Work Text:
“We got any out-of-service patrol cars laying around?”
Alex wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but a mixture of raised, quirked, and furrowed eyebrows were directed his way from around the office. Or at least from the small handful of people who were in the police department that early in the day. Though Alex was a morning person himself, he had to admit that this hour could be deemed ungodly; but he was on a mission – albeit an impromptu one – and he wanted to get it done and over with before he could convince himself that this was a bad idea and a waste of time.
It also had to be a surprise that he was in the office on his day off. The whole department knew crime didn’t respect the weekends, and if Alex needed to come in on a Saturday to catch up on paperwork or oversee a case that required his authority and expertise, he would. However, he was wearing casual clothes, a rare version of Alex that few had the privilege of seeing, and on top of that, his arm was in a sling. If there was going to be a police chase happening that Saturday where tackling was involved, he wasn’t going to be much assistance.
A chorus of “No, I don’t think so” and one “Why, boss?” were the replies that made him disguise his huff of annoyance and disappointment as an attempt to cool down his second cup of coffee of the day. The first one hadn’t done anything for him, or maybe he hadn’t waited long enough to feel the effects of the caffeine kick in, too impatient, too desperate to trick his mind into associating productivity with the flavor of the crushed bean beverage. His mind drifted for a moment to think The coffee at Norma’s is spectacular and effective, before coming back to the present. He wanted to smack himself for letting Norma invade yet another one of his subconscious thoughts, because who thinks about a widowed motel owner while drinking coffee? And since when in his head had the Bates Motel office become just “Norma’s place”?
Setting his mouth in a firm line, Alex glanced around at the available candidates that could accompany him on his field trip. “Lin!” he barked gruffly. “You’re with me. Let’s go.”
The deputy jumped up with attentive surprise, obediently trailing him with her coat clutched in hand.
“I’ll be back when I’m back,” Alex called over his shoulder to the rest of the room. Only after marching to his car, sliding into the driver’s seat, and tearing out of the parking lot did he answer the unanswered question his employee had yet to vocalize. He knew she had to be burning to ask it and guessed that she hadn’t solely on the basis of potentially being uninvited to whatever secret mission he was on.
“We’re going to Portland,” was all the explanation he planned on telling her, but when she pushed for more information, inquiring if they going to investigate some of the biggest offenses Alex had ever heard of, he was forced to choke out, “I’m getting a car.”
“A car?” she parroted back, and Alex was able to hear the skepticism in her voice. He had an inkling that she wasn’t trying to hide it. As she ran a finger along the leather trim on the passenger car door, she asked, “What’s wrong with this one?”
“Nothing,” he said, shrugging. “This isn’t case-related. I need to get this car, and that’s it.”
Deputy Lin almost lost her cool when she heard this. “We’re blowing off work so you can buy a flashy car before it gets sold? Is that why you wanted an old cop car? So you could trade it in? You men and your cars! There could be a call for a double homicide or-”
Alex shot her a dangerous warning look. He was starting to regret bringing her along. Lin wasn’t like the other new deputies. She wasn’t afraid to question his decisions, and she had a habit of pushing for the fulfillment of her own agenda, especially when it came to dealing with evidence. But he’d needed someone to watch his car while he ran his errand in the state’s biggest city, and it wasn’t like he had many options or volunteers at 5:30 in the morning. Thankfully, she still respected his position of authority enough to submit to his executive calls, and his scowl made her quiet for the rest of the ride.
The duo turned into the lot of a used car business at exactly 7:00. When Alex had Googled “trade-in car places in Portland, Oregon” after he had gotten home from Norma’s house the night before, he’d found three major companies and printed out the address for each. Now here he was at the one he had a hunch was the same place Norma had traded in her car. There were red, white, and blue, reflective mini flags running along the borders of the dealership, strings of orange lights accompanied the decorative tassels and stood out against the first light of dawn. Alex sped past a row of Hondas and drove under the main tent, not completely sure if that was a space available to pull into, and confident that the establishment wasn’t even open for the day.
“Stay in the car,” Alex muttered as he jerked to a stop and hopped out.
