With this chapter I decided to make a timeline for this story. Did I need it? Probably not. Did my overanalytical self wanted to do it? Yes. Instead of giving you a page long half-hour worth of work, here's everyone's ages:

Alexandra: 18

Zachary: 10

Jack: 28

Jacob & Evie: 41

Dear Jacob,

It is with great sorrow and regret that I send this letter, but please understand I have no choice. How I wish that things could be different, and we could be together, now and for always. For my heart still aches for you. But I cannot love a liar and a thief. I do not know what atrocities you have committed, and nor do I ever want to.

My life has already been planned for me. My father will give the company to my brother, so I must be another man's responsibility. It is a husband's duty to provide for his wife, something you obviously cannot do. So there is no point pursuing a future that does not exist.

I am leaving London for the countryside to be with my family. I will not tell them your secret—merely that I am ill. But if I do not come alone, I will not be able to face them. Which is why I leave your son to you. I pray you will be a better father than you are a husband.

Yours truly,

Emily

Days passed, Alexandra had no idea how many. In the dark room, it was impossible to tell time. Judging by her meals and her sleep, she assumed a week. The prisoner slept most of the time, trying to escape her living nightmare. Only when she woke up from a peaceful dream and remembered where she was, she found tears in her eyes. Alexandra only got up to void or to fight her restlessness by pacing, but the chain shackling her to the wall did not allow much range of motion.

Jack began to visit her more often. Either to check on his unruly prisoner, or he was simply bored. Alexandra hated every single one.

Usually his visits would lapse into silence. Jack would be an ominous presence (even when he wasn't staring) and Alexandra would pointedly ignore him. Sometimes she wouldn't have that luxury. Jack would speak with her, but their conversations would be so idle that she forgot what they were about.

Usually he would bring food. Two meals a day, Alexandra realized; just enough to keep her alive. Sometimes he would allow her to eat on her own. Sometimes, as if to test her, he would feed her. Other times, Alexandra would wake up to the demon standing over her. She screamed twice.

Apparently today was one of those days. Alexandra woke up to something twisting in her hair, but she didn't have the heart to slap Jack's hand away. Usually her snaps ended with a new cut or a fresh bruise, so she learned to hold her tongue. Instead, she kept her eyes closed and stayed still, her muscles tensing. Her captor must have felt it, because he realized she was awake.

"Sleep well?"

He asked it enough to be a greeting. Alexanda needed to find more and more will not to hit him. Her reply was as curt as always.

"Fine," she muttered and tried to force her muscles to relax. They didn't.

She tried to ignore the gloved fingers tangling through her hair, trailing its length before moving back any loose strands. She couldn't. Jack said nothing for a time, and Alexandra thought it was going to be another silent visit.

"I remember meeting your mother," the Ripper suddenly mused, his deep voice shattering the quiet. "Shame she died the way she did."

He only met her a few times, only because the woman was too busy caring for her newborn child. Alexandra wondered if he wanted an answer. Sometimes he would say random statements, and he would move to the next subject just as quickly. As if his mind couldn't stay focused. Probably couldn't, as twisted as it was.

"I don't remember much of her," the girl said anyway.

"What of your brother's?"

The girl flinched, and hoped he wouldn't have caught on to that. But like the rest of her situation, it was a feeble hope. Her silence spoke volumes.

"Ah… Should I say half-brother?" Jack corrected.

Alexandra swallowed, keeping her silence. Even as the vile woman's face flashed across her vision. Jack said nothing either, long enough she believed he forgotten the subject.

"So what was it? He fucked two whores?" he inquired.

The prisoner mentally cringed at his crude terms. No, that wasn't the case at all. The instinct to defend her family's pride swelled.

"No," she answered. "My mother…." Alexandra found she did not know a name, but it did not matter. "She was a French Assassin. The Council sent her to aid Father in building a Brotherhood, after the Fall of the British Rite." The girl could remember every story Jacob told her, of her parents' misadventures. How they couldn't stand each other at first, and how it slowly changed to something else. "They… married two years later, before I was born."

Father made sure to add they married because they wanted to, not because they had to. Still, it irked him that Mother did not tell him she was with child until after the wedding.

"How old were you when she died?" Jack asked. He said it too plainly, as if he was asking about the weather.

