So, you guys wanted an addition to The Phone Call, and here is what my crazy brain came up with! Enjoy! You don't have to read The Phone Call to get this story, but it would definitely help, since this is the sequel!

Chapter 1: The Helpline

Sleep.

After a long day at the office, sleep was all Hinata wanted. However, the comforting respite was more elusive tonight than it had been in a while. Hinata sat up in bed, her mind reeling, the thoughts refusing to just quiet themselves.

She kicked her covers off and swung her feet to the floor clutching her forehead in her hands.

She was worried.

Sasuke hadn't called her back, and it was driving her completely insane. With worry. Silence from someone going through what he was going through was not a good sign. Hinata slid off her bed, the moonlight from her large windows eking through a sliver of space between her curtains and casting a shaft of blue light across her bare chest. Hinata straightened her camisole and padded from her room, heading to the living room.

Every second that passed made her more worried, the dark haired man filling her every thought. Had he hurt himself since the time he'd called? He had sounded so broken. Was he okay? Well, she highly doubted that, but still... was he alive?

Hinata poured herself a glass of white wine and went where she did when she needed to think. The window. Hinata stood where she had that fateful night when Sasuke had called her, her mind taking her back to the moment that he'd entered her life.

Hinata jumped as the opening notes of Good Charlotte's 'I Just Wanna Live' blared from her phone, the appliance vibrating madly in her hands. Hinata looked down at the item in shock. Someone was calling her?

It must be a wrong number.

She answered anyway.

"Hello?"

"What really is there to live for, huh? Why shouldn't I just give up right now?" the person on the other end of the line ranted without preamble.

"Erm… sir?" Hinata started.

"I mean, I… When you find out that the brother you've loved all these years killed your entire family, what do you do? What are you supposed to feel, huh? And you find this out the day your bride walks out on you in the middle of the ceremony?" the man yelled into the phone. His breathing was harsh over the line. Hinata could feel her heart racing in her chest. Whatever was she supposed to do?

"Everything is going wrong. Everything. I wanted the kid. Why wouldn't Sakura believe me, huh? Even when I told her I wanted it… she goes and… she goes and drinks, and then the bitch falls off the edge of the roof and ends up killing my little boy," the man sobbed over the line. "I felt him kick… before… I put my hand on her stomach, and felt my little boy kick my hand… and she…" the man's voice broke as harsh sobs sounded over the line.

Hinata swallowed nervously. How could she tell this man that he'd called the wrong number? How could she tell him that she wasn't sure she wanted to hear all this? She didn't know who he was.

"S-Sir?" she tried again. She couldn't ask if he was alright, because he so obviously wasn't.

"I'm on the edge of a building, you know," he chuckled. "Because it's too much. I had an 'episode' at work, and got fired. I'm the second son. My big brother's the heir, and of course he inherited, since he offed my parents… I just can't wrap my head around it," the man rambled. "And then I think, the confusion and the pain and the fear, well they'll all end if I jump, won't they?"

Hinata's breath caught in her throat.

"No!" she screamed suddenly into the phone. "No."

Hinata ran her hand over her face, her throat closing with panic. He was supposed to call. After she'd talked him down from the edge of the hotel roof, he'd asked her if he could call her, and she'd told him yes. He was supposed to call. For once, Hinata was not obsessing over her own insecurities because a man didn't call when he'd insinuated that he would.

Once again, Hinata's eyes watched unseeingly over the Konoha city, lit even at this obscene hour of the night. Hinata stared out at the cars driving about, the tiny people walking along the still lit sidewalks and dashing across the streets. Was any of them Sasuke? What was he doing right now? What was he feeling?

Hinata took a sip of her wine and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. She eyed the phone sitting innocently on her coffee table.

'Ugh. This actually really sucks. I need to know how you are, Sasuke-san,' Hinata thought, nibbling her lower lip. Swallowing the rest of the wine, Hinata rested the glass on the coffee table and picked up her phone. Staying awake was not going to make him call her any sooner, so the brunette slid back under the covers and willed herself to go back to sleep. She had another long day at work tomorrow.

Sleep was tugging at the very last vestiges of her consciousness, when she heard it.

I need an alarm system in my house...

Hinata snatched up the phone, suddenly awake.

"Hello?" she answered.

