You can't undo time travel

I'm BIG on time travel. I love the subject. My first experience with it was probably Quantum Leap, and of course Star Trek had its moments. I think it was really Back to the Future that really sold it for me, and I just remembered now in watching Lois and Clark that they had their share of time traveling ("Tempus Fugitive"), too.

Now of course, L&C is a bit old of a fandom, attracting OLDER fans-- that is, adults as opposed to the mass amount of teens that many anime, manga, and popular movies attract. On top of that, it's only with the release of the seasons on DVD that fics are starting to reappear, but trying to find a hoard of fics centered on or around a single episode (the one named above) is a bit hard. Lois & Clark fics are hard to come by-- there's lcfanfic.com, lcficmbs.com, annesplace.net, and the nFic message boards... I've also heard of Zoomway. On FFnet, the L&C section is... >_> well...

So the big thing about Lois & Clark, is of course, When will Clark tell Lois that he's Superman? In lieu of that, how will she find out, if he doesn't tell her? The hints have been dropped left and right; plenty of people have found out and either died, disappeared, or been tricked somehow. But Tempus did what no other Baddie of the Day dared-- he outright told Lois. He even did the whole glasses --> no glasses, "mild mannered reporter" to "buff superhero" spiel. It was hilarious, and you half wanted to smack Lois for not having seen it sooner-- the other half being sympathy for her, because it's never nice to have the truth shoved into your face like that. As H.G. Wells later says, "blinded by love."

So even though H.G. Wells "fixed" time by sending Lois and Clark back to BEFORE they met him (and thus, before they got involved with Tempus in the first place, traveling back to 1966, 1866, and then back to 1966 again), there should have been TWO Loises and Clarks, like in Back to the Future. Let me explain why:

Lois and Clark meet Tempus and Wells in a park. Tempus takes Wells hostage, with the aim to go back to 1966 to kill baby Superman (that is, Clark, prior to getting picked up and named by the Kents) so the utopia of the 24th century (created by the descendants of Lois and Superman) doesn't exist. Tempus intentionally drops his plans for the time machine (all on one page, and understandable enough for Superman to build one in a few hours) and then disappears-- to 1866. Lois and Clark (not Superman; Clark makes the excuse that Superman had to "stop a volcano in China..." --even Lois should have seen through THAT one! There are no volcanoes in China!) go to 1966, thinking that's where Tempus was headed. But when they see a re-enactment of Tempus and Wells robbing a bank from 1866, they go back there... and run into Clark's great-great grandparents, Marshall Kent and Miss Martha, who runs a saloon. They stop Tempus, but only temporarily-- he thinks Lois hitched a ride alone on THEIR time machine, and so "abandons" her in the past, after telling her that she's an idiot for not seeing that Clark = Superman, and that OH WELL, she won't be able to create a utopia with Superman now, if he's in the future (1996) and she's in the past (1866)!

She and Clark go to 1966, but Tempus has already arrived and kidnapped baby Superman, who has not yet developed his weakness for Kryptonite. Tempus surrounds his "cradle" with it, but baby Superman doesn't seem to be too affected by it-- not visibly, anyway. But Clark is very affected, and he starts to get sick and "fade." Lois has to stop Tempus on her own, even though she's still pretty shocked and peeved at Clark for not telling her sooner, for not trusting her. Clark, of course, tries to explain, but they've got to stop Tempus, so they literally don't have "enough time" to explain everything and get back to being "friends or maybe more."

Lois manages to knock Tempus down, and throws the Kryptonite far away from baby Superman; Clark regains his strength, pwns Tempus, and Tempus and Wells travel to an unspecified time where Wells "disposes" of Tempus. Wells then takes Lois and Clark back (separately, it seems?) to their proper time (1996), where they think that the repeat of events is just "deja vu." However, Lois has a bag in her envelope from "the future" (that is, the future where she travels to the past; she wrote the truth down on a card envelope in 1966), which Clark sees, snatches, and rips up (into fourths; Lois could have easily reassembled it, read the message, and likely recognized her own handwriting). Wells (now without Tempus to worry about) never approaches Lois and Clark, and the birthday celebration (presumably for Perry) continues as planned.

But WHAT!? How could Wells have taken Lois and Clark back to a time BEFORE he approached them and still not had them run into their "real" self-- the ones that WOULD have met him? This is especially contradicted by the fact that the envelope was the same... so Lois and Clark must have been the same too. But they didn't "remember" time traveling, because they went to the past of 1996, before they met Tempus and Wells and even WENT time traveling. And since Wells abandoned Tempus at a Kansas State Asylum in some unspecified time (maybe 1866?). Wells remembered it... so what's going on here?

I want theories! I want ideas! I want FIC!