Oh my god I don't even have words for how sorry I am that this happened so late aaaa you guys deserve way better than this. But here you have it. The last chapter of An Heir And In The Same Breath Regret. Some suspension of disbelief may be required for the scene in interrogation with Kevin and Keelan, but bear with me.

It's been quite the ride friends, and I would really appreciate if you'd leave me a review! Thanks for hangin in this whole time.

- Lexie

"Shit."

Pinching shut his right eye so that the blood slicking the side of his face wouldn't blind him, Kevin peered up at Javier, crouching beside him and staring at the woman across the room.

"Y'kay?"

The mashed up word came out unsteady and rattled, and the thought 'priorities, Kevin, I am not the one with a head injury here,' flitted through Javier's mind. His eyes were still riveted to the murderer staring him down from several desks away.

Keelan Ryan had killed one brother, framed and destroyed the life of the other, and he had absolutely no way on Earth to prove it. There was no evidence on which he could make an arrest that would stick, but when Keelan started edging towards the door he had to do something.

"It's her!" he shouted, prompting Keelan to break into an all out run. The room exploded in a flurry of motion as Kate – eyes wide, seeing the cufflink picture, remembering Keelan's initials, and seeing her start to run all at once – took off after her. Her shoes scuffed the polished floor as she put every ounce of frustration and panic of this case into catching Keelan. Closing a hand around the woman's wrist and wrenching her back had to be one of the most satisfying moments of Kate's life to date.

"Keelan Ryan," she hissed, snapping silver bracelets on the protesting woman, in the process snagging one of the cufflinks and accidentally knocking it to the floor, "you are under arrest for the murder of Connor Ryan. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?" A brisk shake produced Keelan's response, glaring balefully at Kate.

"Yes I do. I want a lawyer. You've got no god damn proof."

"Maybe," Kate snarled, feeling the nauseating burning feeling of hate clenched in her stomach. "But we're gonna find some, and you're gonna hang for this. That's a promise."

Keelan smirked at her brother as she was marched past him. "Yeah? We'll see about that."

Seconds later, the phone in Javier's pocket started to ring. It took him a moment to realize that it was indeed his phone that was ringing, then fish it out and open it. He was sure his voice sounded hollow and shocked – that's how he felt – when he said, "Esposito."

"He's too short."

"What?"

"Kevin's too short. Javi, it's Lanie, I think I may have found your miracle."

Javier looked to the man blinking unsteadily behind him, trying to make sense of what just happened. If what Lanie was saying was right, if she really had found the miracle they needed to save Kevin, then this was almost over.

"Keelan killed him. She killed Connor," Kevin said softly. Javier nodded.

"She did. And we can prove it."

Looking at the chaos that had erupted about them and making an executive decision for the sake of Kevin's wellbeing, Javier caught and held Kate's gaze from across the room. He jerked his head back towards the interview room (the one with the spiderweb cracks laid through the glass of the window). She nodded shortly back at him, conveying her message easily with one movement.

Get him out of here.

"C'mon, Kev. Up you go," Javier muttered, carefully pulling Kevin out of his position awkwardly slumped back against the wall. The dazed man followed him without question or protest, allowing Javier to guide him through the door into the relative quiet of the room.

It took a bit of fumbling around in pockets to produce the handcuff key that he used to release Kevin's hands, relieving the pressure of the biting metal. The cuffs had broken skin in a couple of places, and Javier busied himself looking for the First Aid kit that was surely in the room somewhere. Neither of them spoke. The sounds of Brady shouting and Victoria Gates responding in a calmer – if no less forceful – voice were muffled by the walls of the dim, near-empty room.

Finding he kit and walking back over to Kevin, Javier pulled him to the low couch on which grieving families usually sat, being interviewed. Still wordless, Javier gently took both of Kevin's hands, turning them over to get a look at the worst of the damage. Careful, efficient fingers wrapped gauze around torn skin, securing it with medical tape.

A glance upwards showed him the ragged gash on Kevin's temple, the blood trickling down from the lip he'd bitten hard when he'd been thrown into the glass.

"You should see a doctor."

At hearing the softly spoken advice, Kevin's head jerked slightly, shocked out of whatever reverie he was lost in.

