It was coming up so quickly!

What was it that Clark had said? Something about thinking of his entire body as one single muscle pushing against the Earth's gravity like a foot against the sand? Though . . . it was hard to imagine his body as anything other than a very large stomach trying to rocket itself into orbit through his mouth.

Good visual. . . .

The imagery helped. He felt himself slowing, but the ground was still coming up way too fast for comfort. He willed the rest of his body to follow his unhappy stomach skyward, pushing against the nothing, imagining it was solid.

And suddenly it was. He could feel the ground beneath him though he was feet above it. And as he willed it, the distance widened. And he rose higher. And his stomach decided his body wasn't such a bad place to be after all. And he rose higher still.

And before he knew it, he was just below the cliff, where he could see that Michael and Isabel and Liz had thrown themselves onto their bellies, arms grasping the air, as if to will him back to safety. Their faces were ashen and then, instantly, wonderfully, flushed with relief.

"Hey," he said, as casually as he could manage with a wildly beating heart threatening to burst from his chest. "How's the view?"

"That was not friggin' funny, Max," Michael growled, fighting to keep a scathing look on his face and failing miserably. Dropping the pretense he was seconds later, grinning like a fool.

"How could you scare us like that, Max?!" Isabel cried, breathless. He saw the tears in her eyes, and the barely dissolved panic in Liz's and felt the overwhelming sting of guilt.

"I'm so sorry! I wasn't supposed to fall as far as I did. Guess I'm a slow learner. . ."

"Not at all," came Superman's commanding voice. By this time, he had come down from above and Max could see him out of the corner of his eye, inspecting Max's "stance" and the way he was invisibly supporting himself, no doubt making sure he would be able to hold the position. "You did amazingly well, Max. In seconds, you had slowed yourself down to half speed." Clark turned to his friends, but he seemed to be focused most on Liz. "I would never have let him. . ." He trailed off, as if unable to say the words "hit the ground." Max was grateful for that, feeling sure the language would have been almost as devastating to her as possibility of it.

"You look tired, Max," she said softly, her voice steady. "Had enough yet?"

He smiled back at her. "For now. . ."

With a glance to Superman for reassurance, he gathered his strength and pushed a little harder against the quarry floor far below, raising himself level with the cliff. For a moment he was unsure how to get his body to move forward, but the sweet look on Liz's face and the need to wrap her entirely up in himself had him nearly vaulting to the cliff's surface.

And then he was there and she was safe in his arms. He was safe, he meant, but then . . . was there a difference? The solid earth below his feet, the soft warmth nestled against him, the hands at his back congratulating him on his achievement, the blessed relief in his sister's eyes. . .

Max reeled, trying to shuffle this new reality in between the pages of the old; he could fly.

He was "The Boy Who Could Fly. . ."

What else could he now do? How much of Clark's ability did/would he possess? How would they be able to use these new powers to fight their enemies? Did this make him invincible? Did it mean he could relax now? Is this what being the "king" felt like? The questions tumbled through his head, one after the other, but as long as he could feel Liz holding him fast, as long as the sun beat warmly on his back, he was content to stand there forever.

It was Tess's voice that broke the reverie. Odd, but not surprising.

"So, you had your big moment," she said tightly.

Before he could answer, his brother . . . his brother stepped in. "If you mean, Max's transformation, the awakening of his dormant Kryptonian genes, yes, he did." Max could see that Clark was back in his mild-mannered-reporter garb, which, sadly, meant the "lesson" must be over. "We both felt it happen," he continued, an awed smile on his face, mirroring the one, Max was sure, currently covered his own. "And we knew the best way to be certain was to try it out, so to speak."

"Yeah, and scare the rest of us half to death," Isabel muttered, but Max could see she'd already gotten over it. The realization and the excitement of it had brought the color back to her cheeks.

"I wasn't scared," Liz said, looking up at him, her wide brown eyes serene.

"Sure, you weren't. That's why you were hugging the cliff with Isabel and me," Michael said, laughing.

Liz shot Michael a playful smirk, tightening her arms around Max's waist at the same time. "This isn't over by a long shot, Max Evans, and I could not believe it was going to end that way. Not after everything. . ."

"Gimme a break!" Tess hissed, but when Max looked up from Liz's sweet face, Michael had stared Tess back into silence. She stood sulking, arms crossed petulantly across her chest, eyeing the couple with disdain.