38.

~ Tess had Norman in the chicken coop helping her collect eggs when his mother came to get him. Her youngest was enchanted by the birds who weren't afraid of him and even allowed him to gently pet their feathers.

"Hope he wasn't too much trouble." Norma said when Norman gently gave her a brown farm egg. "He's not used to being in a strange place without me."

"He was no trouble at all." Tess smiled. "He helped me pick tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden. Fed the chickens and now we're getting the eggs."

Norma looked at her youngest in surprise at all he'd done that morning.

"Well, you were busy." she said to Norman. "Sounds like you had a better morning than your brother."

"What happened?" Tess asked.

"Oh, he's fine now, but Dylan fell in the bay." Norma sighed.

"Oh no!" Tess said in alarm.

"He's okay. Alex knew what to do. We got him out of the wet clothes and everything. Alex took us to shore and built a fire and everything." Norma said feeling herself blushing slightly.

"That sounds very romantic." Tess prompted.

"It actually was." Norma agreed with a smile. "We were at the old summer camp and had to leave. Some homeless guy was living there."

"They need to just tear that place down." Tess sighed. "Getting to be a problem."

"Thank you for looking after him." Norma nodded to her son who was carefully examining the eggs in the basket.

"He's a little doll. Every mother's dream." Tess said affectionally running her fingers through Norman's hair.

~ Alex and Dylan were waiting for them when Norma returned to the truck with Norman.

"You didn't want to talk to Tom?" she asked.

"I was thinking I might just drop you and the boys off at the house. I've got some errands I need to run." he told her once Norman was safely buckled in next to Dylan.

"You don't want to stay for lunch?" she questioned in surprise.

"I'll come by for dinner." Alex quickly said pulling out of the farm's driveway.

~ "Turkey pot pie." Norma smiled when Norman asked what she was making for dinner. She'd found the recipe in a magazine and had been meaning to try it out on the boys and Alex. It was the kind of comfort food the male gender would like.

Dylan had been so tired he needed a nap as soon as they got home. Norma putting his still damp clothes in the washer. Norman seemed very pleased to have his mother all to himself for the day. He normally had to share her attention with a demanding older brother and often his needs were ignored because he was the quite child.

"Want to help me wash vegetables?" Norma asked her youngest. Norman nodded and she showed him how to hold the colander and rinse off the fresh vegetables Tess had given her from her garden.

"Did you have fun playing with the chickens at Sheriff Wilson's farm, honey?" Norma asked. She was amused at seeing the little boy on the step stool so that he could reach the sink.

"I don't like it when you leave me." Norman said.
"It was just for the morning." Norma said quickly. "I would have been back you know that."

Norman looked skeptical.

"I was scared." he said.

"Honey, you know I'd never leave you." she said earnestly. "Not ever."

"Promise?" Norman asked.

"I promise." Norma nodded and kissed him on the cheek.

~ It was almost sunset when Alex finally came back. Norma was playing the piano when Dylan noticed Alex's truck had pulled up and silently let him in. He knew that she played, played well in fact, but he had no idea that she could sing well to.

Her back was turned away from the front door and she hadn't noticed that it wasn't just her and the boys anymore in the house.

"Just think of lovely things, and your heart will fly on wings. Never, Neverland." she sang. Her voice was lovely and clearly she'd had professional voice coaching.

He put a finger up over his lip to signal Dylan and Norman to be silent so that Norman wouldn't suspect he was there. The boys had been coloring on the coffee table and something smelled wonderful from the kitchen.

"You'll have a treasure if you stay there. More precious far that gold. For once you have found your way there, you can never, never grow old." Norma sang with heartbreaking enthusiasm for the complexities and conundrum of eternal youth. The piano sounded richer and grander under Norma's hands than he ever remembered it sounding before. She was capable of maneuvering her fingers fluidly over the keys with impressive ease. It was as if playing was natural to her as anything.

Alex realized that he could have this. Every evening, he could come home to this very Rockwell scene of Norma playing piano. Of the boys playing quietly and dinner cooking. Everything prepared for him. Everything waiting. A place for him at the table always. A wife, a family and a home ready made.

Norma stopped playing when she felt his eyes on her. She nervously turned around and saw him standing behind her. A large smile on his face.

"Oh scared me." she said. "How long have you been standing there?"

"I just came in. Heard you playing and didn't want you to stop." he said.
"Sorry you had to hear me butcher that song." Norma apologized when Alex maneuvered on the piano beach next to her. "It's been in my head since we came home."

"It was nice." Alex said. Norma automatically gave him her hand. Sensing that he enjoyed the simple contact. Just feeling her soft fingers and palm was relaxing to him. He couldn't explain why.

