Hello! :)

I'm so sorry for the late update. I'm facing a tough couple of weeks in college since it's the semester ending time. Assignments, projects, reports, labs, tests and exams...wheew! :'(

Anyway, forget my sob story. On with the chapter! I hope you all like this one ;)

Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.

~Unknown

RPOV

"You've been avoiding me all day," Dimitri's accusatory tone made me glance up at him from where I'd been studying the soil sample under the microscope.

So, he'd noticed, after all.

"Don't be ridiculous," I scoffed, acting nonchalant as I turned back to my work. No way was I going to tell him why exactly I'd been avoiding him!

"You are," Dimitri stated firmly as he came to stand beside me.

He knew me too well, damn it! He'd always been able to tell when I was lying.

He continued, still using that firm tone of his. "I'd like to know why."

Why? Why?

Oh, you see, I had a stupid dream about you. About us. And it's making me highly uncomfortable!

Is uncomfortable the right word?

Stupid, blasted dream! It's making me think of you in an entirely different light.

And I don't like it. Not one bit.

But I can't tell you all this, can I?

My cheeks burned as the dream played itself before my eyes. Struggling to remain passive, I huffed before fixing him with a glare. "Maybe all I'm trying to do is avoid a fight."

To my surprise, Dimitri chuckled, the rice tone entrancing me.

Shaking my head, I retorted with mock sympathy, "You've finally gone over the edge, my friend."

"You'll be the first one going off the deep end, Rose." He said, handing me the petri dish that I'd been looking for.

Our strong friendship when we'd been kids and years of working together had attuned us to each other. I didn't have to say what I was looking for; he just knew it.

Right now, I was not happy with our weird bond or whatever it was. I didn't want to be reminded of it, not after that dream.

I snatched the petri dish from his hands, dumping my sample in it. Now, I had to add a few drops of wranon to discern its properties. Before I could look for the bottle, Dimitri placed it in front of me.

I huffed again which made Dimitri laugh.

"I hate you," I grumbled.

"Of course you do," Dimitri murmured, rolling his eyes.

"I do too," I told him stubbornly. "Now, make yourself useful and help me with this."

"I'm not a bio-technologist," Dimitri remarked dryly.

"No?" I asked in mock surprise. " I never knew that. Now shut up and do as I say."

"Yes, ma'am," Dimitri said, bowing to me in jest. I couldn't help but laugh, hitting him with the wash cloth. He shook his head as he fetched the things I asked.

We continued to work for sometime in silence.

"How did your exploration go?" I asked him curiously as we watched soil turn to deep green, indicating the presence of mineral tanium.

"We didn't find anything new," Dimitri said as I noted down the observation. "By the way, what did Dr. Dragomir say? I didn't get a chance to speak to him earlier."

"He didn't say anything new," I replied, suppressing a sigh. "Situation on earth is the same."

Dimitri's heavy sigh reflected my feelings.

"Dimka!" Tasha's voice drifted over to us as she herself appeared at the door a moment later. A wave of irritation rose inside me at the sight of her bright face and that spark in her crystalline eyes that appeared whenever Dimitri was near.

Control, Rose! She hasn't done anything wrong!

"What are you guys working on?" she asked, approaching us.

"Just analyzing the soil," I said, shrugging and turning back to my work. I didn't want Dimitri to know how much her presence irritated me.

"Sounds fun," she said enthusiastically, coming over to stand beside Dimitri. "Can I join?"

What was fun in analyzing soil?

She must be here for Dimitri, I realized. As always.

Once again, the dream flashed through my mind. It was easy to picture Tasha in my place in that dream...easy to imagine them together.

But why was it bothering me?

Whatever the reason, it was better to picture her with Dimitri than remember my dream.

Should I push them together? If they weren't already together, that is.

"Oh no," Dimitri sighed in exasperation as he glanced at me. "I know that look."

"What look?" I asked, surprised. He didn't know what I was thinking, right?

"The look that says you've got an evil idea." Dimitri stated.

"You'd know all about evil ideas, don't you?" I said, scowling at him.

Dimitri shrugged. "I know a fair few. Nothing compared to you, of course."

"Be afraid, Belikov," I said menacingly, smiling sweetly. "Be very afraid."

"I'm sure I'll not be able to sleep tonight," he said mockingly but his eyes were intense, full of something I didn't know.

I blinked, caught off guard by that look.

There was something there, something that made me abandon my plan to push him with Tasha. But what if they're already together?