"I'm fine."

"Kevin, I've known you for a real long time, and this is about the least 'fine' I have ever seen you."

Snorting, shoulders slumping further, Kevin avoided his eyes. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Of course I am," Javier teased lightly.

They were quiet once more, Javier looking at Kevin and Kevin looking down at his own bandaged wrists. It was with lead in his chest that Javier silently admitted to himself that this was one blow he didn't know if Kevin could bounce back from.

It scared the hell out of him.

…

It was the angle of the wound track that eventually exonerated Kevin, but when it came to finding the evidence that threw out Ross Denver's assertion that Kevin had indeed bought the gun, the credit for that fell to Martha. She had brought lunch for everybody, looking briefly to the mountain of data they still needed to mine through, find some way to connect it all to Keelan.

The hardest part was going to be discrediting the dealer's ID of Kevin. It might have been a false ID, but the Ryan family could afford the best defense attorneys in the country, and any lawyer worth their salt could use that ID and the lack of evidence against her in general to get her let off. Which would put them right back where they'd started – with Kevin squarely in the sights of the prosecution.

That's where an offhand remark from Martha set in motion a series of revelations that would lead to exactly the proof they needed.

"What did they do when they tried to frame you, Richard? It is in the past we often find solutions needed in the present, you know."

Rick stared at Martha blankly for a few moments before flying into motion. He took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly on the cheek.

"Mother you're a genius!" he called over his shoulder as he rushed off to find Kate.

Martha exchanged a glance and a raised eyebrow with Alexis. Both shook their heads, continuing on their way out to the car, towards home where they would wait for the call saying Keelan was done for and Kevin was officially free.

…

"The Society for New York Actors!" Rick shouted, slamming a print-out down on the desk in front of Kate triumphantly. She looked up at him, exhausted. "Oliver R. Macallaster!"

"What?"

Javier was in the interview room with the broken window once more, having left Keelan alone to stew in her own thoughts while he talked to Kevin. That left Kate alone at her desk while Rick walked his family out, doing everything she could to find a shred of evidence that implicated Keelan. So far no luck, and she was becoming increasingly frustrated.

"I knew I'd met the family before, and that's where. The charity benefit for The Society for New York Actors, it's a yearly gala auction and I know I've seen the Ryans there before, at least twice. I looked it up and Keelan is part of the board, the New Yorker did an article on it like two weeks ago."

"What's your point, Castle?" asked Kate shortly.

"Well think about when Peter Donovan framed me. What did he do? He-"

"Hired a look alike," Kate finished for him. "Oh my god. So what you're implying is-"

"That Keelan used her position to find an actor to buy the gun that killed Connor, exactly." Rick slid the printout towards her, one of the faces on it circled in red sharpie.

The grinning face of Oliver R. Macallaster stared up at them. With blue eyes, short gelled dark brown hair, and a bright, happy expression, to a drug addled dealer Macallaster could have been Kevin Ryan's identical twin.

"We need to find Oliver Macallaster."

…

Finding Oliver Macallaster was proving to be more difficult than anticipated – apparently actors don't answer their phones – and Kate couldn't help but think how even if they could find him, he might not know who had hired him. The only way to completely ensure Keelan went down for the murder and the prosecution never went after Kevin was a confession.

Which is why time saw Kate sitting in the interrogation room across from Keelan Ryan and her lawyer. She'd tried every tactic in the book, and nothing was working. The evidence was laid out in front of them, and there was one card she had left to play. Swallowing her hope and feeling it lodge in her collarbone, Kate crossed her legs and laced her fingers together on the table in front of her.

"Macallaster."

"Excuse me?" the lawyer scoffed.

"Shut up Landry," Keelan snapped, throwing a hand to the side to whack lightly into the man's chest, silencing him. He shot her a withering look and did as he was told. Kate got the feeling that Tristan Landry wasn't overly fond of his client. She could relate.

"We have Macallaster, Keelan. Oliver Macallaster. The actor you hired to impersonate your brother Kevin. We've got him, it's all over. The best thing you can do for yourself now is confess. We can work something out with the DA. No need for a trial. Do you really want a trial, Keelan? Do you want to drag the family name through the mud like that?"

