Hand in My Pocket (Book One)

I'm broke but I'm happy

I'm poor but I'm kind

I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah

I'm high but I'm grounded

I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed

I'm lost but I'm hopeful baby

And what it all comes down to

Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine

'cause I've got one hand in my pocket

And the other one is giving a high five

I feel drunk but I'm sober

I'm young and I'm underpaid

I'm tired but I'm working, yeah

I care but I'm restless

I'm here but I'm really gone

I'm wrong and I'm sorry baby

And what it all comes down to

Is that everything's gonna be quite alright

'cause I've got one hand in my pocket

And the other one is flicking a cigarette

And what it all comes down to

Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet

- Hand in My Pocket, Alanis Morrisette, Jagged Little Pill

1.

She was curled up in a comfy chair in her bedroom, reading Dostoyevsky. She earmarked the pages absently as she sped through them, her eyes moving from line to line at inhuman speeds. The room around her was made for comfort - decorated in soothing blues, covered in soft rugs, with flannel bed sheets. There were white curtains over the window, photos of friends and family hung around the room, scented candles on the nightstand, and glued to the ceiling were glow-in-the-dark stars. Fantastical astronomy photographs and models hung around the room, mingled with bookcases, video game art, and posters of Florence + The Machine (her favorite band). An acoustic steel-string guitar leaned in a corner.

"Jessica Mary Kent! You're going to be late for school!" her mother called up the stairs, startling her out of her concentration. Jessica looked up, her eyes widening in surprise, and then she checked the clock. Time to go. She stood with quiet grace, her face impassive, and she gathered her book bag together before swinging it over her shoulder.

On her way out of the room, she looked into the mirror, shifting and pulling at her shirt, fixing her hair, smudging a little makeup under her left eye. Jessica wore lots of black. Long-sleeved black shirts and pants, black nail polish. She had blue eyes, a slight and slim form, and long black hair swept over one eye, hiding her face. Her expression was usually quiet, even shy, serious, and calm. Her eyes were often looking down, and she almost never showed any emotion in her face.

Jessica winced ever so slightly at her own reflection - her only tell tale sign of self dislike - and left the room, turning the light off.

The Kent home was rustic, filled with polished wood, checkered cloth, and antiques. It smelled constantly of earth, apples, and coffee. The farm outside the kitchen window was her father's pride and joy, long fields of gold and green and brown, smelling of grass and manure, passed down through the Kent family for several generations. It was organic and free range. The farm rotated through several different kinds of crops and produced cattle feed as well as carrying a grain silo and a windmill. Several different kinds of farm animals were raised on the farm, mostly in the vast brown ramshackle barn outback, for dairy products and for food. Her mother also grew a garden and an apple orchard; produce from these was sold each week at the Smallville Farmer's Market.

Just as Jessica was entering the kitchen for breakfast, her father was coming in fresh from work in the fields, sweaty and with dirt on his hands. He was a vast man, tall and broad shouldered, with a sun-hardened brown face and straw-gold hair and large rough hands. "Good afternoon, sleepyhead," he teased her, his voice deep.

"I was reading," said Jessica quietly, her eyes lowered, as she sat down to her cereal.

"I was just kidding you -"

"I know." Her father looked at her in worry as Jessica kept her eyes down. Sometimes, even though he'd raised her, Jessica baffled him - it was hard to tell what was going on in that head of hers.

"Now, don't forget, I have class tonight, so you two are on your own," Mom reminded them, handing Dad his morning cup of coffee. Mom was taking business and economics classes at the local community college. She had neat red hair and faded makeup, lines of worry around her mouth and eyes. She wore a homespun checkered shirt, a subtle floral aroma wafted around her, and earth permanently lined her fingernails from hours of bending over digging among the sunflowers and the vegetables in her garden. "Jessica, make dinner for your father so he doesn't order pizza, okay?" she added despairingly.

"Will do," said Jessica quietly. "We might have to eat a little late. I won't be home till after work." Jessica was a part-time waitress and barista at a little coffee place in town called The Beanery.

"That's right, you have your job now," said Dad thoughtfully. She'd taken out the job after overhearing her parents worrying about the farm not being able to pay the bills, though she'd never say so. "Well." He shrugged easily, smiling. "I can wait."

"So, Jessica, has anyone asked you to the homecoming dance?" Mom asked in a loud, hokey tone of voice. She and Dad shared a secret smile.

