A/N (Reply to Anon Guest review): I'm aware that SCP generally stands for 'Special Containment Procedures' but Gilliam was trying to emphasize the whole 'Protect' part of their motto to Bishop, so he doesn't make himself seem like the bad guy in all this, since 'Special Containment Procedures' doesn't sound very friendly or noble in the ears of people who are outside of the loop, so to speak.
But thanks for bringing that to my attention, and I apologize beforehand again if I get anything wrong or out of canon while writing this. You have my full permission to call me out if I do.
Also, thank you so much to everyone who's reading this, and especially to everyone who has left a review, they really mean the world to me!
"Why is he still here?"
The moment Bishop re-entered the interrogation room, Skye's eyes flew up towards the open doorway, before her entire body shot out of her chair, metal legs scraping against the concrete floor from the sheer force of her sudden outrage. The detective didn't dare look at her—she couldn't, as she soon heard the thumping of Gilliam's shoes following closely at her heel, followed with the sound of the door swinging back shut behind them, entrapping the three of them in the suffocating room once again.
"Skye—"
"Detective Bishop." She raised an accusatory index finger at the agent. "Why the fuck is he still here?"
"Skye, calm down." She felt like a broken record now, and they hadn't even started the interrogation back up again. "Take a seat."
The brunette quickly turned her glare towards the detective, eyebrows furrowed and mouth scowling worse than before. Had her eyes always been this red before? Her face seemed rather flush, too—like she had been crying, Bishop thought. "I will not, thank you very much." She tilted her head ever so slightly, enough to feel her glare darting straight past her shoulder at the federal agent behind her. "Not while he's here. Not until he's gone."
Bishop threw a brief glance over her shoulder—Gilliam had once again positioned himself at the corner of the room, arms were folded in front of him in an odd display of indifference as his facial expressions gave almost nothing away, all but the complete opposite to the malice the younger woman glared at him with. "I am here to fulfill my capacity as an FBI agent, Ms. Martin—not as a Foundation agent."
"Bullshit, you sonofa—"
"Skye." Bishop sidestepped the moment the brunette launched herself towards Gilliam, catching the latter by her shoulders and effectively blocking her path before she could even move two steps towards the agent. "Sit down. I am not going through all of this again, do you hear me?"
The brunette didn't seem to register the detective's hands grasping her shoulders, but she didn't seem to actively resist the restraint, either, much less put up a fight against the detective. Instead, she began blinking rapidly, frown deepening and eyes growing wide as she finally turned her gaze back toward Bishop. "Detective," she breathed, almost laughing in complete despair. "Please—"
"Skye." Bishop guided her back towards the chair on the other side of the table, and sat the younger woman down, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest when the latter continued to show no further signs of physical resistance. "We're here to question you about the homicide case—nothing more, nothing less."
The brunette remained silent for a few moments, eyes trained at the spotless table between them. Eventually, she let out another scoff, but her breath was shaking, even more so as she turned her head up, eyes still staring back and forth between the detective and the federal agent standing behind her. "Detective Bishop, Agent Gilliam is—"
"Yes, Skye, I know who he is." Bishop drew in a sharp breath as she moved to take her own seat opposite to the brunette, setting the case file in her hand down on the table between them. "He's told me about the Foundation." Not everything, but enough. "But, as Agent Gilliam has said, that's not what we're here for."
"He's lying, detective." Skye shook her head as she turned her gaze back down to Bishop. "He's not going to let us go. No matter what Jack said out there—the Foundation isn't just going to let us go like this."
Bishop held her head down, eyes staring at the front cover of the case file laid out in front of her. Maybe she was right—maybe Gilliam wasn't going to let them go, because judging from what he told her thus far, it wouldn't make sense for him to let these apparent fugitives walk out of here as a free people, but it was none of her business—she didn't work for this Foundation, Gilliam did. She could feel the younger woman's gaze weighing down on her, enough to feel a sickening feeling rise up in the back of her throat. Had Skye thought of her as a source of salvation of sorts? Someone like Bishop, who apparently had no authority whatsoever when it came to secret government agendas like this?