It took some time, but Keelan finally agreed to talk. Her lawyer advised and advised against it, but she was hearing none of it, going so far as to kick the man out. Facing Kate, Keelan leant back in her chair, fixing the detective with what could only be described as a smug look.

"Sure. I'll talk. Fine. You know what, I'll tell you every damn detail." Just as Kate was about to respond, Keelan held up a hand, stalling her. "Ah ah ah. On one condition."

Kate's heart sank. "What condition?"

"I'll tell you whatever you want to hear, but there's only one person I'll say it to."

Leaning forward, Keelan braced her hands against the interrogation room table. She grinned, and Kate thought that she'd never in her life met anyone who looked more like a snake.

"My brother. I want to talk to my brother."

...

"No. Absolutely not." Javier was already shaking his head before Kate had even finished informing them of Keelan's demand. "That's out of the freakin' question, what the hell makes her think she is in any position to just-"

"I'll do it."

Every head in the room turned sharply to stare at Kevin.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Javier warned. With an apprehensive heave of unsteady shoulders, Kevin stood straighter and looked at Javier.

"This is something I have to do, Javi. For me and... And for Connor." Looking across to the foreboding door leading to the interrogation room where Keelan waited, Kevin stood up. "This ends now."

"If you think you can do this, then just-" Kate broke off, standing in front of Kevin. "Just know that when this is over, we're here."

Glancing around, Kevin saw Rick and Javier nodding along with her.

"Thanks," he said through a tight throat.

"Let's go see your sister, then."

Following Kate out the room, Javier and Rick behind them, Kevin thought that if he did have a sister, she wasn't in that room.

"Just to warn you," murmured Kate quietly as Rick and Javier slipped into observation, "your parents are behind the glass."

An involuntary cringe that knocked his hand to the side and caused him to miss the door handle ran through Kevin upon hearing that. He shot a reluctant look to the door Rick and Javier disappeared through. Angrily, he shook himself, head throbbing where Brady had thrown him into the window. Years after he'd gotten himself out of that house and still just the knowledge that his parents were watching him had the power to turn him back into that angry, hurt kid again.

"Are you sure about this?"

Meeting Kate's worried gaze, Kevin stilled for a moment, hand resting on the doorknob. He thought about Jenny, his unborn son or daughter, Javier, the rest of the family he had built up in place of the one he'd run from.

He opened the door.

Keelan looked up upon hearing the soft creak of the hinges, a bark of sharp laughter sounding through the room.

"Wow, little brother, daddy dearest really did a number on you, didn't he?" She cocked her head to the side, studying the marks on Kevin's face. "I always said one day he would. Warned you." The singsong tone of the last two words sent a chill down Kevin's spine.

"Keelan, what happened to Connor?"

"Oh it's all about Connor isn't it... All the time, Connie, Connie, Connie. Fine. Hope you're listening back there, mom and dad. You're gonna want to hear this."

"Keelan I swear to god drop the theatrics and tell me what you did to our brother." Connecting words, things that would remind the suspect that the victim had been a person. That they had known the body in the morgue before they died. Kevin wasn't hopeful it would work on her. He knew Keelan too well for that.

"I would think your coroner already figured out what was done to him." She was dancing around the confession they needed. 'What was done to him' not 'what I did to him'. Keelan was playing with them, toying them along like puppets on strings, and Kevin was done with it. He was done being manipulated and jerked around by people with the last name Ryan.

"Confession. We need a confession."

With her eyes locked on him the entire time, Keelan slowly dragged the microphone recorder on the desk between them to rest directly in front of her. She spoke in tones as icy as the blue eyes fixed squarely on Kevin.

"I killed my brother. I killed Connor Ryan."

The rush of relief that whooshed through Kevin's veins was frozen solid by the chilly words that followed.

"I called him and said I had big news, and he should meet me by a cafe down the street from the construction site. When he was walking down the sidewalk, I shouted his name. Connor thought I was in trouble, came running. When he rounded the corner, I grabbed him by the shoulder and jammed the knife in as deep as it would go. Did it again after, but the bastard kept on trying to get away."

As she spoke, Keelan never once looked away from Kevin. Kate could feel an urge welling inside her to grab Kevin's arm and pull him out of the room, away from the woman enjoying every second of describing their brother's murder to him.

