A/N: Sorry for the wait and the disappointment. This is mostly a filler chapter, too, but we'll get back to the swing of things next chapter.

"Is that a chicken salad?"

Bishop hadn't meant to use such a condescending tone, but couldn't help it; she kept her mouth shut as soon as she noticed Gilliam's knitted eyebrows the second she arrived back at their table—one out of the two tables in the station's break room, really—with her microwaved ham sandwich in hand.

"I went for a medical check-up last week," the agent said as he pierced a white plastic fork through several layers of lettuce leaves drenched in what she could assume was ranch dressing. "The doctor said I need to watch my calories, hence the salad."

The detective pulled a chair out beside him and sat down. "Then cut the chicken."

"I've already cut back on eggs," he replied with faux offense, before shoving the forkful into his mouth. "I still need my energy, you know. The job is tough enough as it is—I don't need to pass out in the middle of the day while I'm at it."

Bishop took a deep breath just as she began unwrapping her sandwich, unintentionally breathing in the mixed scents of processed ham and lukewarm American cheese. "Speaking of the job."

"Right." Gilliam chuckled at her words. "On to the matters at hand, then. 'Good cop' in front of the suspects, 'bad cop' in front of the shady government agent, I see."

Her fingers fell still on the top of her sandwich. "That's not how I—"

"I was kidding, Detective Bishop," Gilliam interrupted her, waving a feeble hand at her. "I was just trying to lighten the mood before we proceed with our business."

"I was thinking I should have at least have a nice meal," the detective sighed, staring at the sandwich and finding herself struggling even more so to find her appetite, "before you pull out some device that will erase my memories of the past two days or something—telling me it was all just a dream, and that the so-called FBI will take over the investigation, for real and for good, this time."

When she looked up, he gave her another pointed look of mock offense. She didn't know what to make of it—didn't know what to make of him, with all that happened. "We are not the Men in Black, detective," he said, turning his attention from her as he used his fork to stir the salad contents with the dressing. "And I assure you, for I hope the last time: I will not take your case away from you, detective. And besides, I did plan on coming clean to you about it, sooner or later. I suppose it will have to be sooner, than later."

"Oh, you did, huh?" She flipped the upper slice of bread open, double-checking the contents—idle action. "When would that have been? After we solve the case? Maybe afterwe confirm that Nichols and Woods were behind it?"

"Bishop—"

"What would happen if we find that neither of them were responsible for the murders? Will you ever going to tell me then?"

"Bishop."

She stopped then, taking a long, deep breath as she stared hard at the agent. Instead of answering her, however, he began gathering another small stack of leaves and bits of shredded chicken with his fork. Then he paused, his eyes darting towards her sandwich and nodding at it.

"You should eat," he said as he brought the fork to his mouth. "Before it gets cold."

"I can't eat," she stated, narrowing his eyes before sighing as she turned back to the sandwich.

"You were the one who offered a lunch break."

"It's past noon," she said, but he had a point. She just didn't have any idea how or where to discuss the elephant in the room. It wasn't like she could pull him into another interrogation room and grill him herself—after all, the station only had three interrogation rooms, and they already had two of them booked.

"Eat, Bishop," Gilliam insisted. She couldn't hear any malice in his voice—it was out of pure goodwill, for as far as she knew, which seemed all too suspicious to her. But maybe he's not as bad of a bad guy as the others say he was. "You didn't have breakfast this morning, didn't you? And yes, you should have a nice meal before shit goes to worse, as one might say. Besides, it'll be more difficult to interrogate our suspects with an empty stomach."

She cocked an eyebrow at him, frowning. "You're still going to let me interrogate them? Allthree of them?"

At her inquiry, Gilliam froze for a second, took a deep breath and left his fork idle on the bed of leaves. "We still have a case to solve, detective," he then said, turning to stare at her with a sincere glint in his eye. "And yes, we still need to determine that Eyeless Jack is, in fact, responsible for at least one of the murders. If so, we can all then rest easy knowing that taking him into custody means we can close this case, as we will with at least a dozen others of his. If not…"

He trailed off, but she knew what he was implying—it could mean someone else was behind this, which would make this all more complicated than it should be.

She looked away as she tried to push the nagging thought back to the depths of her mind. There were more pressing matters at hand at the moment.

"And after we do," she continued, "that's it, then? We'll just part ways and pretend none of this ever happened? Pretend I didn't hear anything about this whole secret government conspiracy thing at all?"