"Stop it, you two." Tasha's voice cut through the air, breaking my eye contact with Dimitri. "You're as bad as Tom and Jerry."

"We're worse," Dimitri joked, turning to face her.

"Oh, come on," Tasha said, a hint of flirtatiousness in her voice as she rested her hand on Dimitri's arm. "You don't really hate each other."

"Says who?" I asked tightly, averting my eyes. I couldn't look at them standing together like that, couldn't look at that slender hand on Dimitri's muscular arm.

Dimitri shook his head in exasperation at my response. "I'll be in the living area." he said, taking off his coat.

"Now I know which area I should avoid," I retorted without thinking.

"So you are avoiding me!" Dimitri said triumphantly.

"Why wouldn't I?" I asked coolly but inside I was berating myself for the slip up. "As I said, I'm just avoiding a fight."

Dimitri snorted, called a good bye to Tasha and turned to leave. On the way out, he stopped beside me and leaned down to whisper in my ear, "I'll find out the reason, Hathaway. You know I will."

With that, he disappeared from the lab, leaving me to deal with a weird kind of shiver tricking down my spine at his words.

I groaned as his parting words replayed in my mind. Dimitri was as stubborn as I was. He would try his best to find out why I was avoiding him. Why, oh why did I say it out loud?

"I really can't understand what's with you two," Tasha told me suddenly.

"We hate each other, that's all." I said, moodily stabbing the sample with a knife. "Speaking of, what's with you two?" I asked, gesturing to her with the knife.

She blushed, almost confirming my suspicions. "I don't know what you mean. But what does violet color mean?"

"Violet?" I asked, moving around her to look at the sample I'd mixed with Canther liquid. "Oh god! It's violet!"

"Rose?" Tasha called.

I couldn't answer her because I was too busy reeling from the discovery. Sietera's soil color changing to violet when mixed with Canther...it indicates the presence of viela!

"Tasha, tell everyone to come to the meeting room immediately," I ordered, jotting down the observation quickly.

As Tasha left to call the others, I turned the pages of the log book, going through everything we'd discovered about this planet. I'd highlighted the places where there was a high probability of finding viela. Only a few of those places had been explored by us. But now that I knew for sure that viela was present here, we'd have to step up our efforts and locate the other viela sources.

Gripping my log book tightly, I went up to the meeting room where the others were waiting for me. Show time, baby!

"Sit down," I told them, gesturing to the seats as I proceeded to the front of the room, turning to face the crew. I kept my face impassive as I waited for them to settle down.

"I'm not good with this speech stuff so I'll keep it short," I started, remembering Alberta's speeches. Ignoring the pang I left whenever I thought about Alberta, I looked at my team sitting before me.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "The Sieteran soil indicates the presence of viela."

Lissa gasped, Tasha covered her mouth with her palm in shock, Adrian's eyes widened impossibly and Christian and Dimitri exchanged a stunned look.

"You found viela?" Tasha asked, shock still etched on her face.

"Yes," I nodded, smiling in relief. "We're very, very lucky."

"We are," Lissa said softly. "This is just our second stop, the very first planet we've explored. And we've already found viela."

"We still have a lot of work to do," I reminded them. "But this is a very good sign. We've just found traces of it. We've got to explore all the possible sources in this planet, try to see if we can a substantial amount of it."

"That's the hard part, isn't it?" Christian asked warily.

I nodded reluctantly.

"Let's not downplay this discovery," Adrian smiled optimistically. "The fact that we've found one of the rarest elements in space in our very first planet is reason enough to celebrate."

"Celebrate later," Dimitri told him sternly. "When we've found enough of viela, you can celebrate as much as you want. For now, we've got work to do."

"He's right," I acknowledged, seeing that Adrian was about to argue. "But that's the last time I'm saying it, Belikov."

The last part was in reply to Dimitri's widening smirk. The others laughed at my words, the tension broken fully.

"But before we get down to work-" I moved to switch on the projector screen and connected my laptop to the apparatus. "-let's all watch this video. It's very important for you all must to know the possible sources of viela in this planet. Only then I can dispatch teams to find it."

When the video started playing, I moved to sit in the chair beside Adrian to watch it.

The title, Occurence of viela in Sietera flashed on the screen.

