Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any of the recognizable characters or places. So no owning Jondy or Alec, though that'd be fun! ^_^ Season Two would've been very different, though... ^_~

A/N: Set a few days after "Two."

So Insecure

I can't seem to find myself again
My walls are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence)
(I'm convinced that there's)
(Just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before so insecure

-"Crawling" by Linkin Park

The hundred bucks in Alec's pocket, hard won by hustling pool at Crash, had a grin beaming off his face as he let himself into the apartment. If he kept this up, he could head down to Sector 9 and see if there was anything good to push.

There was an Ordinary in that part of town, Isaiah, who kept his finger on the Pulse of the underground markets in the city, and he had been good about giving Alec solid information after the transgenic had helped him out of a scrape involving five pissed-off Canadians who had an issue with the black-market guru who had given them bad prices for some six hundred odd cases of Cuban cigars.

Alec had seen them beating up on the scrawny guy who had been trying but failing to fight back and had gone to the rescue…after overhearing who he was. Anyways, Isaiah had given him good info ever since, and Alec always headed to him before buying or selling on the markets.

Alec smirked to himself as he shut the apartment door. Picking up money playing pool at Crash could be a very nice way to supplement his black market business. Whether or not Jondy would approve was another story. She hadn't said anything about him selling steroids or medical-use marijuana, but he could tell she didn't like it from the looks she would give the packages when he brought them in.

Alec had stopped selling andy a few days ago, mainly because he didn't want to deal with those Steelheads again. It wasn't worth the effort, especially when he could get just as much or more money for selling those Pre-Pulse furry boots to underground fashion markets. People loved going retro, so they wanted those shoes, and Alec was happy to provide everyone with the ugly shoes for a not too outrageous price. He had brought a pair home for Jondy last night, and she had burst out laughing and told him thanks, but she was good. For some reason, the fuzzy fake fur hadn't sent her into hysterical squeals of joy like it seemed to with everyone at the fashion markets. Thank God.

Speaking of Jondy, the female transgenic was supposed to be at work by now, but he could hear her shower running. She hadn't mentioned taking any time off this morning at breakfast…maybe she had decided on a spontaneous mental health day. Whatever, the woman could take a shower whenever she felt like it, it wasn't his job to tell her when to go to work.

Alec wandered into the kitchen in search of something to munch on before he settled down in front of the TV for a while. He'd probably watch reruns from one of those old, Pre-Pulse crime shows where everyone was obsessed with one-liners or, out of sheer boredom, catch Season 31 of American Idol. He'd heard from one of the people at Crash the other night that American Idol used to break up its seasons instead of running continuously from one to the other like it did now.

He noticed that the jug of milk was out on the counter, lying on its side as if was thrown there. It was empty, which was good because otherwise it would've been spilling everywhere. That was weird. Jondy normally demanded that the kitchen be kept at a pretty high level of clean, even when the rest of the apartment was in disarray. Whatever, maybe she had been in a hurry…to get to the shower. Alec shook his head. Sometimes there was just no reason to try to understand Jondy.

After snatching a jar of guacamole and a jumbo bag of Juan's Spicy Senorita chips, he retreated to the couch and flopped down on it. Before Alec had taken up residence, Jondy had had a weak, hulking TV from 2002; good, if you were from the Middle Ages. Alec had been quick to snag a flatscreen from some swanky flat in Sector 6. If he had to suffer with bad cable, he was going to suffer in style.

When he turned on the TV with a click of the remote, it was on that new ghost-hunter show. It was something about people traveling across the country looking for signs of "the spiritual world" and ghosts and werewolves and stuff, all sorts of crap. Alec thought it was hilarious, especially when the people on the show got so freaked out when they had to stay in "haunted" houses. Snickering already, Alec hunkered down, popped the lid off the guacamole and started the demolition process. This bag had to be eaten by the end of tonight because, huh, because it was his duty as a male newly freed from food restrictions to eat the entire thing. Up yours, Manticore.

By the time the hour long episode ended, Alec had gotten through two thirds of the bag. He would've managed better than that, but half-way through the show, he had needed a different taste and a drink, so he had snagged a couple leftover brownies from the batch Jondy had baked last night for no reason that he knew of and grabbed soda from the fridge since they were out of milk.

Alec looked toward Jondy's room. She hadn't finished her shower yet. It had been almost an hour, and he could still hear the shower running. Normally he wouldn't think anything of it, girls liked long showers, but their water heater had started dying earlier in the week and it was now pretty much useless. So Jondy was taking a cold shower, which he knew she didn't like those because she had cursed out the water heater in various languages multiple times over the last few days. There was also the fact that, truthfully, there wasn't much of Jondy to wash. She was short and pretty slim. There wasn't much need for her to take an hour in a cold shower in October to wash up when she could accomplish the same task in about five minutes.

Grabbing the bag of chips and tucking it into the crook of his arm, Alec headed toward Jondy's room, munching idly on one of the chips. He knocked on her door, knowing she would hear him. "Hey, I'm gonna eat all the guacamole and chips. And the chips are the Juan kind." He expected some smart comment about how he was going to get fat if he kept eating the way he did, but there was nothing, just the sound of water hitting the hard plastic bottom of Jondy's shower-tub combo. Alec frowned. What was up with her?

He knocked on her door again, harder this time. "Jonds, I'm not kidding, I'll really gonna finish these without you." He thought that would get some kind of comment out of her since she actually did like the chips, but she stayed silent.

Could she really have been in such of a hurry that she left her shower on? That didn't seem like her.

Alec left the chips on the table beside the door and let himself into her room. Her day clothes, a pair of blue jeans and a light blue sweater, were discarded on the floor, but the black knee-high leather boots he knew she always wore to AlleyCat's, which was her club tonight, were beside the bed. The room smelled different too, like Jondy, but something…the scent wasn't right. The bathroom door was mostly closed but a bit of light was coming through the open crack. "Hey, are you in there?"

There was a whimper, and he picked up the sound of something tapping lightly and irregularly on the hard plastic bottom of the tub. What the hell was that?

Without thinking, Alec pushed open the door and stepped into the bathroom. The shower was running, but the old, blue shower curtain hadn't been closed. The floor around the shower was soaked, puddles forming on smooth, dark blue tiles. The tips of a pair of shaking feet in AlleyCat uniform fishnet stockings were sticking out from behind the shower curtain, tapping on the floor of the tub at random whenever they jerked.

He pushed back the rest of the shower curtain to find Jondy huddled at the back of the bathtub, her arms locked around her legs, her chin pressed tight to her kneecaps, her eyes half shut. She was wearing her AlleyCat outfit, which was the fishnets, a black miniskirt and a red halter top, but it was all soaked through by the bitterly cold water that was shooting from the showerhead.

And she was shaking. Violently shaking.