She watched him—studied every single twitch his face made, the look in his eyes, the tensing of his jaw, and the idle hand still resting on the fork. She watched as he seemed to be processing her words, staring at his salad for a good few seconds before he spoke again.

"It's not what you think it is," he said.

"Oh, is it?" she challenged, and he let out another sigh.

He took a moment to readjust his bearings—re-positioning his elbows as he leaned forward, a gesture that was soon followed, as she expected, with him glancing around to ensure no one else was in the vicinity eavesdropping on them, like the true unscrupulous character she began to think of him as.

"I was going to be transparent with you, detective," he stated, eyes glancing from her to the table, then back to his salad as he picked up his fork and smothered dressing across the leaves. "I showed you my case files, didn't I?"

"FBI case files, yeah." She double-checked those case files. She was positive the FBI seal was legitimate, as legitimate as they could be. "Not SEP or whatever or whoever it is you work for."

"SCP," he corrected without pause, then turned his gaze back to her. "It stands for 'Secure, Contain, Protect,' because that is what we do. And yes, those are the official case files that the FBI has on the two of them, because those are the files that you're allowed access to." The corner of his lip twitched. "And I can state that with confidence because I have clearance, and also because I was the one who wrote those reports. As for the case files that the SCP Foundation has on them—those are still off-limits, I'm afraid."

"Wait." The detective blinked and glared at him. "So, who do you really work for?"

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation." With one hand still holding the fork, the other took out his badge from his pocket, placing it on the table in front of her. Without hesitation, she immediately snatched it up and inspected it as thorough as she could. "And the SCP Foundation. I would show you my identification card, but then I would have to kill you." Her blood ran cold, until he looked up from his salad with another, more noticeable twitch on the corner of his lips. "Just kidding. There's no reason to have it on me right now. Left it back at the motel."

"Huh." She set the badge down on the desk. Nothing to indicate it was a fake—not as far as she knew, anyway. "You're working undercover?"

He retrieved his badge, pondering her words and the ones he was about to say in the meantime as he returned it to his pocket. "It's complicated," he said. "But in case you were wondering, I am working on full capacity for both agencies. Officially, I'm here on behalf of the FBI, because we do intend on closing the dozen cold cases we have courtesy of Jack Nichols—as well as those of Jeff Woods, of course, but clearly he is nowhere to be found as of right now."

"And unofficially?"

He gave her an earnest look, and she could feel the air changing around them. "Eyeless Jack is a dangerous individual, and officially classified as an SCP anomalous object," he stated, his tone sounding even more monotonous than usual, like a pre-programmed robot. "My primary objectives as both federal agent and SCP field agent are in alignment with each other, detective. I would still be here, even if I didn't happen to be working for the Foundation as well."

"But you were here for them." She scoffed, folding her arms in front of her as she leaned back against the flimsy chair. "You're here to 'contain' them, or whatever it is you called them. To conclude this manhunt of yours that's been going on for—what, five years now?"

She heard the sharp breath he blew from his nose, but even if he was getting aggravated, he made an impressive feat of holding himself back, like a parent educating a child.

"I've been on their cases since the beginning, detective," he continued, tone noticeably gentler now. "I've been face to face with people whose lives have been impacted by them—family members, friends, lovers of those whose blood are on their hands. They are all still looking for closure. Don't we all?"

Closure. She almost scoffed at that word, but that would be too harsh. She didn't want to blink—didn't want to close her eyes, knowing the intruding thought would barge back into the forefront of her mind like a battering ram.

She was used to noticing the little details of a person's movements—all the tells, all the little twitches, jerks and shudders one would make, because it meant a person was hiding something, lying, or something similar of the sort—and she had no doubt Gilliam could, too, being a trained federal agent and all.

She didn't need him micro-analyzing her facial reactions, too.

"I know you're trying to paint me in a negative light, detective." When she turned back to him, he was picking his fork back up again, tossing leaves and bits of chicken around in the dressing. "Considering the past two days, I assure you, I take no offense from it."

She drew in a sharp breath. "I'm not trying to paint you in anything." She might have been a little biased, sure, but she saw the look on Skye's face—remembered the fear and panic in her eyes when she realized who he was. She almost scoffed under her breath—the chief was right. God knows what else the government is hiding from us.

"Martin and Jack were both trying to make me seem like the enemy," Gilliam stated bluntly, picking up a piece of chicken and stuffing it into his mouth. "I was too late. I wasn't able to tell this to you first, or at least before they did—but I'm well aware of what this looks like: secret government agency, man in a black suit, all the works. It is what it is, and I don't blame you for it."

