Title: Momma and Poppa, Together Again
Fandom: Saved by the Bell
Author: Apache Firecat
Dedicated To: My loving and very patient husband, J <3 <3 <3
Characters: Slater/Jessie
Rating: Soft R/M for nudity
Summary: Every mistake, every decision, good or bad, has led to this perfection.
Word Count: 1,577
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 408: Doubt
Warnings: Future Fic
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.








She sighed softly. His fingers instantly stopped stroking her long, curly hair, and he looked down at her in concern. "Is everything okay, Momma?" he whispered. He'd thought Jamie was away from home tonight, but they had been quiet regardless. He frowned, wondering what had upset her.

"Everything's perfect," she answered immediately, and it was. He wasn't reading. He was still holding her, still cuddling her. They spent every night like this lately, falling asleep and waking again in each other's arms, making love so many times, kissing everywhere and anywhere... They truly were perfect together. She'd miss this so much, missed him so much! She smoothed her hand across the muscles of his lower abdomen, wondering how on Earth she had ever let this go. "I never should've left you," she whispered.

"Of course, you should have! I'm a loser!" The words were out before he could stop them.

"No, you're not," she immediately argued. "Whoever told you that was lying and probably jealous."

"Is that what you tell the kids," he asked, "the ones who are teased?"

She lifted a shoulder in a light shrug. "Similar," she admitted, "but it's the truth too."

"Jessie, I was living out of my car when you came back into my life! I wouldn't have a roof over my head now if it wasn't for you!"

"Yes, you would have," she said, tracing a curve in his stomach. "You were well on your way."

"No, I had been well on my way," he argued. "I'm just a has-been washup now. You deserve better!"

"Slater, you're the one I want," she stated firmly, leaning up and looking up at him. Gazing directly into his eyes, she admitted in a soft rush of breath, "You're the one I've always wanted. I've loved you since high school."

She could see him melt before her, all the hardness leaving his beautiful face, all the regrets and self-doubt seeming to lift instantly. He cupped her face in loving, tender hands and drew her closer. "I've loved you too ever since then." He kissed her lips, lightly this time, lifting his head again so that he could go on to admit to her, "It almost killed me having to let go of you back then, but it was for the best. You needed to go on with your life. You needed to have the career and education you always dreamed of. You deserved it."

"Yeah, and I did so great with it too!" She shook her head. "Look at me, Slater! I never thought I'd come back to Bayside! You want to talk about have-been washups?! I let go of the career I chose in favor of supporting Renee! I let a relationship to a man I never really loved almost destroy my life!"

He threaded his fingers gently through her hair. "Momma," he spoke softly, gazing deeply into her eyes, "it was your coming back here that suddenly gave my life meaning again. Gave me hope. Made me want to be a better man again. If you'd never come back here, I'd still be lost."

"And we'd still not be together," she whispered in agreement, trailing her fingers down his dark, firm cheeks. "I never stopped wanting you, never stopped loving you, never stopped dreaming about you."

"Then we both did what was right."

"How do you figure?" she asked, cocking her head slightly to one side.

"Because otherwise, we wouldn't have come back together." His hand left her hair and smoothed soothingly down her bare back. "We would have still been thinking of each other, dreaming about each other, missing each other, loving each other -- but we never would have actually made it back together."

"You're right."

They were quiet for a long moment, just laying together and gazing into one another's loving eyes, until Slater broke the silence by once more making an admission, "I thank God every day for you." Tears sprang into Jessie's eyes, making his brow furrow again. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No! No!" She quickly assuaged his doubt. "You say everything right!" She took his hand and tenderly kissed his knuckles. They were not as smooth as they had once been, having been calloused over the years by all his sports playing and cleaning of the gym floor.

Relieved, he chuckled.

"What?" she asked.

"I sure didn't used to," he admitted. "Remember all that fighting we used to do?"

"I think we enjoyed it sometimes," she said with a wide and teasing grin. "I know I did," she admitted.

"I knew you picked some of those fights on purpose!"

She shook her head, her hair shimmering down her back. "I... I don't think I really knew how to love back then," she admitted, looking down at his chest. Slater had always been a beautiful man, but like the finest of wines, he had improved with age. In that moment, however, she wasn't looking at his muscles. She was gazing instead at her memories, recalling every time she'd hurt him when she shouldn't have, every time she'd been too hard on him and had been lucky he'd been so quick to forgive her or take her verbal abuse, and even before then, to every time her mother had fought with not just one husband but three.

She truly had never been shown how to love, but after loving Renee, or, at least, doing her best to love him, and always been treated as though she had not been important to him, which she truly had not been, she knows now, Jessie knew what love was supposed to look like, or at least she knew more about what it was meant to be. It was to be kind, forgiving, patient, gentle, and of course, loving. Just as Renee had never treated her right, looking back at their childhood, she saw that she had very seldomly treated Slater right. "I'm sorry," she whispered, a tear running down her cheek.

"For what?!" he asked incredulously. The woman laying on him, who shared every aspect of her life with him, was perfect. She had done no wrong! He couldn't imagine her doing wrong!

She shook her head and looked up at him. He cupped her face again when she saw that she was crying. "I was mean to you a lot. You were the studdliest guy in school." She shook her head sorrowfully. "There was no reason for you to choose me."

"Jessie, not only did I choose you," he said, stroking her face and hair, "but I never got over you. No other woman could compare!"

"What about that girl you dated back in college? Wasn't her name Alex?" Jessie knew that name well for she had hated that woman for years. She'd been convinced he would end up marrying Alex instead, but of course, he hadn't. He had remained single while she had gone on to marry a guy like herself, a guy who was so hung up on making sure everything was right and improved in the world that he forgot to make sure things were right at home -- or, rather, he'd never cared to do so in the first place.

Slater's abrupt chuckle made her eyebrows raise. "I haven't thought about her in years! She was a good girl," he admitted, looking back, "but she wasn't you, Momma." He ran a hand down over her body, from the top of her head, over her long hair and down to her bare buttocks which he cupped and gave a tender, playful squeeze.

She leaned up on him, feeling him coming to attention beneath her. "I'm still sorry for the way I treated you -- "

He shook his head. "Like I've told you before, I'm sorry. We were kids," he said with a shrug and then popped her behind. "We had a lot to learn. I'm glad we learned it, and I'm very, very grateful we made it back together. The day you told me you still loved me, it suddenly made everything, every mistake, every doubt, every hungry night worth it."

Her eyes glimmered as she studied his face. "I can't believe you lived out of your car for so long." She shook her head once more. "Well, you'll never have to be homeless or hungry again," she swore.

He lovingly caressed her face. "You'll never go without love again, and I promise I'll try my best not to be chauvinistic."

She smiled fondly. "You always were a pig, and you were the only one who would stand up to me. I love you just the way you are, Poppa." She wiggled against him, sliding further up on his hot bod. She'd always been such a nerd! How on Earth he'd ever fallen for her, she'd never understand, but she would always be thankful for it, for him and their love, and most of all, for this second chance of being with him and finally being happy and building a life together. "I love you!"

"I love you too, Momma," he declared against her lips, "always have, and always will, and I'm thankful for every mistake we made being away from each other that led us back together, for every -- " She silenced him by pressing her lips against his and proceeded to show him once more with her body and every touch how grateful she was to have him, how much she loved him, and always, always would!




The End