"I flew once."

I looked down at her, pressed against my side, and tightened the arm that wrapped around her shoulders to shield her from the cold. She looked up at me and cocked her head quizzically. She didn't understand. She could never understand, despite being the only person in the world who I really wished could share in everything I was.

"In my dreams."

I turned back to look at the Metropolis skyline, wispy tendrils of fading purple clouds melting into the late evening sky. It felt dishonest to put it like that, but it wasn't really a lie. The night before I started high school, I dreamed that I looked at the bright blue sky, felt the world around me existing and living and breathing. I felt gravity and it was suddenly optional, like the only thing that had been holding me down all this time was my own fears. In my dream I lifted off into it sky and it was breathtaking, glorious, more than a rush. It wasn't just exhilarating; it was true freedom.

When it happened later, when I was possessed by my father, for lack of a better term, it was wrong. It happened just after I met her, and don't think the potential meaning of that hasn't crossed my mind more than once. I flew then in the real world, or at least my body did. It felt too alien, though, and out of balance. I hate that that experience sullies the memory of my dream.

I guess I was feeling particularly introspective tonight. Lois would roll her eyes, smack me on the arm, and tell me to stop moping when I got like this, but I didn't think it was pointless whining. Not really.

We were standing on the roof of the Daily Planet, the newspaper where we both worked. We would come up here sometimes to take a break or make out or talk. It was our place, more so than anywhere else, and some of the best times I've ever had were in this very spot. She would never show this side of herself to anyone else, and it makes me feel like the luckiest man in the world.

But it doesn't feel like flying. Not quite.

She pushed away from me slightly and leaned against the railing. That always makes me nervous, because she's really tall, and if she fell over the side I'm not sure if I could catch her. I can't fly, after all. I don't know what I would do if I lost her. I plan on asking her to marry me one day.

She looked down at the drop below us and I had to keep myself from rushing forward to pull her off the rail. I did it once and she never let me forget it. She doesn't like to be taken care of, no matter who she's with. I love that about her, but I can't help wanting to wrap her up in my arms and protect her from the world. It's in my nature, just like not wanting to be saved is in hers.

"We all dream of flying, Clark."

I surreptitiously came forward and leaned my hands against the railing next to her. I think she knew what I was doing, but she let me do it anyway, which tells me that she knew we were talking about something important. I looked from her to the street, some forty stories below.

"It's different for me, though." I leaned back off the rail and stuffed my hands in my pockets. Even though I shouldn't, even though it's part of my secret identity now, I still wear the bright red jacket when we're alone. It's a part of who I am, and I don't want to have to split that in two when I'm with her.

"I feel somewhere deep down like I really could if I could just let go of something. Like if I let my worries fade, I'll just lift up off the ground."

She shifted her weight and turned to look at me with an unreadable expression on her face. "Maybe you would. It's not like the rest of you is exactly normal. Maybe flying is just the next step."

That was just it. "The next step to what?"

She shrugged and finally took pity on me, stepping back from the edge of the rail and wrapping her arms around herself. "Whatever. Does it matter?"

She looked cold, with the harsh Metropolis wind pulling at her clothes and blowing her hair in all directions. I've never been good at sensing temperature, but I've learned to pick up on it when other people around me are uncomfortable. I figured I should try to warm her up, just to be considerate.

I came up and wrapped my arms around her again, pulling her back tight against my chest. She snuggled against me a bit and I rested my chin lightly on her head, looking out at the city I tried my best to protect. I loved her so much it hurt sometimes. I knew I could never have this conversation with anyone else. They would just nod and smile and pretend they understood or that my feelings were valid or whatever, but Lois never stopped challenging me. She was honest about what she thought and that meant that every conversation with her was real. After all the deceit and double talk in my life, that was pretty darn important.

"It matters, Lo'. I don't want to become someone so high above everything that I can't see the people walking on the ground. Jor-El was like that. Zod was like that. And they both hurt people."

She was faced away from me but I could feel her rolling her eyes. "Don't be stupid. Your powers have never been what separates you from people like them. You know that."

"What if they are, though? What if I get the ability to fly and I forget how to be human? I have a place here now and I can't lose that." I tightened my grip on her, almost as if I could hold on to my last shred of normalcy if I just didn't let go.

She wriggled uncomfortably. "Hey! I am not a tube of toothpaste!"

I let go of her instantly and took a couple steps back. Accidentally hurting Lois was one of the biggest fears in my life and I couldn't believe I had just come close because I was freaking out. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!"

