Collapsing Dreams, part one

AN/Disclaimer: none of the characters of Ranma ½ or GW are mine, I'm just borrowing them to play with. Out of Character warning and mush alert.

##### time break or shift in point of view.

Prologue

Approximately two weeks after Ranma's disappearance

Days later, after the dust had settled and the worst of the fights over who was at fault for Ranma's disappearance had tapered off, Nabiki admitted, if only to herself, that she could have handled things better. If she had been thinking at all, she would have told Cologne what was happening before the meeting so she was prepared to put a leash on Shampoo. Also she should have waited to tell the Kuno's that Ranma and the pigtailed girl were gone. Not to mention the fact that she should have given everyone the details of why Ranma left when he did before she gave them the letters and told them he'd left for good. While Genma Saotome might not have survived the wrath of his son's fiancees, or more dangerous still, his wife's fury, she wouldn't have ended up in the hospital after getting caught between Akane and Kodachi, one of whom was to too enraged to be careful of bystanders, while the other didn't care who she hurt as long as she got what she wanted.

But most important of all, if she had been using her brain as all she would have held the meeting somewhere far away from fragile, easily broken objects such as trees, buildings, Nerima prefecture… An isolated desert filled with nothing but sand came to mind as an appropriate locale for telling the Nerima wrecking crew that Ranma had left. As it was, she wasn't sure if the Dojo could be made livable again while the garden was a total write off. Much the same could be said for many of the homes surrounding the Dojo as well as for many of the buildings around the Nekohaten, Uchans, and Furinkin Highschool.

Although she missed him, Nabiki was damn glad that Ranma hadn't been involved in the latest round of fights. While he may have been able to finish things sooner, this way, the Tendo's were not financially responsible for most of the damage done during the fights that followed her announcement. Which in turn meant that she didn't have to worry about finding the money to pay for repairs to the buildings damaged during said fights. It helped that Akane had been knocked out of the fights and put on the hospital before she could do any real damage to the scenery. For once, all the bills for repairs were going to the Amazons, Ukyo, and the Kuno's. Life was good.

Still, Nabiki would have been willing to take on the responsibility for the bills if it meant that Ranma would come back. Even if he really was the idiot everyone, even she, assumed he was.

Nabiki did hope that Ranma was happier, or at least less miserable, wherever he was…

Part 1

Nabiki could feel Kasumi's startled gaze boring into the back of her head as she left the kitchen. One person down, everyone else would learn that Ranma had left when she told them at the meeting she had arranged for after breakfast when she gave them the letters Ranma had left with her. Most were NOT going to be happy about Ranma's departure, and she hoped none of them decided to take their anger out on the messenger. As she meandered her way to her bedroom to fetch the things she would need for the meeting, Nabiki wished for a flack jacket and a bomb shelter.

Still shocked, but quickly becoming more and more nervous, Kasumi peeked out at the dining table to see the unexpected presence of Ryouga as P-chan at the table with her father and sisters and Saotome-san. As she began moving things out of the kitchen, Kasumi shivered as she contemplated how the people eating her food were going to react to Nabiki's announcement of Ranma's permanent disappearance. Sitting down to eat, she wondered just when Nabiki would break the news.

Breakfast continued as normal with Genma stealing food off everyone's plates, her father reading the news paper, Nabiki tapping away on her calculator and writing down the results, and Akane feeding an ecstatic transformed Ryouga while fuming about Ranma's absence on a supposed training trip. Kasumi shivered as she remembered Akane's rampage the night before when she learned that Ranma wasn't at the dojo. She was positive that he was off doing perverted things with either Shampoo of Ukyo, and nothing Nabiki said otherwise seemed to penetrate her rage.

Kasumi knew exactly what Akane's reaction would be to Ranma's leaving and she was seriously thinking about going to visit her mother's sister until all the commotion died down. So deeply in thought was she, Kasumi nearly missed Nabiki telling Akane to sit back down because neither of them would be going to school today. When asked why, Nabiki responded that they had more important things to do, and that the rest of Ranma's fiancées as well as Elder Cologne, Mousse, and his mother Nodoka would be coming over in about an hour.

Upon hearing this Kasumi jumped up and began clearing the table, intent of making sure everything breakable in the main rooms of the house was safely put away where the inevitable fights couldn't harm them.

Watching as Kasumi's eyes widened in near panic at the idea of the rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew learning of Ranma's leaving here at the dojo, Nabiki knew she wasn't the only one who recognized the probable effects of Ranma's disappearance. She acknowledged that this might not be the best way to do things, but, too late now. Instead of worrying about it, after everyone had left the dining room, Nabiki began helping Kasumi clear the table and unobtrusively move breakable valuables into the basement, the only place the fighting probably wouldn't go. She did raise an eyebrow when Kasumi began moving the dishes and kitchen ware, but just shrugged and kept going.

Author's Note: I'd like to apologize for taking so long with this chapter, but as you know, things happen…

In any case, I've decided to post things at convenient breaks in each chapter/story. However, once each section is complete, I'm going to consolidate it into one or two chapters so that I don't end up with a whole bunch of little chapters, but also so you don't have to wait for me to finish the entire thing before posing it.

BTW, remember, this is AU and people might be out of character.