Ten Reasons Why

Summary: An algebra assignment, a three leaf clover, an air freshener, a prescription bottle, a Star Wars trading card, a bottle cap, a tube of lip balm, a toy car, a photograph and a roll of candy. These are the ten reasons why…

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Teen Wolf, London however is all mine.

Prologue:

Stiles was ready to crawl into bed and sleep away the last night of his summer vacation. It's not like he would have spent the last night of break with anyone other than Scott but he was finally glad to be home, near his bed, where he would gladly collapse into the covers and pass out until his alarm went off the next morning alerting him that he needed to go to school.

School: the one place where Stiles wasn't entirely sure if he'd be able to please everyone anymore.

On one hand he had Scott and the gang; Lydia, Allison, even Isaac, but on the other hand he had London, the girl he had spent just as much time with over the summer as he did with Scott. The girl who he considered one of his best friends. But the two hands would never mesh well together, would they? He had worked hard most of the summer to keep London apart from the rest of his friends.

He had, successfully for the most part, kept her separate from his other friends over the summer but not because he was ashamed of her or anything; it was quite the opposite really. He knew London wasn't the type of girl to embrace social situations with open arms and to get her involved with him and Scott as much as they hung out would be overwhelming for most people, let alone a girl who was perfectly content curled up in her room with a good book, easily avoiding human interaction completely.

So Stiles had made sure to keep London apart from the rest of the gang and especially the werewolves. Scott had met the girl, they had hung out a few times together but it wasn't too often and Stiles generally tried to keep it light when London was with him.

Glancing up at the darkening night sky, Stiles wandered up to the front of his house. He couldn't help but smile at the memories from the decent summer he had just experienced. Him and Scott had worked relentlessly on their lacrosse skills, Scott proving to be the better player, but then again he had werewolf superpowers, Stiles would have been embarrassed for his friend if he wasn't the top player out of the duo.

When he wasn't with Scott, he often found himself with London, simply walking around the town, taking in the beauty of his surroundings, something he hadn't paid much attention to until he met the girl.

Slowly opening the door, Stiles stepped into the front hallway and flipped off his tennis shoes. He tucked his hands into the pockets on his jeans and lazily strolled further into the house, his eyes landing on his father, Sheriff John Stilinski, who sat on the couch in the living room. The older Stilinski's eyes met Stiles' and he forced a tired smile at his son, apparently it had been a pretty tiring night for the Sheriff of Beacon Hills as well.

"Hey dad." Stiles offered up, pulling his hand out of his pocket and tossing his dad a wave. He paused just outside the living room but close enough so that him and his dad could communicate without having to yell.

His dad nodded his greeting and immediately changed the subject, "there's a box for you in the kitchen. That girl you've been hanging around with a lot lately dropped it off while you were out with Scott."

Stiles just stared at his dad now, a confused look etched onto his features. Why on earth would London drop a box off at his house? She hadn't mentioned anything about a box and he wasn't expecting a package. Had he unknowingly asked for something from her and this was it?

Stiles thought a little bit more about what his dad had just said, such a simple statement yet Stiles found himself utterly confused and wondering more about the box in question, as well as the girl who dropped it off, instead of how his first day back at school would go.

"A box?" Stiles managed to get the words out and his dad simply shrugged at the question. "From London?"

"She just said to make sure you got it, seemed important that you knew."

Stiles knew better than to press his dad with more questions, especially when it was clear that he didn't know much about the topic at hand. London would have told the Sheriff all she wanted him to know and his dad wasn't the type of person to leave out important pieces of information, such as words that the girl would have uttered, or anything more than the instruction to 'make sure Stiles got it'. He was a Sheriff after all and John Stilinski prided himself in keeping the details straight.

Without another word exchanged between the two, Stiles turned away from the living room and situated his body in the direction of the kitchen, the excitement of having an unexpected box waiting for him was almost too much to handle. It was hard for him not to just jog into the other room but Stiles remained composed and walked briskly across the hallway, heading for the room in question.

"A box waiting for me in the kitchen." Stiles mumbled to himself but continued to move forward, intrigued by the prospect.