He had a point—even though Bishop herself worked with law enforcement, her perception wasn't immune to what she's seen in television and movies. This seemed much like some multimillion-dollar action thriller movie, involving some secret government conspiracy being hidden from the public, for the sake of the public as well—allegedly, at least. That's how it was with those movies, right? Because the government thought it was better if the public were kept in the dark about what the powerful could do, and have done, in the shadows, all to maintain order in the modern society.

This entire case could be an entire movie in itself, from the moment she accepted the case, and everything that went downhill from there. If not, it sure had been one hell of a ride, and the detective was positive she was barely even past the first peak in the rollercoaster, far from being even close to its climax—the highest peak in the mountain that led to the most awful plunge approaching her way.

"Gilliam—" she tried, but he was quick to cut her off.

"Full disclosure, detective," he stated instead, clear and concise as expected from his demeanor. "Well, as much as I'm allowed to disclose, of course."

"Skye and Jack." Bishop took a deep breath, mind wandering back to the two being detained in their respective interrogation rooms downstairs. "You knew who they were the moment you saw them?"

"And Tobias, too," he quickly added as he chewed the food in his mouth, all without sparing even a single glance at her.

She nodded. "Right, the brother." Jack did mention both of their names—demanded their freedom in exchange for his surrender.

"He's not her brother." He swiped his fork around the sides of his bowl, gathering whatever was left of his salad to pool on the bottom of his tilted bowl. "Neither was Timothy. They faked their names."

Bishop sighed. "That would explain their records."

He scooped up the last remaining bits of leaves and chicken and stuffed them into his mouth, giving her a nod and a hum of confirmation as he finished the last of his meal. "Skyler Martin, Tobias Rogers and Timothy Wright."

Skye Martin and Toby Rogers. She recalled Jack saying those names outside. He had confused her at first, because those weren't the names that she recognized, or at least the ones she read from the civilian records she had with her. In retrospect, however, she should've seen this coming from a mile away, and she could only be disappointed in no one but herself but not having done just that.

"So, you knew who they were since the very beginning."

"I knew something was up the moment I found out those three names were living together under the same roof," he admitted, lifting his shoulders very briefly, she almost didn't catch it. "We knew the three of them—well, four, including Jack—were all acquainted by the time they were contained. We believed that if we found just one of them, we could find at least two and, if we were lucky, we could find all four of them."

"How so?"

"They all broke out of containment together." He pulled out a paper napkin from inside his suit and began wiping his mouth with it. "Martin and Rogers were contained at around the same time. Nichols came shortly after, presumably after he realized his two associates were missing."

"And Timothy Wright?"

Gilliam's reply wasn't immediate this time; he finished wiping the corners of his mouth first, then threw the used napkin into the salad bowl and replaced its plastic cover. "The details of his—" He paused to clear his throat. "Should I say—his reason for containment—are classified, but I can tell you that unlike the others, Wright had surrendered himself over to us—well, he surrendered to the local police first, and then we took over custody of him and properly contained him."

"This 'containment' all you guys keep talking about." The detective took a deep breath, then scoffed as she shook her head. "You talk about them like they're some kind of viral disease, or some wild animals or something."

"That's—" Gilliam paused, as though taking time for her words to fully register in the forefront of his mind. "We are not supposed to have any subjective opinions about the anomalous objects we deal with, but I can still slip up sometimes, especially when you've been assigned to their cases for as long as I have."

She felt the corner of her lip twitch as her gaze drifted back down to the sandwich in front of her. "Yeah, well, you were living up to your own stereotype there for a second."

"It's just as difficult not to," the agent sighed, meeting her gaze when her eyes flitted back up to face him. "And because of that, I was hoping you could provide a different perspective—a fresh pair of eyes looking into this case, because coming into this with an objective mindset also comes with its own biases."

She couldn't resist cocking an eyebrow. "Like, for example, when you immediately started suspecting Woods and Nichols to be the ones behind the murders?"

"The M.O. matches, detective," he reminded, offering her a knowing look. "And the two of them have had a matching killing pattern about a year or so before. I would not be surprised to see two murders, bearing their signatures, and occurring within such a small window of time and in such close proximity with each other."

She blinked, then knitted her eyebrows together as she glared back at him. "You didn't mention that before."