The detective silently apologized to her witness sitting before her, before reaching out to uncover the contents of the folder she had placed right in front of them. She hadn't changed the contents much since the last time she was here—not that she had a reason to, anyway.
"Let's start with the basics." She took a deep breath in anticipation of what's to come, then turned her head up to face the silent brunette sitting across from her. "Where were you on the night of the 25th?"
She didn't respond at first; her attention was unfocused, eyes still directed at an empty spot on the table until the detective called her name again, after which she blinked several times and finally shifted her gaze back over to Bishop.
"I was working," she murmured, almost stammering the answer as Bishop noticed her attention beginning to waver again, directing her stare back on the same empty spot on the table as before. "Late night shift at the convenience store I told you about. My manager was there all night, shadowing me like a creep—nothing new." Despite the slight annoyance in her voice, her volume was small and rather muted, as if her mind were wandering elsewhere outside of the enclosed space. "You can check the cameras—I was there, and I didn't leave 'til dawn." She swallowed briefly, then finally, she redirected her focus back to the blonde woman sitting across from her. "Detective, I already told you I had nothing to do with the murders. I didn't even know what happened until you came by the house this morning."
Maintaining the glare for just a second longer, Bishop's eyes then wandered to her peripherals ever so briefly before looking back down at the folder in her hands. "We're just double-checking the facts—making sure that you do have an alibi for that night."
She started flipping through some of the photographs, before stopping at the portrait of one of the victims. Her fingers picked through the subsequent printouts, gathering a stack of the victims' portraits before separating them out one by one, placing them all across the table and orienting them to allow her witness a full view of all the lives that were taken that one fateful night.
"Do you happen to recognize any of these people?" the detective queried, eyes carefully watching the younger woman's facial expressions, waiting to see any reaction the portraits might elicit from her upon first sight. "Have you seen them around the neighborhood before? Have you seen them around the store, maybe?"
Skye glanced up at Bishop for a short moment before she leaned forward and peered down at the photographs. She took time in studying each and every single one of them, slightly longer, in fact, than the time a typical person would look at the victims' photographs, before she finally leaned back against her chair with a slight shake of her head.
"No," she said, pressing her lips down and shutting her eyes very quickly as she cleared her throat. "I can't say I have. I don't think I'd be able to remember if they've ever been down to the store—I get at least fifty people coming in and out of that place every day. "
"Well." Bishop threw another glance over her shoulder, long enough to catch a brief glimpse of a slight nod from Gilliam before turning back around to look down at the case file again. She took hold of the next pile of photographs—the ones Jane had taken of the Smiths after she finished conducting their autopsies, and sent over to her email earlier this afternoon—then placed each of them on top of the portraits of the corresponding victims. "Maybe you'll recognize them better now?"
She turned her gaze up to watch the younger woman's reactions again, hoping there would be some change—some progress, however slight—this time around. She was intrigued to find Skye's gaze fixated on the new photographs laid out before her now, as the younger woman began to scrutinize them in what seemed to be great detail, even more so than she did with the previous photographs.
People have different reactions to the sight of dead bodies, but it was much less settling to see them laid bare on top of the distinct metal table, the camera zoomed in to capture their immobile, expressionless faces, their bare chests bearing large red sutures in the aftermath of their autopsies. Some of them even showed the incision wounds on their abdomens, which were sure to have caused their deaths if the chloroform poisoning didn't beat them to it.
But the longer Bishop stared at the woman sitting across from her, the more she realized Skye wasn't so much perturbed at the sight of the dead bodies, as much as the implications of what the detective was showing her.
"Detective Bishop, I—"
And then she stopped, as though she was frozen in time—Bishop had to blink and lean forward, fearing she had missed something when the girl's expression seemed to fall apart so suddenly without warning.
The brunette furrowed her eyebrows as a single wandering hand reached out, creeping onto the table until the tips of her index and middle fingers rested on the corner of the photograph placed closest to her. The corner of her lip twitched.
