Need

by Tanya Reed

Here is my new offering. I hope you like it. As usual, the relics and all historical facts are completely made up. I don't know a lot about history, so I sometimes have to rely on my imagination for relic hunts. I hope there's enough shippiness in it to satisfy the Shippers and enough adventure in it to satisfy those who aren't. Any and all reviews would be greatly appreciated, but in the end, I hope you just enjoy the story, whether you review or not. The whole story is already written, but I doubt that I'll get it all posted today. I think there should be at least six chapters (breaking my stories into chapters is the last thing I do). This story's for Katy because she prodded me to finish every time I almost gave up on this thing. It's been five months in the writing. Anyway, on to the fic!

Disclaimer: I do not own Relic Hunter. I will never own Relic Hunter. I wish I did own Relic Hunter, but them's the breaks. All credit for its creation and everything shown on television goes to Fireworks. The only things I own are this storyline, Jacques Rouleaux, Carmen Facey, Le Sorcier, Nathan Turnbull, Alec Ryan, Morgan Lewis, and all the skeletons.

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"Do you think we'll fit in there?" Nigel asked Sydney doubtfully as the two of them stared at a small tunnel into the earth.

"Sure we will," she said confidently.

"I don't know, Syd. People were smaller back then. It's awfully narrow."

Nigel eyed her just as she gave him an expressive eyeroll. He noted that she was dusty from the climb and there was a smudge of dirt across her cheek. Somehow, those small imperfections made him feel better.

"All right, but you first."

She smiled at him fondly, her expression immediately changing. He was quite convinced that she used that exasperated look as a tool, much like her wheedling and ordering, but he didn't really mind. Sometimes he even liked feigning reluctance just to see what she would do to convince him. This was not one of those times, however.

Without a second thought, Sydney began crawling into the hole. It was so small that she had to lay on her stomach and wriggle forward. Nigel watched her until the soles of her boots disappeared from sight.

He waited a moment longer than necessary before sighing and bending to follow her.

The tunnel was as cramped as he had feared. He could feel the earth pressing down on him and grit drifted down into his eyes, up his nose, and into his mouth. His sides scraped against the tunnel walls, and he knew his clothes would be unsalvageable.

It was also completely dark. If not for the noises from ahead, he could have believed he was alone. His stomach fluttered at the thought.

"Syd?" His voice echoed hollowly.

"I've reached the end, Nigel," she said, and suddenly a light shone in the darkness. He blinked in its glow, his eyes watering.

Encouraged, Nigel wriggled and pulled himself along the tunnel, ignoring the smarting in his palms.

A few minutes later, he pulled himself out of the hole and into a large chamber.

Sydney was standing nearby with her torch in her hand. Its light flickered eerily on the earthen walls. Nigel followed the light along its path and felt a grin suddenly pass over his face.

"There."

"Good eyes, Nigel."

Sydney hurried forward and brushed dirt away gently. Underneath it, a beautiful urn began to emerge.

As Nigel watched Sydney, his excitement grew. This was always his favorite part of a hunt. He felt a thrill to see something no other eyes had seen for hundreds of years. It always amazed him and filled him with wonder.

He glanced at Sydney, seeing the same wonder come to her face. Nigel loved watching her when she discovered a relic. It was almost like a light came on in her eyes, making them glow with joy.

"Look, Nigel," she said. "The lost Urn of..."

Nigel was jerked from sleep by the loud ring of the phone beside his bed. He groaned and pulled one of his pillows over his head, trying to drown out the sound so he could go back to sleep.

He was having such a nice dream. In it, he and Sydney had been on a hunt. It had been so real, he could still see her triumphant smile, still smell the faint apple scent of her shampoo. Nigel sighed. It seemed that almost every night he dreamed of the hunt and woke up with a terrible longing to go home.

The phone refused to be ignored. After about five rings, Nigel gave up and tossed aside his pillow. Grumpily, he rolled towards his bedside table and reached for the phone. His blearily blinking eyes noticed that his clock read 2 am.

"If that's you, Preston, I'm going to strangle you," he mumbled, picking up the receiver. Then, slightly louder, a sleepy, "Hello?"

"Nigel?"

He was instantly fully awake. This wasn't Preston calling for some inane purpose or one of Nigel's acquaintances calling for a Saturday night lift from a pub. This was important. It had to be important. It was her.

"Sydney?"

"Nigel, I'm so glad you're there." Her voice sounded strange—strained in some way.

"Where else would I be on a Saturday night?" he asked glibly, rubbing an eye with his fist.

"Did I wake you?"

There was an almost wistful quality to the question so Nigel lied, "No, of course not. I was just reading."

