Pirate!AU: Part 3

Frank and Joe were taken to the brig and locked up. The one Nancy had called "Nickerson" gave them a strange look that Frank could not decipher.

"I wonder what she plans to do with them," one of the pirates said as they went back the way they came.

Once the brothers were alone, Joe burst out, "What do they take us for? We will never give in! Also, this brig isn't half bad. Definitely been locked in worse."

Frank lifted his brows in acknowledgement but didn't say anything for a few long moments. "Did you recognize her?"

Joe sat himself down on the low wooden bench in the cell. "No, not until you brought it up."

"How could she have ended up here? Sir Drew was strongly against piracy." Frank ran a hand through his hair. "What does she want?'

"Well, she wants to kill us - there is that," Joe reminded him.

"She doesn't want to kill us. She wants us to join her."

"Same difference, in this case. The sons of Fenton Hardy would never - did you hear that?"

Footsteps.

"Yes," Frank answered grimly.

Light footsteps.

She was coming to the brig.

~N~

Nancy promised herself she wouldn't beg.

She wouldn't.

But how could she let them throw their lives away? They had to understand that she had to keep her word. That was the world they lived in.

She had to make them see reason.

Joe, that Hardy boy - too ignorantly noble for his own good. For his brother's good.

Frank. He might see reason. He might understand the rules she felt bound to play by.

She was about to find out.

~N~

"Hello, Captain Drew," Frank greeted her respectfully. Nancy had a peculiar, brief vision of Frank bowing and kissing her hand in a Regency ballroom, but the image faded fast. "What do we owe this pleasure?"

"Join us. Your talents are too much, too valuable to lose," Nancy said, without useless preamble.

"Then let us go!" Joe crossed his arms. "Then we could use our skills for non-criminal activity."

"I can't do that," she countered. "What would my men think?" A weakness. That's what they'd think.

They might not be wrong.

This had been pointless. They were foolishly noble - but then, hadn't their father been so as well? A family trait, evidently.

"Just think about it," she murmured as she turned to go.

"I am," Frank whispered, and she got the sense that those words weren't meant for her ears.