A middle-aged man in a grey suit and red tie glanced up from his phone with an apprehensive smile. He asked Alex if he could help him, not having the guts to tell a police officer that the shop wouldn’t officially be open to the public for another hour and hoping that he wasn’t in some sort of trouble.
“Yeah, uh-” Alex swept his eyes over the cars surrounding them, feeling a twinge of defeat when he didn’t spot the pistachio-colored vehicle. “I’m looking for an early 70’s Mercedes 300D, light green, uh…” He paused, trying to think of other distinct traits the car possessed, such as a dent on the fender or two differently colored headlights, but all he saw when he pictured the car was Norma grinning away in the driver’s seat, and all he heard was her voice strained with regret as she told him how she’d traded in her car and wished she hadn’t. Sure, he’d been buzzed with the aftermath effects of alcohol coursing through his system as he picked a losing battle with the seatbelt when she’d griped to him, but he’d also picked up on her distress.
And if he was honest with himself, he had really become accustomed to seeing Norma tear around town in the little vintage car that matched her unique vintage style.
Turned out that he didn’t have to think much longer. The salesman with the thinning brown hair’s eyes lit up and he snapped his finger, the twitching digit in close-range of Alex’s face breaking his trance immediately. “We actually have one of those,” he said, and with the prospect of making a deal before the sun was even visible in the sky, he was beckoning with his hand for the sheriff to follow him. “Come on, let me show it to you.” Backing away, he continued his sales pitch. “It’s got some character, but it’s-”
“I’ve seen it,” Alex interrupted. The persuasion act in front of him came to a halt. Alex’s job required him to have immaculate patience, and after more than twenty years in the police force, he could say that for the majority of the time, he practiced that virtue well. However, when it came to Norma, she had this influence, a certain indescribable pull on him that made him want to get everything fixed right away. Anything for her done right away. He couldn’t say that he was necessarily sorry if he’d come off as rude.
He blinked slow and firmly, which was an unconscious habit he frequently fell into when he was giving a cautious explanation to show he understood a situation had liability. “She wants it back,” he said gently, and the left side of his mouth twitched upwards in the way it did whenever he thought of Norma. If there was a God and humans were puppets, the Great Puppeteer would have given up a long time ago on Alex Romero, but the feisty, stubborn, and beautiful Norma Louise had all his strings wrapped around her little finger, with the strand commanding his smile completely under her control.
“The woman who sold it,” he clarified when it caught up to him that the salesman, unless he directly had done business with Norma, would have no clue who he was referring to. The string on the other side of his face was tugged.
When Grey Suit hesitated, the impatient side in Alex started to flare up again.
“Just get the keys.” He remembered to slap a “please”, because while he was a sheriff, he wasn’t Portland’s sheriff, and therefore not everyone in the vicinity knew and revered him. He knew that there had to be some kind of limited-time satisfaction-guarantee warranty on trade-in car places like these, and for that he was grateful.
The sound of a car door rung out against the cold morning air, and Alex felt himself tense up with the realization that his deputy had broken orders. In all truthfulness, it wasn’t that big of a deal that her curiosity had gotten the better of her and made her approach the two men with a quizzical look. He probably would have done the same thing if he was in her place. It was the fact that if she recognized Norma’s car and remembered her as the slightly-nutty lady who owned the motel he had stayed at for the summer, she might think that he was being unprofessional by playing favorite citizens or, even worse, come to the conclusion that he had feelings for Norma. Because that wasn’t true…right?
Deputy Lin strode up to his side, and as the two of them followed the business employee through a door to a room covered in mirrors on the outside, she whispered, “Sheriff Romero? I mean no disrespect, but what is really going on here?”
Keys clinked when their host pulled out a silver key from a drawer. Attached to it was a white plastic tag, a number and date scrolled lazily on it, marking the model of the car and when it was traded in.
“I told you: I’m getting back a car,” Alex said with as much indifference as he could muster. Passing through another door, the trio came to the other side of the car lot, and Alex spotted Norma’s car immediately. It stuck out like a sore thumb among the black, white, and red vehicles neighboring it, and it looked like the only thing in junction that was as old as he was. “There it is,” he confirmed, giving the Mercedes a light pat of affection on the hood. He glanced back at Lin and Arnold – the man had put on a name tag while in the office – and realized that he must look pretty funny, standing almost six feet tall and smiling at a vintage car while owning a shiny, modern SUV.