"Oh," she sighed, voice almost too quiet for even the detective to hear. Her shoulders deflated, but her backbone stiffened. "I get it now." Her brown eyes flickered back up to meet the detective's as a small frown returned to her face. "You think that Jack did this, don't you?"
Bishop couldn't resist taking in a deep breath, posture mimicking the younger woman's as she held her gaze for a few more moments, before turning in an attempt to find Gilliam again.
The two investigators' gaze met for a brief moment, before Gilliam redirected his back to Skye again, and Bishop caught sight of him pushing himself off the corner of the wall he was leaning against as she turned back to face the witness herself.
"What makes you say that?" she asked, clicking her tongue as she pushed her chair and herself closer to the table.
She could tell from how Skye's eyes darted back and forth between the two investigators, and the quiet footsteps approaching behind her, that Gilliam had decided to enter into the playing field himself, something she appreciated despite how much her mind was telling her how bad of an idea it was.
Despite the clear unease written across her face, Skye eventually bowed her head back down towards the photographs, but not without one last lingering look at Bishop. "The incisions on the abdomen," she murmured, index finger gently tapping on the photograph it rested on—a top view of one of the bodies on the autopsy table, showing its right side, cutting off where the hips began and the person's wrist ended. She cleared her throat again, though this time it was followed with a light cough. "It's right around where the kidneys should be."
Bishop drew in air through her nose as she felt Gilliam's presence approaching beside her. She knows, she thought to herself, turning her head around briefly to see the agent peering down on the photographs as the girl was.
When she turned her attention back to the girl, she caught a glimpse of her dark eyes fluttering back up at her before quickly shifting her attention back to the photographs. "Look," she murmured with a sigh, and another light cough. "I can't weasel my way out of this, all right? If I'm not going back to containment, I'm getting arrested for being an accessory to a crime."
She made a sharp intake of breath, before closing her eyes shut and bending her head down as she cleared her throat rather harshly, as if something was lodged stuck in her windpipe.
"So, you do know who he is." Bishop frowned, staring at the girl with a tilted head. "Skye, you know what he is."
The younger woman's dark pupils flew up to the edge of her eyelids, shooting a brief glare at the detective before her gaze began to wander again. "He is my friend, detective." She retracted her hand away from the table, wrapping it tighter around herself as she slumped back against the chair. "And he'll always be a friend to me—to us—above everything else."
"Is that why you're protecting him?" Bishop pressed her lips tight, trying to study the look on Skye's face in hopes that the girl would give something more away through her expressions. The girl was shutting her out, though—she lowered her gaze away from both Bishop and Gilliam, crossing her arms in a poor attempt to guard herself as her fist briefly reached up to her mouth, giving her something to cough lightly and politely into. "Skye—"
"Those incisions." Bishop shut her mouth the moment the girl began speaking again, watching as the latter's hand continued to linger at her mouth, little finger poking past her lips and into her teeth. "You think Jack did those, right?" She quickly shook her head, teeth biting into her nail. "Those aren't his."
Bishop deepened her frown. "And why would you say that?"
"It's too messy." Skye took another deep breath, readjusting her seating position to straighten her posture, as her hand fell back down against her lap and she licked her lips. "The stitching's sloppy," she continued, nodding at the photograph. "The killer sliced into the skin way more than he needed to. That either means his weapon wasn't sharp enough, or it's not big enough to cut through all the layers of the skin." Her voice was startlingly even and stable throughout, without a single pause or hitch in her tone as she continued to speak. "The victim would've died in minutes, if not treated—an hour or two, at most."
Bishop wanted to shake her head at the younger woman's statement. Her body language indicated she was lying—her nervous behavior, biting into her nail and her pattern of speech. She would've called her out sooner if the young woman hadn't just parroted the medical examiner's words back to her, down to details that she was sure no ordinary person could even fathom about—it wasn't something that would easily come up in some average trivia night, that's for sure.
An amateur's work, as the good doctor told them yesterday. If he thought doing this could save their lives, it didn't.
"What about this?" She flipped through the photographs again, and took out the one taken of the dirty scalpel—with the evidence in question itself still in the hands of the forensic scientists who themselves were not even in this building, they would have to settle with an image of it. "We recovered this scalpel not too far from the crime scene. We believe it was the murder weapon used to kill the Smiths—the family who we suspect Jack had killed."