"I don't understand this. Why the hell did this have to happen to me? Why is it that I'm the one left alone after all of this? Huh? What did I do so bad? I know I used to be a bastard and Karma is a bitch but was what I did really so bad?" the male voice ranted over the phone. Hinata felt tears of relief sting her eyes.

"Y-You idiot," she warbled into the phone. "Do you have any idea how much you made me worry? Why did you take so long to call? It's been two weeks! I thought you were dead!" Hinata cried. She was met with silence over the line.

"You... you were worried about me?" Sasuke asked, his voice filled with hesitancy. "I didn't think..."

"What?" Hinata almost snapped. "You didn't think I would care? What do you take me for? I was worried sick! What if something happened to you?" Sasuke gave a short, mirthless chuckle.

"Fine, I'll call you sooner next time. I didn't think you wanted to be saddled with my every issue..." Hinata didn't respond for a moment, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. "Hinata-chan? Are you there?" Sasuke called.

"Mmmhmm," Hinata replied with a murmur. "Are you okay though? You're not hurt or anything?" she asked, clearing her throat.

"I'm fine," Sasuke snapped immediately. There was a pause, in which Hinata silently conveyed her disbelief. "Okay, fine.. so I'm not. I don't get it! Why me?"

"I don't think anyone has the answer to that, Sasuke."

"I feel like I can't breathe, Hinata," Sasuke rasped over the line. His quickened breath made it clear to Hinata that the man was on the verge of hyperventilating. "The apartment is so quiet... Sakura isn't here and even though I kinda hate her right now, I'm missing her more than I can even describe," Sasuke gasped. Hinata stayed quiet, letting him speak.

"I mean... it's just so stifling here, and I... I just think maybe if I..."

"Don't you dare even think about suffocating yourself, Sasuke-san," Hinata said firmly into the phone.

"You don't know what it is like," Sasuke snarled over the line, but Hinata could hear the fear. "You don't have any idea what it is like to step into your house and see your parents..." he choked, his voice faltering over the sentence. "Kami, Hinata, there was so much blood. He used the freaking chef's knife, Hinata-chan... and he..." Sasuke dissolved into tears, the sounds harsh and raspy.

"I can't sleep... everytime I close my eyes, I see the bodies and their bloody faces and I... I wake up and I want to talk to Sakura, but... but she's gone, and she took my little boy from me... I never even got to see his face, or hold his hand.. but I loved my little boy, you know...' the man blubbered over the phone.

He spoke to her, telling him how he felt and the feelings welling up inside him, and Hinata responded in the moments when he could no longer speak since he was in tears, or just incapable. Before Hinata even realized it, the pale blue light of the moon had faded into the pale yellow of the sunrise. Sasuke paused in the middle of a something he'd been saying and gave a mirthless chuckle.

"I don't usually talk this much... but you...I..." Sasuke stopped, scoffed and then sighed. "Are you even there still?"

"Yeah..." Hinata said softly. "You're right, I don't know what it is like. But what I do know is that you won't get any stronger if you give up. There must be a reason why your brother did what he did, right?"

"I don't know about that. I wanted to believe that he … he... I don't know what to believe, but I believe what I see, and what I saw was pretty damning..." Sasuke grunted. For a moment, only their breathing sounding over the line.

"Hinata...?" Sasuke said after a while.

"Yes?" Hinata responded, her voice quiet, and more relaxed now that she'd spoken to him and realized that he was indeed, fine.

"Tell me more about yourself," he demanded. Hinata smiled.

"You need to say 'please'," Hinata teased, knowing he could hear her smile through her voice.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, and Hinata giggled.

"You know you always do that thing when you're trying to evade a question..." she said on a chuckle. "You're like all 'Hn. I'm too cool to respond to that'." There was silence over the line.

"...Does it really sound like that?" Sasuke asked.

"A little bit," Hinata said with a smile. She turned over in her bed, pulling her pillow closer to her chest.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, clenching his teeth against a smile. It felt like a sin to smile in the face of the shit that his life was. How could he smile when his parents were murdered... when his little boy was dead... when Sakura had left him for Kami knew what reason...? How could he smile when he was all alone?

The past two weeks had been terrible, especially after he'd gotten a taste of what it felt like to tell someone what was on his mind. To get it out of his thoughts and into the air. She'd talked him away from the edge of a building, and Kami knew, the whole week he'd been staring longingly at the phone, aching to just take it up and call her.

Hinata.

