence and their dignity." Norma said feeling her anger rise up. "All of my girls are gainfully employed, God fearing, well mannered and we're not exactly used to having men here."

"We just weren't expecting the Colonel to… well, he didn't talk about a boarding house before." the rude officer had said.

"The Colonel?" Norma mimicked angry now that they were in her home looking at her things with displeasure. Then she remembered that horrible Colonel Romero who refused to see her again after she told him there'd been a mistake and her son Norman shouldn't be in the Air Force.
"Why would Colonel Romero care if I run a boarding house? That's my business; just like flying planes is his business." she chastised the men before her.

"We have him in bed, Missus." one of the orderlies told her coming out of Norman's room. "He's still on pain medication, so he'll sleep for a while."

"You're right, ma'am." he polite officer said. "It's not our business. It was just a surprise is all. Colonel Romero is a private man."

Norma thought it was odd they were talking about Colonel. After all, she'd only met him a couple of times in the past two weeks. Not counting the incident in the hospital; which she hardly ever gave any thought to.

She nodded and they party understood that they were being excused. The four men, now seeming frightened of this house full of women, had to creep back out into the hallway where the twins had retuned to glare at them fleeing one by one. Norma Bates behind them to make sure they stayed gone.

There was a reason why she didn't allow anyone but maintenance men into this building. It caused too much of a disruption to have the male gender in this house.

Dorothy and Helen were back at their post at the front desk, they hardly every seemed far from the front desk, not even on laundry day which always demanded constant work. The matching cut of their dresses highlighting their being twins despite the different floral patterns. It didn't help they had the same face and mirrored hair styles. Few people could ever tell them apart and perhaps that was how the twins wanted it. Norma Bates could always tell them apart. She seemed to know everything that happened in her house. It was as if the walls whispered to her.

She knew Dorothy wore her hair part on the left and Helen on the right. That Helen had a beauty mark on her left cheek and was left handed, where Dorothy was right handed. She knew a little of their history, and could relate to it more than anyone knew, and she know enough to know the twins worked hard, were quite, clean, reliable and kept to themselves.

That was all Norma Bates needed to know. It wasn't anyone else's business whom she employed and she had a good mind to lock the second entryway doors to the foyer after they left. A thing she did almost as soon as the rude officer was out of her building.

"Are all the girls inside?" Norma asked one of the twins.

"Juliet, Nancy and Bernadette are still at work." Helen said helpfully while Dorothy looked just as annoyed as Norma felt. "Won't be back till after dinner. Longer hours at the new factory, you know."

"I want that door locked and don't open it for anyone else but one of our residents." Norma shuttered. She could still feel the irritating judgement and intrusion of the officers come to deliver her son home.

"Yes, Mrs. Bates." the twins chimed in unison. Norma knew they were watching her, probably the girls upstairs were watching her to. At any given time their were twenty-four girls in this cramped but efficient building. Each with their own small room, but the gossip would be ripe that Mrs. Bates had allowed all those men inside.

"I'll go check on Norman." she said at last. "Dorothy, you'll make sure dinner is ready?"

Dorothy was a sensible woman. She reminded Norma of a school teacher with how immovable her face could be. She could always be trusted, and liked the weight of responsibility.
"Yes, Mrs. Bates." Dorothy said slowly.

Norma turned around was went back to her apartment. She was thankful to be home again. The windows to her tiny back garden was south facing so it let in a lot of sunlight. Even with all the rain, the apartment wasn't gloomy. It shone bright and vivid with riots of color.

She was glad she'd thought to stop by the little market and buy fresh fruit. Fresh fruit always looked so beautiful in the little jadeite bowl she had on her kitchen table. Norman would need fresh fruit. Lots of fruit if he was going to heal properly.

She quickly took down her brightly colored tea kettle. She'd boil some water, give Norman a good bed bath and wash his hair. Make sure the stink of the hospital was off him. The girls in this house were notorious about using all the hot water and it was always a fair bet that the taps would run cold after a few minutes.

So, as always, Norma Bates adapted and kept a few good tea kettles on her stove to warm up a bath with scalding hot water.

She was sure that her son would be feeling better in few days in her capable care.

"Norman?" she called out to the bedroom that was once designated for eating. It's wide archway looking very grand in her simple little apartment.

"Norman, what do you want for lunch? I can make you anything." she said in a musical voice.

There was no answer to her calls from the makeshift bedroom that her sons had been inhabiting for the past four years.

"Norman?" she called. "We're alone now. Just you and me."

She made sure the water was set to boil, pulled on a candy green apron and swiftly went to check on her son. The orderlies had laid him out on his old bed by the wall. A bed that was normally a day bed when made up.

"Norman?" she said brightly and saw the figure in her son's bed wasn't right. The figure didn't have her son's long, lanky body that seems to be all arms a legs. An oddity she was sure he would grow into once he'd gained enough weight.

This figure wasn't gangly tall like her son. Didn't have the nice brown hair and sweet face her son had. No, this man in her son's bed was older with dark, close cropped hair and two days worth of facial hair.

He was sleeping and she recognized him right away.

"Colonel Romero?" Norma questioned in shock.