A/N: Whoopee! The next chapter! And I'd once again like to remind you all that yes, I DO have permission to be writing this fic; otherwise it'd never be posted here. Alright, I had a silly thought earlier today while waiting for the bus, and thus a new chapter was born. Rejoice good people, for it is good. Well… I think it's good… ^_^x

The Student, the Typhoon, and the Closet

**Chapter 2**

BzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzSLAM!

"Stupid alarm clock…." I muttered. Groggily, I opened an eye to see what time it was. Hmmmm… eight am… I might as well get up… With deep yawn I pushed back the covers of my bed and stretched, cat-like, before glancing over at the large blue recliner chair just opposite my bed.

"Huh. Must've been a dream…" I muttered as I went to grab a robe so I could fix myself some breakfast. Tossing on my favorite blue fleece robe over my pj's, I looked out the window. "Hmm, raining. Better stay home today." With another small yawn I made my way into the kitchen. "Scrambled eggs would be nice…"

Rummaging through the cabinets, I finally extracted the desired frying pan, and set to work making myself a lovely plate of eggs, when I was rudely interrupted by a small noise…

"Good morning!"

"Gah!" I uttered in surprise as I tripped over the dog dish and landed flat on my face on the linoleum floors of my kitchen. Oh hello floor, and how are you today? Me? Oh… my day's starting out a little rough…

"Uh… what are you doing on the floor?" Vash asked as he gently picked me up and set me back on my feet. Frowning, I waved a spatula at him.

"You were supposed to be a dream."

"I was?" he said with a confused look.

"I must be loosing my mind" I muttered as I turned back to my unfinished breakfast. With a sideways glance, I looked the infamous gunslinger up and down, still not quite sure this was actually real.

"You're really standing there aren't you?" I asked, still not turning to face him.

He looked around. "Do you want me to move or something?"

I shook my head. "Vash the Stampede, the 'Humanoid Typhoon' himself, is standing in my kitchen."

Vash merely looked more confused, "Are you sure you're alright?"

I sighed, and retrieved not one, but two plates from the cupboard, and dished out a serving of eggs for Vash as well. "Ketchup?"

He grinned and took the bottle from my hand. "Thanks!"

I sat down at the table, trying to make sense out of all this. Alright Liz, you've got two rational and logical answers to this. 1) Vash is really here, eating scrambled eggs at your kitchen table, or 2) you've gone completely daffy. I looked up, only to see Vash devouring breakfast at an inhuman pace. That's it, you're nuts.

"Alright." I said firmly, causing Vash to pause his annihilation of the scrambled eggs. "I've decided, that I'm insane, and you're a hallucination. Therefore, you aren't really here, and the only logical thing for me to do is seek severe mental help." I state matter-of-factly.

He swallowed a mouthful of food. "But… if I'm a hallucination, then how come I can eat your food?" he said with a grin.

I looked down at my plate, and indeed, all of my food was gone. He's got you there! the side of me that wanted him to be real declared triumphantly. I frowned. "Well, I know of one way I can be sure that you're real…" I said with a wicked grin.

Vash gulped. I took this opportunity to lean across the table and snatch his revolver out of his pocket before he could say or do anything to stop me.

"Hey!" he cried after I was already headed out the back door with my prize. "You can't just steal people's guns you know!"

Opening the door, I carefully took a second to aim at the trunk of the grapefruit tree in my backyard, before firing off a single shot. Unfortunately, I had underestimated the power of the large colt revolver, and the gun nearly jumped free of my inexpert grasp as the shot recoiled. "Well, that felt pretty real to me…"I muttered, finally beginning to believe the impossible. "So I guess that means that… Vash?" I had turned to face him, ready to tell him that yes, I believed he was real, and no, perhaps I wasn't insane, but the look of pure awe on his face stopped me cold. "Vash? What is it?" I questioned, waving a hand in front of his face to try and bring him back to… well, just bring him back I suppose, as reality seemed to have taken a vacation.

A smile filled with nothing but pure joy and amazement spread across his face, like a small child that just received their first Christmas present. "It's raining…" he said softly, as though the very sound of his voice would shatter the fragile world he stood in.

"So?" What's so great about… rain! Baka! I slapped myself, how could I have forgotten? "Vash, you've never seen it rain before have you?"

He smiled, "Actually, I was beginning to think it would never rain here… it's always so dry…"

"Here?" I questioned, slightly confused.

He looked at me, equally as confused by my question as I was by his statement. "Here. This planet. The plants have been trying for years to accomplish something like this but…"

I shook my head sadly. "Vash, you're not on Gunsmoke anymore. The plants don't exist. And it rains, regularly."

He stared at me, "Not… this isn't Gunsmoke?? Then where the hell are we??"

Hoo boy, Kansas is a long ways away, ain't it Dorothy? "Um… Welcome to Earth."

Shocked, could not even begin to describe the look on his face. "Earth" he said slowly, as though testing the feel of it on his tongue. "But… that's impossible…" He frowned, "In order for that to happen, I'd have to travel through some sort of time warp…"

I smirked. "It's just a jump, to the left."

He looked at me for a minute trying to figure out what I meant, and for a second I could have sworn he was actually going to jump to the left. Well, either that or faint from shock. "Do you want to sit down?" He nodded, and turned back to the kitchen table, slumping into a chair as I shut the door to the back porch.

I sighed, and decided that a nice cup of tea would be good right about now. Putting the kettle on the stove, I mused to myself about how different the real world truly was in comparison to the reality Vash knew of. He's probably never even seen a cell phone before! I thought with a smile. Looking towards him, I felt deep sympathy for this man. He'd been hunted nearly all his life, generally avoids people, has a psychopathic brother trying to destroy humanity, and now he was suddenly thrust into "the real world".

Walking back to the table, two cups of tea in hand, I offered one to him with a characteristic smile of mine, which was somewhere between a smirk and a playful grin. "Look at it this way, at least no one here is trying to kill you, even if you have jumped back a few hundreds years in your reality."

He looked a little bewildered for a moment, and then grinned once more. "Might be nice not to have to run away from everyone I meet" he said in a voice just above a whisper.

I laughed, my knowledge of the Trigun anime series reminding me of his tendency to act almost philosophical half the time. "You really are too serious you know."

"That sounds like something someone used to tell me."

I grinned, of course it does, and I know who you're thinking of too. But I decided it might be best to stay away from that area for the moment, at least until I got a second opinion on things. "Well, the way I figure, one of us is bound to be either insane, or dreaming, so we might as well make the best of it."

He laughed, "Alright, but which of us is the crazy one?"

"Got me." I said, just as a wonderful thought hit me. Stephie, she'd know what to do! Or at least she wouldn't be too surprised to find me hallucinating… that's it. I'll go see Stephie. Now… how to get him to follow me out of the house… I grinned wickedly, I had the perfect idea.

"Vash… what do you say we go get some donuts?"

His eyes lit up, and he jumped up from the table with gleeful "REALLY? Can we go now? PLEASE?????"

Thank Kami for whoever thought it'd be a good idea to put Trigun on DVD.

"Let's go."