"He kept trying to go for his phone or run, so." Keelan shrugged, sitting back with an easy smirk on her face. "I shot him." Her hand slapped down on the metal table with a crack like a gunshot. "Bang! Bye bye Connie."

So badly Kate wanted to step in, to put a stop to this now they had their confession. But she could see that Kevin still needed answers, and she wasn't about to deny him that.

When Kevin managed to force his voice to work, the single word he got out was rough and hoarse.

"Why?"

"Why what?" Keelan asked innocently. "You're gonna have to be just a tad more specific."

"Why would you kill Connor?"

The creepy smile that had, until now, resided on her face faltered then vanished entirely, twisting her lips into a snarl.

"Ever since I was born, I've always done everything exactly how I was supposed to." Seeing Kevin open his mouth like he was about to say something, Keelan rolled her eyes and silenced him with a glare. "Chill, kiddo, I'm getting to it."

The familiar nickname sounded like poison dripping from her mouth.

"Anyway, as I said, I did... everything right. And then when I was thirteen, Connor was born." Keelan spat out her dead little brother's name like it burned her tongue to say it. "I already knew you were a fuck up, it was pretty obvious from the get go you were never cut out to be a Ryan. So I was the only choice left. Except... Except for Connor. Perfect Connor. Perfect, obedient, precious Connor. They didn't need me any more, oh no they had a son. But with him out of the way, well..."

"Everything would go to you," Kevin finished in a deadened, emotionless voice.

"I would get what I'm due," the woman corrected. She studied Kevin's face then sighed. "Wasn't like I hated him, for all he was a pathetic jackass who earned none of what life handed him. Boy never worked a day in his life from what I saw, not ever as hard as I did."

"He didn't deserve to die."

"Oh grow up, Kevin. People don't always get what they deserve." With a disgusted toss of her head, Keelan looked high past her brother's shoulder, to where their parents were surely standing behind the glass. "Isn't that right, mom and dad?" Looking back and seeing the horrified expression on Kevin's face, she snorted. "You always did live in some bizarre-ass fantasy land where good is good and bad is bad and fairy tale endings can happen if you just wish hard enough. I mean Connor at least had the nerve to be a cutthroat bastard about it, you were always the weak one after all-"

"Keelan that's enough."

Glad that her friend had intervened – as she was about to herself if Keelan had gone just one step further – Kate breathed a near silent sigh of relief. She was struck by the sudden thought that it was a damn good thing that it was her chaperoning this particular interview, not Javier. What the killer at the table across from Kevin said next halted whatever else she was thinking.

"I'd have killed you first if you hadn't gotten your worthless ass disowned, baby brother."

"Alright, this is over," Kate snapped. She could stay objective to a point, reduce the furnace burning white hot insider her to an ice, solid and still in her chest, but there came a point when enough was enough, and not even the best compartmentalizer could sit and not react. "We've got our confession, this is over. Come on Kevin."

As he stood to follow her out of the room, Keelan's voice sounded behind him.

"Don't you want to know why I framed you?'

Kevin's hand stilled on the doorknob for a second before he spoke, without even turning to look at her.

"No. I don't. I don't care. Goodbye, Keelan."

With the squeak of ill maintained hinges sounding, Kevin and Kate stepped out into the hallway and allowed the door to swing shut behind them. From the moment they set foot outside the interrogation room they could hear Brady Ryan's angry shouting in observation.

The door slammed open with a bang that caused Kevin to flinch so hard it looked as if he'd been struck. Brady's voice boomed out preceding the appearance of the man himself. Javier was shouting something after him, seconds behind Brady as the Ryan family patriarch stormed up to his surviving son.

"This is on you," Brady snarled, and from the way his eyes went wide and glassy, breathing rapid and shallow, Kate could guess that the only thing Kevin wanted right now was to be as far away from his father as possible.

Javier's hand closed around Brady's arm, yanking him away and slamming a palm into the center of his chest, sending the man stumbling back and putting a couple feet of extra space between Kevin and Brady.

"It's fine, Javi." The voice that drew Javier's attention was shaky but determined. "I need to have a conversation with my dad."

