Title: Through His Fingers
Fandom: Saved by the Bell
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Slater/Jessie
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: He had let the greatest thing to ever happen to him slip through his fingers. No, he had practically pushed it -- pushed her -- away.
Word Count: 1,126
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 386: Wrong Number
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.








He still dialed her number. After all these years, when he was lost and confused, he still ended up calling her number. He knew she wouldn't answer, but what he didn't expect was to hear a young, cheerful voice chirp in his ear. It had been her mother for the longest time. Now, suddenly, it was somebody he didn't even know. Slater slowly lowered the phone back into its cradle.

He looked out at the neon lights of the city shining into his little apartment, and for a moment, he forgot it was manmade lights and not the moon shining in. He heaved a hefty sigh as he wondered where she was, what she was doing, and who she had chosen to be beside her. He had always known he couldn't offer her much, but he had always, always loved her. At least he could take solace in the fact that she was probably staring up at the same moon wherever she was.

He wondered if she was fighting to free slaves or to save animals. He wondered what kind of laws she'd managed to get passed in Congress by now and just how many lives she had saved. That woman was a one woman wrecking ball. She was capable of doing anything, of saving anyone or destroying anything that made her angry.

She was beautiful, brilliant, sexy, inspiring... Slater sighed as he raked his fingers through his short, dark curls. Jessica Spano had ruined him for all other women. No other could come close. It was why he was still lingering here in Bayside, hoping she might one day come back at least long enough for them to encounter one another and himself to somehow earn another chance.

He'd had to send her away. He'd had no other choice. The world deserved Jessie Spano and all the goodness she could bring it. It wasn't right of him to keep all that amazing womanhood to himself, but then, too, it had never been fair that he'd finally fallen in love and found the one woman in all the world who could right his every wrong while still loving him only to have to lose her because she was far too good for him.

Slater sighed. She would always be too good for him; that would never change. He jumped when his phone rang. "A.C. Slater." He listened to the same young voice babbling over his line before he finally interjected, "Sorry, ma'am. It was a wrong number."

"You sound cute. Do you wanna go out?"

He blinked in surprise. Who on Earth asked someone they'd never met to go out with them? The kid must be desperate! But he'd rather be lonely than desperate. Besides, he'd tried dating, only to find himself mentally comparing every woman he dated to Jessie Spano. Of course, none of them had been able to come close to measuring up. "Huh, no," he said and firmly clicked the phone into the receiver.

His agent had been right -- he should have updated a while back. His agent. Slater snorted. There was another dream that had never really stood a chance of succeeding. Oh, he'd enjoyed the limelight for a little while, but even then, he'd been unable to get Jessie off of his mind. So many cheerleaders had thrown themselves at him only to be dismissed that he had found himself accused of being gay.

Since then, he hadn't really worked. He hadn't really had a life of any form. Perhaps it was time he started trying to live again. At least, as a Coach, he might be able to reach the kids like him, the kids who would have fallen through the cracks because there were too many students for teachers to keep caring and too few genuine friends like Jessie Spano and even Zack Morris. He dialed the numbers by memory and listened to the confused greeting come across the line.

"Hey, Toddman, it's me. Count me in, but I want to be more than a Coach. I want to have a chance to teach the kids something." He listened to the lip service from the other end of the line, knowing that he'd have to probably further his education and then argue with the School Board to be able to teach the children anything. Maybe he'd find other ways to reach them, like he had been reached. Maybe he might even be reached again.

Slater sighed, murmured to Toddman that he'd see him later, and hung up the phone. There was no use pretending. There was no other woman like Jessie Spano, and no other friends like he'd had back in Bayside as a child. If he'd known then what he knew now...

He would have still let Jessie go, Slater admitted to himself, ambling over toward his window and looking out into the ghetto. He would have still encouraged her to reach for her dreams and to try to fight for that better world in which she had always believed. She didn't need to know that the goodness in his world had ended when she'd left him, when he'd sent her away to college and he'd gone to the school for dumb jocks.

Even if he did find her again by standing in this dumb city, she didn't need him. She deserved everything the world had to offer beyond -- he glowered -- the neon lights. He couldn't even see the moon from here! Where was she? he wondered again. Was she looking up at the moon? Nah, knowing Jessie, she was too busy saving lives and fighting for a better world to be paying attention to something as passive as moonlight.

If she was in Washington still, she wouldn't be able to see it for all the neon lights there. "Heh." He chortled. Maybe they were watching the same type of lights after all, but that was as close as the similarities would ever come. He'd heard she'd married a man not unlike herself, a world-renowned author and philanthropist, and had a son. She had no time or room in her life for dumb jocks.

Maybe he should go out, Slater thought and headed for his door. He had to find a life. Jessie was never coming back, and even if she returned to Bayside, why would she return to him? Why would he let her? She deserved everything good, and he was none of that. He couldn't even get his own house, upgrade his phone, or get a car. He had nothing to offer her, but he could, he thought, heading for his liquor cabinet instead, dream of her and the miracle he'd had and let slip through his fingers. He could, and would always, dream of her.



The End