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TITLE: Something Lost, Something Found. By : Aryea Chapter 2 The following day, had to be the longest day in history for Sydney as she waited for Preston’s plane to arrive. She had returned to the hotel after her temper tantrum at the river and found herself going through Nigel’s things. Part of her felt guilty, wondering if she should leave his affects to Preston, but she couldn’t resist packing and repacking his things. There wasn’t much, Nigel knew how to pack light for their adventures, so it didn’t take her much time at all. She’d pulled out one of his T-shirts, inhaling the scent of him, and wishing that she could at least cry, release some of her grief, but all she could do was feel numb and wonder if she would ever feel right again. She paused over a pair of slacks that he had purchased a few months ago, they’d quickly become his favorite and he had purchased a handsome, matching jacket to go with them. Both were a dark shade of green and tailored fit, but comfortable enough to move in. Sydney remembered that he had worn them during one of their last hunts, searching for the Cross of Arthur. They had been descending a rope and Sydney, reaching the ground first, had glanced up and noticed how well the slacks fit her assistant. She’d commented on how great they looked on him on him, but she wasn’t sure if he had heard her, because he didn’t say anything when he dropped down next to her. Part of her, the egomaniac inside her, wondered if he had heard her comment and had started wearing them more because of it. Now, as she waited for her watch to tell her it was time to go to the airport, she turned the radio on, unable to handle the silence in their room without Nigel’s endless chatter. She pulled a blue cotton shirt from the bag; one of Nigel’s favorites, with long sleeves, a crisp collar, and buttons up the front. She’d seen it on him several times, in his usual relaxed style, over a T-shirt, and hanging loose at his waist. She ran her hand over the soft material, and then pulled it on over her own T-shirt, She buttoned it half way up, and automatically started to tuck it inside her jeans, then let it drop outside. Yes, that was better. She was still wearing the shirt, when she met with Preston and they returned to the hospital, where to Sydney’s dismay, they were told that there was no Nigel Bailey on file. Sydney explained the situation and the young nurse still could not find any record of Nigel. Remembering what the nurse yesterday had said, Sydney asked to go to the morgue, and the nurse had an orderly escort them down to the basement. The technician showed them the only three bodies, and none of them were Nigel. Sydney and Preston returned to the nurse’s station and asked to speak to the other nurse, the one that had been on duty yesterday, but when the young woman returned it was not with the same person Sydney had spoken with. She couldn’t recall the woman’s name, but gave a description of her. “I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Fox,” the young nurse replied, sincerely. “We are the only two nurses here, we’re very short staffed and I don’t know anyone that fits that description. “ “What about the Doctor?” Sydney demanded, a terrible feeling rising in the pit of her stomach. “Dr. Edulle, he was the one that treated Nigel.” The nurse searched her records again and frowned. “No, I’m sorry; we don’t have that particular doctor on staff here.” She smiled suddenly. “He may have been a floater.” “Floater?” Preston asked. “Yes, sometimes we get Doctors from other cities to work here a few days a week; we don’t always put them down unless there’s an emergency. I can make a few calls and see if I can track him down for you.” “Yes, thank you.” “This is very odd, Sydney,” Preston commented as they returned to sit in the waiting area. “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” she muttered. “But, I don’t like it. Yesterday, they wouldn’t let me see him because I wasn’t family, and now they have no record of him, or the doctor that treated him.” “Are you sure this is the hospital they took Nigel to?” Sydney shot Preston a deadly look. “Well, I…I just mean that, you were distressed, and suffered a concussion, perhaps you misunderstood where...” “I know where they took him, Preston!” Sydney snapped. Her nerves were already on edge and his doubting her sanity was not helping. “This is the only hospital within forty miles, there was no where else to take him. I was treated here myself and…” She rose suddenly, returning