What kind of box was it? A shoebox, a giant box, one he could turn into a fort or rocket ship? And what was in the box? Shoes maybe, items that Stiles and London had gathered over the summer, maybe she was even giving him a present? If she was giving him a present, well what on earth could she have possibly gotten him? It wasn't his birthday and there were no special occasions to be celebrated. There were too many unanswered questions and the only way to find out what the heck London's plan was, was to head into the kitchen and find out for himself.

His eyes immediately landed on the shoebox, but not just a plain Jane, boring old shoebox. No, London had taken the time to wrap the lid and the bottom in deep navy wrapping paper with twinkling silver star accents, as though the paper designers were attempting to give people a taste of the night sky to wrap gifts with. It certainly gave the box an enchanting feel, that much was for sure, it looked as though it belonged in a fairytale, perhaps in a Princess's possession.

There was no bow, no seams even and when Stiles closed the distance between himself and the box, which was residing in the center of the table, taunting him now, he ran his fingers along the edges of the lid and took a deep breath. Whatever was in this box was something special and Stiles couldn't even begin to dream up what it could possibly be.

London was almost always surprising him, whether it was with her profound theories on life (or death), or her words of wisdom that she seemed to have tucked away for the exact situation that Stiles brought up in conversation. Yes, London always had something amazing to say, but then again, so did he, it was one of the main reasons why they had become such good friends so easily.

She had always told him that he was a better person than he believed, always trying to convince him that he deserved better than what he expected. Stiles knew he wasn't a bad person, not by any means, but everyone makes mistakes? London was the first to admit that, hell she had made enough mistakes in her time to last forever, at least that's what she had told him. He would never fault anyone for making an honest mistake, as long as they owned up to it and asked for forgiveness when necessary, there was no reason to.

Stiles sucked in a deep breath and quickly flipped the lid off the shoebox, setting it down gently on the table next to the bottom of the box. He couldn't help but smile at the inside, which had been decorated with the same care as the outside.

Crisp white and pastel blue tissue paper lined the inside walls of the box, again, Stiles couldn't find any seems, not until he looked into the corners of the box, as well as the lid, but even so, they were perfectly aligned, straight, neat edges. Yes, whatever was in the box was certainly something very important to London, what other reason would she have had to be so meticulous, so flawless in the decorating of a box. Stiles silently vowed to make sure he treated the box, and the contents, with the care it deserved.

"Oh boy." Stiles let out a low whistle and brushed a piece of white tissue paper aside. It didn't look like much, and there certainly wasn't any big, elaborate gift for him inside, but Stiles knew that whatever was contained in the small stack of envelopes would easily hold answers to some of his most profound questions surrounding London.

He dug into the box and freed the stack of envelopes, ten in all, from the tissue paper covered walls. A navy blue ribbon was tied around the stack, a nice, neat bow adorning the front where Stiles could easily see a fancy handwritten number '1' scribed just underneath it. He took the envelopes in his one hand and gently flipped through them, spotting a number on each of the remaining paper shells. The envelopes were numbered one through ten.

When he peered back into the box, Stiles took note that there were corresponding packages. A couple small boxes, a few more envelopes, although those ones looked more like greeting card envelopes than the letter sized envelopes in his hand, there was even a cylinder shaped present wrapped in the same paper as the box, a giant number ten glaring at him from the paper holding the contents hidden inside.

With as much care as he could muster, Stiles gently setting the envelopes back inside the box and began searching for some sort of instructions, or guidance pertaining what he was supposed to do with the box as well as the contents inside. Maybe it was as obvious as it seemed, read the letters in order, maybe instructions for the accessories were inside the envelopes? But would London really let him just try to figure it out, she had to have some sort of introduction to whatever this was, whatever this box contained, right?

"Okay London, what are you trying to do here?" Stiles muttered to himself and he pressed his palms against the sides of the bottom of the box. He lifted it up and peered at the underside, hoping that maybe there was something there that could help him figure out what the heck she was trying to do. He found nothing on the bottom, nothing for him to go on.

Stiles set the box back on the table and grabbed hold of the lid, twisting it in his hand so that he was looking at the inside of the lid now, a small note with his name written on it stared right back at him, a single piece of scotch tape holding it securely to the lid.

As carefully and cautiously as he could, so as not to wreck the wrapping of the box, Stiles peeled the tape away from the underside of the lid. He was definitely curious now, what the heck was London trying to pull here, what was her goal of the box and what did it have to do with Stiles? What did it all mean?