"Three."

"Then your father took us away."

"…Yes."

Alexandra tried to push away the image in her mind. She couldn't remember anything from her childhood before India, but she remembered that face. That face that she knew was supposed to be kind and gentle, but instead it was pale and sweaty and twisted in agony. The girl hated that was all she remembered of her mother, whose name she did not know. It hurt Jacob too much to say it.

It was why he took her, and the rest of the apprentices, to his sister, Evie, in India. He said it was because the British Brotherhood and Indian Brotherhood were "sister branches" (such choice of words amused him) and as part of the same Empire, depended on each other. They traded secrets, tactics, and supplies, and so the recruits were sent to learn everything from their fellow Assassins. They did just that, but Alexandra was suspicious that Jacob left London for more reasons than just to train his students.

Most of her memories were born in India. Not yet of age, she had been spared of the vigorous training the Mentor's apprentices were subject to, so she had other ways to spend her time. She studied both basic education and the history of their Brotherhood, how they existed from the dawn of history and how they fought the Templar Order to the modern era.

She remembered Auntie Evie and Uncle Henry, how they treated her as one of their own. Evie taught her how to think quickly; Henry taught her how to speak his mother tongue. The aunt found it amusing how the girl mastered the language while Jacob still struggled to stay the simplest of words.

Not only did the older Assassins took a liking to her, but the apprentices themselves. Including Jacob's personal protégé, who spent whatever spare time he had with her. At the time, Alexandra only saw a friend to play with. She did not think the apprentice humored her because he pitied her, because he knew all too well what it was like to lose a mother. Alexandra still did not tell her father the misadventures they got into, and how Jack the Lad caused most of them.

"Jack…" Alexandra whined, struggling to keep up with the older and taller boy. "Father said not to leave the compound."

"What Jacob doesn't know won't hurt him," her companion replied. He was merely fifteen years of age, but his voice was deep enough to be a full-grown man's.

The five-year-old pouted at the comment. But they would get in trouble… Jack saw her frown.

"We'll be back before anyone notices, I promise," he said. "I just want to look around market. I'll buy you something."

"…I want chocolate."

Jack gave one of his crooked, mischievous smiles. "Promise."

The market wasn't particularly hard to find. Alexandra's senses were assaulted.

It was filled with tents and stalls, so close together that there was barely any room for the herd of people to move between them. There were so many colors in all different shades, in clothing, in signs, in paintings, and more. The little girl had to hold her sleeve to her nose as there was a strong, foul stench of manure and sweat but it was quickly replaced by the sharp scent of spices. There was so much noise. Everyone seemed to be talking at once, coming together in a collective clamor. Sellers yelled over the crowd, music from somewhere drifted through the air, and there were several strange thud-like noises.

"Hold my hand," Jack ordered as they pushed into the crowd.

An adult would always tell her that whenever they went out in public, especially when there were a lot of people. Knowing her cue, she placed her little hand in his large palm. His fingers gently squeezed hers as he pulled her through the maze-like rows like her arm was a tether.

They found the source of the music—Alexandra spotted a man sitting on a ground with a strange flute in his hands, a basket in front of him with a snake in it. The snake seemed to be dancing to the hypnotic music, but before she could observe further, her guardian pulled her along. She saw men in aprons cutting at vegetables and raw meat alike, only pausing to swat away flies. They walked by a man that was nothing but skin and bones, but he smiled to them, revealing he had no teeth.

Jack walked slower than he usually did, restricted by so many obstacles and mindful of his smaller companion. He ignored the other people around him that walked faster, even shoving into him. Usually the boy shoved back, and sometimes growled if they neared again. But they kept shoving into her. Suddenly Alexandra stumbled over something and her arm pulled.

"Jack!" she cried, but it was too late.

She fell face-first in the mud, unable to catch herself. The ground was made of dirt so it didn't hurt. But the shoving into her sides did and the little girl whined. She crawled onto her hands and knees, looking up. Her guardian was not there.

"Jack?"

She thought she heard her name, but couldn't find the source. There were so many people! Suddenly hands touched her arms. Relieved, Alexandra gave a delighted gasp and turned to greet Jack, only to see a leathery face. The girl looked around. She only saw a wall of legs.

"Alexandra?" the deep voice drifted over the clamor, but Alexandra could not see.