Lin broke the silence. “This is what we drove one and a half hours for?” She wrinkled her nose. “It doesn’t look like much. If you ask me, there are more important things back-”
“Well I didn’t ask you,” Alex snapped, tired of her boldness. “And it’s important to me.” All he wanted was the car back into Norma’s possession! Was that so hard to accomplish? He could name at least four cases in the past month where she’d asked less questions and did more of what he asked of her; he was contemplating that maybe he should have told her that the car belonged to a repeat felon who had skipped town, and they were there to collect the evidence.
Albert chucked nervously in the space of tension Romero and Lin had created and tried to relive some of it. “You sure you want this one? We got some other great-”
“No, no,” Alex waved him off as he interrupted him for the second time in less than five minutes. “I want…I need this one. She won’t want anything different than it.”
Alex’s heart had started talking through his throat because he could hear the change in his voice when he spoke about Norma, his annoyance temporarily dampened when the chance to talk about her came up yet again, and he cursed himself for being so off his game. If he could detach his feelings for Norma, bury them six feet into the ground for just one moment, he would be doing himself a favor, for he knew that nobody had missed his vocal fumble.
His inferior cast him a wary look, eyebrow arched and all, and the salesman let out a low laugh. “She someone special, huh?” The way he phrased it didn’t make it sound like a question. Alex shifted uncomfortably in place as if he was being interrogated, which was ridiculous because he was the sheriff of a whole town. He simply didn’t do uncomfortableness.
So why the hell did the mere thought of Norma have the power to make him nervous enough to lie through his teeth, muttering something along the lines of, “Everyone in my town is special”, as if he made special accommodations for all his constituents?
Ten minutes later, after a page of paperwork and an annoyed look from Deputy Lin – he’d assured her that she’d get paid for this trip, though he knew they both were aware she wasn’t worried about being properly compensated – Alex was stepping into the old vehicle, ducking at the waist from how low to the ground it sat, and adjusting the seat so his legs wouldn’t become cramped. He turned the keys in the ignition and pressed on the pedal. And didn’t move.
What the hell? Alex thought to himself as the engine revved. He checked to see if he was in ‘drive’ when a tap came on the window.
“Car’s a manual,” the salesman said, unable to keep the amused grin off his face.
Alex was already really starting to miss that 2,000 dollar deposit he had to put down as collateral. His attempt at convincing the salesman that he wasn’t going to run off with the Mercedes because he was a cop and therefore followed the law hadn’t payed off, and before he could tell himself to just leave, forget the whole thing, he had been swiping his plastic card, buying Norma’s car back with money that may or may not have come from the illegal drug trade in White Pine Bay. Gritting his teeth into a saccharine smile, Alex released the clutch and tore off towards the lot’s driveway.
Try as he might, he couldn’t help but get lost in his thoughts. At first, he tried to distract himself with critiques of his surroundings and the vehicle. He thought about how different the Portland traffic was from the traffic back at home, noting how much faster the speed limits were around here, but the overall flow didn’t vary that much since there was a much bigger population in the city than in the town. He thought about how jerkily the old car drove and how he almost ran a stop sign since the brakes on Norma’s beloved vehicle weren’t as sensitive as the ones in his SUV. But the pretty brown leather surrounding him or the pink and yellow sky above everyone on the highway wasn’t enough to keep his mind from wandering to her.
She was intoxicating, really. The harder he tried to not dwell on how she’d gone from the newcomer in town, a major suspect – and then later found guilty of not one but two (justified) murders – to the woman who let him live at her motel for free for three months and insisted he stay for a family dinner, the harder it was for him to admit that she wasn’t something to him.
He hadn’t expected to fall for her. His work was his life, always had been since his mom died, so he wasn’t supposed to be going around killing people for unrelated job reasons, at least not for anyone else but his own benefit…especially not for some random lady. But she wasn’t just some random lady. Not when she’d all but threatened him into her house just so she could clean up a cut by his eyebrow. Not when he’d given her his personal cellphone number in case she needed to contact him quickly about something.
