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?