"Jack?!"

The little girl moved toward the direction of the voice. She called and called and called, but Jack did not answer her. Instead dozens of different sounds replied. Where did he go? Jack wouldn't leave her, would he? No, she didn't want to be here alone! Alexandra squeezed through corridors of warm bodies, which usually pushed her back. She fell twice and once scraped her leg. She whimpered.

"What do we have here?" The voice was unfamiliar, speaking in Hindi. Jack did not speak Hindi.

Suddenly strong, thick hands wrapped around her middle. Alexandra squeaked as she was plucked off the ground. She was lifted in the air and spun around, greeted with another stranger. She was held by a burly man, with a much smaller, thinner man behind him.

"Looks like a lost English—," the thin one mused. He said a word after "English" but Alexandra did not what it meant.

"You should be more careful, little girl," the burly man said in heavily accented English. "The streets are very dangerous."

"Where's Jack?" Alexandra merely asked.

The bury man smiled, putting her on his hip. "Don't worry, child, we'll take you to him."

The girl widened her eyes. They knew where he was?! She smiled. They would take her to Jack, and they could continue exploring the market, and she could get chocolate!

The thin man was chattering, saying words that Alexandra did not know, and was speaking too quickly for her to catch.

"She will sell good," she thought he said.

"Stupid English, thinking they can own us," stated the burly man, twisting his nose like he smelled something bad.

Alexandra whimpered and wiggled as his grip tightened. It hurt! She looked over his shoulder to see the crowd was getting farther away. Wait, wasn't Jack in the crowd? She got her holder's attention.

"We have to go that way," she pointed. The burly man did not glance.

"Do not worry, we know where he is," he merely assured, and continued to move away.

"W-wait!"

Alexandra shifted, and squeaked when the man held her even tighter.

"She is a noisy—" the thin man commenting, once again saying that weird word.

"Let her go."

The pair of men paused at the deep tone. Alexandra looked the burly man's shoulder and nearly cried with relief. Jack found her! His lips were tugged in a frown, and stared at the men with narrowed eyes. The Indians turned slightly, looking bored. The burly man said in Hindi he did not understand, gesturing. The five-year-old was confused. But he was speaking English a minute ago!

Jack frowned and was silent for moment. He repeated himself in Hindi. The men snickered.

"Your Hindi is shit," the burly men said. The boy's lips twitched when he realized he was played.

"I won't ask again," the Assassin apprentice replied.

"Good."

The men turned away again. Alexandra struggled against the tight grip. Jack flinched.

"Hey! Come back here!" the boy demanded.

"Feck off," the thin man snapped. Alexandra recognized it as a "bad word," even though her father enjoyed saying it a lot. "Go home to your little mistress and see if she likes that little worm between your legs."

The burly man laughed, loud enough that Alexandra flinched at the harsh noise next to her ear. Then it stopped when he suddenly gasped. The girl cried when she fell onto the ground, hitting her elbow and sending a strange sensation up her arm. She cried again. It hurt! There was a hiss and a sharp sound.

Alexandra glanced up to see Jack barging into the thin man, who held out a curved knife. The stranger's eyes bugged out of his skull and he suddenly fell to the ground. Suddenly everything was blurry. A strange noise came from Alexandra's throat.

Why did everything hurt? Why did Jack leave her? Why did those men take her? What did she do wrong?

"Don't cry now," a deep voice ordered.

Alexandra opened her eyes to see her guardian's face filling her blurry vision. Her throat hurt. Her leg hurt. Her arm hurt. Her chest hurt. More strange sounds came from her sore body. Jack flinched and looked panicked.

"Alexandra, please don't cry," he begged.

In open rebellion, the little girl cried. She let out a loud wail, oblivious to Jack's cringe.

"No, no, no! Jacob's going to kill me! He said not to make you cry!" the apprentice yelped over her sobs. "Shut up already!"

Alexandra ignored him. Her face became wet, stained by tears and liquid from her nose. She didn't bother to wipe it away. Jack made a noise.

Suddenly strong arms were around her back and her face was pressed against something soft and solid, muffling her wails. The ground disappeared again, making the girl squeak.

"Sh, sh, sh," Jack cooed. There was a tremor in his voice, but he tried to hide it. "It's alright. Jack the Lad's here now."

