A/N: Thanks go to my beta Yssy as always. Enjoy and review!

4. Giving up

The Doctor and Martha walked in the direction the old professor had gone, treading through the mud of construction work and starting to sweat in their jackets as the sun rose higher in the sky. Martha sighed—her shoes were ruined and the Doctor's pale Converses weren't faring any better. Sighing again, Martha tucked a stray piece of hair, which was plastered to her face by sweat, behind her ear before speaking to the Doctor.

"Doctor?".

"Yes?"

"Have you any idea where Professor Lee went?"

"Well," the Doctor said in that particular way of his that implied he was about to make up most of what he said next, "I know he went this way. And I know that little old professors can't go very far, very quickly."

"Really? But aren't you a little old professor, too?" Martha joked.

The Doctor was quiet for a moment. "Well, yes," the Doctor said. "I'm hardly little, though."

Martha raised her eyebrows and chose to ignore his last statement. "Fine, but I still don't know where we are or where Lee is."

"How would you? You've never been here before," the Doctor said cheekily.

Martha rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"Fine, I don't know where Lee went," the Doctor finally admitted, and Martha felt a mild thrill of victory. "I do know where we are, though. Future site of more lab buildings." He grinned at her "We're still technically on campus, but we're away from all the secret tunnels and other things he could have escaped in."

"Secret tunnels?" Martha asked.

"Oh, yeah," the Doctor said. "Students here don't have to see the sun for the entire school year. There are tunnels everywhere. Everything about the place being diverse is a lie; they're all white by the end of the year."

Martha chuckled at this, then returned to business. "Are you sure he couldn't have gone into one of these tunnels? Or something? It's like he was there one minute and gone the next. He's disappeared twice on me."

The Doctor stopped walking and turned around, rubbing the back of his neck. "I suppose that's why they're called 'secret tunnels', then. But they're not actually secret, there's a map and everything for anyone to use. What do you call tunnels when they're not secret? Un-secret tunnels? Non-secret? Secret-less?"

"Doctor!" Martha interrupted his speech. "We lost him!"

"Yes, we did." The Doctor took a deep breath. "Nothing keeping us here, then. Let's head back to the TARDIS."

"Wait," Martha said, tugging on his sleeve as he turned to go back to the riverfront. "Is that it?"

"Is that what?"

"Are we just leaving an hour after we got here?" Martha clarified.

"Why not?" the Doctor said. "We came, we saw, the universe isn't in danger. Hold on, I thought you wanted to leave straightaway?"

"I do!" Martha said. "It just seems like you're giving up."

"Giving up what?"

Martha could have torn her hair out in frustration. "On Professor Lee, on the noises coming from the Van de Graaff generator, on everything! It's not like you!"

"It isn't?" The Doctor smiled at Martha and continued walking back to the TARDIS. "I don't think you know me very well, Martha Jones."

Martha frowned but followed the Doctor. She shed her jacket in the humid air, holding it over her arm. She still felt uncomfortable leaving before any mysteries could be solved. Whatever the Doctor said, she felt she had a grasp of his character after their time together, and this wasn't like him. Of course, he hadn't been himself lately, especially after their ordeal with the Family of Blood.

Maybe this time and place didn't need the Doctor, unlike everywhere else they went. Maybe Dr. Van de Graaff would fix his machine on his own, and Professor Lee was just a normal absent-minded professor. Maybe this really was a time when the Doctor knew he shouldn't interfere in what was going on around him. It had occurred to Martha how odd it was that every time they stepped out of the TARDIS, they had a life or death adventure. Maybe this time it was an honest mistake of the TARDIS to be there, just a chance for the Doctor to meet one of his favorite scientists.

Martha was mulling over these thoughts as they rounded the last set of neoclassical buildings and saw the long bridge and the river. But after scanning the sidewalk where they had materialized, the two of them stiffened at the same time.

"Doctor, where did the TARDIS go?" Martha asked, voice shaking.

The Doctor ran across the street, causing a minor ruckus with the few cars motoring along it, to the spot where his TARDIS had once stood. Martha followed more carefully and stood a respectful distance away on the sidewalk as she watched the Doctor slowly spiral into one of his rages.

"No, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted. "Where is it? What happened? It was right here. No!"

He looked over the edge of the railing in desperation, then stumbled backward to where Martha was watching. His hair was standing up even more than usual as he ran his hands through it, his eyes wild. "This is bad."

"What are we going to do?" Martha asked softly.

The Doctor marched off to the grand main building once again, and his lack of response was a clear indication as to how upset he was.

Martha sighed and followed. She knew that liquid nitrogen ice cream wasn't going to happen any time soon