"Good." Then, a pause. Nigel sat up, listening intently. There had to be a good reason for Sydney to be calling him that late. "I'm in London. At Heathrow." Another pause. "Can I...Can I come over?

The hesitation Nigel heard in her voice was so unlike Sydney that Nigel was immediately worried. If he had harboured any further thoughts of sleep, they fled.

"Do you need me to pick you up?"

"No, I'll take a cab. I'll see you soon."

Nigel hung up the phone and jumped to his feet. It had been over six months since Sydney's last visit, and he missed her terribly. Phone and computer chats just couldn't replace being face to face. More and more lately, he was regretting accepting that teaching job two years before, and he was seriously considering quitting and asking Sydney to take him back—if she'd have him.

Determined to be presentable when she got there, Nigel hopped in the shower. He was just finishing getting dressed afterward when his doorbell rang.

The sound made his stomach flip flop. Seeing Sydney was always a treat, and the last time she had come her visit had been way too short.

Nigel hurried down the stairs to the front door and opened it, unable to keep a smile from spreading all over his face.

She was standing in the rain, her hair damp and clinging. She was dressed in her hunting clothes and she wasn't even wearing a jacket. Her satchel hung limply off of her shoulder, as soaked as she was. A look of frustration and discouragement was on her face, but it vanished when she saw Nigel. It was replaced with warmth.

"Hey, Nige."

"Sydney, don't stand out there. You'll catch your death!"

He reached out and gently grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the rain.

She smiled then, and it lit up her eyes. "You're not mad at me for coming so late?"

"You know I'm always glad to see you." He closed the door firmly, locking wind and rain outside.

"Thanks." He could tell she meant it. In fact, she looked rather weary, he thought. There were dark circles under her eyes, and trickles of water trailed down her face.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Sure," she said. "It's just...can I sit down?"

Nigel shook his head. "Where are my manners? Sorry, Syd. Have a seat here, and I'll be right back."

He indicated his sofa, then hurried off to get a towel, some clothes he thought might fit her, and a very hot cup of coffee. When he got back, she was thumbing through a book on his coffee table. Little tremors of her body showed she was chilled, and he couldn't help but notice how closely her black vest clung.

"No catching pneumonia on my watch," he said, handing her the towel and clothes. Sydney began undressing without preamble. Nigel watched her for a moment, his mouth falling slightly open before remembering himself and turning around.

"Dry is definitely better," Sydney commented. He could hear her teeth chattering.

"And this should help as well," he said, holding up the coffee.

His hand lightened as she took it. "You're an angel."

"So I've been told."

Sydney chuckled and the sound warmed him. Then, suddenly, she was wrapping her arms around him in a firm hug. Nigel was so startled at the gesture that he was glad he no longer held the coffee.

"I've missed you, Nigel," she said softly. Her voice sounded rather sad so he gently patted her arm.

"I miss you too, Syd. Relic hunting with you was a big part of my life. I wish you'd come visit more."

"The planes fly both ways." Her breath ruffled his hair and tickled his cheek.

"I know. I'm sorry."

She held on to him for a moment longer before sighing and noisily plunking herself back on the sofa. Facing her, Nigel noticed that she had avoided the wet patch left by her body when she first came inside.

"Yeah, and I'm sorry about your couch."

Nigel regarded her a moment as she took a huge gulp of the coffee. She looked unlike herself sitting there in his pajamas bottoms and a t-shirt, her hair in dark tangles around her face. Softer somehow.

He pushed that thought away as he bent to pick up her wet clothes and towel. "Don't worry. It'll dry. Speaking of dry..."

He was about to leave the room to take her clothes to the laundry room when her voice stopped him.

"Leave the clothes, Nigel. Come sit with me." He hesitated, so she added, "Please."

Needing no more encouragement, Nigel hung her clothes over the back of the nearest chair and went to join her on the sofa. Looking into her face, he was once more struck by how weary she looked. If he were anyone else, Nigel might not have noticed, but he had spent years reading her face.

"Sydney," he said, "What's happened?"

Her eyes dropped to the mug. "I...I think I've failed."

Nigel sucked in a breath. It was not like Sydney to admit defeat. In fact, Nigel could remember several times when it appeared that they had lost and all that waited was death, and Sydney hadn't even hesitated. She never gave up.

"Come now, it can't be so bad." He heard his mother's words coming from his mouth as he reached forward and gently took the cup from her hands. It made a slight ting as he set it on the coffee table.

She raised her eyes to meet his. In an echo of his thoughts, she said, "I'm not used to failure."

"Tell me about it," he encouraged.

He wanted to touch her. This wasn't unusual. In a secret part of himself, he always wanted to touch her. Now, he wanted to gently brush hair off of her forehead and cup her cheek with his palm. Instead, he just gazed at her steadily, willing her to speak.

