For some reason I felt really proud of this. I know it's a reharsh of canon information but y'know. Also, Condy doesn't speak like she normally does because 1. I like to believe when intergrating into human society (esp. high society) she'd probably have to talk a lot differently even if it was towards her kids and 2. I felt like it would ruin the tension.
Calling Jake her brother never felt correct, even from a young age. Something about the term was alien whenever she called Jake's by it, which was not often. The Baroness disliked it when she refused to refer to Jake as her broter, so Jane kept not calling him her brother for as long as she could. It was better for her to think of him as a close, childhood friend that just so happened to live with her.
From a young age, the two of them were always together. Jake was always wide-eyed ad curious, always dragging her along to places and talking it up like it would be a grand adventure. And when she was with him, they really did. He always new how to keep things interesting, wheather it be by weaving grand stories of imagination or just by giving them a simple task like collecting rocks. There was never a dull moment when Jake was around.
It was always regretful when the Baroness seperated her from him, espeically as they grew older. The Baroness had always told her it was for her benefit, and that she couldn't go out playing forever, and that Jake would only hold her down. But Jane knew better. The Baroness took pleasure in their increased separation. As much as she came to resent and hate the Baroness, she couldn't outright defy her. However, she and Jake did find a way.
Practical jokes such as short-sheeting her bed or anything they figured couldn't be traced back to them. Though, during the cases where she did, the punishments themselves where never anything they couldn't handle. Besides, no matter how severe, they were always there for each other. No matter what.
But deep down, Jane felt safe knowing Jake was around in that house. The Baroness had a particular air around her that told her something was off about the woman. She had her suspicions in her youth, when the Baroness seemed to react to certian things strangely; like when she looked at Jane with disgust had grabbed a bucket to clean her room. Other things were like the suspicious and strange looking keepsakes her mother kept in her bedroom, some of them having strange symbols she didn't recognize.
Once, when the Baroness hadn't found them snooping in her room, she was infuriated at first. But, in a calm manner, she had told Jake to sit in his room while she talked with Jane. Jake obeyed, not having much else to do, and gave Jane a worried look as he left. Jane was terrified, perhaps in the first time of her life, of her mother. Now she didn't have Jake with her and no ideas of a simple lesson to assuage her fear. As the Baroness looked down at her with cold, calm eyes, she spoke.
"You should know better than to sneak around here. What were hoping to find?"
Jane lies, saying she wanted to try on her mother's jewelry, but the Baroness shot it down.
"If you really wanted that, you had the privilege of asking me." She said. "I have high hopes for you, Jane. If you keep acting like this, then I will not give you those options anymore. In fact, I might throw you out on the street. Do you want that Jane?"
"No." Jane answers, her head down.
"That's what I thought. One more thing, Jane." The Baroness put her hands on Jane's shoulders, looking down with faux care in her eyes. "I don't lose the things I need. If you go, I will bring you back. And I will never let you out of my sight ever agian."
The Baroness told her to go back to her room now, Jane trying to her hide her state of fear. As she returned to her room, Jake met her and asked what they had talked about. Jane had once voiced her concerns with Jake, who told her that he had suspected such a thing of the Baroness. In fact, Jake had even told her that he wanted to run away from the Baroness one day. His eyes were wide with hope, and as she looked into his eyes, she felt hopeful too. She promised that one day they would both leave this wretched place, and one day expose the Baroness for who she really was.
But, as they grew even older, their interests began to change. She was still close to Jake, accompanying him on adventures in their backyard and around the house. However, Jake's taste for adventure had become more rapaciousness. He had grown bored of the back yard, the house, and even practical jokes. As the Baroness began to separate Jane more and more with her apprenticeship and baking lessons, Jane feared losing him forever.
But then that fateful day came. Jake invited her out in the early morning for another adventure. But this time, he didn't plan on coming back.
"I can't go." She had said. "We can't. She'll find us and bring us back."
"Isn't it worth the risk?" Jake had asked, offering his hand out to her. She wanted to hold it, to run away with him and finally be free of the Baroness. She wanted Jake to show her the world and the wonderous life out there. She wanted it all so bad, to finally be happy.
But the Baroness' threat was still fresh in her mind. With a hestitent voice, she declined. Jake simply smiled at her, told her that she could handle the Baroness with her trickery, and he had believed in her. Jane watched him as he ran off that day, refusing to move as she watched him disappear over the horizon. And she stood out longer, waiting for him to turn back. But he never did.
The Baroness didn't care that Jake had left. If anything, she had reacted to the news with mock disappointment but very genuine joy. On that day, Jane began to fear the Baroness a lot less and began to despise her. She felt she had understood what Jake meant with his parting words. He trusted her to take down the Baroness, as Jane was always the more crafty of the two.
As he began to achieve fame, Jane followed his exploits near-religiously as she continued her apprenticeship under the Baroness. The increased trust between the two lead to Jane having more chances to gather her proof on the Baroness. She highly doubted the Baroness suspected her anymore, believing Jane to be a simple heiress under her thumb.
When she had brought up Jake, however, she watched this visage of a calm kwoman crumbled. She seemed to snap, angrily revealing all the details about their lives that she's had kept secrect for years. How she and Jake were never related, how she was not their mother nor had they had any father, and they were never technically born. She had told her that she wanted to keep Jane and Jake separated for as long as possible, because if they married they would have children, both of whom would be destined to save the world.
But, in the final breaths of anger, her emotions changed. She grinned at her, looking down at Jane like she always had with that haughty expression of superiority. With a laugh, she announced that she had done her job; that Jake had forgotten all about her and was never coming back for her.
Despite the tears that fell from her face that day, Jane decided that she's would never give the Baroness the satisfaction of her tears ever again. She vowed to take her down though any means necessary. No matter the cost.
When Jane had grown old enough to leave by then, she began traveling as a way to find people who also suspected the Baroness. Along her search for truth, she felt a deep longing form Jake once again. Jane found herself missing him with almost every mile she traveled and every sight she saw, wondering in the back of her mind if Jake had seen the same thing.
But, after her plan to expose the Baroness anti-climatically ended with the Baroness' mysterious disappearance and the bequeathed her company to Jake, she began to wonder if it was really meant to be. While her heart longed for him, Jake had changed. He had lived a life of elaborate wealth and fame, of adventure and inventions. But hers was a simple and quiet sort. Maybe Jake had grown up with more expensive tastes then her. Across her research, she discovered with sad confirmation that Jake had married. Yet, she also felt happy that Jake had found love. As she let go of her feelings for him, she met her own, upstanding gentlemen to love.
While she looked back on her life with a kind of sad nostalgia, she felt it was a good life in spite of the hardships. She missed Jake, but now, her biggest regret was never seeing him again, and never asking a simple 'How have you been?' Most likely followed by a pie to the face.