Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic FDK: Unanswered Prayers, 29/39

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Thanks.

Carol

I want to cry for Lois and Clark, too. How will they get their sons back, and each other back, and get to keep Ellen, Lucy and Dave? Don't tell me...



Van to the rescue!!!

Or Ashley?



Don't tell me... Ashely doesn't look like that?

Ann

wow, telling Mom and Dad #2 I'm not sure if I saw that one coming. And LOL to slipping the divorce/remarriage thing in there I'm not convinced that you're letting Chris and Nate vanish into temporal oblivion so there has to be a different ending in the future. But just what you're going to do to untangle this mess, I have NO idea. Oh, and wouldn't be funny if Lana or Joe came into the room and where to get hit by the re-materializing pillow

Michael

I'm glad that they told Ellen and Sam about what happened. And I'm glad that they're planning on telling Lana and Joe, too. Like Martha said, even if they don't tell them, they're going to figure things out eventually.
Telling them the truth will hurt less.

I find it very odd that they didn't even TRY to recreate the car accident, though. Is it because of what I said before, that every time they change something, they'll end up recreating a new Lois and Clark?
Or is it because they can't handle the possiblity? I find that very hard to believe. I know this is a hard choice, and Lois doesn't want to lose her mother and sister and Dave again. But as a result, she loses her kids. As much as she loves her mother, etc. I don't believe they mean more to her than Christopher and Nate. And like I said before, if they stay in this reality, and possibly have more kids, those kids will feel like "replacements" for the children she remembers and loves.

It would be nice if they were able to fix the time machine so it worked properly, though.

Oh, and right, what's up with the IMTH button? I'm some how certain that's the deus-ex-machina button

Michael

Are you sure there's not also a TNPLH button? You know, you push it three times and whisper "There's no place like home"?

Wonderful story; keep it up!

--Snave

It looks to me as if that fun-loving rascal Tempus has set up a conundrum wherein the only solution to putting Lois and Clark back into the world they left is to recreate the accident which took Ellen and Lucy and left Dave to die a lingering death. It would be typical of his sociopathic sense of irony that their only route back to their lives would cost the lives of three people Lois loved, and would shatter so many other lives.

And Lois can't make that call. No way. How could see wake up every morning and know that she let her mother and sister and brother die? She couldn't hold her sons without remembering the price she'd chosen to pay for their lives. She'd never have a moment's peace. And before long, suicide would look like a viable option to her.

Clark can't make that call either. It would drive an irresistible wedge between himself and Lois if he were the one to "kill" them. Every time he told her that he loved her, she'd remember that he'd taken the lives of two people she loved and one she desperately wished she could have known. It wouldn't matter how much she loved him or how much she loved her boys. Every day, for the rest of her life, she'd look into his eyes and remember that her mother and sister and brother were dead because he pushed a button. Not only would they end up divorced, she would come to hate his very existence.

Van would learn about his choice, too, and how might he react? He might - might - understand and come to accept it, but I doubt that Ashley would. She'd almost surely side with Lois, and then Van would have to choose between his brother and the woman he loves. Either way, he'd be hosed, and so would Clark.

And how could Clark be Superman knowing that he'd caused the deaths of three innocent people? How could he ever rescue anyone in an auto accident without remembering how he'd allowed Ellen and Lucy to die in one? How could he visit a cancer ward - especially a children's ward - without being slapped with Dave's memory? How long before he either quit the business because he couldn't take the reminders or became an automaton, working on robotic instinct alone, unapproachable on any emotional basis?

I think Carol has given us a scenario for which there is only one solution, and because Chris and Nate aren't alive in their current reality and that's the ultimate goal, they're going to have to wait for Ellen and Lucy and Dave to make the ultimate sacrifice for them. And it will have to be a volunteer effort for everyone involved. How could they ask that of them? Think of the hurt that Sam and Jimmy and Joe and Lana would feel. Think of all the lives that would be damaged by Mindy and her gun-running associates who would have access to money and transportation and open markets for their weapons because Sam would be vulnerable. Think of Dave and the life he wouldn't have.