It didn't take long before Skye's hand began to wander again, reaching for the corner of the photograph Bishop placed in front of her and sliding it closer to her as her jaw began to tense.
"We tracked down the serial number and traced it back to North Valley Medical Clinic," Bishop continued, lifting her head up to observe the younger woman's expressions, "which is where you worked at up until half a year ago."
She couldn't tell at first whether Skye had heard her or not—the girl's attention was fully fixated on the new sheet of paper before her, eyes scanning from the top to the bottom of the page then back up again, almost analyzing it before she suddenly snapped her head up at the detective, realization dawning on her face when Bishop's words finally settled within her.
"Are you thinking I'm supplying for Jack?" she asked with a slightly higher pitch than normal, but her voice remained rather quiet even in her bewilderment. "I told you, I have nothing to do with the robbery, and I have nothing to do with the murders."
"But you've admitted to stealing from the clinic before."
Skye started a scoff, but breath stopped short only when she had to pull her fist back up again to give her somewhere to lightly cough into, her face making a visible albeit slight wince even as she turned her attention back to the photograph.
It's getting worse, a small voice whispered in the back of Bishop's mind, but she wasn't even sure what's wrong with the witness sitting before her—other than the coughing, and with nicotine cigarettes out of the question, there seemed to be no further symptoms that could indicate what ailment she was suffering from.
"This scalpel isn't even his," Skye eventually wheezed out, index finger tapping once at the scalpel's blade as she inhaled a deeper breath. "This is a number 11 blade, detective. Jack usually uses a number 22—maybe a number 10 sometimes. Says it's easier because he doesn't have to switch blades that often."
Bishop tilted her eyebrows. "You can tell the difference between scalpel blades?"
If she took any offense from the rather uncouth remark, Skye didn't seem to show it—her eyes remained fixated on the photograph, giving it a second inspection as though to confirm her statement. "I worked inventory at the clinic, detective—I learned to know the difference," she said without a hair of doubt in her voice. "Number 11 blades are more commonly used than number 22 ones, and in other places outside of a clinic, even." Though her gaze lingered, her hand slowly crept back down underneath the table until it was nowhere to be seen again. "I remember using it in a Biology class once—cut open a frog with it. I used it to peel an onion in the same class, too."
"And you're completely sure about this?"
"Jack didn't kill them." Her statement was definitive and final, with an odd note of objectivity to it, almost like a seasoned professional handing in her final report to the detective. She glanced up at Bishop, mouth set in a hard line upon noticing the heavy gazes weighing down upon her. "And I'm not just saying this because I want to protect him, detective—I know he didn't kill them. He hasn't killed anyone since we—" She stopped to draw in another breath. "He hasn't killed anyone since we escaped."
"Since you've escaped containment?"
Bishop wanted to roll her eyes at Gilliam's quick retort, but had just enough of self-control left that she didn't.
"You fed him cow kidneys for six months," Skye immediately fired back, though with a lack of energy to support her voice, it quickly faded to another low scowl. "As much as I hate to admit it, your so-called 'containment procedures' helped him. He's been living off animal kidneys since we escaped."
Animal kidneys? Bishop felt herself frowning again, stopping short from glaring at Gilliam when she heard him sigh heavily beside her.
"Ms. Martin," he called out, taking a single step forward to stand right next to Bishop. "How familiar are you with Eyeless Jack's work? How can you be so sure he didn't do this?"
Skye leaned away from the table, gaze drifting off to the side, to the stone-cold floor beneath them. "I've seen him work," she admitted, but when she noticed the two investigators' reaction to her statement, her eyes blew wide. "No, I didn't mean I saw him when he—" Her breath stuttered, and she forced another light cough into an enclosed fist. "I never see him killing people, but I have seen him stitch Toby up a few times." She relaxed her fist to stretch her index finger out, waving it around the left corner of her mouth. "Jack helped him with that ugly gash on the side of his cheek. He was also in med school before he—you know." She closed her eyes. Before he died, the detective thought in silence. "He wanted to be a surgeon—could've been one, if he, uh—if what happened didn't happen." She scoffed, shaking her head before coughing into her fist again. "What I'm trying to say is that he—" Another deep breath, and another heavy sigh. "He wouldn't have messed up this bad."