to the station and catching the nurse’s attention as she hung up the phone. “Excuse me, I was seen by Doctor Gremmel, is he on staff here?” The nurse nodded. “Oh yes, he’s one of our best.” Sydney felt a surge of hope; at least she wasn’t losing her mind completely. “Can I speak with him?” Dr. Gremmel had prevented her with following Nigel into surgery, insisting that they knew what they were doing and that he needed to check her out. She was sure that he’d know what happened to Nigel’s body. Again the nurse frowned. “I am sorry, he isn’t in today.” Sydney growled in frustration. “Do you have his home address, then? Please, it’s very important I speak with him.” The older nurse stepped forward, not as stern looking as the one from yesterday, but obviously just as stubborn regarding procedures. “I’m afraid we can’t possibly give out personal information for anyone on our staff, Ma’am. Dr. Gremmel will be back in two weeks; he is on holiday and will not be disturbed.” “We can’t wait two weeks!” Sydney declared. “Can’t you make an exception this once; I only want to ask him…” “We never make exceptions, Ms. Fox, especially regarding that rule; it could jeopardize the safety of our staff members.” “You people lost Nigel’s body and now you’re going to make me wait two weeks to try and find it? This is insane! How the hell could you lose a body anyway, it hasn’t even been twenty four hours since he died!” “Any complaints will have to be brought to the attention of our hospital administrator.” “Fine, where is he?” “Out of the country at the moment.” Sydney almost flew across the counter at the nurse and Preston’s arm went around her waist, lifting her up and depositing her behind him in a move that no other man dared to try with Sydney Fox. “Nurse…Asuhnd?” he inquired, leaning over to read her nametag, his voice calm, and his manner chaste. “We certainly understand your rules and I am sure that you find several of us foreigners brash and uncouth, but I must beseech you. I’m not asking you to break your rules, but perhaps bend them, just a little? There has been a horrible mistake and my little brother, my brother Nigel, the only family I had left in the world, has gone missing. I’ve failed him so many times in life, I wasn’t the brother I should have been after our parents died, and I don’t want to fail him now, in death. Please, can’t you find it in your heart to help us, help me find him and bring him home to England, where he belongs?” Sydney stared at him, surprised to hear such emotion coming from someone she had originally thought of as cold hearted, especially towards Nigel, but there had been a crack in his smooth, polished voice near the end and she no longer doubted that his grief was just as profound as her own. Nurse Asuhnd blinked a few times, moisture springing to her eyes from the depth of his plea as she struggled to maintain her unyielding demeanor. The younger nurse was also staring at Preston, tears readily flowing down her dark cheeks. Asuhnd cleared her throat and grabbed a pad and a pen. She scribbled something across it and ripped the page away to hand it to Preston. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. The Gods be with you.” Preston folded the paper and handed it to Sydney. “Bless you, madam. Bless you.” “If you have a number where I can reach you, I’ll make those calls about your mystery Doctor,” the young nurse offered. Preston gave her his cell phone number and they headed outside. Sydney looked at the address, already clicking into hunter’s mode. “Hmm, I can ask Aru where this is, probably should get a map.” She pulled out her cell phone and hit #1 on her auto dial. “I’ll get Nigel to rent a car and get us some supplies, no telling…” “Sydney!” Preston interrupted, his expression pained. Sydney glanced at him, and then slowly lowered the phone as she realized what she was doing. She was so used to Nigel doing what she needed him to do, she forgot he couldn’t anymore. “Oh God.” She started to close the phone but Preston’s hand stopped her. “Syd, listen!” Sydney pulled herself back from her own misery long enough to hear a faint ringing. They turned around, trying to locate the sound, frantically checking bushes and behind parked cars. Sydney stood beside a collection of trash, the ringing grew louder, and she called to Preston. They both tore through the garbage, uncaring of their clothes or the smell. “Here!” Sydney found the phone and grabbed it up; it was Nigel’s. Preston stared at her; his expression both excited and dismayed; his hair and clothes mussed, his