The 4 boxes.

Disclaimer-I'm not sure who relic hunter belongs to, but I'm damn sure it's not me!

Summary-4 boxes affect Sydney and Nigel's behaviour.

PG/PG-13

Feedback- Yes please!! I try to thank everyone who reviews in the author's notes, but if I forget you, tell me and I'll apologise.

Author's notes- This is my first Relic Hunter Fanfic, I love the show, but had difficulty finding much fanfiction, so I decided to add my own. This will be a Sydney/Nigel story.

Thank you: arscapi for your review, they make me so happy!!!

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Silently Nigel wondered just how this was bad luck, sharing a room with Sydney Fox was most men's dream, including his. But then, he thought, something bad was bound to come out of it, he'd probably do something embarrassing, like say something stupid while he was asleep, or grab hold of her, or sleepwalk. Damn! He wondered silently if the corpse next door would mind him sharing the room.

They were both tired on the way to the room, so it had not been too awkward, but once they were inside, the uncomfortableness became stifling, as though the embarrassment became more intense when they were inclosed in the room.

Unknown to Nigel, Sydney was also thinking about sharing with the dead guy. She'd stayed so close to Nigel over the last few years because they'd kept their professional distance, now she was going to share a bed with Nigel, and it made them both uptight and uneasy. Not that she hadn't noticed Nigel, it was hard not to, and even harder to ignore what she saw.

The room was quite small, normally they wouldn't notice, but because there were two of them it made it seem tiny to the point of claustriphobia. A large bed took up most of the room, the green blankets that covered it were made into hospital corners. It seemed that the manager, terrified of loosing customers had forced the maids to make the rooms up excessively tidily. There was a small bathroom, also excessively cleaned, opposite the bed.

Underneath the window was a couch, it was the same green as the blankets. And, due to their bad luck, it was only a two-seater.

Dumping his suitcase on the floor, Nigel made his way over to the bed and grabbed a pillow and a spare blanket, placing them on the couch.

"Nigel, you don't have to do that." She didn't know what made her say that, having him sleep on the couch would be less embarrassing for all concerned, but she didn't feel it was fair, plus that if she couldn't trust Nigel to share her bed, she couldn't trust anyone. "We're both adults, I'm sure we can cope for one night." She flinched at how clichéd she sounded.

"Oh, well, okay. Um I'm gonna take a shower then, is that okay?" He blushed softly.

"Sure, I'll have mine in the morning." She opened her suitcase, rooting through it for her night things.

Fifteen minutes later, she heard a polite knock come from the bathroom door. She giggled before speaking.

"Nigel you can come in, I'm decent." He poked his head round the door before stepping into the room "Honestly, you must be the only person to knock on the bathroom door to see if you can come out."

"Sorry," He blushed even more "I just didn't want to come barging in if you weren't fully clothed, that's all." He took some files out of the bag. She was already in the bed, with paper littered over her lap. Her dark hair was tied back into a loose ponytail with wisps of missed hair falling around her face.

"What are those papers?" She looked at the paper he was holding, as he rooted through the bags to find his laptop.

"Just some work on these boxes, still nothing much though, I'm going to see if there is anything online. What about your papers?"

"Ah, student essays, I didn't have time to mark the final ones, so I'm catching up now." He climbed in next to her, they were so focused on the work they didn't have time to feel awkward. She laughed quietly a while later muttering to Nigel "I think whoever wrote this should have taken creative writing." He took the paper and read it over, chuckling slightly.

"I see they've taken the 'if you don't know, make it up' approach." He looked at the unmarked pile to her left. "How many more have you got to mark?"

"Only about ten." The unmarked pile was considerably larger than the marked pile "It has to be the single longest, most boring work on the planet."

"Tell you what, if we split the pile it'll get done a lot quicker." He gestured for her to hand over some of the essays.

"No, you don't need to do that, you've already done your half of the essays already back at the college, plus you've already done a lot of work on the boxes."

"I don't mind, if I find another dead end trying to find information I might cry, suddenly made up essays actually sound interesting." Before she had time to react he leaned over and grabbed the essays, completely forgetting that this would mean leaning over her. She jumped in surprise, shocked at his closeness. Thankfully he hadn't noticed as he was splitting the pile in half.

"Th-thanks." She cringed, that shocked squeaky voice couldn't belong to her could it? "When we've finished these I'll help look for info on the boxes."

They lapsed into silence as they got on with the marking, by the time they were finished an hour later neither were awake enough to do any more research.

They put the work away, laying back, and switching of the lights. Neither of them were finding it as embarrassing as they expected, although they were sure that it was being saved for the morning.

After laying in the dark for a few minutes, debating whether to say anything, Nigel spoke.

"Night Syd." His voice sounded sleepy, there was no reaction from Sydney, and for a minute he was afraid that she hadn't heard, before he heard her soft nearly half-asleep voice.

"Night Nige."

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A bit mushy, I know, but what can I say, I'm just a big romantic at heart.

Thank you for reading, please review.