What if I Stumble?
by Laura Picken

Summary: Crossover with Touched by an Angel. With their partnership in jeopardy, Jim and Blair receive help from a different group of 'spirit guides.'

Hi all! Believe it or not, this story is a prequel to my first Sentinel fanfic, Blair Sandburg Ph.D. I just thought the background to that story provided enough possibilities for angst to keep this one going strong for a while. This is also my first piece of cathartic writing, which means I'm writing it to try and work out some things I'm going through in my own life (not any of the plot stuff, just some character things going on).

Disclaimer: You know the drill: Jim, Blair, Simon & Co. all belong to Pet Fly and Paramount. Tess, Monica, and Andrew belong to Martha Williamson, Moon Water Productions, and CBS. The song lyrics interspersed throughout the story are from the dcTalk song What if I Stumble, which, the more I thought about it, proved more and more to be a perfect 'angst' song for Blair & Jim. This is therapy for me, folks, so since it seems to be doing some good, you wouldn't possibly want to take that away for something so frivolous as a lawsuit, particularly since I'm not making any money off it, right?

***One note of clarification: The abbreviation ABD is short for all but dissertation.

And now, on with the show...

No one should have survived. The missile hit its target perfectly; the chopper went down in an area of thick jungle populated with all kinds of animals that would just love to prey on injured, defenseless men.

But then again, miracles happen everyday.

A young, dark-haired woman held the body of the only man to survive the crash in her lap, trying to stabilize his restlessly shifting head with her hands as a tall, fair-haired man stood a few feet from them, looking on. The glow that surrounded the three of them was enough incentive for any of the area's more dangerous predators to keep their distance, preferring instead to focus their attention on one of the seven men who weren't as fortunate.

In a light Irish brogue, the young woman asked her standing companion, "Andrew, do you know if he's going to make it?"

Andrew looked at their badly injured charge and sighed. "It's his choice, Monica. His will to live is strong enough for now, though."

Confused, Monica looked away from the injured man to her companion. "For now? What do you mean, for now?"

A large black woman appeared at her side, and knelt down to look lovingly at the injured man. "Baby girl, sometimes a man has to die to his old life before he can receive his new one. And sometimes learning to live that new life is far more difficult than dying to that old one."

Andrew walked away from the last of the seven he helped cross over to the man who they were so fiercely guarding. "It's time for his new life to begin, Monica. He has others coming who will help him now."

The older woman helped Monica to gently place the injured man into a more comfortable position and led her a few steps back from him. Monica said a quick prayer for God to protect the man and watch over him, then the group slowly walked away and disappeared into the jungle as the injured man, Captain James Ellison, slowly regained consciousness.

Is this one for the people,
is this one for the Lord?
Or do I simply serenade
for things I must afford?

You can jumble them together,
but the conflict still remains;
holiness is calling
in the midst of courting fame.

Several years later...

Blair Sandburg fidgeted nervously as he sat outside the conference room where the anthropology department's doctoral committee sat preparing to debate his future. He knew this was coming-the committee requires that you go to your advisor twice a year and submit proof that you're making some sort of progress toward the completion of your dissertation. You don't have to be making much progress, but as long as you submit something, they'll usually let it slide. The first year after he met Jim, he was able to submit anonymous lab testing results, and since the department chair was old and nearing retirement anyway, he was willing to take just about anything from the ABDs and let their funding ride for a year.

However, the chair retired unexpectedly a month ago due to some sort of major medical condition, and the interim chair was starting to crack down on people-not welcome news since he had started to realize that he would no longer be able to get away with letting the principal subject of his thesis remain anonymous. This was the third meeting he had heard about this month, and the first two people to go through it lost all their grants and were practically kicked out of school. Even as he prayed to every God he could think of to help him think of something to tell the committee, he was also mentally preparing how to tell Jim that he had to choose between protecting Jim's secret and being able to continue along the path toward publishing his dissertation on his life's work. In his mind, there was no option.

He just hoped Jim would let him continue to stay at the loft while he looked for another job.

The door to the conference room opened, and one of the committee members called him in. He sat down at his place at the end of the long conference table, and wondered idly if these things were specifically set up to intimidate people. He looked to the head of the table, and was surprised to see that the new committee chair was not one of the professors, as he had expected it to be, but was instead a large, older black woman with a surprising shock of white hair that he was absolutely certain he had never seen at the University before. In fact, she reminded him more of a blues singer he had met in New Orleans when he was a kid, who had helped him and Naomi get away from a man who had been abusing her and was about to turn his talons on Blair. He shrugged off the impossible possibility, though, as the object of his musings called the meeting to order. "Good afternoon, Mr. Sandburg. My name is Dr. Martinson. As I am sure you are aware, we are here to review your submissions to this dissertation committee and ascertain your progress toward completing your research." Blair nodded.