"Kevin-"

"I'll be fine. This'll never be over if I don't." He never took his eyes off Brady as he spoke. Walking across the hallway, he held open the break room door. Brady stalked furiously inside and whirled around when he heard the door close.

"Say your piece now, Brady, you'll never get another chance to."

"It should have been you," Brady hissed. Kevin shook his head, looking at the wall a couple of feet to Brady's left. "It should have. You heard her. If she'd gone for your first, my son could still be alive. It should had been you, if you hadn't gone and gotten yourself disowned-"

"Shut up." Something inside Kevin had snapped, and he was done. "No."

"Kevin." Brady's voice was a warning, but Kevin was having none of it.

"No. You don't get to do this to me. I didn't get myself disowned, dad. You signed papers and you made it official, you didn't want me anymore and I did exactly what you asked, I got out of your life, out of all of your lives, and I never came back. Everything I did, I did myself. No matter how overwhelmed I felt or scared I was or hard it got, I did it alone. Not anymore. I have a family here, I have a life here. And you do not get to waltz in and tell me it is my fault that your 'good' son is dead. As far as either of us are concerned you only ever had one."

Brady didn't repond, too shocked by Kevin's outburst to muster any words.

"Now get out, and don't ever contact me again." For a moment, Brady seemed to hesitate. "GET. OUT," Kevin practically roared, throwing open the door, shoulders heaving.

Without another word to the son who had just denounced him once and for all, Brady turned and walked out of the room. As soon as he disappeared around the corner, Kevin's knees gave out and he went down. Hard. He dropped onto the couch like a stone pitched into a lake. The world around him blurred and pulsed. Nothing felt real. Sound seemed like it was being filtered through water, distorted and different.

It wasn't until a hand touched his shoulder that Kevin became aware that someone else was in the room. The person was saying his name, quiet and concerned, but Kevin was hardly processing anything. Everything was very, very hot and then very, very cold, and he didn't know what was happening. Someone was crouched down in front of him, a blurry face peering worriedly at his own. It seemed to swim and blur worse for a second before sharpening into Javier. A brief measure of relief spread through Kevin's chest, but was soon overwhelmed by the turmoil engulfing him.

His mouth gaped slightly open as if he was trying to say something, but the words would not be forced out past a choked throat. He thought he could hear Javier asking if he was okay, but his best friend's voice still sounded miles away. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice told him he's probably having a panic attack. Ignoring that voice, Kevin focused on trying to get in enough breath to speak.

"It's over." Kevin's voice is a wrecked gasp.

"Yeah," his partner sighed, and Kevin felt an arm drop heavily across his shoulders as Javier settled in beside him. "It's over."

Closing his eyes, Kevin tried to focus on Javier's grounding presence, tried to breathe with the rhythm of his friend's hand rubbing his shoulder. Javier's hand went up and Kevin breathed in, exhaling when the hand went down.

"There you go," Javier said evenly. "You're just fine. Everything's gonna be just fine. Just keep breathing, and we can take everything else as it comes, alright? Just breathe."

Completely exhausted, Kevin slumped sideways against his friend's side, the other detective's steady support the only thing preventing him from sprawling completely to the floor.

"It's over. It's over."

…

After Keelan's confession, the rest of the details fell quickly into place. Oliver Macallaster had rapidly owned up to having bought the gun, under the guise of filming an audition for a cop drama show Keelan had supposedly arranged for him. He'd had no idea that the dealer had been real, or even that the gun was anything more than a prop. Keelan's alibi, in the form of her best friend Alisha Mendez, had crumbled shortly after that.

Kate had recalled their strange interaction, wherein the woman had provided an unsolicited alibi for a non-suspect, and phoned Alisha on a hunch. Sure enough, the woman had no clue that a murder had taken place. Whens he had seen Kate and Rick at RGI, she had assumed they were friends of Keelan's husband Desmond.

Keelan had spun quite the story for Alisha about the night of Connor's murder. She'd told her friend in confidence that she was cheating on Des – not a hard story to believe, given Desmond Linder was hardly what one would call an attentive husband. Keelan had told of a handsome investment banker she'd met at a charity dinner and began an affair with, begging Alisha to watch both their children for the night and cautioning her that Des was close with several members of the NYPD and wouldn't be above taking advantage of that to find out if his wife was stepping out on him.

