Title: "What's Real"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: G
Summary: Thieves argue over reality and morality.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: 244. That's the number of stories that were sitting on my hard drive collecting dust because I lack the energy and time to take care of them as I once did. My betaing pattern has always been to write, then type up if written on paper, the story, read it aloud to my beloved Jack and our children, editing as I go, and then finally format and post. Sadly, this part is simply taking too much of my time and energy, and my beloved Jack and I have too little time together in person these days to be able to keep up with my stories. So what to do? Give up writing? I actually considered it for a while, tried to make excuses to myself other than the large number of stories collecting cyber dust on my computer, as to why I lacked the energy and Muse to write new tales. And then, with the turn of the new year, I decided to stop running and face the problem. The problem is, quite frankly, that once one gets so bogged down in formatting and editing that writing is no longer a pleasure but the actual posting of those writings becomes a hassle and - egad! - work, it's time to cut something out, and that will never be the writing process. So, in short, yes, there will be mistakes in this tale. Yes, it's missing about half of the header information I usually include. But I wrote it for pleasure and am posting it in hopes of sharing that pleasure with others. Do with it as you will.
"I'm telling you this isn't right."
"What we're doing might not be right, but the reasons are."
"Since when does a thief care about morale?" Eliot asked. "What's the big difference between Sophie pretending to be a mermaid and what we usually do? Why do you care?"
"Because kids shouldn't be made to think that mermaids aren't real!"
"But they're not!" Eliot exclaimed.
"Not again," Hardison moaned, slapping his forehead, but it was too late. He cringed as he heard Parker snap, "Do you think Santa's fake, too?" Eliot's remark made him wince. They'd be arguing for several more hours.
The End