How To Tell Your Best Friend You're Kind Of An Alien, And Also You're A Little Bit In Love With Him

Becca looked at the blog title and laughed at herself. She'd never write it, and sure as hell never post it. Really, she shouldn't have even typed out the title as a joke for herself.

Sighing, no longer amused, she highlighted the lot and deleted it in one fell click.

She'd had permission to tell Pete the Secret for almost two weeks. When she'd first asked her parents, it had seemed like a very simple thing. She'd sit him down, she'd tell him some night in when they were watching some old favorite on TV or something. Maybe it had been easy to make that plan because she hadn't really expected them to give her the go-ahead. Her siblings had all had to be practically married to a person before they shared the Secret.

Pete had been her friend since they were four years old, though. Her best friend since middle school. Her roommate for the past year and a half. He was also sort of the one who got away—he'd had a big, dopey crush on her in high school and she'd been oblivious; now she was fairly sure she was in love with him, but he couldn't see past their platonic-ness.

She'd consulted her siblings. Jason had told Danielle as part of his proposal. Molly had jumped off a cliff on a camping trip three days after they'd gotten engaged. Joanna had blurted it all out on their honeymoon.

"What's wrong?" Pete asked the moment he walked in the door. She was sitting on the living room couch, laptop on her lap, glaring at nothing. He dropped his keys in the bowl and sat down on the other end of the couch.

He was good like that. Just back from a ten hour shift at the coffee shop—he was a manager at the Starbucks close to the Daily Planet building—and he didn't even change out of his coffee-smelling whipped-cream-smeared work clothes before noticing something was up with her.

"Well," Becca said, closing the laptop and setting it aside so that she could turn her body to face him. "There's something I want to tell you, and I absolutely don't have any clue how to bring it up."

"Did you eat my leftover pizza?"

"No."

"Did my fish die?"

"No."

"Are we out of toilet paper?"

"No."

"Then no matter what you have to tell me, I will probably survive it."

Becca smiled at him. She couldn't help it. He was just perfect. For half a minute, she thought she might just tell him she loved him and save the harder part for later, but that was like saving the worst for last. What if she told him she loved him, and he ended up loving her back until he found out she wasn't entirely human?

Those insecurities shouldered their way in at the worst times.

Becca sighed dramatically, throwing her head back and rolling off the couch. She headed for the kitchen. She was going to make dinner. Cooking had always been an outlet, something that her dad had taught her, something that made sense to her, something that kept her hands busy and usually ended in something tasty to eat. It was dinnertime anyway.

"You want to tell me about the oven. I thought we'd eventually have to have this conversation," Pete said, deadpan. He looked across at her, nodding solemnly. She smiled at him, but it felt like a sad smile. The revelation was going to be the end of an era no matter how she did it; it would change things.

"What do you think of Superman?" she asked, pulling out a saucepan and a frying pan. She started measuring rice and water into the sauce pan, not looking at him.

"He's the shit? I don't know." Pete stood up and crossed the room to sit on the countertop next to the stove where she was working. He pulled a few spices and seasonings out of the cupboard behind him and handed them over. "He does good work?"

"He's from a different planet."

"Yeah." He nodded at her, watching her face like he thought she was crazy.

"As in an alien. As in we are not alone."

"Yeah, Mulder, that's what from a different planet means." He looked at her without saying anything for another moment before he continued. "He's doing interesting things for space exploration. Did you read about any of that? He's started cooperating with the International Space Program, giving them pointers and stuff."

"Yeah. I heard about it." It had been the topic of much discussion for years before it had been common knowledge. Dad had been working with a lab in Metropolis exploring the use of his cells in treating human diseases. There hadn't been much luck, but interesting developments had come out of his conversations with the scientists and doctors when he'd started telling them about Kryptonian medicine and medical treatment. The same thing had been applied to the space program, but he'd been reluctant to do much more than point them in the direction of developments and ideas. They debated what he should share with the scientists over dinner.