Jessica kept her eyes lowered. "No. I'm thinking about not going. You know I'm not into stuff like that."

Mom's face creased in worry. Jessica hated making her look like that. "Well, I'm sure something will come up. Don't close off all your options just yet. Honey, I really wish you would try talking to people more -"

"I do. I talk to Chloe, Lana, Emily, and the people who work for the school paper. That's all I need."

"Oh, I know. I just worry about you, that's all. I don't know when you got so closed-off, you were such a cute, smiling, energetic baby -" Mom reached out to tuck a strand of dark hair back behind her ear, and Jessica looked down.

"Mom," she said awkwardly.

Just then, a horn honked from outside. That was Lana's boyfriend Whitney, a muscular football quarterback, who picked her and her friends up in his truck every morning and drove them to school. Jessica looked up in surprise, her eyes widening.

"You'll be late!" Mom said, as Jessica grabbed her school things and ran at low speeds out the front door.

"Come on, Jessica, we don't have all day!" Emily called, as Jessica ran over and crammed herself into the tiny truck beside Chloe and Emily. (Lana always got shot-gun, on account of being "The Girlfriend.")

"Look at you, it was like your feet were on fire," said Chloe, grinning. Jessica looked politely puzzled as Emily and Lana looked down, biting back smiles.

That was, in fact, nowhere near as fast as Jessica could move. From her earliest memories, she'd been able to lift things six times her body weight and run so fast that no one could see her; it was like the rest of the world was standing still. She could also take in information at lightning fast speeds while doing advanced calculations in her head. Jessica had always been taught by her parents to hide her abilities; they didn't think the world was ready to accept someone who could do the things she could.

As a child, Jessica had become best friends with her next door neighbor Lana Lang, a tall, pretty girl with tan skin and straight, shiny black hair who did horseback riding and worked for several local charities. Lana wrote poetry and took black and white photographs; she was very... artsy. Lana had in turn introduced her to Emily Dinsmore, a sweet but slightly bossy girl with wild brown curls, cats-eye glasses, and a head for science, and Jessica and Emily also became fast friends. Lana had even stopped wearing a necklace that was in remembrance of her late parents to protect Jessica, who for some reason was allergic to the green meteor rock it contained.

One day, all three girls were playing on a bridge by the local river, and Lana fell into the fast-moving water below. Before Jessica could stop her, Emily had jumped in after her. Neither girl could swim. Jessica could swim. Jessica had been forced to use her abilities to save her friends, who couldn't understand at first how she had moved so fast and been so strong. When Jessica admitted she'd always been like this, but usually hid it from others, Lana and Emily had been amazingly accepting. They'd agreed to keep her secret.

While in middle school, Jessica met Chloe Sullivan, who had short hair and a taste for classic, hipster fashion. Chloe had moved from Metropolis City to the rural Smallville with her father. Jessica had been the one assigned to show Chloe around school on her first day. Chloe was smart and funny, a budding reporter with an investigative instinct, and Chloe had quickly been let into Jessica's circle of friends. She did not, however, know about Jessica's powers.

More changes had come to Jessica throughout middle school. She and her mother had gotten a surprise when her mother had tried to pierce her ears. The piercing gun broke when it came into contact with Jessica's earlobe. That was when they'd learned Jessica had steely skin. Jessica had also gotten her first period around this time, and had discovered that when she got angry she could set things on fire with her eyes. It had taken a lot of practice to get that particular piece of self control down.

At last, Jessica had asked her parents about her strange abilities, and they had realized they couldn't keep the truth from her any longer. They told her that many years ago, a great meteor shower had hit Smallville. They had been driving back home through some fields when the meteors had hit. A meteor landed in the field beside their truck; their truck flipped over and they were knocked out. When they woke up, they claimed, they had found a naked toddler Jessica standing near a tiny, metallic spaceship.

It sounded crazy, but they'd shown her the spaceship. It was still there, hidden underneath a tarp in their storm cellar.

The Kents had never been able to have kids, so they'd taken Jessica home, named her, and raised her as their own. They told everyone she was their adopted daughter - which, technically, she was.

