Disclaimers: THIS STORY IS MARY SUE! LEAVE NOW IF YOU INTEND TO FLAME ME! "Diagnosis Murder" is the property of PAX, CBS, Viacom, and Paramount. AL is mine. Special thanks to my beta reader for helping me in the rewrite.

Chapter One: Flashbacks Are Fun!

It was Saturday morning and an alarm went off as the clock struck seven. Three voices groaned, intent on ignoring the sound and getting more sleep. The fourth person was already awake and ready.

Dr. Mark Sloan of Community General Hospital in Los Angeles, California was bustling around the house, getting breakfast ready for the three other occupants. He was a gray-haired man well into his seventies, long past retiring age, but having so much fun in what he did that retiring was just not an option. "Come on, you three!" he called loudly, his blue eyes twinkling. "Time to get up!"

He didn't get any response, but he could imagine three sets of blankets being pulled up over three separate heads.

Chuckling, Mark headed to the living room, where Lisa had indeed buried her body underneath the covers. For a hostess, she was certainly not acting the part.

Then again, this was Lisa. She wasn't exactly what one would call "normal", even though she looked it. She was, for lack of a better word, an alien, but not one of the stereotypical aliens one sees in old movies.

To the casual observer, she was a perfectly ordinary human woman. She had waist-length brown hair, brown eyes, and gold oval-framed glasses and was never seen without her silver ankh necklace. The things that set her apart were her wings and powers, which were both easily hidden from those who shouldn't know about them. There was also that unnatural fire that shone in her eyes whenever something was happening that she didn't like.

Lisa had met Mark several years ago in 1992 when she came to Community General with her then-boyfriend Tommy. They had been vacationing in the area and he had been injured in a surfing accident. Dr. Jack Stewart, Mark's old protégé, had treated him back then. Lisa, being Lisa, made it a point to make friends with the handsome young doctor and his mentor, which resulted in her making friends with Steve, as well.

It was then that they found out Lisa wasn't quite human. It was late one night after visiting hours had been over and Lisa had snuck into the hospital to be with Tommy.

Unfortunately, she'd forgotten to activate her power of invisibility and Jack, on his rounds, found her asleep beside his patient with a glowing yellow-gold wing draped over him like a blanket.

                         Stunned, he nearly dropped the patient files he'd been carrying. Lisa,
                         being telepathic and awakened by the onslaught of thoughts running
                         through Jack's mind, quickly subdued him with a little telekinesis to keep
                         him from fleeing the room and a hand over his mouth to keep him from
                         shouting.

                          "Shh!" she hissed, sotto voce. "Relax. If I let you go, do you promise not
                         to yell?"

                         Jack nodded, eyes wide, and when she removed her hand, he tried to run
                         and found his feet glued to the floor. "What...what are you doing?" he
                         asked in a hushed whisper. "How?"

                          "I'll let you go," she said slowly, "if you don't run. I'll be happy to
                         explain if you let me."

                         The young doctor hedged for a good thirty seconds before nodding and
                         setting down the files.

                          "Not here," said Lisa, glancing at the sleeping form in the bed.

                         He led her to his office and shut the door. She began telling her story,
                         about how she was an alien from a planet called Alnilam, named after its
                         star, the middle of the three in Orion's belt.

                          "But you can't tell anyone," she concluded. "Ever."

                         Unfortunately, it was the very next day that she overheard Jack talking to
                         Mark and Steve in Mark's office.

                          "I'm serious!" he was saying. "She told me. She has wings and
                         everything! I saw them!"

                          "It's getting so you can't even trust doctors nowadays."

                         All three of them jumped at the sound of her voice. Mark and Steve had the
                         impression that Jack was making it up, but Lisa just sighed and made her
                         wings visible.

                          "It's true," she said. "But, look, inside, I'm not all that different from you.
                         Okay, I have wings and a few other abilities, but I'm still a person."

Mark had to have asked her a million and one questions that morning, each one of which Lisa answered patiently and as thoroughly as she possibly could. Steve, naturally, was rather suspicious of her, but she rightly pointed out the facts: She could have hurt Jack or let them think he was crazy or overworked, but, no, she'd opted to reveal herself rather than let him be mocked and ridiculed for the rest of his life.

It had taken a little coaxing, not to mention answering all of Mark's questions, but the three of them had all kept her secret afterward.

After that vacation, Lisa, and sometimes Tommy, kept popping in on their lives on and off throughout the years. When she met Jesse Travis sometime after Jack left, it wasn't exactly love at first sight, but it sure came close. One day, she had just come right out and told him she wasn't human.

                          "Hey, Jess? I want to tell you something…and, it's not easy."

                          "Hey, you can tell me anything," he replied.

