Howard hated to interrupt the adorable scene happening in front of him but they needed to talk about this. I mean, they now had a baby. An actual baby. And what's more, she was Vince's actual baby.

"Vince," he murmured, causing his friend to look up from Polly.

"Yeah?"

"What, uh... What do you think we should do?"

Vince frowned, carefully sitting down with Polly in his arms. "What d'you mean?"

Howard sighed. "Well, you know, it's a big responsibility, little man. She needs feeding, changing, as well as bringing up. We'll need to work pretty hard."

Vince's face fell. He hadn't thought about that. He had no idea whatsoever about looking after a baby. He could barely look after himself.

"Oh Howard," he whispered, looking down at Polly with sad eyes, "We're not going to give her away, are we?"

"Woah now, sir, where's all this coming from?" Howard frowned, moving a little closer to his friend.

"We don't know how to look after a baby."

"We can learn!" Howard paused and looked at his friend deeply. "Do you want to give her away?"

Vince's head whipped up as he stared at Howard. "No! Of course I don't!" He paused, looking back down at his daughter. "I just..." he trailed off, unable to stop the little sob that escaped his mouth.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Howard asked, carefully taking Polly into his arms and rocking her gently.

"It's just..." Vince hesitated, never taking his eyes from Polly's. "I've never looked after a child before."

"So? Neither have I. Most parents haven't either until their first child."

"I just want her to be brought up right, you know?" Vince bit his lip. "I want her to have a good life, not brought up by some wanker who can't look after her."

"She will be brought up right," Howard insisted, handing Polly back to Vince and nodding over at a baby bag that resided next to the counter. "It has nappies, food, bottles, a few clothes. Stella even had the decency to leave a list of her allergies, likes and dislikes."

"Allergies?" Vince's eyes widened, reeling away from Polly as if he was made of peanuts and she had the world's worst nut allergy.

"It's fine, she's just got a slight intolerance to milk. There's hypoallergenic formula in the bag for her."

Vince nodded slowly. "Anything else?"

Howard smiled a little. "She loves attention. Apparently she's such a little drama queen, just like her daddy."

Vince smiled a little, looking down at his daughter. After a short silence he whispered, "How old is she?"

"Uh, nearly 9 months, Stella said. She can crawl and babble but she hasn't said her first word yet, so we have that to look forward to, eh?" Howard smiled enthusiastically at Vince, before giving up once he saw his friend's sombre expression. "What's wrong?" he asked gently.

Vince's head whipped up and he stared at Howard with his big, blue eyes. "Howard, we have a baby now. That's kind of a lot to take in. I'm this close to screaming and walking out, I just don't know what do to."

"Vince, calm down."

"I'm not going to calm down!" Vince suddenly yelled, standing up and snatching the bag from off the floor. "She's my daughter! This a big deal, Moon, and I'm not going to screw it up like everything else in my life."

The instant he stopped for breath, Polly opened her mouth and began to cry in earnest. Vince couldn't help the panicked expression that made its way onto his face.

"Here," Howard offered, getting up from his seat and reaching for Polly. Vince flinched away.

"I can do it myself!" he said angrily, storming up the stairs to their flat.

Struggling to balance the baby and open the bag, he managed to fish out a bottle that contained white powder. He reached for the kettle and silently thanked a deity that it was still warm. He poured it into the bottle and shook, before testing the temperature and feeding it to Polly. She wriggled away from it, bawling and looking at her dad with big, sad eyes.

Oh god. Vince had no idea what to do. Polly just wailed and wailed, squirming in his arms and face turning red.

"Please don't cry," he whispered in what he thought was a soothing voice, rocking her as best he could. "Shhh."

Polly paid no attention and wailed more, her loud cries piercing Vince's ears.

He grabbed her bottle and held it to her again. No reaction. He lay her down and checked her nappy. Clean. He tried singing to her. If anything, she just cried harder.

What did she want?

Vince was so frustrated, partly with Polly because she wouldn't stop, but mostly with himself because he didn't know how to calm his own fucking daughter. He was the worst father in the world.

He sat down heavily on the sofa before letting his own angry tears fall. He was such a failure.

"What's going on?"

Vince looked up tearfully to see Howard at the top of the stairs.

"I-I..." Vince broke off into a sob.

Howard frowned, cautiously making his way over to the sofa and squatting down in front of Vince.

"Did she hurt herself?"

The crying man shook his head.

"Well then what is it?"

"If I knew that I would have sorted it, you jerkoff!" Vince snapped, hugging Polly to his chest.

Howard paused to look at his friend and the little baby in his arms. He sighed.

"You're holding her wrong."

"No I'm n-not!"

"You are. Look," Howard said gently, standing and carefully lifting the wailing Polly out of Vince's arms.

"Shhh, hey now," he soothed like a professional, before placing her so that she was pressed up against Vince's chest, her head near his shoulder and his hand cupping her lower back.

"There now."

Vince glared. "And how exactly is this-?"

He was cut off by Howard shushing him, and moments later, Polly's cries began to subside. She reached up a tiny little hand to grab Vince's jaw and buried her wet face into the top of his chest.

Vince looked up at Howard in awe. "How did you do that?"

The maverick shrugged. "Babies like heartbeats. It calms them." He paused. "And why were you crying?"

Vince sniffled before quietly speaking. "I'm a shit dad."

Howard blinked. "What?"

"I'm a shit dad, Howard. You know more about my own bloody daughter than I do! How am I supposed to look after if I ca-can't even-"

"Hey," Howard said firmly, sitting down beside his friend and looking at him, "Jesus Vince, you've only known her for 20 minutes; you can't expect to know her inside just yet, little man. Now come on, I hate seeing you upset. You can do this. We can do it together. She may be your biological child but that doesn't mean I can't be any less of a parent to her." He quickly added: "Of course, only if you want that. I don't have to get involved if you don't want me to."

Vince nodded tearfully, gently stroking Polly's back with his free hand. "I can't do this by myself, Howard. I need you."

"I'm right here, sir. Don't you worry about that."