"No, I didn't think it mattered," he admitted. "But you had a point there, you know—about me jumping to conclusions."

Bishop leaned back against her chair and folded her arms in front of her. "It's too convenient," she said. "I mean, if you had told me about the patterns, I would've bought into your theory a little bit more, but even so—"

"There are some things that don't add up," Gilliam finished for her, his head slowly nodding at their common opinion. "You spoke before about how the puzzle pieces aren't fitting together."

"You said the bloody message was new," she pointed out, recalling their most recent visit to the scene of the crime. "You pointed out that the black droplets were deliberately placed there. What are those supposed to be, anyway?"

"Ah, about that." Gilliam drew in a deep breath, then sighed. "Supposedly, Eyeless Jack has these—I suppose, tears, for a lack of better words—leaking from his, well—his eye sockets." Eye sockets. She made a visible shudder and looked away. "We've tried to determine their composition in the past, but it is not made up of anything science has discovered so far. We do know that it is the same substance that makes up his blood, though."

"Okay, too much information. Pretend I never asked." She cleared her throat. "Copycat killers are a thing, you know."

"I'm well aware of that, detective." He pressed his lips together, sighing through his nose as his eyes wandered to his abandoned salad bowl. "But I admit, I did not want to consider that possibility because of what it would implicate about our case, and the people who we're really supposed to be after."

She didn't, either. She wished it were an open-and-shut case, too. She didn't want to be the skeptic, the spoilsport—the one to present the awful prospect that would lead the direction of the case elsewhere but the obvious, and that was as obvious as it could be considering the fact that Gilliam hid quite a lot about his affiliations and motivations up until just a few minutes ago.

When she focused her attention back at the agent, he was nodding towards her sandwich. "You should really start eating, detective. That sandwich is stone-cold, and it's not healthy to go through the rest of the day with an empty stomach."

She tried not to scowl under her breath as she picked up the sandwich with one hand, just so he wouldn't bring her attention back to it over and over again. "Have there been cases like these in the past?" she asked, before taking a bite out of the sandwich and falling silent to chew the food stuffed in her mouth. She winced at the temperature, however—he was right, because it sure tasted as if she hadn't popped it into the microwave at all.

"Not for Jack," he replied with a shake of his head. "His M.O. is too specific to replicate, and I can imagine it would be difficult to hide all the evidence leading back to the killer, unless it was Jack himself who did it."

"Speaking of which—" She paused to swallow, holding a fist up to her lips as she did. "Why the kidneys? Does he always take both kidneys? You said some of his victims had survived, right?"

Jane made it clear that both of each victims' kidneys were removed during the botched overnight procedure that would have most definitely killed them if they weren't already dead when it happened. And yet, she distinctly recalled what Gilliam told her about Nichols' case file—he had surviving victims, those still alive to tell the tale of an overnight organ removal.

She couldn't help but shudder at the mere thought of it. If this case weren't keeping her awake tonight, the anxiety of that realization she came to surely would, even if the killer in question was being detained downstairs as she spoke.

Gilliam took a deep breath and sighed. "It's a developing theory." He paused, and she soon noticed his stare was lingering longer than usual at the sandwich in her hand. "One I will not indulge into while you're eating something, that is."

"Great." Not that she had that much of an appetite anyway, but she appreciated the sentiment.

"But I can tell you that his more recent cases—which, excluding this one, goes as far back as two years ago, anyway—more and more victims have turned up alive, and missing just one of their kidneys."

"Enough to keep them alive." She nodded as she took another bite. Maybe she should pop it back in the microwave. "It's deliberate, then."

"He was evolving," the agent corrected with another nod, "and quite literally, in fact—from feral animal attacks, to mere disembowelment, to illegal organ removal."

She never thought someone would describe disembowelment with the word 'mere,' but this case kept surprising her at every turn of the corner, and so far, it sure felt like the case was a maze, with a thousand different paths to take but no exit at the end.

"And now it's back to murder," she sighed.

"After two years of almost no activity at all."

"And he was 'contained' or whatever it is in your 'containment site,' was it?"

"For about six months or so, yes," Gilliam confirmed. "This was his first case since their escape."

"And what about Woods?"

He took a brief moment of pause before he finally answered her. "He is the complete opposite of Nichols. It's difficult to pin-point which cases are his because his M.O. is too erratic—too easy to replicate, and too similar with any vicious killer out there who kills for the sake of killing itself. It's safe to assume any unsolved homicide case can be attributed to him, given the brutal nature and lack of concrete evidence."