"So why are we talking about Superman?" Pete asked, stirring the rice for her while she cubed a few chicken breasts.

"I'm trying to work around to something."

"Okay." They were quiet a moment, then he asked, "You've met him a couple times, right?"

"Yeah, a few," Becca said, half sarcastic. Pete smiled.

"What's his favorite food?"

"Hamburgers."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Huh." Pete stirred the rice again. "Well now I'm thinking about hamburgers. Are you sure you don't want to go out for burgers for dinner?"

Becca glared at him, gesturing with the knife at the vegetables she'd just finished dicing.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow we can go out for burgers."

"I work tomorrow at dinnertime."

"Well, I will bring you a burger."

"Do you work tomorrow?"

"Early."

"I worry about you. The early-bird thing. It's unnatural."

"It's hereditary."

"Just because your dad grew up on a farm and turned out a morning person does not mean anything. It's not a freaking genetic trait. It's a habit. A disgusting habit. A habit I can't believe you're able to keep considering the conflicting night owl tendencies I've observed in you."

Becca set aside her knife and cutting board, listening to the veggies begin to sizzle in the frying pan for a moment. It was her perfect opening. The best segue she could've asked for. There could not be a better one.

"Yeah. About that."

He laughed like she was telling a joke, but the look on her face stopped him.

"What?"

"It kind of is a genetic trait."

He raised an eyebrow. He had good eyebrows. Eloquent. Thick and dark and expressive.

"The yellow sun literally invigorates my cells. It's almost physically impossible to sleep when the sun is shining."

The other eyebrow rose to join the first one so that they were two high arches between the curly mop of dark hair on his head and his wide dark eyes.

"Bullshit."

"Nope."

"Start at the beginning."

She loved him a little bit more for saying that. He didn't accuse her parents of a farce of a marriage, he didn't suggest her mom had had an affair, he didn't say she was a lunatic. He asked her to tell him the whole story, give him the details, give him information. She appreciated that, growing up with journalists as parents (even if they weren't technically filling the role of investigative reporters by the time she'd been old enough to know what fact-checking was).

"Okay. So. Krypton was dying. They'd been harvesting the planet core—really extreme geothermal mining. There were tectonic plates like we have here. They were unstable, shifting, thinning, shattering. Essentially the world was ending. There was some politics that don't really matter in the long run—what matters is my grandparents sent my dad here because they didn't want their people to die with their planet, but they'd been forbidden from leaving themselves. It was a loophole, sending him.

"And so, when he got here, the sun was a lot different. Younger. Yellower. I'm not good at the language of it, but there's something with rays and wavelengths and something about the space between the peaks of the waves relative to the cellular structure of Kryptonian humans. There's a chlorophyll-like recharging effect.

"The big thing is that Dad doesn't lie, but he omits like crazy."

Becca risked a glance at him, but she couldn't quite read his expression. He looked curious, thoughtful. Like he was piecing something together that he'd wondered about for awhile. Or like he couldn't decide if he was more interested in the science stuff or the personal stuff.

"He was maybe three years old when he got here. He grew up in Kansas, and didn't move to Metropolis and start up the idea of flying alien hero-work until he was grown. And nobody thinks to look for him at work or the grocery store or wherever because he's just a guy; he blends in."

Pete didn't say anything. His eyebrows had returned to a more normal place on his forehead, though they were still twitching a bit at the corners as he thought it all through. He lifted the lid on the rice and stirred it one last time before turning the burner off beneath it.

"Kryptonian humans?"

"The chromosomes are similar enough that we really qualify as a sub-species. Maybe sub-species isn't the right word. A different branch of the species? Genetically, we're compatible, comparable. Just a few outlying traits to set things off—and instead of it being traits for green skin and goofy eyes, its interesting electromagnetic properties that allow for gravity-defying feats of… strangeness."

"Flying is cool, not strange."

"Unaided flying is really not part of the standard package, though."