Jessica hadn't been found with any identifying information on her - well, she'd been found with a metallic tablet, but written on it was a message in a strange geometric language they didn't understand - and she had no memories of her time before Earth. She had no idea why she was here or where she had come from. She just knew that she'd fallen to Earth in a tiny spaceship, alongside some strange green meteor rock that made her sick every time she went near it. This was a point of great frustration for her. She wished she knew more about her origins. Jessica had never really felt like she fit in on Earth, and she attributed this to her being an alien. She and Lana, whose parents died in the meteor shower, had had many conversations about being an orphan.

Jessica entered high school. She joined Chloe's school paper, The Torch, and got invited to a lot of parties because Lana had become a cheerleader and started dating senior star quarterback Whitney Fordman. She met people mostly through Emily, who had the kind of social calendar that required scheduling meetings down to the exact minute.

As for Jessica, she read her books and played her video games; she listened to her music and played her guitar; she stargazed and daydreamed; she worked at The Beanery and helped her parents with the farm. Jessica was still waiting for her "thing" to come to her. The older she got, the more alienated she felt. She was starting to wonder if she'd ever find her "thing", or if her life would just be one long drudgery of pretending to be normal.

Listening to her friends chatter beside her - something about Whitney not finishing his English paper till two AM the night before it was due - Jessica stared absently out the window at the passing yellow cornfields and let herself be led away toward town and Smallville High.

Smallville, Kansas was a tiny, tiny place. On Main Street, there was one old movie theater which had two screens, along with a total of three restaurants and five other small businesses. There was only one high school, unenthusiastically named Smallville High, a great concrete block with a picture of a crow mascot posted out in front. The sign was sun-faded and there was graffiti written all across it, because that was what delinquents in Smallville did - they graffitied signs and mail boxes.

It was as Jessica was getting her things from her locker for the day that it happened. Someone suddenly went to slam the locker door shut on her hand, and Jessica had to move fast, a little faster than was safe to show, to get her hand out of the doorway in time.

Jessica whirled around and Felice Chandler was standing there. Felice Chandler had perfumed blonde hair, wore tacky pink Prada, and was the head of the drama club. She always had a posse of girls behind her, and had taken to picking on girls who were lower than her in the high school hierarchy. Jessica happened to be one of those girls.

"Watch where you're going, freak," said Felice, and the girls behind her giggled. They did that a lot. It was very annoying. "So are you going to the homecoming dance, freak? Aww, what's wrong? No one wants to ask the little freak to the dance? No one likes the whole goth look routine?" Said in a baby voice. More giggling.

Jessica just stood there, her jaw tight, staring straight ahead of herself and waiting for it to be over.

At last, Felice brushed past her. "Look, just stop getting better grades than me, freak. Stop trying to be cool."

"I didn't know getting good grades was cool, Chandler, that's news to me," said Whitney Fordman dryly, walking up with his arm around Lana. Trust Whitney to defend you and mock you in the same breath.

"Whitney," said Felice, her voice airy and happy, her eyes doing the 'desperate, sad puppy dog' look.

"Look, just fuck off," said Whitney. "And stop picking on my girlfriend's best friend."

"Thanks. You didn't have to do that," said Jessica, looking down, as they approached her.

"No problem. No one likes Chandler, Kent. You don't have to listen to anything she says," said Whitney.

"Are you okay?" Lana asked in concern. Once Jessica nodded, Lana went off. "I can't believe she would do something like that! How low do you have to get -!?" Lana ranted indignantly all the way to homeroom.

Jessica sped through her classes. With her enhanced intellectual abilities, everything was easy for her. The only thing she had to worry about was doing too well. Jessica had learned to shy away from sports, math, and science at a young age. She was preternaturally good at all of them, and if she did too well at any of them she could reveal her abilities. That meant no lots of stuff: no basketball team, no robotics club, no nothing. Her parents feared she would do too well. They dreaded the day that men in white coats drove up and took their daughter away from them.

Jessica spent some time hanging out at The Torch's editorial room after school. "Editorial room" was a grand name. A closet stuffed with two computer desks had been allotted to them. Plastered across one wall of this room was a gigantic collection of newspaper articles and magazine clippings, all about strange things happening around Smallville and the Smallville meteor shower - Chloe was convinced the meteor rock included heavy doses of radiation and could cause mutations. She called this wall her Wall of Weird, and it was there as some weird kind of inspiration, inviting her reporters to find hidden connections in things no one would have thought to look for.

Jessica turned in her latest Torch article and then stood talking with Chloe, leaning against her computer desk.

"So of course, Lana's going to the homecoming dance with Whitney. Pete Ross asked me -"

"I know him, he's a good guy," said Jessica. "His parents are friends with mine."