The truth had poured from Alisha along with a very sincere apology for her abrasive behavior, once she discovered Keelan had taken advantage of her and used her as an alibi for murder.

Several hours post the tying of loose ends, after Keelan had triumphantly been handed over to booking, Kate stood in her fiance's dining room with the entire team plus Martha, Alexis, and Jenny in attendance. They were milling around making small talk, waiting for dinner to be done and enjoying the relief that came with knowing the nightmare was finally over.

Making a decision she'd been sitting on since arriving at Rick's that night, Kate walked over to Kevin, who was watching Javier teach Alexis and Jenny how to play finger football with a folded piece of paper.

She leant up against the wall next to him, nudging his shoulder with hers.

"Can't have been an easy thing to do, back there. With Keelan."

Kevin shrugged and sighed, and some of the tension that had bled from his stiff shoulders returned. Kate almost regretted saying it before he sighed again, and relaxed back, head rolling agains the wall to look at her.

"It wasn't."

"It was probably for the best you didn't stick around to hear whatever she had to say about why she framed you. I can't see how that could've ended well."

One of Kevin's shoulders hitched up and down and he chuckled softly. "Actually, I already know why she did it. I mean, you're right. It wouldn't have ended well, but. I already knew." Seeing Kate's raised eyebrow, Kevin straightened up and shoved his fidgety hands in his pockets.

"About a week before Connor died, I got a call from a news outlet, said they wanted to fact check some stuff for a story they were doing on one of our cases. I didn't say anything to you guys cause you weren't here when I left. And when I got there... They didn't want to talk to me about a case. They'd somehow found out that I was that Kevin Ryan, and they wanted to stage some sort of... Surprise reunion. Y'know. Presumed dead heir to Ryan empire alive, hear the shocking story tonight at nine, or whatever. I walked in, saw them, and..." He swallowed and cleared his throat before going on. "I froze. As soon as I got my shit together, I turned and ran. None of them saw me, except Keelan. We made eye contact for about a half a second. And she's always been the opportunist, so. There you go, perfect opportunity."

"Wow," Kate breathed, trying to process that information. "So that's why you were acting so weird that day."

"Yeah. That's why."

Impulsively, Kate slung an arm around him, tugging Kevin into a quick half-hug.

"You kept it together really well," she said, releasing him. "You did good."

Kevin snorted, a quick huff of breath leaving him harshly. "Sure."

He's quiet for a few long moments, hands jammed deep in his pockets. Something about his expression is odd, a mix of regret and something else that Kate had seen on his face a lot since finding his brother's body in the alleyway. Frowning at him, she turned a little further to face him.

"What's on your mind?"

"Thinking about Connor."

She kept quiet, waiting for him to go on.

"I hope he hated me," he said softly. "I hope they left him with enough humanity to know he deserved better than that, better than his big brother abandoning him. For his sake, Kate, I hope Connor hated me."

Kate didn't know what she could possibly say to that.

A few minutes later, just as the food was getting set out on the table, Rick jogged over, catching Kevin's arm and pulling him into the living room. He pressed a piece of paper into his friend's hand. Kevin looked down at the phone number scrawled in Rick's distinctive handwriting then looked up at the man himself oddly.

"What's this?"

"Esposito mentioned you had some. Inspiration. When it came to becoming a cop. Someone you hadn't spoken to in a real long time, someone you missed a lot. Well, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows how to find people, and... If you want, this is hers."

Kevin couldn't find any words to say in response before Rick had turned and swept out of the room, saying something to Alexis. He stared down at the paper in his hand, remembering blue eyes and dark brown, curly hair, a bright smile, and a voice saying to him 'you've gotta find your own way in the world, Kevin.' Taking out his phone, Kevin dialed the number with shaking fingers, and listened to it ring, half of him wanting to snap the phone shut before anyone could answer.

The line clicked on.

"Hello?" asked a soft, warm voice. He stood for a second, the phone pressed to his ear, mouth dry. The woman on the other end waited a few seconds before speaking again. "Hello? Is anybody there?"

"Hi," he said in a voice that cracked on the vowel. "Hi, Aunt Fiona. It's. It's Kevin."