Dr. Martinson shuffled some papers around until she found the one that she was looking for, then asked, "Mr. Sandburg, I've read your masters thesis on the manifestations of enhanced senses in today's society. I was impressed, particularly with the amount of documentation you put in about the hundreds of people with enhanced senses that you had come in contact with. However, you have been working on your doctoral thesis on Sentinels for three years now, and two of those years you claim to have been working with a full Sentinel in the field on a daily basis. And yet the only documentation we have is a couple of lab tests you performed where the identity of your subject remained anonymous. My question to you, Mr. Sandburg, is why have you not provided more information to this committee?"

Blair started to open his mouth, fully prepared to say anything and everything he could think of to find a way out of the situation, but for some reason nothing came out. One of the other members of the committee looked at his file and asked, "does this have anything to do with the police observer credentials you have held for the past two years, Mr. Sandburg?"

Blair nodded. He looked at the woman sitting in front of him, and he simply could not lie to her. "The subject of my dissertation to date is in a very dangerous, high-profile career. I have to maintain his anonymity in the paper for his protection."

A third member of the committee commented, "you realize how that looks, considering the extraordinary claims you make about this person's abilities?"

Blair nodded, fully aware that no matter what his reputation may be or how strong his master's thesis was, having to keep Jim anonymous left the possibility wide open that he could be making up his data, and falsifying his information in the hopes of continuing in his teaching position at the University. Having an anonymous subject means that no one can perform the same experiments on the person, thereby corroborating your conclusions. For once in his life, Blair Sandburg was completely speechless. Not knowing what he could possibly say, he resigned himself to his fate.

Dr. Martinson looked intently at the dejected young man at the end of the table. [He has no idea that this is really for his own good,] she thought. As she prayed for patience, she declared her ruling. "Well, Mr. Sandburg, based on the strength of your prior work and your reputation as a teacher, I'm going to give you one more chance. We will convene the committee again in sixty days. At that time, you can either present us with more concrete documentation to back up the Sentinel theory, including detailed information on the subject of your research, or you can present us with another potential topic for your dissertation that will not be as concerned with anonymity. If you fail to provide us with viable research and documentation to support either your Sentinel theory or another alternative, your grants will not be renewed, you will lose your teaching position and you can find another University to support you and your theories. Are we in agreement?"

Blair weakly nodded. He didn't know what could have been worse - being kicked out on his ass immediately, or getting this two-month reprieve to come up with something. He knew that he could never make Jim's secret public, so that wasn't an option. So he had to turn his whole life's work around in two months? How?

He heard Dr. Martinson dismiss him with, "very well, then, Mr. Sandburg. We expect to see you again in two months. Have a good day." Even in his half-dazed state, he was able to understand that as his cue to leave.

Blair made it all the way out of the anthropology building and all the way to the library before even thought about sitting down. He sat on the library steps, curled up into a ball, with his head in his hands. What was he going to do now?

'Cause I see the trust in their eyes
though the sky is falling.
They need your love in their lives-
compromise is calling.

What if I stumble?
What if I fall?
What if I lose my step
and I make fools of us all?
Will the love continue
when the walk becomes a crawl?
What if I stumble?
And what if I fall?

One thing that Jim Ellison hated more than anything was paperwork. It was days like this, where all he had to do was said dreaded paperwork, that he missed having his partner around more than anything. But Blair was stuck all day in University departmental meetings, and so Jim had to take over filling out the unbelievable mountain of forms that always seemed to follow the successful end of a case.

Bored out of his mind, Jim looked away from the computer he was working on and rubbed his eyes. He had read some place that working on computers affected your eyesight. He hoped that didn't apply to Sentinels, too. As he yawned, his hearing opened up (as it always did), and he was briefly able to pick up the conversation Simon was having with his guest in the other room. He was about to pull his concentration back to his paperwork when he heard Simon mention Sandburg's name. He focused on the conversation, trying to pick up why his captain would be discussing things about Blair with a woman neither of them had ever met before...

"Ms..." Simon's voice trailed off, apparently he was having a tough time remembering the woman's name.

"Smith. But you can call me Monica." He could detect the subtle, but extremely attractive Irish accent in her voice.

"All right. Monica, Detective Ellison already has an observer assigned to him. I can't possibly see a reason why I should sign off..."

Monica gently cut him off. "I understand that, Captain, and that is precisely the reason I want to observe them. It's public knowledge that they are the best team in your department, and that's what makes them so fascinating."

Simon sighed audibly. "You're not going to give up on this, are you?"

Jim could hear the rustling of Monica's hair as she shook her head.

Simon walked to the door of his office, and Jim barely had enough time to turn his hearing back down before his captain called out, "Ellison! I need to see you in my office."