Am I in love? he thought as he kept an eye out for the exit that would take him in the direction of his town. It’s true that I’ve never quite felt this way about anyone before. He mused about how he hadn’t looked at his first wife the same way he stared at Norma when he was certain she wasn’t watching. The main reason he viewed the two women differently wasn’t because he hadn’t loved his first wife – oh no, he’d loved her all right – but it was that Lindsey was easy to get along with and Norma…well…
He admitted to himself now and often before that Norma was complicated, with her broken background and stubborn attitude and feisty mood swings. If she was anyone else, he would have kept his distance a long time ago, and there had been plenty of times when he’d found himself shaking his head in disbelief as he felt and heard the familiar crunch of Bates Motel gravel under his car. But she had a certain, indescribable charm to her that drew him to her. Yes, she had called city councilman Lee Berman a dick during a council meeting,
but she had only been frustrated that nobody was listening to her, treating her as if her problem with the inevitable by-pass was as important as how many bananas were delivered to the grocery store that week. And she was right: Lee Berman was a dick.
Sure, she’d snuck uninvited into an incredibly private hunting party that was filled with the richest people in the town,
but she’d only done it, risked any reputation she’d had left after the whole Deputy Shelby incident, because she’d been worried about the missing girl at her motel. And she’d looked breathtaking while doing it, too.
Yes, Norma was a little rough around the edges, but despite what anyone said about her, it was impossible to say that she was uncaring. She leads life with her heart and follows her gut, Alex thought. There’s passion and determination coursing through every decision she makes, even if she’s trembling underneath the surface. She was so unapologetically herself – the good, the bad, the beautiful – while many of White Pine Bay’s residents danced under a dark sky of façade in order to resemble the stars of the town who had it all.
And that’s probably why you find her so captivating. Alex winced at the idea. He was a stable person. He wasn’t supposed to go around liking wild-card women.
Alex looked at Norma like she was the most fascinating person in White Pine Bay, which she arguably was, and it was as if he couldn’t get enough of whatever it was she had that kept bringing him back. But if I love her, then bringing her car back is a pretty crappy way of showing it.
Uneasiness settled in the sheriff, doubt starting to creep into his mind and twisting his gut. What if she thought his gesture was too forward? What if she had changed her mind since the day before and decided that she liked the red Mustang? The idea of never speaking with Norma again tugged at something unfamiliar in him, and the feeling grew as he remembered how dramatic Norma could be. If she ended up upset at him for meddling in her business, she would probably cross the street in town if she saw him in her path.
Alex stifled a groan as he neared the motel. It was too late to take the Mercedes back now, too humiliating to face the man at Kingsway after making such a big deal over getting possession of an old car that his own deputy had scoffed at. The final, lasting motivation that pushed him to keep driving was the knowledge that strange men would love to get their grubby hands on Norma’s car in order to add it to their collections. The thought of something so precious to Norma in the hands of someone who wouldn’t love it the same heartfelt way just didn’t sit right with Alex.
He heard her before he saw her. Well, actually, he saw two large mounds of dirt and a bulldozer, which made him shake his head in confusion but also immediately chuckle a bit under his breath because he wasn’t that surprised something crazy big was happening out of the blue at the Bates Motel.
Norma and a construction worker were standing next to each other in said pile of overturned earth, staring down into a hole, and for a moment, Alex wondered if she’d heard him pull up or not. But then she was turning around and her eyes were bugging out of her head as she caught sight of her Mercedes and Alex in the driver’s seat.
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God, my car!”
And suddenly she was leaping off the dirt and running towards him. Her bright, excited expression and delighted squeal was all the confirmation Alex needed to know that he’d done the right thing. That vision paired with her charging full speed in his direction had him convinced, in that very moment, that he had never seen anything more beautiful.
“You got my car back!” Her blonde curls bounced in time with her happy claps. “Aleeex! Alex.”
