Here's a new Crossover for everybody.  Takes place a month after the much of the current As The World Turns storyline with a few changes.

TITLE:  Time's Cruelty Prologue/? *WWF/ATWT Crossover*

AUTHOR:  Juliet

EMAIL: Sweetvalley99@aol.com

RATING:  PG - 13

CONTENT:  VIOLENCE, ADULT LANGUAGE

CATEGORY:  ADULT, ANGST, HORROR, DRAMA

SPOILERS:  For As The World Turns:  The story takes place about a month after Rose escapes from the spa, so I'd say right up today's episode (4/15/02) with a different ending to the Babs/James/Jack part of the story.  For the WWF:  About Insurrection 2001 I think.  That part will make sense in later chapters.

SUMMARY: Paul figures out who Rose's savior Libby really is.  NOTE FOR ATWT VIEWERS: I know the show chose to kill off Libby, but I'm keeping her alive in this with a twist. Luckily the ATWT writers are thinking more or less along the same lines I was at the point of the 4/15/02 episode so I won't have to change too much else, although after the 4/15 ep things are more or less AU in Oakdale.  For WWF viewers' things are AU after Insurrection 2001

DISCLAIMER: AS THE WORLD TURNS and its characters are property of Proctor and Gamble.  Vincent Kennedy McMahon owns all of wrestling, including the WWF characters represented in this story. There will be a more WWF oriented sequel to this, so WWF fans shouldn't be too disappointed if their faves aren't shown in the first story, as the first story will be a more ATWT based story.  Eric Bischoff owns himself.

DISTRIBUTION: The Realm, Fanfiction.net under the name Juliet3:16 2000.

Time's Cruelty

Prologue

Paul Ryan watched as his beloved Rose slept an uneasy rest.  He'd known that Rose had been having nightmares about her rapidly aging condition since her return to Oakdale a month ago.  All he ever wished was to make the nightmares go away.  He couldn't care less about her looking old.  She was still Rose D'Angelo, the fiery, spunky, take no prisoners girl he'd fallen in love with all those months ago.

Then his mentally unstable mother, Barbara Ryan, conspired with Paul's maniacal father James Stenbeck to send Rose, Carly Tenney, and Emily Stewart to a "spa" somewhere in the world where a Dr. Weston began treatments on the three women that resulted in rapid aging.  Rose was the only one to escape.   Carly and Emily were never found.

They had no clues to Weston's or Carly and Emily's whereabouts.  The only clue they'd had was lying in a hospital bed at Oakdale Memorial, barely hanging onto life.

When Jack Snyder went to Belgium, where Rose had nearly been buried alive, he'd gone straight to the cemetery that Rose was before being released from her coffin prison.  While there, a delivery truck showed up with half a dozen coffins.  Jack managed to subdue the gravediggers and inspected the coffins.  There he'd found an unconscious, barely alive Libby Mueller, who'd helped Rose escape from the "Spa." He'd arranged for Libby to be transferred back to Oakdale to receive immediate medical attention.

And Libby's still in a coma, Paul thought bitterly. He glanced at the locket on Rose's nightstand the locket Libby had put into Rose's spa robe before helping Rose escape in the coffin.  The locket showed both a young Libby and an aged Libby after Weston had gotten done with her. Even after a month of looking at both the locket and the aged, comatose Libby, Paul still couldn't get over the nagging feeling that he knew Libby from somewhere.

Sighing Paul wrapped his arms around Rose and let her heartbeat lull him to sleep.

Okay, any comments on this? Helps the muse get the story out faster.