The screen displayed various photos of Sietera as the voice-over explained the history of the planet:

The planet Sietera was first discovered through the ketio telescope by Mikas Siet in the year 1989. This planet revolves around the star Ceres and is part of the Andromeda galaxy. Sietera is approximately five times the size of the earth. The exact distance to the planet, or even to the Andromeda galaxy has not yet been determined. But in February 2008, a wormhole appeared in our solar system, between Earth and Venus.

'Thank god for it," Christian remarked.

Examination indicated that the wormhole may be a permanent fixture in our solar system. The Galia 2, a spacecraft carrying two astronauts: Harman Parker and Mikas Siet was the first to travel through the wormhole. According to the data sent by these two astronauts, the wormhole led directly to the Ceres system in the galaxy Andromeda.

The planet Sietera is the closest planet to the star Ceres. The time dimensions are unknown.

"We know it now," Adrian murmured.

Sietera has no satellites. It has five outer rings so close that they looks like one. The rings contain albatinum gas as a major component. Mikas Siet reported that the atmosphere consists of Methane, nitrogen and hydrogen with unconfirmed traces of oxygen.

"He didn't find chlorine?" Adrian asked in disbelief. I shushed him quickly.

The surface of the planet is made of unknown minerals. Siet returned to the earth after a period of fifteen years and tested the Sieteran soil. He didn't recognize any of the minerals. But he was convinced that the life-giving element viela was present on the Sietera. He guessed that viela could be present in these locations: surface soil, in the elements making up the outer rings, in the albatinum pools which occur on the surface or in the unexplored caves of Sietera. However, his experiments did not yield any proof to support his theory.

"His theory is proved now," Adrian said, smirking.

I shot him a glare before standing up and switching off the projector. "Okay. We have three places to explore. The outer rings, the albatinum pools and the caves."

"We did the caves yesterday," Tasha pointed out.

"Yes but that was an overview," I replied. "We need to get the soil and air samples of the caves. As well as samples of the material making up the cave walls."

Tasha nodded. "Dimitri and I can do that."

"It makes more sense for me to take the outer rings," Dimitri said before I could say anything. But I had to agree with him. To test the outer rings, we have to take one of our space probes and travel outside the Sieteran atmosphere. The only pilots here were the both of us. Since I'd be busy with the research, I couldn't concentrate on driving the probe. It had to be him.

"Lissa and I can take the albatinum pools," Christian volunteered.

I smiled at his eagerness to get some alone time with Lissa. "In that case, Tasha will have to go with Adrian to the caves. Since you've already visited it once Tasha, you can guide him there."

Both Adrian and Tasha looked a little disappointed, Tasha more than Adrian.

I narrowed my eyes at them, daring them to disagree. Only Adrian, Dimitri and I could operate the sample collection equipment. The albainum pools required a different collection method, which Lissa knew. I had the most experience with space-walking so I'd have to go to the outer rings with Dimitri as the pilot. That left Adrian and Tasha together,

The pairings I'd decided on were the sensible and they knew it. I wasn't going to compromise this mission just to keep them happy.

Tasha bit her bottom lip and glanced at Dimitri.

I rolled my eyes at her.

"You can do whatever you want with him later, Tasha. This is more important," I said sharply.

Tasha blushed a furious shade of red but I didn't regret my words. They must learn what's important and what's not.

"Do I get the same privilege as Tasha?" Adrian asked me cheekily.

"To do whatever you want with Belikov?" I asked, laughing. "Sure!"

Lissa and Christian started laughing hysterically while Dimitri had a disgusted expression on his face. Despite being flustered, Tasha too was laughing.

"That's not what I meant!" Adrian protested.

I sobered up, "I know what you meant but that will never happen."

"We'll see, Rose, we'll see." Adrian said lightly, moving out of the room.

The others followed him out. Only Dimitri remained.

"Shall we?" he asked, gesturing to the door leading to one of the space probes attached to our spaceship.

A ride with Dimitri to the outer rings. What have I gotten myself into?

AN: So, how's the chapter? The first part was pure romitri where we saw how Rose was affected by her dream. She's starting to see Dimitri a little differently now. Then we read about viela, the life giving element. I'm sure you all have got some idea about how Rose and the gang are planning to save the earth ;)

Oh, don't forget the part where Rose finally snaps at Tasha! Don't you all love a headstrong and outspoken leader that Rose is? :D

Leave me a review and let me know what you thought about this chapter! :)

Small confession? Writing this story is a lot harder than writing 'Embers in the snow', trust me. So, if you liked this, do let me know so that I'm assured that all my effort isn't wasted :P