"You left me!" Alexandra complained.

"I'm sorry, I lost you. But I'm here now. Everything's going to be alright."

She didn't believe him and continued to cry into his shirt. Suddenly fingers tangled in her hair, stroking her head. A palm pressed against her back. Jack hushed her again, the tremor gone from his voice. He kept whispering assurances and promises and apologies, rocking her the entire time.

"I won't let anyone hurt you again," Jack murmured.

"Promise?" Alexandra demanded. Sniffling, she looked up to her guardian. He gave a crooked, reassuring smile.

"I promise."

The little girl's wails quieted.

Just in time to hear a woman scream. She looked up to see they had moved away from the market. She did not see the men anymore. Instead, people were shoving past them, heading towards the way they came. They spoke too fast for her to understand.

"Better now?" Jack suddenly inquired, shifting her weight against his hip. Alexandra sniffled. The boy pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her face. "You gave me a scare, back there."

"I thought you were never scared?" Alexandra pointed out. The boy had boasted he would be a fearless Assassin. Jack smiled with a light laugh. Just like her father.

"You're right," he agreed. He glanced behind him at the growing crowd at the market, before smiling back at her. "Now, how about we get you some chocolate?"

Alexandra blinked away the memory. She refused to be believe the protective, kind boy that guided her through the streets was the same monster that slaughtered her brothers and sisters. That now held her against her will. That hurt her, when the boy promised to never cause her pain. But she remembered what Jack had done to protect her.

He killed those men—slavers. Even now, the Assassin did not know if they deserved it or not. Their profession stood against everything the Creed preached, but they had not harmed the Brotherhood. Did Jack really have to kill them in order to save her? Or did he not care for the Creed even then?

The prisoner closed her eyes tight, trying to shut out the train of thought. Instead, she clung on to the image of India itself. The people, the markets, the temples, the jungles. Everything. Every day was an adventure and something to discover. If anything, London was an alien world when they finally returned almost four years later.

"I never met Zachary's mother," Jack stated.

Of course he didn't. The woman wanted nothing to do with the Brotherhood. Now in her predicament, the Assassin decided that was a good thing. No one deserved to meet the Ripper.

"She came from the high society of London," Alexandra told him. Perhaps if she humored him, he would go away. "She… she met my father when he was at a ball." The Assassin excluded the fact he had infiltrated the ball to assassinate a Templar. "They met a few times. She found out my father was with the gangs, and severed contact with him. Her family would've disowned her, if she married one from a lower-class."

Jacob had included more crude language than that, including a colorful description of her parents. But Jack didn't need to know that. The Ripper said nothing, listening. Alexandra sighed. She forced herself to go on, trying to keep the tremor of emotion from her voice.

"They found out six months later. Her father wanted to rid of the baby." It was easier to say it that way, that it wasn't Zachary. "But an abortion would have ruined them. So nine months after my parents' meeting, my mother gave her son to Father. We never saw her again."

Emily was her name. Alexandra only met her a couple of times, and the woman was bitter during both encounters. Especially when she found out that Alexandra was Jacob's daughter, a living remember that Emily was not his first. That was when the aristocrat believed Jacob was the sole heir to an industrial company that threatened to take London from the dying Starrick Industries.

Alexandra's opinion went even lower when the woman's groveling demeaner quickly changed when she discovered that Jacob was a "gangster" and abandoned her own son, her own flesh and blood. The daughter still didn't know what Jacob saw in that woman. Alexandra wondered if he thought she could fill the void of his lost wife, or she was simply a means to an end.

The Brotherhood didn't have any contacts in the upper-classes. Having a rich and powerful ally would prove consequential in securing the British Empire from the Templars' clutches. Jacob had hoped to gain her trust and ease her into their fold, but Emily would have none of it. So Alexandra had a strong distaste for her, for breaking Jacob's wounded heart and leaving Zachary without a mother.

One of Jacob's Assassins came up with the name. "'Remembered by God.' She might forget him, but we never will."

Jacob Frye wasn't particularly religious, but he did accept his friend's merit and he said he simply like the sound of the name. Jack huffed at the end of her story, interrupting her thoughts.

"Everyone's all the same," he drawled. "Selfish and greedy bastards."

