Working Title: In Eight Years' Time
Author: Kat Lee
Fandom: Saved By The Bell (My first!! <3)
Character/Pairing: Slater/Jessi
Rating: G/K
Challenge: #108: Fast-Forward
Warning(s): Future AU
Word Count: 1,450
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.


She can scarcely believe she's standing here today, in front of all these people and about to give the speech that truly is the speech of her lifetime. Her hands are cold and almost shaking as she clenches the papers. She's felt stage fright but never anything like this. She's come all this way. It's amazing, really. She blinks back tears and smiles widely at the people who chose her.

Of course, they chose her. She's told herself almost her entire life that this day would eventually come. She's believed in it and in herself. She's fought for it, but still, she didn't really think she'd be the one to be standing here today. A lawyer? A senator? A woman who changed millions of lives? Sure, but the actual President of the United States of America? The first female President? It's a long time past due, but Jessi's still amazed that she's the one to be filling the biggest shoes any woman has in a very long time.

History has given her a plethora of fine examples of brave and intelligent women who did what no one else thought possible. She thinks of Hilary Clinton, Mother Theresa, the Queen of England, Joan of Arc, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, and so many others. She tries to focus on what they might say or do on this historical day, but there's a still part of her who can't quite focus.

There's a part of her brain that's still screaming in shock, joy, and disbelief. There's a part of her soul that keeps bringing up the girl she was. She's made it so far since Bayside, but those were some of the happiest days of her lives. She looks out at the sea of faces and remembers an entirely different body of people. She wonders what her high school classmates think of her now. There was never any doubt that she would go places, further and higher than most of them would ever attain, but she still didn't truly expect to be able to end up here. America's needed a female President since long before she was born, but she never dared to think she might actually be the first.

She was just a kid then, after all. She remembers Zack helping her over her fears. He was there for her through everything from the stereotypical child's fear of the dark to her first cases of stage fright and even to the drugs. That came up in the run of her career, just as she'd known it would, but she had handled all those questions with elegance and honesty. The people had still chosen to stand beside her, just as her friends had stood beside her then.

She wishes they were here now. She wishes Zack was here to talk her through this, but he always got his way with lies. She's built her career on her honesty, and she isn't about to stop now or turn back. She isn't going to turn back. She isn't going to wonder what might have been. She isn't going to wonder about the things she gave up to pursue a career first in justice and then in politics. She isn't going to think about . . .

Slater, but she does any way. She wonders if he's heard the news that she has been elected President. She wonders if he was one of the ones who voted for her. Did any or all of her friends vote for her? Where are they today? Are they watching her this very moment? Are they waiting for her to give her acceptance speech? Her eyes flick nervously back up to the cameras, and that's when she sees, hanging between two of the main cameras, a huge sign.

It doesn't read Spano for President. It doesn't read Go, Jessi! It isn't any of the numerous slogans her team created for her run for Presidency. But she knows the handwriting well. Her heart speeds up at the sight of it, and then when the sign lowers and she sees a certain handsome, dimpled face appear just above it, she almost drops her papers.

She almost falls to her suddenly weak knees. She almost drops, as she's been so afraid of doing so many times when she was too exhausted. Tears sting her eyes suddenly, and she almost cries. She presses her lips tightly together and looks, over the distance and the sea of faces, into her Papa's eyes.

Other heads are bouncing up behind him. Kelly waves. Zack gives her a thumbs up. Screech is dorking out about something as usual, and Lisa hits him in the back of his dark, curly head before waving at her, too. But it is Slater's eyes with which Jessi's are locked.

"Madame President," her right hand informant speaks lowly to her. "Ma'am, it's time."

It's past time, and she knows it. It's due time, and she knows that, too. She's longed for a little time for herself for a few years now, but she's never acted on that desire. She's never let her duties down. She's never put herself above the people who need her. And as much as she is touched by her friends' sudden appearance and support, as desperately as she wants to run to Slater especially, she knows she has a job to do. She steadies herself, steadies her papers, and pulls her mind together.

She faces the crowd with a brilliant smile, one she picked up from Zack, and she begins to speak. They listen with rapt attention, but even as she talks, delivering them her speech with sheer perfection, there's still a part of Jessi who remembers that little girl growing up in California with big ideas and a huge desire to save the planet. She still remembers that girl who knew love: love from her parents, love from her friends, love for her world, and perhaps most of all, love for a certain Papa.

Time has passed too swiftly and not yet swiftly enough. Fast forward from those days spent learning, hanging out at the Max, and loving A.C. Slater, fast forward through the many years of hard work both in college and beyond, flash forward through all the lives she's saved and the bills she's been integral in passing to help save the planet for which she's always worked, flash forward to here, to now. She is now officially the first female President of the United States of America. She is the most powerful woman in the world, and she finally has the means to not just fight for Mother Earth but to really save the planet.

And she's still staring into a pair of deep, brown eyes that are as wonderfully handsome and sensual as ever they were when they were children. She reads the sign again. "What are you doing in 4 8 years?" it asks, and her heart beats the answer in response. She's looking him up. She's finding him again, and finding herself, and maybe then, maybe in eight years' more time, she can finally put her fight for justice on the side and live again for herself but not just for herself.

Her smile is already brilliant, but it truly radiates when Slater blows a kiss to her. She resists the impulse to raise a hand to catch it and, instead, raises a hand to wave at her people, all of them, as she concludes her speech. Her eyes, however, are still locked with Slater's, and her soul is elated for maybe, just maybe, in eight years' time if not before, after being the first female President of the United States, maybe then there will still be time to be Missus Jessica Slater. She hopes with all her heart there will be and resolves to no longer just fight for the Earth and for the other lives within it. She's fighting for their future, for all their futures, and if only no one would look, she'd blow a kiss back to Slater.

Then, she realizes the cameras are already rolling not just on her but on him, as well. She is the President of the United States of America. She is the first woman to single-handedly hold the reins of power in the greatest nation in the world. She is the most powerful woman in the world. Power always comes with responsibilities. She knows Screech's silly comic books were right about that, but it also comes with some rights. That thought in mind, there before the world, she blows a kiss back to Slater and promises them both that, in eight years' time, she will be Missus Jessica Slater.

The End