This may be the cruelest plot any version of Tempus has ever visited on Lois and Clark. I know that he sometimes comes across as something of a joke character, but this situation is no joke. Any way they turn, there's a razor-wire fence blocking them. Any step they take, they're going to be hurt.

Carol is making up for all the WAFF in the early part of the fic and giving us all the WHAMs we can possibly handle. There is no good outcome to this. The only thing left to do is to tell everyone involved everything and try to figure out what to do as a group. It won't be easy and it won't be pretty, but I don't see any other way to handle this.

Of course, Carol is surely going to fool all of us with her genius and smooth everything out with a wave of her magic time controller. Aren't you, Carol? Carol? Hey! Come back here and straighten all this out! Please? Pretty please with bubble baths and Swiss chocolate?

You do realize that you now have lots of people scratching their heads, trying to figure out what IMTH stands for.
I Miss The Home (no) . . . In My True Home (no) . . . Insert Missing Timeline/Traveller Here (hmm, potential?) . . . Am I getting close?

I know I know what IMTH stands for:

IM (Instant Message) Time-traveller H.G. Wells

/waves/

Hey guys! Thanks for the Feedback.

Lovesuper - back home? Why would they want to go there? /ducks/

Pam - I know you're really not reading...

Ann - er well... Ashley's a blond and pretty but that's as far as I've gotten on her description...

Michael - /whistles/ That would be funny! Not gonna happen, but would be funny .

Sara - See Terry's post above for a big part of the reason why. They talk about it a bit more in the next chapter - the whys and all that.

Michael - you have Queenie to thank for the IMTH button . I tried to find some not-English phrase for 'you're screwed' or something where the letters could also mean 'Original Universe' and you pushed that button to go back to the beginning but that didn't work and I didn't do that .

Snave - LOL! No, no NPLH button!

Terry - I never thought about it in that much detail but you're right. I never got past the 'there's no way Lois could make that choice and would hate Clark forever if he did' stuff. Especially with her history of PPD I could see at least seriously considering suicide even if she never attempted it. And the cancer wards... Not sure why Van's reaction... Except that he and Ashley weren't married there... Or the whole brother/inlaw/family thing. As for fixing it... must I?

Bubble bath? Swiss chocolate? Does that include a trip to the Fairmont Inn in Banff? That's my new 'when I have money' destination [thanks Beth!] - does the bubble bath come in a big jacuzzi [or at least soaker] or a regular one that I have to clean? I'm not so sure this is a good deal...

And yes, originally, they were going to wake up on Christmas morning in the wrong universe in Ch. 1, but I couldn't do that to us or them .

Mel - Yep, I do. And I think we'll find out what it is at some point. Or maybe AnKS has it right .

AnKS - very creative!!! RAFO! More coming!

Off to post! Thanks again guys!

Carol

I understand that, Carol, that's too hard for her to think about. And I although I had never thought about her history of PPD, that makes sense that it would make the situation worse.

But what I don't understand is how she could simply give up on getting her children back. (I understand that she's trying to fix the time machine sot they can go back, so in a sense that's not giving up. I respect that.) But she's still not trying EVERYTHING.

By execpting this reality as "default", she's trading in her mother and Lucy for her children. Once again, I can understand she doesn't want to "kill" her mother, Lucy, Dave all over again.
But where are the Christopher and Nate? They don't know. They can't even make the argument that they have parents, because they don't know enough about timetravel to know. And even if they do, they won't BE THE KIDS REAL PARENTS. Some one as perpective of Christopher, at least, should be able to tell the diffence. You could even make the arguement that they've abbandonded the kids by not trying everything.

And then, like I said before, how do they handle having anymore kids? They'll feel like the new children are replacements for Christopher and Nate.

You do make some good points Sara and I hope I've addressed them further in the fic.

I think part of the point is that if they go back and cause the accident, are they *sure* what will happen? Or could they end up somewhere without E/L/D *or* C/N? I'd have a hard time making that choice and I don't get a long particularly well with most of my family, but having to choose between my dad/sis and my kids in a life or death situation would be very difficult. My kids would win but I'd still have serious guilt and other issues to deal with.

Part of it at least is addressed in 30. Please let me know if you think it needs more...

Carol