God, he was in love with the way she said his name. Hell, he was obsessed with her saying it at all, and he caught himself not minding the fact that there were three other construction men nearby, leaning on the bulldozer that must’ve dug up Norma’s property, all definitely hearing a woman squeal over him…and on top of that, calling the tough cop of White Pine Bay nobody messed with “Alex”.
The car door slammed as Alex slid out and faced Norma.
“Thank you,” she said, smile still plastered on her face.
Alex felt himself smiling back, pleased that she was happy with his excursion. But then he realized that he wasn’t sure what to say next. Any normal person would have said “you’re welcome”, but his mind wasn’t functioning properly while watching her beam like she’d won the lottery. He wondered how anyone got anything done around her presence without taking several moments to just watch her move.
“What’s with the hole?” His curiosity was getting the better of him, and it was safer to talk business than small talk.
Norma ignored his question by asking, “How much do I owe you?”
Now, Alex could have charged her for his trouble, but the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. He had just wanted her to have her car she loved so much back and nothing more. There was no desire in him to have Norma give him anything for the favor. “Ah, nothin’,” he grinned at her. “I’ll just- I’ll just take the other car back for you.” Of course he’d take the Mustang back for her. He’d subconsciously known this whole time that he would need to do that. Seeing her light up that way though, had almost made him forget, so saying the words out loud made him feel like he was offering to do something impulsive like buy a dozen donuts on his way out of the grocery store just because they were on sale.
He’d be lying if he said that he wouldn’t go through the ridiculously early morning drive and disapproving deputy all over again if it meant that she’d look at him like that more often.
That thought made him uneasy. The woman had such an iron-tight grip hold on him, and she wasn’t even aware of that or the fact that he wouldn’t have done the same for anyone else in town. “So what’s up with the big pit?” he tried again in attempt to direct the conversation off himself.
Norma played along this time. She must have known that he wouldn’t let up on the subject until she gave him a satisfactory answer. “Bob Paris is building a pool just like he said he would. You were there,” she said a matter-of-factly.
She tilted her head to look up at Alex. He gave her a look out of the side of his eye.
“It looks – looks pretty deep.” He couldn’t exactly see the depth of the pit, but as he scanned and got a good look at how much dirt circled the pit, he could tell that this was no swimming pool. “Where – where are the plans?”
“Um, I don’t have them,” Norma confessed, gazing at the pit. “But I have a call in to Bob. The worker said that it’s a pool and there are plans.”
To Alex, she didn’t sound happy about it, and it seemed like her explanation was more for her own reassurance that all was right with the renovation in her front yard than an explanation to him. This irked Alex because he knew exactly what Bob was doing to her. He was acting like an entitled douche again, insistent on being somewhere between incredibly passive aggressive and sneaky, just like how everyone else in the town who was somebody and had money did. Like hell Alex was going to let him get away with messing with this amazing woman and ruining her life. Did Alex know what he’d say exactly to the man who threw sex parties every other weekend like they were book club meetings? No, but he would go to the coward’s office anyways and tell him to stop banging his fists on the floor like the little kid throwing a tantrum he was.
He was brought back to reality as he heard Norma drum on the car’s hood, squealing once more. “Get me the pink slip on the Mustang?” he commanded as nonchalantly as he could muster while happiness for her excitement filled him.
Norma nodded. “Sure,” she complied, but before she walked even a foot away, she had turned around and was talking again. “I cannot believe you did this for me.”
Me too, Alex thought.
“That you realized how much this car meant to me.”
Quick, make up a lie! was what his mind yelped at him, though he wasn’t sure what he was lying exactly about.
“Yeah, well, it’s—I’m a cop. I’m observant,” he murmured. There it was: the old sheriff scapegoat. His position as head police officer was more often than not his excuse for many of his actions, such as if he needed to run a red light or act like he didn’t have any sentiment for silly town events. But here, now, in front of Norma, using his job to explain why he was taking interest in her life? Alex was lying to himself if he was claiming that the sole reason he’d noticed her anguish over her lost car was simply from his cop skills.
Norma breathed out, “That is so nice.” Alex had to stifle a smile because she hadn’t complimented him since he’d moved out of the motel and she told him she always felt safe when he was around. Truthfully, he hadn’t realized that he’d missed her praise, or that he’d even liked it in the first place.