He didn't know what she looked like. She didn't know what he looked like, but it didn't matter. She knew more about him than the people who knew what he looked like did. And sure she may not have a clue about him, per se, as in, his likes and dislikes and his general reactions to things, but … she could. He'd finally given in to the need to call her when he'd felt like the air itself was crushing him.

Sasuke staggered through his bathroom door, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the sink. He looked like shit. His cheeks were sunken, his hair looked dull, his eyes were red and puffy and he literally looked like he'd been through the wringer. And he had.

It was just that no one really knew. He hadn't told anyone that Sakura was pregnant, so no one understood why he hated her for falling.

He hadn't told any of his friends about how his parents were killed, and the lawyers and the police were keeping the whole thing very hushed up so as to avoid a huge scandal for Uchiha Industries.

Sasuke turned on the tap and watched the water gushing from the faucet, pooling in the basin before swirling around the drain. That's how his life felt. As if he were the faucet and the water was everything good in his life. It was all going to hell. After splashing water on his face, the cold liquid not doing anything to make him feel better, Sasuke turned the water off with an aggravated twist of his wrist.

He hadn't showered since earlier that morning, but he didn't have the energy to do it now. Sasuke barely made it to his bed before he collapsed, tears seeping from his eyes. No matter how hard he closed his eyes, the tears still came. No matter how hard he clenched his teeth, the sobs still escaped. No matter how hard he tried, he was still weak and he still ached to take the phone.

Hinata. 'In the Sun'.

He could talk to her, right? It would be okay for him to talk to her, right?

He was an Uchiha. He didn't need to call some woman crying about his fucked up life. He didn't need to tell anyone how he was the one with the entire weight of Uchiha Industries on his shoulders since Itachi was under investigation and prohibited from operating the company.

Sasuke rolled face up on his bed, his dark eyes glued to the ceiling. His room felt hot and uncomfortable. The air felt cloying and suffocating.

It was that thought. It was that thought that made the mere air in his room feel as if it was a hand clasped over his nose, stopping him from taking a breath. Sasuke opened his mouth, trying to suck air in through his throat, but the passage was closed. Tightly. His chest heaving and his lungs burning, Sasuke tried to suck in air, but to no avail.

Eyes wide with panic, Sasuke stretched a hand to his left, feeling blindly over the sheets for his phone. His hot, sweaty palm made contact with the cool hardness of the device, which had been partially hidden by the sheets.

Hinata. He needed her.

He needed someone to explain. Why?

As his fingers closed around his phone, Sasuke rolled over, sitting on the edge of the bed, his feet placed flat on the ground, his head between his legs, and a gasp shuddered through him. He couldn't get the air into his lungs fast enough, and it burned the insides of his throat as he hungrily sucked it into his lungs.

He breathed so fast that he choked, the memory of his parents' still bloody bodies and Itachi standing to the side with the bloody knife in his hand surging to his memory. Then his stomach flipped, and one shaking hand came up to cover his mouth on instinct before he hurled.

The mixture of bile and whatever it was that was still in his stomach exploded from his lips, bursting through the cracks between his fingers and dribbling down his chin, dripping down onto the floor. Sasuke tried to stand to get to the bathroom, but his knees were far too weak for him to even move. And then his stomach twisted and he was hurling again.

Some five minutes after, his bare feet in a pool of pale tan liquid, Sasuke gasped. This couldn't go on. He weakly wiped his mouth with a corner of his sheets and, with shaking fingers, he scrolled through the Call History on his phone and let the call go through.

It only rang once before that voice he would never forget answered. And then Sasuke felt anger and hurt surge through him.

"I don't understand this. Why the hell did this have to happen to me?"

Sasuke was forced to admit when he heard her soft chuckle over the line, that he really needed a friend. He'd needed to hear her voice. Just these few hours with her and his breathing was back to normal and his stomach no longer felt upset. His head still ached, but he could think now.

"You still haven't told me much about yourself," Sasuke muttered over the phone clutched in his grip.

"You still haven't said please," Hinata responded cheekily, and Sasuke could hear the smile in her voice. She smiled so much. Sometimes he could tell that the smile was sad, and that the sadness was for him, and it didn't make him feel so alone anymore.

"...Please," he said after a moment.

"Would you tell me more about yourself... please."

Well, there you have it! I've worked out a bit of a plot for where I am taking this story, and I really hope you enjoy this! Please leave me a review!