Dawn painted the sky a mixture of lavender, pink, and soft yellow, as the hands on my watch touched quarter past seven. I was standing near the same field, my arms crossed with my shoulder leaning against a lamppost. Where was that arrogant tyrant? Jared seemed like a pretty reliable source, he wouldn't have let me down, would he?

The wait was yawn worthy; standing at a place doing absolutely nothing, except stare at your watch every half minute, really makes time go tortuously slow, and just as I was about to let out my ninth yawn, a figure, dressed in a burgundy suit, approached.

I narrowed my eyes. Sterling?

No. No, it wasn't Sterling, it was Jared. Alone. What? I needed Sterling!

I stormed towards him. "You said you'd bring him here!"

"I did," he replied, cooly, his hands coated in his trouser pockets.

"Well?" I demanded. What was with the outfit?

Another figure approached rapidly. It was a woman wearing a tight bun, in formal attire.

"The file, Mr Sterling."

I choked on the air.

"Thank you, Melanie." He glanced at me, as the woman walked away. "Are you alright, Miss Reese?"

I didn't reply. I was busy, trying to reeducate myself on the subtle art of breathing.

A moment went by.

Another.

And then, another.

He smiled, brown eyes glittering.

Oh.

After the forth moment, I found the capacity in my brain, to speak. "You're... you're..."

"Leonardo Sterling, at your service," He responded, with a bow.

Oh, he's good!

And I'm an idiot.

"You're—no, wait... you're Leonardo Sterling?" I spluttered.

"You need everything to be repeated twice, do yo—"

"Shut up!" I hissed, still trying to comprehend what the hell was happening. "You're him?"

"In the flesh." He grinned.

"Th-then... where the heck did you get Jared from?!"

"It's my middle name."

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to explain the little charade you put on, earlier?"

"Oh, I did that because I was bored," he casually stated. Still smiling, he brushed his curly locks out of his forehead and opened the file in his hand, as though I weren't there. I saw a picture of me, which somewhat resembled a mugshot (but no, it was just a passport picture), on the first page. Then, he looked up and without a warning, held out his hand. "Nice to meet you, Emerald."

I swatted it away. "I want an honest response. You didn't have to speak to me. You didn't even have to listen to what I had to say, in the first place. Heck, you could have thrown me out, the moment you saw me." I frowned. "But, you didn't. Why?"

"That could be arranged if you really want it, Miss Reese." A smug look plastered his face, one that I was tempted to slap off any second now.

I crossed my arms all business-like. "I'm waiting."

He titled his head, as if trying to put thought into words. "I'd already been told that you'd come looking for me. I was also told about how "malicious" and "devious" Emerald Reece was – on the courtesy of Gemma Reynolds," he stated, making air speech marks. "And the way you went on about 'Mr Sterling' – it didn't seem you were very fond of me, either. So, when I realised that you didn't know who I was, I didn't tell you, because I wanted to meet 202 without any false impressions, clouding neither of our presumed impressions on each other. Now tell me, Em. Am I really as bad as you thought I was?" He batted his eyelashes.

I was at a loss for words. All my mind did was replay some of the foolish things I told 'Jared'.

"I gave you a twenty dollar bill," I mumbled, although I wasn't sure whether I was speaking to him or myself. I expected him to give me a strange look, due to this. Instead, I found he was smiling even more than he was before, provoking a dimple just on one cheek.

"I- I actually gave you a twenty dollar bill!" I grinned.

"You can have it back, if you want. But I would like to keep the ball. I quite enjoy playing soccer."

That evoked a thought. "Why do you play football?"

"'Football',"he imitated in a British accent. "And, why not?"

"I mean, an outrageously rich and high-in-demand guy like yourself, playing football with a bunch of guys in the middle of the day was not the first thing I expected to see," I explained.

"That's understandable," he smiled, "but I like hanging out with the workers."

"Okay," I sighed. "Not that I'm complaining in any way, shape or form, but why did you agree to talk to me? I insulted you."

"To see your face when you found out who Leonardo Sterling really was," he replied, without missing a beat, and I scowled.

"And it was a reaction I wouldn't have missed for the world." He grinned.

"You smile too much," I criticised, in an feeble attempt to divert the attention away from my stupidity.

"I didn't realise there was a limit as to how often one could smile."

Oh, he was annoying!

"You're so—" I started, but raised an eyebrow in an amused way; the short gesture dared me to finish my sentence.

Shut up, Emerald! For once, you better not blow this.

"I liked you better when you were Jared, that's all," I muttered, crossing my arms.

"I'm still Jared."

"So is that it? You came here to see my reaction; you've seen it. I assume you'll be on your way now?"

"Not quite. You still haven't told me what you wanted to tell me."

"So, now you want to hear it?"

He shrugged. "Call it curiosity."

It's about to become a lot more than that, pal.

I took a deep breath. "Okay. Your clinic will be distributing 202 in about... a month, right?"

He nodded.

"And Gemma Reynolds created a... drug, too; your clinic is also responsible for the distribution of this drug as well as 202, right?"

"Yes, but Reynolds Corporation haven't yet created enough stock for it yet."

"Right." That meant we had some time to work with. "Do you know what it's for?" I asked, just to be sure.

"Nah, I just buy random drugs with no purpose."

Sarcasm. It caused me to glared at him.

"You're scary when you glare." He beamed. "Of course, I know what it does; Gemma Reynolds handed me the full peer review report on the functions of her drug. It kills off antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria in influenza."

I raised my eyebrows. "Huh. That's a good one." Of course, I didn't expect anything less from the lying she-devil, that was, Gemma Reynolds.

"What?"

"The drug she invented isn't for antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria," I deadpanned.

"Of course, it is. I reviewed it, thoroughly."

"Uh, okay, yes it is for the influenza bacteria, but it's also for something else."

He smiled, but it was an incredulous smile of an adult listening to the fictional tales of a child. "A drug that can multitask?"

I sighed. "Can we go somewhere else? There's something you need to know."

***

Author's note: some light and incredibly simplified biological knowledge:

Viruses and bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics over time, because at the start, there may be a tiny amount of viruses/bacteria that have mutations. This means, the antibiotic won't work on them, because they've got different genes to the rest of that specific virus/bacteria. If you use that antibiotic over and over again, you'll basically be killing off all the non-resistant virus/bacteria, but the resistant strains will survive. This means, eventually, only resistant strains will be left, so they will divide and multiply – thus, the virus/bacteria as a whole, becomes resistant to antibiotics. It's sort of like survival of the fittest. This is why people are advised to only take antibiotics in serious or urgent situations. The more you take it, the more the virus or bacteria becomes resistant to it, in other words, the antibiotic won't work.

In Find Me a Cure, Gemma has developed a drug that fights even antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Cool, huh? However, as we know, that's not all it does...

I hope this helped :)