eyes sparkling. Sydney smirked at him, she felt sure that Preston Bailey had never been so disheveled in his lifetime. “What does this mean?” Sydney shook her head. “I don’t know, Preston. I don’t understand it.” She snapped her phone shut and dropped it back in her bag, as the ringing on Nigel’s stopped abruptly, snuffed out too soon, just like his life. “Do you think whoever has taken his body left the phone behind, meaning to throw it away?” “Maybe, at least this proves that I haven’t lost my mind and that this was the hospital Nigel was brought to.” Preston looked chagrinned. “I apologize for doubting you.” He sighed. “Nigel never would have, he had ultimate faith in your abilities.” Yes, Sydney agreed, silently, too bad that faith failed him in the end. “I couldn’t save him.” “It isn’t your fault, Syd,” Preston assured his usual detachment returning. “Nigel knew the risks when he took the job.” Sydney shook her head, cradling the little blue cell phone. “It wasn’t exactly what he’d signed on for,” she murmured. “I should have let him stay home; I knew this might be dangerous.” Preston attempted to straighten his appearance as they left the hospital area. “He would have followed you anyway, Sydney, into the bowels of the Earth if needed. He was very fond of you.” Sydney looked at him, wondering how he would know, since it seemed he and Nigel had not been close, but she refused to voice the question, now was not the time to debate his lack of interest in Nigel’s life. Preston smirked at her, as if reading her mind anyway. “I noticed how upset he was whenever I got within speaking distance of you, he became obsessively protective of you.” “Probably because he worried you were going to try and steal me away from him as you have everything else,” Sydney snapped and immediately regretted it. “I…I’m sorry Preston. I didn’t mean…” “That’s okay, although I don’t understand why he is always so vexed with me, Sydney, I really don’t. Do you know that the last time we spoke, when we were on the hunt for that vile? I mentioned that I didn’t trust that other Relic Hunter and do you know what he said to me, he said that he didn’t trust me. Me! Sydney, I’m his brother for heaven’s sake!” He crossed his arms, annoyed. “And he was positively giddy when I mentioned that I was in danger of loosing my job.” Sydney almost smiled; she could just imagine Nigel’s glee. Preston had basically stolen that museum job from Nigel and Nigel badly resented it; as he no doubt resented everything Preston had done to him. She had noticed that Preston seemed unmoved by his little brother’s hostility, not it seemed that the man was just insanely obtuse. She didn’t have the heart or the patience to explain it to him now. However, Preston seemed encouraged to do just that. “Do you know that when he told me that he had accepted the job as your assistant, well…I gave him the gears about working for a woman…” He quickly elaborated when Sydney shot him a dirty look. “Nothing against women, please don’t misunderstand, I’m all for equal rights and all that, but it was…well it was Nigel and I’ve long had this habit of making him feel foolish, I almost always regret what I say after, but… as I said we had a rivalry. And, in most respects, Nigel gave as well as he got, he was not one to stand by, especially when I was insulting him. Since, the job itself seemed admirable and I knew that he had worked hard to establish the skills he must have had for you to hire him, it was the only thing I could think of to get after him about-childish I know.” “Did you ever stop to think that might have been one of the reasons he stayed mad at you, Preston?” Preston gaped at her. “What, because I was teasing him a little? Oh come on, Sydney. We’re brothers, there has to be a certain level of torment.” Sydney wasn’t so sure of that, but then she was an only child. She also was up to discussing Nigel so intimately, especially not with Preston. “Well, it’s something to think about.” “Anyway, the point that I was trying to make was that knowing the way Nigel felt about you, you couldn’t have really expected him to stay behind while you were off on a hunt.” “How he felt about me?” Sydney asked, confused. “What do you know about how he felt about me, Preston? You and he hardly spoke.” “Well, really, Syd. I could tell whenever I tormented him about it; I could tell he was incensed at my interest in you. Now, Nigel could have easily made up a story about the two of you…well, you know how men make up stories, to get me off the track.” Sydney did know, she