"Not everyone, Jack," Alexandra dared to argue. "There is good in people."

The Ripper let out one of his strange laughs, disbelieving.

"I've yet to see it," he said.

The prisoner shifted. Her muscles were sore and weak (she suspected her captor had been putting potions in her drink, but not as strong as before), so it was awkward sitting up. Jack paused his petting to lay a land on her flank, as if to steady her. Alexandra only glared.

"The Brotherhood teaches us to have faith," she reminded him. "If we can't trust the people we protect, then what hope is there for humanity?"

"Exactly why it is a dead Creed," Jack argued. "There is no hope for humanity. We rob and rape and kill each other. In fact, Brotherhood's better at then anybody."

Alexandra winced at that. It wasn't untrue, but it wasn't what Jack believed. The Assassins worked in the dark to serve the light. They bore the burdens of humanity, gave themselves to sin, in order to bring salvation to those who could not find it themselves. It was the Templars held a more pessimistic view.

"Jack, listen to yourself," the Assassin pleaded. "You speak like a Templar."

She knew those words were a mistake as they were leaving her mouth, but it was already too late. The Ripper's large hand wrapped around her throat in a vice grip. Alexandra couldn't even gasp—he was already crushing her windpipe, so she could only let out a strange, pathetic squeak. Suddenly his eyes were an inch from hers, forcing her to look into the murderous gaze.

"Don't you dare compare me to those filth!" Jack spat, growling like a ferocious bear. The prisoner couldn't say anything if she wanted to. She grasped his wrist, but he only squeezed even tighter. "They think everything belongs to them! That we have to grovel to their kind to the end of days! No. The Assassins will rule. Not with government or money or honeyed words. But with fear!"

As the madman's voice got higher and higher, his grip became tighter and tighter. Darkness began creeping around the edges of her vision. Alexandra began clawing at the hand, trying to force her fingers around his to pry him off. Her windpipe was closed off, so she could only let out pathetic sounds.

"Juh-ah-ahck," Alexandra squeaked, her voice far too small and weak for a fearless Assassin.

For a moment, the girl truly believed Jack the Ripper would kill her.

Then he let go.

The prisoner greedily took a gasp of air, only for it to scratch against her throat and cause her to cough. She placed a tentative hand on her sore throat. Now doubt it would bruise.

"You would be wise not to anger me, little girl," Jack hissed, rising from the bed.

Alexandra coughed.

"I won't let anyone hurt you."

"What happened to you, Jack?" the Assassin whimpered, hating there a tremor in her hoarse voice. "You were my friend."

Alexandra knew her words were falling on deaf ears. How many times did she and Jacob both beg him to come back, to see reason? Only for him to brutally murder victim after victim after victim. Even now, the girl didn't see any trace of the loyal Assassin. Only a faceless demon that stared at her with an inscrutable gaze.

"I know the boy that came to us all those years ago is still in there," she went on anyway. Jack was quiet for several moments.

"I grew up," he finally said. "I opened my eyes and saw the shit of this world. I will cleanse it and I will save our Brotherhood as Jack the Ripper. Jack the Lad is dead, just like our mothers."

Alexandra flinched at the latter sentence. Some part of her refused to accept it. Some part of it knew it was true.

"I liked Florence," Jack went on, his growl dropping to a thoughtful murmur. Like he previous anger didn't exist. "She was the first person to show me true kindness."

With that, the Ripper twisted around and left, shutting the door with a slam.

Florence. That was her mother's name.

Emily- "industrious" or "striving"

Florence- French version of Saint Florentia, a Roman martyr. "blossoming" or "to flower"

So in this chapter I took liberties to explore Jack's personality. If it seems all over the place, yes, it's supposed to be that way. From what we got from the DLC, I'd say Ubisoft's version had psuedopsychopathic schizophrenia (now say five times fast). As anti-socialness is usually described as a personality disorder, my version of Jack was a sociopath from the get-go. But since psychology was so little understood during this age, no one was aware.

Also I explored the caste systems in this time period, which still exist to an extent today. However, in Victorian times, the gap between rich and poor was huge, and it was at this time period that "Social Darwinism" emerged. So for a prominent Protestant family, a bastard child was a risk to their reputation.

Yes, the writer is minoring in psychology. Expect this whole story to be based on it.