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.

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"Excuse me? Are either of you two Professor Fox or Mr. Bailey?" The blonde air hostess had been enquiring politely around the plane, she now addressed Nigel directly.

"Yes, I'm Nigel Bailey. W-what's the matter?"

"There's been an emergency it seems, your secretary has been demanding to talk to one of you on the in flight phone for the last five minutes. It seems she has some bad news. Would you or Professor Fox care to take the call."

"I will." Nigel stood, glancing over at Syd, who despite their slow start to the day, was dozing in her seat.

Nigel followed the woman to the area with the phone, a bemused assistant was holding the phone about a foot from her head and Nigel wasn't surprised, he could hear the non-stop, fast talking, barely pausing for breath, angry voice of Claudia.

Holding the phone as if it were likely to explode he lifted it to his ear.

"I don't care if it's against regulations, I have to talk to them now! If you had any idea how important this is you'd probably drop dead of shock so go get one of them now before I get comfortable because believe me I can keep talking like this all day." Nigel took this break in the stream of words to interrupt.

"Claudia? What's going on?"

"Whoo! Finally some service! Well I've got news for you, your grandmother's dead." Nigel who had been absently blanking out all the parts that weren't a tirade about the airline company paused totally non-plussed.

"Pardon? Claudia, no offence, but I realised that eleven years ago, why are you telling me now?"

"I know." She answered. "But they only let you phone if there's been a big emergency, so I had to invent one because this is really important. I need you to turn around, you see, because the museum got a letter from the thieves who stole the box, they wanted a ransom for it. Mr. Matthews was very kind and let me have a copy of the letter and envelope, and I took it to an ex-boyfriend who's a PI, how cool is that? I mean, he once broke into some top secret government files because I asked him if he could, it was *way* cool, like dating James Bond, but when I asked him if he could break into Zeal (that's a very exclusive salon for your information) and cancel a few important appointments for me, so that if I played my cards right and called early I could get a session at the same time as *Julia Roberts*, he was all like 'no way, I could get into trouble'. I just *had* to dump him. I mean, okay, so the sex was good, well, what am I saying, it was better than *good*, but when a guy won't hack into a computer for his girlfriend, what's the world coming to?" Nigel decided that enough was enough and tried valiantly to steer Claudia back onto topic.

"The letter, Claudia? Did he find anything?"

"Oh yeah, the letter was sent from Germany, and he did a handwriting check and found that name and address of the sender, so you need to turn around and fly back to Germany."

"Germany?!" Nigel spluttered. "We're in the middle of a flight back to America, it's not like I can go up to the pilot and say 'oh by the way, we've changed our mind and want you to fly us back to Europe'."

"Don't blame me! It's not my fault they picked such a lame place to hide out. I only found out about ten minutes ago so it's not like I could've called before you left. Anyway, gotta go, I met this guy who works for Mr 'I won't break into one measly salon's computer', he's *so* hot, and he said that with a little fiddling he could totally clear this heinous parking ticket, all because I told the meter-maid that her shoes, while functional, could benefit from a slightly raised heel, because flat shoes are so. . ."

"Goodbye Claudia." For the millionth time he wondered how one tiny little girl could say so much, so fast.

"Oh, bye Nige, say hi to Syd for me, I want all the details of the hunt when you get back, did you get threatened by any hot guys? Anyway, I have a date to prepare for, gotta go." Just as Nigel was about to put the phone down to be rewarded with the blissful quiet he always felt after Claudia put the phone down, he heard her add an extra comment.

"Oh, Nige, if you were a P.I, would you prefer me in strappy sandals which say 'I can do the Bond girl thing, while still looking amazing', or in stiletto ankle boots which would say 'I can look sexy, but still can beat the crap out of you'?" Nigel really, really wished that Sydney had been awake, she probably wouldn't have minded listening to Claudia's relationship saga, or answering odd questions about shoes. He didn't even *know* women could buy stiletto ankle boots.

"I'm sure he'll prefer it if you do the talking and not the footwear." And he put the phone down before she could comment any further.

He thanked the flight staff and made his way back to his seat, well, things were certainly getting interesting, he would remember this relic hunt for the rest of his life and no mistake. It appeared that they would be flying straight back out to Germany, something his body would not relish so soon after two three fairly long flights. Still, if it got rid of the curse of the boxes, he would be quite happy. Okay, two of them hadn't been so bad, but still, having to worry constantly about bursting into song was unnerving. Especially since it was his turn to sing.

"Nigel, you're back." Sydney appeared to have woken not long after he'd answered the phone. In a lowered voice he told her what Claudia had found out.

"Germany? Neither of them seemed the sort of person to live there, are you absolutely sure?"

"That's what Claudia said." He replied.

They discussed this new development for a while before deciding on getting some sleep. If they were to make another transatlantic flight within the week, they would need it.

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Okay, so this was short, but I needed to write something, and I just love writing Claudia, I hope you felt she was in character.

More soon, thank you for reading, please review.