It didn't matter, a month later they wheres till like strangers who simply shared a surname. The distance between them that they'd promised to try and fill was still so wide that Riley went for her first scan all alone. She was sitting in the waiting room, flipping through a magazine and silently vowing not to be any awful naterinty clothes. Once or twice Shane had offered to take her shopping, but she still wasn't compleatly use to the idea of being pregnant and the idea of the money unsettled her.

"Riley Helms."

She looked up and saw a motherly looking midwife standing by the reception desk holding a file and looking around expectantly. Riley took a deep breath and got to her feet, forcing a smile. The midwife lead her to a dark room and ordered her to lie on the bed and roll up her top while she looked over her notes.

"So Mrs. Helms. This is your first baby and your due date is September, right?"

"Yeah, right."

"Ok, lets have a look."

She squirted a cream on he stomach and then began scanning around. Riley looked at the black and white image of her insides and felt slightly sick. It was weird to think she was looking inside her. Then the midwife beamed at her and pointed.

"See, there it is. There's your baby."

Riley frowned and stared hard at the screen. She was definatly unimpressed. It wasn't much to look at and she suddenly felt bad that she was excited by it.

"Oh yeah. Great."

"We can't tell the sex right now, but by the ext scan you should be able to. I'll print you out a couple copies."

She gave riley a tissue to wipe the cream off her stomach and she gave a grunt. Having a baby was messy business.

When Riley arrived home, Shane was sitting on the floor trying to hook the new DVD player up.

"Where have you been?" Shane asked, turning to face her, but still reading the instruction booklet.

"Hospital." She replied bluntly, sitting on the couch and kicking off her shoes.

Now, he looked up, frowning. "Is everything alright?"

"Fine. It was just my first scan. Here." Riley dug in her bag and threw the picture at him. Shane didn't open it up, he just looked at Riley.

"Why didn't you tell me? I would of come with you."

She shrugged. "It wasn't important."

"It was your first scan. The first glimpse at our baby. I would of liked to be there to see it."

"Relax. They took pictures." she bit back.

Shane opened it up and the frown literally evaporated off his face.

"Wow. I didn't expect to feel so..."

"Underwhelmed?" Riley filled in helpfully.

"Exactly the opposite." he said quietly before looking upa t her. "You feel underwhelmed?"

'Shit.' Riley thought. 'Quick. Backtrack.'

"Not underwhelmed. I just mean that, you know....shit. Yes, underwhelmed."

"Riley, this is our baby. Are you saying you don't want it?"

She rolled her eyes. "No! But I don't feel impressed by the whole thing, or in awe. I haven't got any of those glowy, happy mother type feelings."

She gave a loud sigh and sank futhur down on the couch, avoiding Shane's eyes.

"This is our baby..." Shane began again.

"You can't expect me to be over the moon about it!" She shouted. "Look how it all happened! Do you think this is how I wanted to become a mother? Well I'm sorry for not jumping for joy!"

Like a spoilt child she folded her arms and sulked.

An hour later Shane had given up with the DVD player and Riley ahd rooted herself in front of the computer to send an e-mail to Alice and a greeting to Sydney, who had someone managed to get her wealthy older man to propose. Shane was sitting in the kitchen, Riley's scan picture lay in front of him. He couldn't believe how she felt. He hadn't imagined becoming a father this way either, but it didn't mean he was any less excited. Him and Riley couldn't carry on like this, otherwise they'd wake up one day, it would be five years later and things would be the same. Maybe it was a mistake to get married, but Riley was poor, there was no other word for it, and it would of been almost impossible to support her with him on the road four days a week and her living in New York. He had to talk to her. When he eventually worked up the courage to go see her, Riley was muttering to herself.

"Francine, Finley, Flynn and....you'd think I'd remember my own newphew's name."

"I'm guessing it starts with an F?" Shane said, tying to ease the tension.

"An everlasting tribute to her Dad. Frank Sydney. A one night stand, like all my mother's men."

"You're sister has her Dad's last name?"

"An everlasting tribute to all the men in Yvette's life. Same here. James Riley was my Daddy ."

Shane pulled a chair right up next to her and looked down at the scan, wondering how he should start the conversation.

"I'm sure you'd be a big fan of calling the baby Helms Clarke then?"

She smiled. "I'm not my mother or my sister."

A sudden memory of Alice telling her the same thing flashed through her head. She tapped the return key to send the greeting and glanced down at the scan in his hands.

"How you feel about the baby will change." He said.

"I told you it's not that I don't want the baby. It's just that I'm not use to it."

"That'll change. Once you start getting fat."

She smiled again. "Yeah and once I start throwing up every morning. The joys of pregnancy."