Managing to free the note without too much damage to the décor of the interior of the box, Stiles cocked his head to the side and flipped the note over in his hand, trying to gauge what it might say before he actually opened it. It was a single piece of lined paper folded three times, with nothing on the outside except for his name. Stiles let out a sigh and hesitated for a split second before opening the note.

Every single word on the page was handwritten by London perfectly. There wasn't a single word scratched out or any sort of distortion to any of her handwritten letters. It was, simply put, flawless.

He locked his eyes on the top of the page and noticed the date, today's date, scribed in the top, right corner of the page.

"This is what you've been up to all day, writing me a letter?" He scoffed but tried to hide his amusement.

Without any further hesitations, Stiles began to read.

Stiles,

I can't guarantee that you'll completely understand this, or why I did what I did but all you really need to know is that you are the reason for my future.

It's not hard to figure out, especially for someone as smart as you, but you know me too well to simply dive into this box without taking the time to learn about what the purpose really is. So here it is: this box has been given to you to explain how you saved my life.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the box I mean, it's easy, really easy actually. You start with the envelope labeled with the number one, open it, read it, heed the advice contained within and understand what I've written to you. As for the rest of the wrapped items in the box, you can open the corresponding trinket (yes, let's call the trinkets) before, during, or after you've opened the letter, it doesn't matter, but you have to know that the item wrapped separately holds an important piece of the letter to which the number corresponds.

There's no time frame on when you read the letters, you can read them all at once, in order of course, or you can spread them out over a long period of time. Maybe you want to save them and read them on special occasions (like Christmas or your birthday), hey maybe you'll even stay up late tonight and devour each and every word contained on the pages that I have written and sealed within the envelopes.

Whatever you choose to do Stiles, I leave that up to you. There are no rules except for one and this one rule is very important. You have to read the letters in order. That's it, that's your one and only guideline.

That being said Stiles, there's just one last thing you need to know about this box and everything inside of it. No matter what happens, no matter what you read or what I say to you through my letters, you are allowed to feel whatever it is that you feel. If you find yourself blind with rage, that's okay, you're allowed to be mad and you're certainly allowed to be mad at me. If you find that you can't contain your laughter, even if something's not really all that particularly funny, I won't judge you. They're your emotions and you're allowed to experience them as they come.

You are one of the single most important people in my life and maybe this will help you understand why. I really do believe that you're a good person and maybe I didn't necessarily deserve you in my life but there's things that you don't know, things contained in the letters that will explain why I owe my life to you.

So thank you Stiles, I hope you know how amazing you really are.

Regards,

London Lee Parker

Stiles flipped the sheet over in a desperate attempt at a search for more words. He found none. It was as though he were a starving child and she provided him with a mere taste of food. He knew he wanted more.

Dropping his eyes to the inside of the box, he let out a huff. London knew him better than almost anyone at this point (aside from maybe Scott), there was no way he was going to leave the box until the next day, let along leave the letters for special occasions. He would most likely stay up late into the night 'devouring' the letters like she had so eloquently put it. No, this was just plain cruel, yet at the same time, Stiles could hardly contain his excitement. This whole entire box was a heartless idea but it was also terribly exciting and Stiles couldn't wait to delve into it, to find out what she so desperately felt the need to write down.

"Hey dad!" Stiles called out from his place in the kitchen, his eyes still locked onto the box. His ears were perked and listening for a response from the living room.

"Yeah?" His dad's voice was strong and firm and Stiles' easily heard from down the hall.

"I'm uh, going to be in my room getting ready for tomorrow. If you need me for anything, just let me know, okay?"

"Sure thing!"

Stiles tucked the introduction letter on top of the rest of the envelopes before slipping the lid on and sealing the box shut. It looked exactly the same as when he originally walked into the kitchen, when he had laid his eyes on it for the first time.

He tucked it under his arm and turned on his heels, quickly making his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs and into his room where he promptly shut the door, carefully of course, before stepping towards his bed and setting the box down extremely gingerly, as though it were made of the finest glass and would break at any sudden movement.

The lid came off and Stiles set it against his pillows as he climbed onto his bed and sat down cross legged right in the middle of his comforter. He ran his fingers along the edge of the box and took a deep breath, preparing himself for whatever the letters contained.

He didn't know it at that second, but nothing would have been able to prepare himself for what London had to say.