There was a certain sense of melancholy hanging from the edge of her voice. In another life, Bishop thought, Nichols would have been a surgeon. His apparent medical expertise made sense now; it was unfortunate that whatever he learned in college before that night he went missing, was instead repurposed for something else—something far more sinister than the intentions he originally had for them.
Animal kidneys. Gilliam—or, more likely, the SCP Foundation, was feeding Nichols animal kidneys. She had to thank her partner later, for helping her keep her appetite regardless of how nonexistent it already was half an hour ago, because she sure couldn't even think of stomaching any food now that she knew exactly what Nichols did with the kidneys.
Before she could say anything to him, however, he presented the room with yet another question—one the detective was dreading to ask herself.
"And is Toby familiar with his methods as well?"
The mention of her alleged younger brother caught the girl's attention unlike anything before—her eyes shot back up to address both investigators in a startling instant, almost like a catapult, staring back at them with wide eyes and knitted eyebrows.
"Toby?" Her voice was a mix of surprise and confusion, and the detective hung her head low. "Why? Why Toby?"
What were the chances, she wondered? Neither of them had obtained the opportunity to interrogate the apparent youngest of the three—the boy was sitting in a separate waiting room down the hall, with an officer assigned to keep an eye on him in case he had any funny ideas. Of course, Bishop wasn't expecting she would have to interrogate him at all this afternoon; Skye was the one with a more direct connection to the murders, through the murder weapon, not to mention she was the one who tried to hide Tim Sullivan—no, Tim Wright's corpse, buried in their own backyard, as well as the state of their mysterious shed. Bishop didn't think the boy had anything to do at al with the murders, with what Skye told her of him, but after what they discussed back in the break room…
"No."
Skye had straightened her back while Bishop was still neck-deep in her thoughts, as the latter realized her questioning glare had turned into a full-blown, wide-eyed stare of suspicion and disgust.
"Toby didn't do it," she asserted, frowning as she cemented her glare on both the detective and the agent. "He couldn't have."
"And why is that?" Gilliam asked without missing a beat.
"Toby wouldn't hurt people." She sat up straight, and Bishop could almost see the anger boiling within her, even more so than even her prior outrage at the mere sight of Gilliam entering this room. "He wouldn't hurt anybody, much less kill them."
Gilliam, however, remained unfazed. "Tobias Rogers murdered his father in cold blood. What makes you think he wouldn't do it again?"
Bishop froze at his words. Wait, what?
"That bastard abused his family." Skye scoffed, crossing her arms as she leaned forward against the table. "And then some. He wasn't there after the accident—hell, he wasn't even there for his daughter's burial. That bastard got what he deserved."
"That doesn't excuse the fact that your alleged brother is still the prime suspect in at least seven separate cases of murder."
Seven murders?
"That wasn't his choice." Skye's lips twisted to form a scowl. "You know this, Agent Gilliam."
"He tried to burn his entire neighborhood down." Gilliam— Bishop turned her head back to her partner, who planted his fists firmly down on the table as he leaned forward in a challenge against their witness. "Your neighborhood, Martin, where you and your grandfather and your neighbors lived."
"You think I didn't know that?"
"Gilliam." Just hold on a second—
"He almost killed you. He almost killed your grandfather."
"And I still have the scars to remind me!"
"And yet, you're still adamant on protecting that boy—"
"Gilliam."
"Toby didn't do it!"
The room stood still. The scraping of the chairs' legs against the floor and the echoes of their voices were still screeching in the detective's ears, leaving an imprint in her brain that lasted for seconds after.
"Skye."
Skye's glare didn't falter. Her breaths were one of the few sounds still audible in this room, stuttering every now and then, as her chest heaved with every inhale and exhale she took. Her thin frame was almost shaking as much as her breathing was, but she didn't look like she was holding back tears nor her anger—the detective couldn't quite put a finger on what she was trying to hold back, whether it was a mixture of all of these emotions and more, or something else entirely.