"I'm trying out a new recipe. I think you'll like it." she said after few moments of silence.

"Smells great." he nodded to the kitchen.

"Where were you all day?" she asked. "It's been ten hours."

"Just had to take care of things." he said without looking at her.

"Mom I'm hungry!" Dylan said suddenly. "Can we eat now?"

"Yeah." Norman agreed.

"I'm starving." Alex said eagerly.

Norma looked slightly annoyed to be over ruled by the men in her life.

"Okay, guys." she said with an eye roll. "Go wash up."

~ "Thank you for taking care of Dylan today." Norma said as they washed dishes together. It was becoming their normal habit now to do the clean up while the boys go themselves ready for bed.

Alex found these little domestic chores to be very soothing and almost therapeutic.

"You're welcome." he said as she put the leftovers in the fridge.

He nodded to how few leftovers there actually were.

"Dinner was nice tonight." he noted.

"Thank you." she smiled. "Norman seemed to like it. "See how he didn't play with his food or anything like that? Maybe because it was the fresh vegetables from Tess' garden."

"Farm fresh is always better. I know that's how it was when I was little." Alex yawned suddenly.

"Tired?" she asked sympathetically.

"We might have to skip a night." he grumbled.

"Yeah, promises, Deputy." she laughed.

"I'm serious this time, Mrs. Bates." he sighed. "Feeling pretty wiped out."

"Why don't you go to bed, and I'll be in soon." she offered and kissed his cheek.

"Okay." he nodded.

Alex gratefully rested a hand on her lower back before leaving her to do what was left of cleaning up and putting the boys to bed. Not since his military days had he every remembered being so exhausted. It hadn't helped that today had been so busy. That it had started so early and become so physically demanding.

He didn't even wake up when Norma had come to bed an hour or so later. She'd been careful not to wake him up knowing he had to go to work in the morning.

He only remembered dreaming that he was a kid again. The he, Keith and Maggie Summers, Jimmy Brennan and Bobby Paris were all friends again. Long summers just like today when they would play endlessly in the forests. When time and the cruel nature of life hadn't twisted the innocent nature of youth.

"Alex?" Norma's voice was pulling him out of a world that was overgrown in greenery. Summer camp cabins that were haunting and unloved. Places not even ghosts would live.

"Alex?" Norma's voice was more insistent.

He felt panicked and afraid. He had to do something. Had to protect her.

"Alex, wake up. You're having a nightmare." Norma said and he could feel her hands, suddenly very strong, rip him out of the lush summer days of his childhood. Out of a world of an adult Keith Summers treating the woman he loved, his family and back into the real world.

He woke up and almost pushed Norma off him. His breathing coming hard.

"It's okay." she said quickly. "Alex you were having a bad dream."

He looked around their bedroom and saw everything was as it should be. Nothing was wrong and they were safe.

"Oh." he breathed and realized he'd been sweating heavily from the intensity of his dream.

"You're okay." she whispered and helped him lay back down.

"Sorry." he said and could feel the dream world already slipping away.
"Who's Keith?" Norma asked.

"What?"

"You kept saying the name Keith. Telling Keith to get away from her. That you were going to kill him." Norma whispered in the darkness next to him.

Alex didn't respond. He shook his head and felt that his breathing was still shaky.

"Just a bad dream, Norma." he explained. "I'm sorry, just try to go back to sleep."

"Okay." she said reluctantly. "You know you have to be up in an hour."

He groaned in annoyance that he wouldn't have time now to go back to sleep before he would have to be up for work anyway. He would have been more annoyed had Norma not wrapped her leg around his and slowly ran it upwards.

"You're not tired?" he asked with a grin realizing what she was after when her hand started moving up his shirt.

He didn't protest her attention. The effects of the morning on the male anatomy easily helped with feeling aroused.

"Are you?" she asked seductively.

"Not too tired for this." he promised when he felt her bare leg run up his.

"The chair under the door?" he whispered when his lips met hers.

"I put it there myself." she promised. Her kisses coming easily now and his body happy to respond to such a pleasant wake up call. Her hands even doing the service of stroking his member gently as he fumbled over her night dress. His own hands eager to rid her of clothing and have her naked with him again.

"Just thinking about you building that fire yesterday." she whispered between their kiss. "It was pretty sexy. Didn't know you were such an outdoorsman."

"I'll have to start fires more often." he promised. His delight in his lover growing as she straddled his waist and stripped off her night dress. Revealing her glorious naked body for him to ravage in the early light of dawn.

