To avoid confusion, you should know I've never read any of the Superman comics. This fic is based on my knowledge of the series from shows like Smallville. It's not a direct Smallville fanfic, though, so I'm posting it here instead. Not a one-shot for once - more chapters will hopefully come in the near future! This is also the first fanfic I've written for anythingin the last four years, so don't be too harsh, please!

Standard disclaimer here, blah blah blah. You surely know the deal.

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DADDY'S GIRL

My first kiss was perfect. It's an overused cliché, but I felt that I was walking on air. The lucky boy was one Jason French, who I'd been crushing on for at least the last six months. He wasn't the most popular guy at school, or even the best looking. In fact, he was the quiet type most of the time, except during drama class when anybody could have mistaken him for being the most hyperactive person in our entire junior year. It was in drama class that I first noticed him, and I'd been smitten ever since.

I'd dropped hints for months in his direction. At first he hadn't seemed to notice at all, but when it did come, it came in a bang. Taking me completely by surprise, he pulled out all the stops at the dress rehearsal for our school play, pulled out a guitar and announced he'd dedicated a song to me. He even wrote it himself! It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me, and my heart crumbled then and there. We arranged to go on a date Saturday afternoon.

Which brings me back to the kiss. It was the perfect ending to a perfect date – an afternoon at the movies (not that I could concentrate much on the movie, since all my thoughts were on the boy in the next seat along), with plenty of hot buttered popcorn to share!

I was certain this was the happiest moment of my life. Being with the boy you love, kissing him for the very first time… I felt like I could fly. The kiss lasted for a long, long time, but when it finished I didn't want it to stop. When I did pull away, it felt wrong.

Really wrong. And not just because I already missed the kiss. It was the perspective. As I looked across into my boyfriend's eyes, I frowned, because I was used to looking up, tilting my head back. I resisted the urge to gulp.

"Close your eyes, Jason," I said, quickly, and took the opportunity to look down at my feet. They were a handspan above the floor.

I really was flying! Crap. Perhaps the author of Peter Pan really had something there with his 'think happy thoughts' idea. Needless to say, this was the first time this had ever happened to me. Suddenly my good mood slipped away, replaced with anxiety. We were out in public – someone could walk by and see me at any moment! In Peter Pan this mood swing ought to have been enough to send me crashing to the ground, but here was the difference between fiction and reality – I didn't know how to get back down. Hell, I didn't even know what I'd done to start flying in the first place.

"When do I get to open my eyes?" Jason asked, grinning. I started to panic.

Get down, get down! I thought desperately, to no avail. I started flapping my arms, pushing upwards against the air in an effort to go downwards. I really should have known that one would never work, and it didn't.

If my reaction seems a little strange to you, let me explain. I'm only half human. Genetically speaking, fifty percent of my DNA is from an alien species. You wouldn't have heard of me, but everybody knowsof my father. They call him Superman.He's virtually indestructible with a whole range of alien powers. Not only can he fly, but he has amazing strength, speed, x-ray vision and the ability to shoot fire from his eyes. To me, he's just dad, though he never kept his other identity a secret from me.

My younger brother and I didn't inherit all these powers, but we got a couple each. As far as I'd known, I'd gotten a milder dose of Dad's strength. Roger inherited the speed, and bizarrely, an ability to control water that even Dad didn't have. Nobody quite knew where that came from. Neither of us ever really got hurt physically, but we both had a bad dose of the chicken pox when we were little. And we thought that was it.

But now I was flying, something I hadn't anticipated in the slightest. (I tried to fly enough times when I was little that I'd long assumed I would never have the ability.)

"Shika!" Jason said playfully. "What are you up to?"

"Just give me one more moment," I pleaded. At the same time, I heard footsteps approaching from the corner of the cinema. Crap. Crapcrapcrap.

If I couldn't put my feet back on the ground, I'd just have to get out of there before I was seen. Unlike Dad, I didn't have a colourful costume to hide behind. I can't even explain what I did next – probably I was propelled out of a mixture of fear and dread – but I found myself flying high into the air. From this vantage I could see the footsteps were from the first new trickle of cinema-goers leaving the building. Somehow, I managed to drift myself over to the roof of the cinema in the nick of time, just as the first one rounded the bend. Only now did my power of flight decide to cancel itself out, leaving me effectively stranded with no way to get down.

A thin voice sounded from below. "Shika? I'm going to have to look now."

I sat on the roof with a sinking heart, watching my boyfriend open his eyes and look around in a bewildered manner for a long, long time. He didn't think of looking up. Probably just as well. But when he finally gave up on calling my name and walked away, long after the other patrons had left, I buried my head in my arms and started to cry. I knew I'd never be able to tell him my secret.

It hurt more than I'd expected.

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