remembered meeting up with Nigel’s old friend Tom, a well to do Englishman that Nigel had lied to about his new job, saying that he was a professor and Sydney was his assistant. In the end, Nigel confessed, when he learned that dear old Tom was an even bigger fraud. Still, that wasn’t much of a lie and Nigel had never insinuated that he and Sydney were anything but coworkers. “But that probably would have just been more of a challenge then, wouldn’t it?” Preston didn’t deny it, he just grinned and shrugged. “I reckon, but I…I had heard some gossip about you fighting all the battles and Nigel standing on the side lines, well, I confronted him about it.” “Nigel did his share,” Sydney protested. He’d saved her life more than once; they were even in that regard. “At any rate, rather then bluster and fuss or deny the story all together, Nigel admitted that it was true, that you were better than any of the hundred men that he knew and that it worked better if he stayed out of the way.” Sydney smiled. “So, naturally, I called him a coward and a fool to be afraid of a woman.” Sydney glanced at him. “I hope he knocked you senseless?” Even as she said it she knew Nigel hadn’t, it wasn’t his style. “No, he said that you were no ordinary woman and that he wasn’t so much afraid of you, as he respected the fact that you could kick his ass and mine all over London.” Sydney laughed, and automatically felt tears spring to her eyes again and she automatically blinked them away from years of habit. She could count the number of times on one hand that she had actually allowed herself to cry, she had worked hard to never be viewed as a weak woman, a woman who cried. Now those same damned defenses were keeping her from truly expressing her grief for Nigel, and she suspected that until she did, the emptiness that now surrounded her would remain forever. “He also threatened to beat me within an inch of my life, if I ever said anything disrespectful about you again.” Preston frowned. “I really believe he would have too, I’d never seen him so angry. The old Nigel would never have admitted that he was weak, certainly not in front of me, and although he always tries to be chivalrous when women are involved, he has never threatened to come to blows to preserve a woman’s honor; he’s never been much of a fighter you see.” Sydney nodded, she had never seen Nigel’s temper, not really, but she had no doubt it would be a fierce firestorm indeed, when released. Nigel Bailey may seem calm, and collected most of the time, modest and shy, but part of her always suspected that there was something darker hidden inside her TA, something he refused to let out. She also wondered if Preston realized how much of a fighter his little brother had become over the years. Granted, Sydney still did most of the work and Nigel often got tossed around by people, including women, twice his size, but he still lent a hand when it was needed and didn’t stay down for long, he tried; especially when Sydney was losing her own battles, he often came to her rescue. He usually ended up just getting hurt, of course, but he provided the relief and distraction Sydney needed to win. “He did okay,” she murmured, fondly. Preston seemed to sense her distress and he squeezed her shoulder. “Syd, the point is that because he was willing to…well get physical with me told me he cared a great deal about you and about what you thought of him. Sydney almost smiled. “He was probably afraid I’d fire him.” Preston nodded. “Possible, but that too speaks volume. Nigel is…wasn’t one to worry about being able to find work either, he was incredibly intelligent and resourceful. He wanted to stay with you, Sydney. Not even our rivalry could come between that.” Sydney quickly lowered her gaze, willing herself to focus at the task at hand; she couldn’t handle hearing anymore about how much Nigel thought of her, she had led him into danger, and just as well caused his death. She shook it off the moment of self-loathing and regrets, they had to get directions to the Dr. Gremmel’s address and then, hopefully, find out where the hell Nigel’s body had been taken. Then, once she had him back, she’d find Da Viega and make him pay. “Did you ever tell him that, Preston?” “What?” “Did you ever tell Nigel that you were proud of him?” Preston sighed again, his jaw hardening. “No, no I didn’t and you have no idea how much I regret that now.” Sydney touched his arm, encouraging. “I’m sure he knew.” Preston was silent. “Com’on, lets go find this doctor.”
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