She rubbed her sides lightly and glared at me. "And don't start with that either. You can feel guilty when you break my ribs and puncture a lung. Until then, let it go."

I took a deep breath and tried to obey her, but my worry must have shown in my eyes. "Seriously, Clark. Cut the crap."

I opened my mouth to answer, but she cut me off.

"All of it. Do you honestly think that your powers are what makes you different from everyone else? Or that Zod's powers were what made him different from you? Hundreds of people have been given superhuman powers by the meteor rocks and what do they do? They go nuts and start trying to kill people!"

I gave her a look. We'd been over this. "Your cousin was meteor infected for a while."

She stepped forward. "And she didn't go nuts because she's like you, a hero. It's not about the powers you have; it's about your character, what you do with them."

She sounded really vehement, and I wondered what exactly had made her feel so strongly about all this. I would ask, but I knew Lois well enough by now to know that probing for deeper meaning makes her shut down. She would tell me her story when she was ready, just like I told her mine.

She came up and affectionately ran her hand through my hair, smiling openly in a way that I knew she would never do unless we were alone. "You're human, where it counts. There's nothing that can change that, even if you grew scales and horns and wings. You aren't going anywhere." She took a step back and punched me lightly in the chest. "So I expect you to take me flying sometime, Smallville."

I enveloped her in another hug, careful not to squeeze too hard this time, and lightly kissed her hair. She was great at making me feel better, but I still didn't quite feel like anything was resolved. On an intellectual level, I knew she was right. If someone threw me back through time to live on Krypton before it exploded, I would be confused and out of place and longing for my barn and my friends and my parents. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that my origins meant more than anyone around me wanted to believe.

And then a thought struck me like a slap to the head. What if I was looking at this all wrong? I'd always hated my alien half because I just took it on faith that aliens were bad. I used to really love science fiction movies before I found out I was living in one, and in them the aliens are always soulless monsters, bent on killing and destruction and slavery. Meeting Zod and Jor-El didn't do anything to change my mind. The aliens were bad, and I could only be good if I suppressed my extraterrestrial side and lived as a human. But what if I was wrong?

Maybe being an alien could be a good thing. Sure, most of the aliens I'd met had been of questionable integrity, but it's not like humans are always perfect either. Maybe being from somewhere else wasn't automatically a bad thing. Warrior Angel popped into my mind out of nowhere. His story wasn't so different from mine, except that he was a super hero and I was just a cub reporter for the Daily Planet. Maybe I wasn't an intruder. Maybe I was just a friend from another place.

I squeezed Lois gently again and let her go, taking a step back. She tilted her head and stuck her hands into her jacket pockets.

"Clark?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm gonna try it."

The corner of her mouth quirked up. "All right."

I closed my eyes and listened to the world around me. I listened to the cars and trains and birds in the air. I listened to the wind and Lois's heartbeat. I listened to the noises of business as usual in the Daily Planet below me, and then I stopped listening and I felt.

I felt the vibrations from the earth, and the sky, and the trees growing in the nearby park. I felt Lois, living and breathing beside me. I felt the earth's gravitational field, countered by a much weaker pull from the moon, just at the very edges of my consciousness.

I could feel my heart pounding louder than it should, and I tried to quiet it. I couldn't be nervous now. I took a deep breath, and then I just let go. I let go of being Clark or Kal-El, alien or human, and I just let myself be me.

Suddenly it was just like my dream. I felt a lifting surge in my chest and gravity was still there but it wasn't the final word like it had always been. I could feel my own, weak gravitational field and without even thinking about it I lifted into the air.

I rose slowly, reaching about ten feet before I stopped and opened my eyes. Lois was looking up at me, open-mouthed, with the wind whipping her hair frantically around her face. I stared at her, standing below me, and tried not to feel too shocked. I moved something instinctively in my mind, and experimentally glided forward a few feet. Steering felt unfamiliar, like a muscle I'd never used before, but it felt right and I couldn't wait to flex this new skill all over until I got it just right. I flew forward a few more feet, and suddenly I could see the entire dizzying height down the side of the Daily Planet to the ground below. My acrophobia came back to me all in a rush and I dropped like a stone, landing in an awkward heap on the concrete roof. Lois rushed forward, asking me if I was all right with her brows knit in an uncharacteristic show of worry. I looked down at myself and then I grinned up at her.

I could fly.

And someday, I would take her with me.