"Did you guys ever catch him at all?"

"No," he huffed, casting a glance off to the far wall of the room. "The bastard keeps slipping right out of our hands, as with most of them." Most of them? "We wouldn't have captured Jack, either, had we not caught Martin and Rogers beforehand."

Martin and Rogers—Skye and Toby. The three of them must have been very well acquainted with one another if Jack was willing to give up his own freedom for their sake, not to mention Skye's reaction the moment she realized he was being apprehended because she and Toby had been. Then, there was the shed in the Sullivans' backyard, too—the one that, at this point, was safe to assume had belonged to Jack, considering the lengths Skye went through to protect him.

The question now was, how far was she willing to go for the sake of protecting him?

"What are the chances that they did it?"

Gilliam frowned as he turned back to the detective. "What?"

"Skye or Toby, or both." She took but a nibble out of her sandwich. "They're both familiar with Nichols, right? Could they have done it?"

"It's not completely out of the realm of possibility," he reasoned, leaning back against his chair as he weighted the thought in his mind. "Probability on the other hand?" He shook his head once, then leaned forward to press his elbows onto the table. "From what we know of Martin, she's a pacifist. Unlike the others, she is the definition of 'all bark but no bite'. She will threaten to hurt us, to kill us and the sort, but she won't have the heart to do it herself."

Well, that was one theory dangling out the window. "And Toby?" she asked, then deflated her shoulders. "Skye mentioned he was sick."

"I'm not certain about which conditions he suffers from," he confessed, covering his mouth with his hand, elbow still planted on the table. "Medical records state he has been diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome, which in itself makes it difficult to replicate Jack's M.O."

"Difficult, but not impossible." Drawing in a deep breath, she straightened her posture as a significant weight began to settle in her stomach. She hated being the bearer of bad news, but that was all she was doing for the past few minutes or so. "Dr. Wang said the incisions and stitches were sloppy. Could it be because it was Toby who did it?"

Gilliam slowly lifted his head from his hand and craned it back towards her, eyebrows furrowing as if pondering the possibility of what she was suggesting for the first time.

"I don't like it," she quickly added with a shake of her head. "Skye's been very protective of him."

"Which is all the more reason for us to suspect them," the agent pointed out with a curious glint in his eye.

"But she won't like it when we start accusing someone she so far as claimed as her own brother."

"Someone has to do it." She stretched her lips into a scowl and blew out a harsh breath, before begrudgingly bringing the sandwich back to her mouth and taking another sullen bite out of it. Gilliam twisted his entire body to face her now, resting his elbows on his thighs as he addressed her. "This is what I was talking about, detective. You see things that I won't be able to."

"I don't want to be the one to break the girl's heart," she scoffed.

"We won't be able to solve the case unless we ask the tough questions, detective." He reclined back against his chair, eyes still staring intently into her. "If you won't, I will, but we both know the girl trusts you more. She will clam up the moment I start accusing the boy, but with you—"

"That is, if Toby is the one behind the murders."

"We still need to question the girl regardless of who we think did it," he quickly interjected, lifting his shoulders ever so briefly. "Excluding everything we collectively know about Nichols and Woods, she is the only lead we have on the case so far."

He wasn't wrong. They approached her in the first place because she was the only one with a connection to the only murder weapon they were able to recover from the crime scene. It just so happened they found a half-decomposed corpse buried in their backyard that made her even more suspicious than she already was.

"We'll head back as soon as you finish up your meal," Gilliam said after a few moments, nodding towards her before moving to gather the trash that had accumulated on the table. "Fresh eyes, detective. We'll get to the bottom of this case."

"And if we don't?" Bearer of bad news.

He stood up without answering her, nor so much as offering her a glance that indicated what he thought of the mere prospect of failure. He had been assigned to this case—the bigger picture, at least, than the single stroke she had been analyzing for the past thirty hours or so—for much longer than her, and even now, she was still having an information overload—still trying to sort out the details in her mind in an attempt to make some sense out of all of this.

She fell back against her chair this time, stuffing the half-eaten sandwich in her mouth but not biting into it until a few moments later, then bending forward over the table with a hand covering her forehead as she started chewing again.

She felt a migraine coming in soon. Maybe it was time for her to use up the vacation days she had saved up over the years she has been working in the force, once the two of them were done with this case.

If we'll ever be done with it.

But that in itself was another question, was it?

What would happen after all of this was over?