Title: Greatest Mistake
Fandom: Saved by the Bell
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Slater/Jessie
Rating: G/K
Summary: Letting him/her go was his/her greatest mistake.
Word Count: 1,213
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 360: Joke
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.





Sometimes she thinks her life is a joke. Her son is the only bright spot in her entire life, and yet she'd thought she'd have so much by the time she reached this age. She'd never thought she'd come back to Bayside. She had had dreams and aspirations to truly make a difference in this world, to be the first female President, to bring peace, to save lives and species... She had wanted to do so very much, and yet the older she grew, the less she seems to have done.

She's even had difficulty raising her child. Her husband is brainy, his intellect rivals hers even, but Jamie seems to have missed the intellectual side of his family. He's missed the intelligence, and somehow managed to develop a love of sports, although he's not adept at any of them. He is sweet and precious, and when Jessie is completely honest with herself, she knows she's messed him up. He's far too much of a mama's boy to make it on his son without her ever-watchful eye, and his intellect seriously lacks so much. It tears at her heart sometimes to watch him struggle with simple, everyday things, things she and his father both take for granted.

She watches him now as he walks out of his Coach's office, his shoulders slumped. He looks so crushed that they lost again, but she knows what's bothering him even more is that a girl is better as football than he is. That was yet another promise she had made herself that she had also allowed to be broken: She had always sworn any child of hers would know that all girls can do anything a boy can, if not better. Yet Jamie struggles with the fact that Aisha plays, let alone is so superior at the sport.

Jessie's own shoulders start to slump. She really has let him down, she thinks, and let herself down. She has her doctorate. She has a child she had at a one time thought she would never want. And she hasn't a single thing more to show for pushing forty.

She feels eyes on her suddenly and raises her own eyes to look balefully across the hall. Her son's coach has walked out of his office and is leaning in his doorway, strong, bronzed arms folded before a very muscular chest. Strong, bronze whose touch and hold she remembers all too well. A chest whose every contour she knows as well as she knows the curves of her own body.

Slater watches her from across the hall, his dark eyes volumonious. He doesn't speak; he doesn't even try to get her attention. He doesn't have to. Jessie swallows down hard against the lump that's formed in her throat, a lump he's always had the power to create within her. Standing right there in that doorway just a few feet away is the very thing she wants most in this troublesome world. Far more than any degree, far more than any career, far more than any cause, she still wants Slater. She's always wanted Slater. She's always... loved Slater.

And yet somehow she ended up married to the wrong man, raising a child with the wrong father, a man who's barely in either of their lives. Slater catches Jessie watching him and grins; she barely muffles the groan that rises in her at the sight of his sweet dimples. It's no wonder she returned to Bayside, she knows deep down. It's actually a wonder it took her as long to do so as it did, for it was in these very academic halls where she made her first mistake. And it had nothing to do with academics.

It had everything to do with hearts, with love. It had never been a mistake to fall for AC Slater as she had at one time. No, the mistake she had made, that had started all her other mistakes, had been in walking away. She never should have left him. She should have told him she loved him and found a way to make a long distance relationship work while they had both been in college. She never should have thought that any degree or career or anything else could possibly be more important than the thing she wanted more than anything else, the thing she still wants more than anything else.

She envies Kelly, she realizes, battling down the tears that threaten to well in her green eyes. She steps back into the shadows of her own office, letting them swallow her up. She walks over to her couch and sinks down onto its plush, comfortable cushions. She has no business whatsoever telling these children what to do with their lives, no business whatsoever trying to guide others' lives when her own is so utterly messed up.

She simply never should have told him that she had to leave him, that she had to stop loving him. She never had managed to do so. She's had several lovers since their high school days, but there's never been another man, other than her son, whom she has actually loved. Jessie slowly shakes her head as she covers her face in her hands. There will never be another man, she knows, for her other than AC Slater. She might as well stay married to her son's father. At least he has parents; at least she has done that right by him.

It doesn't matter for what her own heart grieves, for what her very soul, at times, seems to crave. She always dedicated her life before to learning. Her time to love is over. Now she has a child to whom to devote her life. She has a career. it doesn't matter what she truly wanted. She should have reached out for it then. She should never have let him go.

Life is a joke. It is a cruel, hard, twisted mistress, taking a shy bookworm, giving her love, and then duping her into sacrificing it for a life she never achieved, a life she will never achieve. Sitting in the dark, she sobs ever so quietly while life beyond her doors continues as it always has, without her.

Across the hall, AC aches to go to her. He has no idea that she's upset about anything beyond Jamie, but he still longs to go to her. He always has. He's always wanted to comfort her, to be there for her in any and every way he can. But she belongs to another man now. He let her go, and it was the greatest mistake and loss of his life.

He scowls around at Bayside High's walls. No wonder he can't leave this dump. His life itself is a dump, his world destroyed, because she walked away from him all those years ago because he would not better himself and the world had so much more to offer her. She walked away, and he let her go. Slater slinks back into office, shutting the door behind him, drops into his chair, and drops his weary face into his hands. He let her go. He can never fix that mistake, but he will also never stop regretting it for as long as he lives.

The End