"I'm on a hunt...or I was on a hunt. But it went wrong, Nigel. It all went wrong."

She wrenched herself from the sofa and started pacing. Water made a soft pattering noise on the carpet as it dripped from her hair. Watching her, Nigel couldn't help but think it couldn't have gone too wrong. She was there in front of him. Uninjured. His greatest fear for the past seven years was that one day Sydney's luck would run out.

"He was here in England...I know he was. I followed him here, but I don't know where he is now. And Carmen's dead..."

"Carmen Facey?"

But she didn't seem to hear him. "And the next piece of the puzzle is gone...I was too late..."

"Sydney, you've been in places where the trail was hard to follow before."

"Yes," she agreed, rubbing a hand over her forehead, "But I'm out of ideas. I've tried everywhere I thought he could be. None of my contacts have seen him. None of his contacts have seen him. It's like he wasn't even here. And every time I close my eyes, I see Carmen's body...You know I'm no stranger to death, Nigel, but I've never seen anything like this. Her throat was ripped out, and there was blood everywhere."

She looked down at her hands and Nigel followed her gaze. They were clenched so tightly, the knuckles were white.

"Okay," he said, "why don't you start at the beginning?"

She nodded absently, unclenching her hands. "That would be logical, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, it would," he agreed. "Come. Sit back down. Drink your coffee and tell me what happened."

Without argument, she returned to the couch settling beside him. She sat closer than she needed too, close enough that he could feel her body heat and smell her hair. It smelled as it had in his dream.

"I knew calling you was the right thing to do," she said before sighing and letting herself fall against the back of the sofa.

Nigel felt highly pleased at this, and he smiled as he handed her the coffee mug. She wrapped her hands around it tightly as if to absorb comfort.

"It started a couple of days ago," she began. "Carmen came to see me at the university. She had come across something she didn't know what to do with, so she brought it to me for help."

Carmen Facey was another relic hunter, one that had started out on the shady side, mentoring with Kurt Reiner. Then, she had fallen for a museum curator named John Brown that they were supposed to be stealing from, and she switched sides. From what Nigel had heard of her over the past year, she had since become dedicated to retrieving relics for study and for museums. Nigel had met her once before what Sydney called her "conversion", and he knew Sydney had seen her maybe two or three times since.

Sydney paused to take a sip of her coffee. Nigel studied her but remained silent as he waited for her to continue.

"You heard that Alec Ryan died?" Sydney glanced at him, and he nodded. The millionaire's death had made all the papers. Ryan was well known for researching an ancient cult that was often discounted in academic circles due to lack of proof. "Well, he left his research to John because John had helped him out in the past. Ryan was very close to proving the Group of Ten's existence."

Nigel felt himself pale. Despite the fact that, if the group existed, it had disappeared hundreds of years before, the Group of Ten was something Nigel would have preferred to remain a myth. It was a group that worshiped death. It believed that a blissful state of darkness and nothingness was perfection. Because of this, they became experts on death, mostly on causing it. They killed people just to watch them die, believing they were viewing a person's most holiest moment.

"Not only that, he also found a clue that the group was searching for La Mort Rapide."

Nigel raised his eyebrows. "Rapid death? As in mythical amulet created by a French sorcerer to destroy entire cities?"

"Ryan believed they had found it."

Nigel already didn't like where this was headed. Death was in Sydney's story a little too frequently and the hunt hadn't even started yet.

"Ryan's papers pointed us to Glasgow. The night before we were supposed to leave, Carmen was attacked. By Morgan Lewis."

Nigel knew Morgan Lewis. He was a particularly nasty relic hunter who made Dash Palmerston look like a gentle kitten.

"He took Ryan's research. Knowing he was headed for Glasgow, we took off after him."

"Once in Glasgow, we split up. We were supposed to meet at the hotel for dinner to compare notes. When Carmen didn't arrive, I got worried and went hunting. I found her in an alley..."

Nigel felt a tremor go through Sydney's body, and he didn't think this one was from cold.

"I found the lair of the Circle of Ten, but it had been defaced. Everything was destroyed. Lewis had been there first and wanted to make sure I wouldn't follow. But he dropped something..."

Sydney got up, placing her mug on the coffee table. She made her way to her soaked and rumpled clothing. She dug through her pockets for a moment before coming up with a sodden piece of paper. This, she handed to Nigel. It was a London phone number.

"So, I came to London. I've questioned my contacts; I've questioned his contacts; I've phoned the number. Nothing. I had gone back to the airport, ready to take a plane to Paris to see if any of my contacts there had heard from him, when..."

"When?"

She knelt beside him, placing her hand gently on his knee. "I decided I had to see you."

