Author's Note: Have been uploading this kinda quick but figure I might as well. This writing lark is kind of fun but I don't know if anyone's reading. Except the computer pixies, obviously. They read everything.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or ideas. I'm just using them to play and learn.

Vince was in shock. At least that's what he could hear Howard telling him down the phone. He'd been trying to calm Vince down for a good ten minutes but Vince was still sitting hunched over on his bed, shaking like a leaf and whimpering occasionally as his poor brain attempted to process what Naboo had told him so bluntly down the line.

"Vince. We have a child here. It's yours. You need to come home. Now."

He couldn't. He knew it sounded terrible. It made him feel sick to even think that he could be that shallow, but he just couldn't go back there. He'd worked so hard and was so close to finally making it big in the world. As hard as things were here it was better than being a nobody. He couldn't just chuck it all in and go back to the Nabootique. He'd never live down the shame.

Initially he'd barely registered the first part of what Naboo had said, he'd been so overwhelmed at being told, no ordered, to come home that his brain had just about shut down. It was only now, listening to Howard being all soothing and caring, that he was finally starting to understand why he was being told to pack up his life and return to Dalston.

He had a child.

He'd never really thought about being a parent before. He'd thought about protection to ensure it didn't happen, obviously, he wasn't a complete idiot, but he'd never considered actually having a kid of his own. In the same way that he'd never considered getting married and settling down. In the same way that he'd never thought twice about the kiss on the rooftop at Howard's party (Well, he might have thought about that incident once or twice but he'd never analyzed it. Well...).

Vince shook his head, trying to clear the wayward thoughts as he focused on what Naboo and Howard were trying to tell him. He had a kid.

It wasn't actually that shocking, was it? Really? With the number of girls he'd had lining up to be with him, it was really kind of inevitable that eventually one of them would get pregnant. Except that, well, despite the boasting and his obvious popularity, and the long line of girls and guys who would happily jump into his bed, Vince hadn't actually slept with that many people. He'd kissed plenty. Kissing was genius. But when it came down to it, Vince didn't like to hurry into bed with just anyone. He had standards, despite what some tall Northerners might think.

But what did it really matter that he had a child? Why did that mean he had to drop everything and come home?

Vince straightened his back and interrupted Howard's soothing murmurs.

"Does she want money then?"

His voice came out harsher than he was expecting but he didn't really care. Howard just spluttered down the line.

"If she wants money, whoever she is, tell her to get stuffed. If she wants she can write to my lawyer but I'll be asking for a DNA test, at her expense, before I even consider a pay-out."

There was silence save for Vince's own stilted breaths until Howard finally found his voice. His question was not the one Vince was expecting.

"You-you've got a lawyer?"

Vince rolled his eyes. "'Course I have, you muppet. I'm not that stupid."

"I know you're not," Howard appeased. "I've been working with Leroy for a year, trust me, I know what an idiot looks like. It's just..."

He trailed off and Vince couldn't help but smile a little. The thought of Howard and Leroy working together five days a week was just too funny. The two men had never really gotten on which confused Vince, because Leroy really wasn't an idiot. He was smarter than Vince by a long shot. Howard and Leroy just couldn't seem to get along. It was almost as if they viewed each other as rivals, though rivals for what, Vince had no idea.

"It's just what?" he asked, coyly, smiling at his friend's awkwardness.

"It's just... when did you get so hard?"

The smile fell from Vince's lips, replaced by a stony expression.

"Hard?"

"Yeah. Talking about the child as if it isn't really alive. Like her." Howard's tone was accusatory and Vince felt his anger did Howard have to put him down all the time?

"I've only known about the kid for ten minutes! I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl for Christ's sake!" Howard was silent but Vince couldn't stop the words spilling from his mouth. "I've had to be hard, Howard. I'm in a cut throat business, yeah? This isn't Jazz club, or some art wank film, here. Showing weakness is as bad as putting on an extra kilo. It's suicide. How do I even know this isn't some sort of twisted joke? What did she say to you?"

In the silence that followed Vince tried to get his breathing and his temper back under control but Howard's confusion made it almost impossible.

"What did who say?"

"The woman," Vince replied through clenched teeth. "The mother. What story did she spin you?"

"Oh." Howard's voice was soft again, and sounded thick, as if he was trying not to cry, which was just absurd. "She didn't say anything to me, Vince. She... I haven't met her. We don't know who she is. The child, it... the child was left in front of the shop this morning. Wailing and crying with a note pinned to it's blanket."

Vince could hear Howard attempting to calm down and could picture the tears building up in the tiny brown eyes. He suddenly felt very cold, sitting on his bed in nothing but a towel. He stood stiffly and began to pace around the room, his movements twitchy and uneven. He felt like a puppet trying to walk with its strings tangled and he could feel the headache building behind his eyes.

His child had been abandoned, dumped at a shop he hadn't worked at for two years. His child.

"What's- what's it's name?"

Howard sighed. "We don't know, Vince. It wasn't in the note. Sorry."

Vince swallowed, working hard to not lose control. "Well, is it a boy or a girl, then?"

He could hear his voice getting shrill but he couldn't stop it.

"I'm sorry, Vince," Howard murmured. "We don't know that either. The child was wrapped in a blanket and crying when I found it. I managed to rock it to sleep but, it's hard to tell if it's a boy or a girl. I can never tell with kids under five anyway."

"How old does- does m-my child look? What does he...she look like?" Vince felt the shakes coming back and began to pace more quickly. He could practically feel Howard's sympathy through the phone.

"I'd say between two and four years old. Thick, blonde hair with a bit of curl to it. Round cheeks but quite skinny overall. One hell of a set of lungs, too." There was a small chuckle from Howard that made Vince smile. Howard sounded half in love with the kid already and he liked the idea of Howard rocking a child, his child, to sleep and stopping their tears. Howard had done it for him more than once when he was little.

He'd had a mop of blonde hair as a boy, it could be his child. But there was still doubt wriggling like eels in his belly.

"But how can we know it's mine, Howard?"

Howard let out a heavy sigh followed by a sharp inhale. "Woops."

"Woops? Howard, what's woops?" Vince asked, trying not to give in to his nerves and his throbbing head.

He could hear shuffling and Howard speaking softly to someone, his child most likely. The words 'my child', even in his head, sounded frightening and strange but Vince fought down the panic.

"Howard?"

"I think the little one's waking up, Vince. I-" Howard gasped and Vince wished he could climb through the phone and back to the tiny flat in Dalston. Even if it did cost him his career. He hated not knowing what was happening.

"Howard?"

"This is definitely your child, Vince. I mean... wow."