"I had a vestigial tail. It was surgically removed at birth."

"You did not."

"Third nipple?"

"Stop."

"So why do you go for 'strangeness' then?"

"Otherworldliness?"

"Apt."

She dumped the rice into the pan with the veggies then added the chicken and sauce, stirring it all together. Just like that, dinner was ready and she no longer had something to do with her hands and distract her from the conversation.

She'd wanted to have the conversation, hadn't she? It had been her own damned idea.

"So what do you think?" she asked, looking up at Pete.

"I think we'll have to raid the dishwasher for plates since we've yet to unload the clean stuff—"

"Pete. I've just told you the biggest secret I've ever kept and you're thinking about dinner."

"I am a male of the species. I'm not sure if Kryptonian-human males react differently, but males of my particular category of humanity tend to be ruled by their stomachs. I'm only human."

"Right. Uh-huh."

Pete hopped off the counter and pulled clean plates and forks out of the dishwasher, loading up a plate for himself. When she didn't move to fix her own plate, he scooped hers up and stuck a fork in it before handing it over. She took it numbly.

"You don't believe me."

"Of course I believe you. You can't make that sort of thing up."

"Sure I could. I'm a writer, you know."

"Okay, sure. But you wouldn't make that sort of thing up and tell it to me like this. It'd be, like, the worst practical joke in the history of humor in ill taste."

"Meaning…?"

"Meaning I'm processing it. Give me a minute. And food. Food for thought."

Becca sat across from him, picking at her food, eating fussy little bites. She wondered if this was how Bridget felt all the time—waiting for the judgement of somebody whose opinion she cared about on something that she had absolutely no control over. Bridget cared what everybody thought about her. And she was touchy about the part-alien thing. Really touchy. Not-speaking-to-the-family uncomfortable with it.

"Can I ask—why did you tell me?"

"It seemed stupid not to."

He raised that eloquent eyebrow again while he chewed, waiting for more of an answer. Becca set aside her fork, but then picked it up again so that she could pick at a carrot while she spoke.

"I've known you for basically my whole life. I live with you. You know every single fundamental thing about me. We co-own fish, for God's sake."

"That is a more significant commitment than most people think." He nodded sagely.

"It's the family Secret. We all keep it because it affects all of us, how we live. Everything. And it has to be a secret. We're not allowed to tell anybody. They didn't even tell Mom's parents—I was the one who accidentally let that one out of the bag. In my defense," she said, pointing her fork at him when he started smirking at her, "I wasn't even two."

"How did you manage that?"

"I was just excited to see my dad. I didn't know I was supposed to pretend not to really know him when he was wearing the cape."

"That's kind of hilarious."

"Shut up, Pete."

He grinned at her around a mouthful of food, then, when he'd swallowed, said, "You didn't really say why you're telling me this big secret."

"I wanted you to know. I asked my parents and they said I could tell you. It's…" She shrugged. "It seemed stupid that you didn't know. Like there's a line you build to trusting someone—can't tell them, they're a stranger, you don't know how they'll react—but we crossed that line when we were ten and telling you just never came up because we all put so much energy into not telling people, hiding all the little things."

"What do you mean the little things?"

"Well you've never seen me fly, have you?"

"Oh."

"I mean. Why shouldn't you know? I felt like if we kept being friends and I kept not telling you, it would be really insulting when you did find out. Or if I didn't tell you at all and you just stumbled into it one day. You'd think I was lying to you for the hell of it or something."

"Any particular reason why you told me tonight, of all nights?" he asked after a long minute while they both ate.

"Not really."

"You sure? You looked pretty moody when I got in."

"Dad told me I could tell you two weeks ago. I've been trying to work out how to do it ever since. I was getting pretty annoyed about it."

Pete smiled at her. His usual smile. Large and happy. Easy.

"So you're not mad?" she asked him, watching his eyebrows hitch up his forehead again in surprise or confusion.

"What?"