"Yeah. But get this. Emily's going with Dustin." Chloe grinned at the ridiculousness of it.

"Dustin, as in... 'that shit-head jock who's always picking on that poor overweight girl Jodi' Dustin?" Jessica asked slowly.

"Yeah. Him."

Jessica stared. "But he's an asshole."

"You don't have to tell me. Emily's convinced she can 'tame the wild beast within'," said Chloe, who clearly found the whole thing highly amusing.

"There's no wild beast within Dustin. Maybe a deformed gargoyle." Jessica made a face as she thought about. Chloe laughed.

Just then, Justin Gaines, the comics artist for The Torch, a skinny but earnest boy with a friendly face and artfully gelled brown hair, came up and stood before her, twisting his hands nervously. "Hey, uh, Jessica?" he said. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Jessica frowned slightly, puzzled. "Sure." She paused, waiting. Justin was blushing furiously and didn't look like he knew what to say. Jessica's eyebrows creased in confusion.

At last, Chloe sighed and stood up. "Well, I'm gonna go pee," she announced, waving her arms expansively. "You can be so dense sometimes," Chloe muttered in Jessica's ear as she passed. Then she shut the door behind her and Justin and Jessica were alone.

"Do - doyouwannagotothedancewithme?" Justin blurted out all at once, his voice cracking at the end. His face was still very red, and - Oh.

Jessica realized all at once what was going on and she gaped wordlessly.

"Well - uh - sure," she said at last in surprise, because really, it wasn't like she was going out with anyone else and wasn't that what you were supposed to say in situations like this?

Justin beamed in triumph. "Great! Great - Umm. I promise you won't regret it!" he said, and then babbling awkwardly, he left the room. Jessica stared after him.

It was stupid, but she felt just a little bit better for the rest of the day.

"Jessica - can you take table two?" Zoe Garfield asked, walking by the coffee counter of The Beanery in her apron, her dirty blonde ponytail tied high. (The restaurant was composed of a room full of armchairs, couches, and pillows set around little tables, a piano, and a counter, by the door, where the coffee was made.) Zoe went to the local community college, and had a warm, teasing sense of humor. She was Jessica's coworker.

"Sure, no problem," said Jessica smoothly.

Zoe grinned. "As always, you're a life saver."

Jessica's expression remained unchanging and calm. She picked up her hazelnut latte and her cappuccino and put them on their tray to carry over to table seven. She dropped off their drinks and went over to table two.

Jessica really shouldn't have made a good waitress - she wasn't remotely peppy, cheerful, or chatty. But somehow, she made a good impression on customers anyway. She always managed to give people their drinks discreetly, without remotely interrupting their conversation, she caught on fast and could remember drinks better than anyone (including Zoe, who had been doing it longer), she was good at coming up with new ideas for drawing in customers, and she could handle even the most complex orders or the busiest nights with calmness and ease. People described feeling comfortable around her - safe, in a strange way.

Jessica weaved through the tables, taking orders and handing out drinks. She mixed countless cups of coffee over by the counter, and she got through the day.

Jessica was walking home in the early evening, in the twilight. She had two bags of groceries in her hands, ready to make dinner for her father - tonight she was thinking chicken pot pie. After dinner, she would finally get to start her homework. (Farm chores were only on weekends - father's orders. "You need to focus on school, and we all know with your speed and strength you can do more in two hours than most people could do in a week.")

After leaving town, she cut across through the fields and into the woods, crossing over the bridge by the local river. This was her favorite part of Smallville, the place close to the Indian reservation - there were vast, dark green forests and twisting, bright blue streams and rivers. It was quiet but for the twittering of songbirds - it was peaceful.

As she was crossing the bridge, staying to the bike lane, Jessica heard a screech of tires and she looked around.

Some idiot was driving too fast down the road in some fancy sports car. He was obviously not from around Smallville. He was looking at his cell phone as he drove. He looked up, saw a piece of debris on the road, swerved to avoid it, and swerved right into Jessica. She just saw a shot of his panicked face before she was rammed through the bridge's railing and into the water below. Of course, with her steely skin, she wasn't hurt. She felt the impact through the murky gloom of the river as the man's car went in after her.