                         Instead, she decided to just show him. Her wings shimmered into
                         view. Jesse jumped, shocked and surprised.

                          "I'm not an angel," Lisa said, for that was usually the first
                         impression people got unless she was already using one of her
                         powers as she had on Jack years ago. She then proceeded to
                         explain.

                         Jesse quietly listened. It wasn't as if he wanted to disbelieve her,
                         because, after all, the evidence was sitting there next to him.
                         Moreover, he liked her a lot, but when she spoke one simple
                         sentence:

                          "Mark and Steve already know…"

                          "What?!"

                          "Years ago, Jack walked in on us the night Tommy spent in
                         Community General. I was asleep, so was he. Jack saw my wings.
                         He told them both the next day."

                         Silence, then, "Oh." He paused briefly. "Is…the alien thing the
                         reason you don't seem to get any older?"

                         She nodded. "I'm immortal, and I have the ability to time travel."

                          "I see…"

It was rather lucky that Jesse had met Lisa before an incident that had happened a few years back. He had been kidnapped, tortured, then drugged without his knowledge to convince him that he had been abducted and experimented on by aliens. It was later proven that it had all been a con to discredit him, yet it had still shaken him terribly. Since he'd met Lisa beforehand, he at least had an understanding soul to talk to about his experience. She'd listened, comforted, and had eventually calmed him and told him that she'd always be there if he needed her.

 Mark had known Jesse would take it all in stride, after a couple of missteps, because he was secretly in love with Lisa, or at least Jesse thought he was, everyone else could tell they were crazy about each other. He finally got his chance with her, for many, many years later when Tommy died and Lisa had finally stopped crying herself to sleep every night, she remembered how fond she was of Jesse and went back to him.

                          "Hi, Jess."

                          "Lisa!"

                         He went to embrace her, and stopped, seeing something in her
                         eyes. Something…haunted.

                          "What's wrong?"

                         She sniffed. "It's Tommy…Jesse, he…" Words caught in her
                         throat, she covered her face with her hands.

                          "Oh, Lis," he said softly, taking her by the shoulders and leading
                         her to a chair. "Sit down. Tell me, what's wrong? What
                         happened?"

                         Lisa swallowed hard, shaking, head down. "Two years ago…to
                         me, anyway, he…he died, Jesse."

                          "What?" he asked, disbelieving. "But I only saw you both…"

                          "I said, 'To me'. We were together…" She began counting on
                         her fingers, but soon gave up and sighed. "A long time. Very
                         long." She looked up at him. "It still hurts, Jess." Tears began to
                         run down her cheeks.

                          "All right," Jesse whispered. "All right, shh." He took her into
                         his arms and held her, near tears himself. He barely understood
                         time travel, let alone how Lisa was able to freely move about in
                         time, and somewhere inside he knew that, technically, Tommy was
                         still alive and well and with Lisa in a town forty minutes away by
                         car, but this news was still a bigger shock than she telling him she
                         wasn't human.

She hung around afterward, and she and Jesse became a couple, finally able to share the feelings they'd held back for so long.

Lisa wasn't exactly what one would call "normal", but, alas, she was what one would call "incredibly lazy". One day last week, she'd shown up at Mark's front door at his beach house in Malibu and offered to take him, Steve, and Jesse horseback riding at a stable in New Jersey where she worked. As one of Lisa's powers was the ability to teleport – disappear from one place and reappear in another – which reduced the cost of airfare, and the three of them happened to have the weekend off, Mark and Jesse readily agreed. Steve was rather reluctant and needed a little coaxing, but the man needed a vacation.

She brought them to her house in New Jersey where they would stay for the duration of the visit. As no one at the stables knew what Lisa was, they'd have to travel by car, and it was an hour away with traffic, so they'd have to leave by 8:15 at the latest to get there when they opened at 9.

So there she was, lying on the couch because Jesse was using her room, still trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

"Lisa," Mark called, "come on, wake up."

She groaned and rolled over onto her side, facing away from him. "G'way," she muttered. "Wan' sleep."

"This was your idea."

Groaning again, she covered her head with the pillow, which Mark promptly removed, resulting in him receiving a long, low whine.

"Mark," she complained, "come on."

"You said you'd take us riding," he pointed out. "We have to leave in an hour to get there on time."

This time, the sound that escaped her throat sounded suspiciously like a growl. Lisa was definitely not a morning person.

"You can make all the sounds you like," said Mark, un-phased, "but it won't make me leave you alone."

"Urgh!" she grunted, annoyed. "Fine. I'm up, I'm up." She pulled down the blankets and reached for her glasses.

"Good girl. Come have breakfast while I get Steve and Jesse up."

He turned and left her glaring at his departing back.

End part one.