"Toby couldn't have done it," the brunette suddenly murmured in a single exhale, breaking the silence in the room. Her eyes went back and forth from the detective to the agent, before her breathing settled and she eventually sat back down on her own, without the detective prompting her to do so. She dragged in a long breath before she continued. "You know how I've been stealing medicine for him?"
Bishop was the first to nod. She moved to sit back down on her own chair, without sparing even a single glance at her partner as she waited for the other woman to continue.
"Some were for his sickness." Her shoulders slumped, and she took a loose strand of hair and tucked it back behind her ear. "Some of the others were sleeping pills."
"Sleeping pills?"
Skye nodded. "Ever since we got out, Toby's been having nightmares." She paused as soon as her voice started croaking, forcing her to clear her throat again. "I don't know when it started happening. Maybe it's been going on since before we were in containment—I don't know, but he says he can't get a good night's sleep nowadays. The nightmares have been keeping him up."
"Nightmares?" the agent asked, and the girl nodded again.
"He says he keeps seeing faces," she continued, voice diminishing as she began to shrink in her chair. "Faces of people who died around him—people whose lives he ended, either by his hand or otherwise." Her voice sounded dismal—a depressing pair when combined with the distress written all over her face. It was a sister's concern for a brother, Bishop thought, regardless of blood relation. "He also sees other faces—faces of the people who made our lives literal hell on Earth." She paused with hesitation. "He sees him in his nightmares, too."
Bishop frowned. "Him?"
Skye chewed on the inside of his cheek, eyes glancing back up at the wall behind her, but when Bishop followed her gaze, she realized the girl was leering towards Gilliam, and was almost surprised to see the agent's hardened façade falling apart before her eyes; his stiff shoulders fell almost imperceptibly, and she watched as the creases on his forehead was relieved of tension, as the man in the suit took a deep breath and stowed his hands into the pockets in his trousers.
"The tall man?" he asked, voice unusually low and cautious as he returned the younger woman's gaze with a different light in his eye.
After a brief moment of hesitation, Skye began to nod. "Obviously, I'm not surprised." The corner of her lip quirked up. "It's difficult for me to get sleep these days, too, and it's not because I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, and terrified I'll wake up surrounded by white walls again." She sniffled, coughing quietly with her lips pressed tight, as her eyes bored down deep into the table. "I take multiple shifts on purpose, so by the time I get home at night, I can just pass out from the exhaustion. Toby's got nothing to distract him—he's terrified of falling asleep. He thinks they'll get him in his dreams—pull him back in and make him hurt people again."
When she stared back up at Gilliam, there was no more malice left in her—just emptiness, with a shadow of somber melancholy looming over her.
"He never wanted to hurt those people," she said as her voice began to strain again. "None of us did. You know better than anyone in here, aside from ourselves, about what happened to us—about what they did to us." Her head shook once. "So, tell me—why the hell would he put any more burden on his shoulders than he already has?"
"Skye."
The detective shook her head. Gilliam had fallen silent behind her, and she didn't know what else to say. There was just one lingering question in her mind, that she knew Gilliam would bring up at one point or another. It was bad enough the federal agent had brought them to this point—might as well rub salt into the wound while they were at it.
"You're not protecting them, are you? I know you care for them—both Jack and Toby, but—"
"Detective."
She was tired—Bishop could see it in her eyes and hear it in her sigh, overshadowing whatever animosity she could ever harbor towards the detective.
"Everything I just told you the past ten minutes alone is enough to press charges and convict me for at least fifteen years, if not more. If I'm going to jail, or back to SCP containment after all this is done—which I know is inevitable, because you're not going to just let us walk like this—I might as well spend whatever time I have left as a free woman to prove to you that neither of them did it—that neither of them were responsible for the murders of these people. After all—"
Her breath stuttered when she sighed, and her eyes glazed over when she smiled.
"A person with nothing left to lose has nothing left to hide."