He put his hand over hers and gave it a soft squeeze. "I'm glad you're here."

She shifted to sit on the floor beside him, her back against the sofa.

They sat in silence for several moments before Nigel realized that he might have the answer she craved. He debated waiting until morning to tell her, but his respect for her won out.

"Sydney?"

"Yes?"

"I think I might know who Lewis came to London to see."

She threw him a startled glance. "Who?"

"His name's Nathan Turnbull. He's a writer who lives not far from here."

"A writer?" Her brow drew together. "I don't understand."

"He takes old legends, researches them meticulously, then fictionalizes them. He's well known in British academic circles because he's always digging for some fact or another. His last book was called Le Sorcier. In fact," Nigel felt himself blushing, "I have a copy."

A hint of a smile touched her features. "Any good?"

"His historical accuracy is excellent," Nigel said, feeling his face grow even warmer, though he didn't know why he should be embarrassed about owning an adventure book.

The hint turned into a genuine smile, reaching Sydney's eyes.

"In it, he tells the life of Le Sorcier. Most of it is romanticized, but a lot of it is accurate despite that. There's not much about La Mort Rapide in it. It's more about the sorcerer's other supposed achievements. Even so, Turnbull's probably the most knowledgeable person on the subject at this moment."

"Then, this Turnbull is probably who Lewis came to see," Nigel could hear the excitement in her voice. "Good work, Nigel!"

He felt ridiculously pleased at her praise.

Sydney quickly got to her feet. Nigel could tell she was ready to jump back into her black clothes and slip out into the night.

"Sydney?" he said again.

"What?"

"You can't go see Turnbull now. It's 3:30 am."

"It is?"

Nigel nodded to the grandfather clock in the corner. Sydney's face fell when she saw that he was right.

"But you're welcome to spend what's left of the night. I've got a spare room, and you're already in pajamas."

She stood completely still for a moment, chewing her lip. Then, she admitted, "I haven't been sleeping much. Between following Lewis and...Carmen..."

The sight of Carmen's body must have been even worse than Sydney had said for her to be affected this deeply. She had once seen a man decapitated by headhunters, and it hadn't made her this pale and haunted.

He got up and said gently, "Come to bed, Syd."

The weariness had settled back on her face, and Nigel was glad he hadn't told her about Turnbull during the day. Then, she would have been running around, trying to find La Mort Rapide without a thought for her own rest or safety.

Nigel led Sydney upstairs and to the spare room.

"Good night, Syd. Sleep well."

"Thanks, Nige," she replied, suddenly pulling him in for his second hug of the evening. Nigel let himself enjoy this one more, since he wasn't quite as worried. She was warm instead of cold now...and she felt like home. "For everything."

"Anytime. We always did make a pretty good team."

When she pulled from him, she gazed directly into his face, her expression unreadable. Then, she leaned forward and, for the briefest instant, pressed her lips to his. Shocked, Nigel didn't even have time to react before Sydney had disappeared into the spare room.

Watching the closed door, Nigel raised a hand to his lips. He found his heart was suddenly beating wildly, and his face was flushed. Sydney had kissed him! He carried this thought with him to his room across the hall, and it warmed him as he undressed and pulled on his pajama bottoms. It stayed with him as he shut off the light and crawled between his cool silk sheets. Even then, he could feel the firmness of her body against his and the softness of her lips. Smiling to himself, Nigel snuggled into his blankets.

He was almost asleep when there was a soft knock on his door. "Nigel?"

"Yes, Syd?"

The door opened and he could see her form outlined faintly in the moonlight coming from his slightly parted curtains.

"Can I sleep with you?"

"With me?" He sat up quickly.

"I can't sleep. I can't seem to relax, and I thought maybe...well...if I wasn't alone..."

Throwing propriety to the wind, Nigel said, "Sure. It'll be like old times. Plenty of room."

She moved through the darkness towards him as silently as a ghost. He watched her slip in beside him and pull the covers up to her chin.

"Comfy?"

"Very. How come your bed is more comfortable than the spare? If I'd known that, I would have been sleeping here every time I came to visit."

"I'll remember you said that next time," he teased.

She chuckled in the darkness before going quiet. Nigel waited so long for her to speak again that he thought she had gone to sleep.

He was just about to follow her when she said, "I'm sorry...I mean, about tonight."

"Sorry?"

"Yeah. For being weak. For acting like a fool. For needing..."

He reached out and took her hand. Giving it a squeeze, he replied, "Everyone's allowed to be human, Sydney. Even you."

She returned the squeeze and then, almost immediately, her breathing deepened, and she dropped into sleep. Nigel stayed awake a little longer, listening to her breathe. Slowly, the sound lulled him into sleep. He slept better than he had for a long time.