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Sophie opened up the alias profile and stared at it blankly. She glanced up at Hardison—who was handing the others their profiles—then back to the paper, then up at him again.
“Um, Hardison,” she started, raising her hand slightly, “this can’t be right.” He looked up from what he was doing and stepped back over to where she was. He glanced over her profile and then gave it back to her.
“What’s the matter with it?”
Sophie seemed flustered. “But, this- it, it says that her name is Agnes.”
Hardison checked the profile again. “Yup. That is what it says.” This seemed to agitate Sophie further.
“No, no. I don’t think you understand.” She looked straight into Hardison’s eyes for emphasis, “Her name is Agnes.”
“And?” Hardison was becoming puzzled at Sophie’s strange aversion to the name, and by this time the rest of the team was watching too.
“So, this isn’t a mistake? You actually want to call her that?”
There was an accusation in her voice that made Hardison subconsciously question his actions. “Yes?”
“Why on earth would you name someone that?” Sophie asked incredulously.
Hardison suddenly felt that he was being attacked, so he began to defend himself, “Well, we do a bunch of cons, but I want to avoid using the same name multiple times if possible-”
“Surely there’s some other name you could use!” Hardison was about to respond, but Eliot beat him to it.
“Sophie, what do you have against the name Agnes?”
Sophie looked at him as if he had grown two heads. “What I have against it,” she said with disdain, “is that it’s an awful name! Just the sound of it grates on your ears. Ag-nes.” She shuddered, and the rest of the team didn’t know if it was for show, or a genuine reaction. She went on, now very obviously distracted.
“It evokes pictures of crabby old women who reek of outdated perfume and want to alternatively asphyxiate you with affection or stifle you with archaic rules for ‘proper young women’,” she used air quotes for emphasis, “and who make really, really terrible scones which they force you to eat with…” Sophie petered off as she noticed her teammates staring at her with blank expressions. She shut her mouth. There was a beat of silence, and Sophie would have sworn she could hear crickets. She cleared her throat and finished, “Point being, I don’t like the name. Please change it Hardison, if you don’t mind. Thank you.” She got up from her seat on the couch and exited the room quickly. Three pairs of eyes followed until the door closed behind her, then swiveled immediately to Nate, who had a sort of wry grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. Parker was the first one voice what they were all thinking.
“What the heck was that all about?”
Nate cleared his throat and tried to hide his smirk, “Well, she had this aunt…”