Knowing the man was going to die if he didn't get above water soon, Jessica swam through the water over to his car. She peeled the roof of the car back like the lid of a tin can, ripped his seat belt apart, picked him up, and swam him upward until they hit the surface of the river. She gasped as they made it above water, and then swam with him against the current over to the shore. Soaking wet, she dragged him onto the embankment.

She put an ear up to his mouth - he was unconscious, and he wasn't breathing. She opened his mouth and then was torn for a moment. It felt weird, connecting her mouth to some strange man's. Then she scolded herself for her idiocy. For fuck's sake, Jessica, he's dying!

She brushed her lips against his, breathed into his mouth, and then pumped his chest. It wasn't working. It was because she didn't know much pressure to apply - how much would hurt him? Jessica had never been good with delicate things - it was why she couldn't sew, and why her guitar was steel string! She just didn't have that much control. At last, she dared to push just that little bit harder, and his eyes flew open. He began coughing up water onto the muddy embankment.

Jessica sat back on her heels in relief.

He looked up hazily and saw her - he was young, slim, and sporty, in his twenties, the kind of handsome that comes naturally to the sheltered and affluent, wearing expensive clothes and black leather driving gloves, bald - and his blue eyes widened. To be saved was one thing, Lex thought privately to himself. To be saved by a beautiful and soaking wet raven haired girl was quite another. She gave him an enigmatic look, and then her eyes lowered meekly. There was something in those eyes - something hidden.

"You saved me," he said, and then, "... Didn't I hit you?"

"I jumped out of the way in time," said the girl softly, still looking downward.

"And then you jumped in after me? That's very brave."

The girl blinked at him innocently. "You were dying," she said, as if this were the only explanation she needed. In that moment, she seemed charmingly naive.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I'm fifteen. I go to the local high school. I was just walking back home to my farm after picking up some groceries for dinner."

"So I ruined your meal. I'll have to make it up to you sometime."

"No apology is necessary." The girl stood smoothly. "I should call an ambulance. By the way," she added, as an afterthought. "Debris is common in Smallville. Most residents drive slowly and with their eyes on the road."

Lex smiled wryly. "I'm suitably chastised," he said.

The girl looked at him suspiciously. "Yes. Well." She turned away to make the phone call.

"I should at least know the name of the girl who saved my life," he said.

The girl paused, her back to him. "My name is Jessica Kent," she said. "I've lived here for most of my life. And you are? You're from Metropolis City."

"How do you know that?"

"Just a guess. You're from some city." Her voice was contemptuous and distrustful. Coming from another person, it might have been annoying. As it was, he was just amused. She didn't quite pull off being cruel and distant, though she was trying pretty hard.

"Lex Luthor," he said, and saw an angle of her face transform in surprise. She really was lovely, delicately featured and graceful - the word exquisite came to mind. "I was sent here by my father to take over the local Luthor Corp plant. I moved in to the mansion earlier today."

She said nothing about his fame, and for that he was grateful. "Stay there, Mr Luthor," she said.

"Lex," he interjected.

She paused. "... Lex," she allowed. "I'll make the call."

The minute Jonathan Kent heard what had happened, he drove over to meet his daughter, the old truck's engine groaning complaints against his excessive speed. He skidded to a halt beside the riverbank. By this time, police and medics were swarming the scene. Jessica's Dad ran over to her and hugged her.

"Jessica," he said, "are you okay?"

Jessica nodded, looking downward. "I'm fine, Dad," she said softly.

Jonathan whirled to the nearest policeman. "Who was the maniac who was driving that car and hurt my little girl?!"

"That would be me, and I'm sorry for what happened." Lex came over and held out his hand. "Lex Luthor."

Jonathan's face transformed into a very ugly look. He glared at the offending hand for a moment. "Jonathan Kent," he grunted at last, and then turned to his daughter. "Honey - let's get out of here."

"Thank you for saving my life, Jessica," said Lex to Jessica as she made to leave.

"I'm sure you would have done the same thing," said Jessica quietly, not really accepting the praise.

"Mr Kent, your daughter saved my life. If there's any way I can repay you -" Lex began as Jonathan walked past him.

Jonathan stopped and looked Lex dead in the face. "Repay me by driving slower," he said brusquely, and the Kents left to head to Jonathan's truck.

Lex looked over at the ruins of the car as it was pulled out of the river by machinery. The roof was completely torn off, and there was a wide dent in the front fender, as though the fender had been hit by some metallic force. Something incredible had just happened to him, all triggered by that girl - and something about it just didn't add up.