“Why did you do it?”
Well…he hadn’t been expecting that. She hadn’t asked him in a such a tone that he could answer with a quick, “Oh, well I didn’t see why I shouldn’t”, and while she didn’t have an accusatory stare trained on him, it was painfully obvious that she wasn’t completely buying into the justification by job answers.
Alex’s head froze as he was caught off-guard. What was he supposed to say? “It was never about getting your beloved, old, manual vehicle back. I actually didn’t know how much the car meant to you; it was just that you mean so much to me”? No way.
As she looked at him, unwavering, awaiting his response, Alex had to smile just the teeniest bit as he stuttered, “It’s – I don’t know.” No, I know. I just don’t have the gut to tell you right now. “I just, uh… Couldn’t stand the thought of you being sad about it, and I could do something or fix it— You’re rambling again! his mind sneered at him. “Or whatever that means” he finished off, knowing full well exactly what that meant. He would do anything to make sure she was safe and happy, and as sheriff of the town, he had a responsibility to the citizens, so he shouldn’t have been so bothered to look out for her.
It was just that he found himself completely captivated with her. She preoccupied his thoughts throughout the day while he was supposed to be focused on working cases, and her witty comments and the way her nose scrunched up when she smiled (or disapproved) of something had become the main characters in his dreams much more often than he would ever admit.
Alex let out a huff of a chuckle, feeling awkward with how this conversation was going, and praying to a god he didn’t believe in that she’d just go up to the house and get that damn pink slip for the damn red Mustang.
She didn’t though. At least not right away. Norma stared at him in wonder, mouth slightly agape in the shape of a ghost of a smile, and Alex had no choice but to smile lightly back. And then she was walking towards him, which really wasn’t that much distance to cover at all, and—
She is right there. Right there…In. Front. Of. You!
Alex had always scoffed at the idea that time could ever slow down. Not only because it was impossible for a fixed duration of a moment to stretch out longer than the principles of physics would allow it to, but because the saying was just so overused by the romance department. How else could he, though, express the idea that Norma was mere inches away from him for what seemed like minutes while in reality, it had only been a few seconds?
And then she was leaning in, and every myosin head in his muscles wasn’t binding to the actin filament like it was supposed to. He found that easier to blame his inability – and maybe unwillingness, too – to move away as the spunky and charming motel owner he’d fallen head-over-heels for leaned in and closed the gap between them.
Given, she turned her head to the side slightly so their lips didn’t meet, much to Alex’s surprise disappointment, but her mouth was on his face all the same, burning a hole in his cheek as she held her kiss one, two, three and a half seconds long.
His head was swimming and his heart was too loud in his ears. Fluttering closed, his eyes helped shut the world out so he could concentrate better on her touch, which was almost unbearable and yet somehow insatiable. He thought back to when she had last kissed him last – he really thought back then that it was going to be the only time she did – and he smiled at the awareness that this kiss was lingered longer than the one on the motel porch.
Then it was over. She pecked him quickly before ducking away with the most radiant smile, clapping and jumping as she all but bounced towards the house. “Okay, I’m gonna get the pink slip,” she stated after she’d twirled around in giddiness. “Thank you. Aah!”
As she galloped to the house’s numerous steps with a lopsided though albeit adorable jog, she gave Alex’s head the needed time to slowly catch up to his racing heart. Had he dreamt what just happened? Sure, he had been hoping that waking up at 5:00 in the morning hadn’t been for nothing, but what a surprise that was! He resisted the urge to touch his face where an angel had touched him, or even run after the angel herself, spin her around, and kiss her right there in front of the whole construction crew of four.
He opted to take a look in the pit instead. The sucker was deep indeed, but all Alex could think about was how much it unsettled him to think of Norma being screwed over by yet another scumbag. Bob Paris was due for a visit. The man had something coming for him, and neither he nor Alex knew exactly what, but if he was coming for Norma’s wellbeing, well…Alex just hoped Deputy Lin wouldn’t talk his ear off for arriving back to the car dealership an hour late.