~ It had been a blissful two weeks for Alex since he and Norma were together. They still kept their relationship as quite as they could, but he was sure the gossip mill was already circulating.

Nothing stayed buried in White Pine Bay for long.

Alex felt a little guilty that he couldn't take Norma out like they were a real couple. A couple who went to a movie and to dinners out. Uncaring about what other people thought.

He'd asked Norma if she wanted to go to dinner and a show in Portland. The city was large and far enough away they could be unseen by anyone from back home.

Norma didn't have an interest in leaving the boys with Tess for an extended period of time. Even with the promise of a romantic evening in the city. Alex was slightly grateful she was homebody. That she would enjoy something like that soon, but for now preferred to stay at home were everything was cozy.

He had to admit, it was everything he could want in a home. It was always warm and smelled of clean laundry or cooking. Things were always tidy and Norma wan't the type to leave domestic chores undone. Her limitless energy meant she could do countless things everyday and never seem tired.

Alex often wondered why his own mother had been so different. Why his mother had seemed so, exhausted all the time. He understood now that depression was part of it. That being married to the Old Bear wasn't easy. Yet, she seemed so defeated somehow. She wasn't a fighter like Norma was. She wasn't a tiger.

"Deputy." Tom Wilson broke into Alex's thoughts and pulled him from deep memories of how his mother used to cut herself in the bathroom. How she had been bleeding all over herself when he'd come home from school and begged her eight year old son not to tell anyone.

"Yeah." Alex sat up a little straiter in his desk and tried to look more focused.

"A word in my office." Tom nodded.

~ "Heard there was an incident last weekend." Tom said taking a seat at his desk as Alex sat across from him.

"Oh, it wasn't too bad." Alex shrugged. "Dylan fell in the bay. We got him out and into some dry clothes."

"Yeah Tess told me about that." Tom nodded. "Norma mentioned something about you building a fire down by the old summer camp."

"I know it's against the law." Alex nodded. He knew exactly where Tom was going but wasn't going to give him any lead.

"Not what I'm getting at." Tom said sharply. "Norma mentioned a homeless man was staying at one of the old cabins? She said he frightened her. You never reported it."

"I meant to." Alex said. "I guess I forgot."

"Did you recognize the man?" Tom asked.

Alex could hear alarms going off in his head. Warning sounds to be careful. Tom Wilson was his friend but Alex always suspected that he never trusted him. Not really.

"Didn't get that good of a look at him. Was trying to keep the dog back." Alex explained.

"Did you know who he was?" Tom asked.
"I don't think so." Alex said carefully. "I mean, he was pretty rough looking. Living out there and all."

Tom looked at Alex and neither man flinched. Romero had learned long ago, from the Old Bear in fact, never explain anything to anyone. That when you have to explain yourself, that's how you explain yourself right into a jail cell.

"And you didn't report it." Tom said again.
"He seemed pretty harmless." Alex said easily.
"Norma was scared."

"I think he spooked her is all. It's pretty scary out there."

Alex waited for Tom and Tom waited for Alex. It was a staring contest and both men were in it to win.

"Why do you ask, Tom?" Alex said at last when the Sheriff failed to elaborate.

"Keith Summers has gone missing. You know anything about that, Alex?" Tom asked casually.

Alex pretended to be shocked.

"I wasn't aware he was missing. No." he said. "Maggie call it in?"

"No. The owner of the bar he frequents did." Seems he hasn't been around for a week now and that is very unusual seeing as how they let him do the clean up for a six pack and some dinner."

"We should call Maggie." Alex said. "She might know. She might have checked him into a rehab hopefully."

"I already called Maggie Summers. She hasn't seen her brother since his arrest. She did tell me that he sometimes stays at the old summer camp grounds when he's got nowhere else to go." Tom told him. The Sheriff looking over Romero with cold eyes now.

"It wasn't Keith Summers I saw last week, Tom." Alex lied without hesitation.

"You're sure?" Wilson asked.

"I'm sure."

"I remember you told me about the threats he made against Norma. That might make a man want to do something." Tom said.

"I didn't do anything to Keith Summers." Alex said.
"If I bring Norma Bates in here and have her look through mug shots, she'll back up your claim that it wasn't Keith at the old camp?" Tom asked.

"I'm sure Keith will turn up." Alex sighed. "If you feel the need to bring Norma into this, than you can. Just please be sensitive, Tom. Everything she's been through. She doesn't need to think some poor vagrant is out to kill her."

My bad! It was Jason Voorhies who killed all the horney teens at Camp Crystal Lake in "Friday the 13th". Michael Myers killed all the horney teens on "Halloween". Got my psychopaths mixed up!