"You're not mad that I didn't tell you sooner? Or maybe that I'm sort of an alien?"

"I think you're right. I would've been pretty pissed if you blindsided me with it in some weird situation. Like if you randomly grabbed me and flew off into the sky."

"I couldn't do that, anyway. You're too heavy."

"But you're, like, Super-girl. You can fly. Bend steel with your bare hands."

"I'm only half Kryptonian. I don't have all the bells and whistles."

"Interesting."

"Oh, try again," she said, smirking at him. "You're fishing."

"I'm interested."

"You were reassuring me that you're not mad as hell for keeping a dynamo of a secret the entire time we've known each other. Promise you're not going to swish my toothbrush around in the toilet when I'm sleeping."

"Um, ew."

"Exactly."

"I'm not going to stick your toothbrush in the toilet while you're sleeping. Scout's honor."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Becca, why would I be mad? It makes sense to keep it a secret. I'm glad you told me—I don't know why you chose tonight of all nights to tell me—and I'm definitely not mad about the alien thing. Like I said; I'm interested."

She frowned. "You're very calm."

"I'm a chill guy."

"Suspiciously calm."

"Not really."

"How long have you known?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Spill."

"About a year?"

"What!"

"I had that really atrocious flu, do you remember?"

"How could I forget? You were a mucus factory."

"Gross."

"Yes it was."

He rolled his eyes at her, then continued like there hadn't been a tangent. "I had the flu, and I got to thinking about how you were never sick."

"Half the reason we're such good friends is because you spent so much of middle school bringing me homework I'd missed because I was out sick."

"Yeah, but you were never sick." He sat up a little straighter, beginning to talk with his hands. "You were out sick from school, but then I'd drop things off and maybe you were a little pale or something, but you were never really sick."

"Mostly I was out because I was starting to be able to do weird stuff and I couldn't control it. That solid week I missed was when I started being able to fly—I'd randomly levitate."

"That's kind of hilarious."

"It was terrifying. It happened outside once and I thought I was going to drift off into space."

"Like Superman would let that happen to his own daughter."

"He was at work! What if he didn't notice!"

"Obviously he did."

"Yeah. It gave him a good laugh, too."

Pete smiled. "Anyway. I was sick and I was thinking about how you were never sick. And I was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. You won't know this since you're a sub-species, but there's this point of any really atrocious flu that you are convinced you're going to die. I was absolutely sure I was about to kick the bucket, and probably rise again as a puking, snot-running, grimy-eyed zombie stumbling around packing my face with Kleenex and—"

"—Ew, enough; I get it."

"Right. I was physically miserable. I was lying there channel-surfing and I ended up watching a special on Superman. One of those things they don't do so much anymore where they play all the old rescue clips and random people who you're never really sure why they're relevant talk about it all. One of those. All the time, we had your family picture sitting on the coffee table and I kept looking at it. I fell asleep and had this weird dream, faces were really blurry. And then I woke up and I was feeling better, the show was still on, and I just happened to look down at the picture and it just clicked. And then a thousand other little things fell into place over the next week."

"Like what?"

"Those little in-and-outs your dad used to pull when we were kids. How your brother could visit from Kansas so easily."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"Like what?" He smirked at her. "'Hey, by the way, I'm pretty sure your dad's Superman'? And what's after that?" He sat back, looking uneasy. "Becca, I… didn't want anything to change."

"Does it change anything?" She had a sick feeling in her gut.

"I don't know."

"Nothing is actually different."

"But now we're talking about it."

"Right."

"So that's different."

"We could not talk about it, if you want."

He smirked at her. "Where's the fun in that?"

"So it's fun now?"

"It's interesting, like I said."

"Do you have questions or something?"

"Just the stupid ones."

"The stupid ones?"

"What's it like? How do you do it? Can you do everything he can?"

"It's… normal. For me. I just kind of do it; there's not a process or anything. And no, I can't do everything he can do. Jason can, but that's a different story. The rest of us have bits and pieces."