Obediently, he set down the paperwork and walked into the office, where he was greeted with a most welcome sight. He hadn't really paid attention to the woman as she walked into the office, but he now realized what he had been missing. Monica was absolutely beautiful, with dark reddish-brown hair and beautiful dark eyes. Now _this_ was the kind of observer he wouldn't mind working with.

Simon continued on with his introductions as Jim smiled and shook Monica's hand. "Jim, this is Monica Smith, a new trainer at the academy. Seems that the department got some sort of grant from some community relations foundation and they're using the money for some new 'relationship' courses at the academy. Before the courses start next week, Monica has been sent to different precincts and divisions to observe officers that work well with each other, with the community, etc. And apparently, you and Sandburg were at the top of her list."

Jim glanced at the woman standing next to him and said, in a self-depreciating tone, "must be a very short list."

The comment elicited the desired laugh from Monica as Simon continued, "at any rate, I'm assigning her to you and Sandburg for the week." As he handed the detective a folder Simon directed him, "she can follow you around while you work on this case."

Jim looked through the case folder to find several pictures of children. School pictures, the kind that most parents kept by the dozens. He dug deeper to find the pictures he didn't want to find. The autopsy photos.

Simon explained the details of the case. "Six children in six days have disappeared from schools in the area. All blonde, blue-eyed eight year old girls. The next day each child has been found in a dumpster just outside of the school from which they were taken. They were bound, beaten, and shot between the eyes, although there are no signs of any sexual trauma." He looked Jim straight in the eye as he announced, "the seventh girl was just taken an hour ago. This time, though, we have witnesses. Three other children from the school turned around and caught a brief glimpse of her abductor as he got into the car and drove off. We've tried to get the children to come into the station for questioning but they've refused, so we're holding them at the school until you can get there. See if you can pull Sandburg out of whatever meetings he's in at school and bring him with you."

Jim replied simply, "thank you, sir," then escorted Monica out of the office.

What if I stumble
What if I fall
You never turn in the heat of it all
What if I stumble
What if I fall

Jim drove casually across the campus, heading for the anthropology building when he glanced out of the corner of his eye and noticed Sandburg sitting on the steps of the University library, staring dejectedly out into space. He quickly pulled the truck into the nearest parking space and ran straight to Blair, Monica following closely on his heels.

When the young man didn't move, Jim sat down next to him and nudged him on the shoulder. "Come on, chief, you're not zoning out on me, are you?"

The hand on his shoulder shook Blair out of his stupor. He jumped and turned to see his partner and a young woman he didn't recognize. "Oh, hi Jim! What's going on?"

[He _did_ zone! Wonder what that meeting was about?] thought Jim. "We have a crime scene we need to get to, chief. Simon asked me to pull you in specifically on this one."

Blair's eyes widened a bit in surprise. There were only two types of cases that Simon pulled him in specifically for: ones that involved some sort of ancient artifacts or something, and those were usually rare, or...he forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. The other types of cases were unfortunately all too common.

Jim read the reaction well enough that, to anyone who didn't know them, it would seem as if Jim had read Blair's mind. He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder and squeezed. "Yeah chief, it's one of those cases. I'll fill you in on the way."

Grateful to have something to focus on other than his academic troubles, Blair perked up a bit and followed Jim to the truck. Somehow, he knew instinctively, that no matter what happened in his life, he would always have this to fall back on. This partnership, and his friendship with Jim Ellison, was the one thing in his life right now that he would never lose.

Unseen to the two men, the large black woman Blair knew as Dr. Martinson appeared next to Monica as she was pulling herself up from the steps of the library. Monica, though, saw the woman, and commented to her as she was walking to the truck, "they seem very close, Tess. Almost like they were brothers."

Tess replied, "in some ways, they are, Monica. But that brotherhood is going to be tested to its limits very soon. Be ready."

As Monica solemnly nodded, she heard the horn of the truck. Blair and Jim had made it there before her, and wanted to alert her that they were leaving. As she walked toward the truck, Blair asked his partner, "so who's the girl?"

"Name's Monica Smith," replied Jim. "She's some new hotshot trainer they just hired for the academy. She's going to be teaching some sort of class on 'the partnership dynamic', or some such nonsense..."

Blair interrupted him. "And Simon assigned her to observe us? Does she know that I'm..."

Jim cut him off. "Yeah, she knows that you're not a real cop. And for some reason, Simon didn't have any real choice in the matter. The fact that you're a police observer, according to her, was the reason that she asked to observe us on this case."

Blair looked curiously at Jim. "And how did you find out that little piece of information?"

As Monica got in the back seat of the truck, Jim pointed to his ear and Blair laughed. If Simon only knew... As Jim pulled out of the parking space, Blair joked, "Jim, Jim, don't you know it's not polite to listen in on other people's conversations?"