Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage.

There are a lot of things about her life that Parker would go back and change if she could. She's actually made up a list, just in case anyone ever invents a time machine she can steal. (And, really, if anyone ever invents a time machine, of course she'll be able to steal it. She's Parker.)

She wishes she'd never taught her brother to ride a bike. There are two foster fathers she'd like to go back and kill before they could ever lay a hand on her younger self. There are treasures that got away from her over the years—diamonds, priceless art, large stockpiles of cash, and one very rare turtle—that she'd like to get a hold of, even if only to caress them. If she could, she'd watch every minute of her own childhood from her birth on until she found and corrected the moment when something in her soul broke.

Most of the things she'd like to change are associated with feelings of bitterness, with the sense that her life never goes the way she wants it to. There's only one thing, one lost chance, that she looks back on not with anger mixed with despair, but with a sense of sorrowful regret.

If only she'd known that Nate needed money for Sam's treatment.

Parker's never been an altruistic person. Even now, altruism isn't the driving force behind her involvement with the Leverage team. It's the feeling of belonging that's kept her from heading for the hills and making her way as an independent thief again. Still, inherent selfishness aside, if she'd known about Sam—if she'd heard that IYS had refused to pay for Sam's treatment—she'd have found a way to get Nate that money.

She'd been aware of Nate Ford for years by the time Sam got sick, had been caught and allowed to escape by him twice, had spoken to him three times, and had once seen him through her telescope while scoping out a mark's house and decided not to go after that particular Faberge egg. She had known from research and from her interactions with him that he was, above all else, a kind man. She had never met one of those before.

And that is why for over two years now—since even before the Nigerian job—she has longed for the ability to save Sam's life. Because any child would be lucky to have Nate as a father, and it was a crime against the world for Sam to be stolen from a father who loved him so very much. Because Nate is no longer a man she sees through a telescope, he's someone she interacts with on a daily basis, whose couch she's slept on more than once, who's never let her down, not really, not even when he's drunker than any of her foster parents ever got, and she still thinks he's a kind man. Because it's the right thing to do.

She's the only one on the team who doesn't freak out when Nate turns himself in to the FBI in exchange for their freedom. Not because she cares about Nate less than they do, but because she thinks that in some way Nate has finally found the time machine she's spent her whole life looking for. The redemption that he's needed so desperately. It's too late to save Sam—Nate's whole identity now is defined by the pain of losing his son, and Parker is no longer able to imagine a Nate who is not in some way broken—but, five years after Sam's death, Nate has finally managed to sacrifice himself to save his family.

It's not the method Parker would have chosen, in Nate's place. Her way probably would have involved allowing the team to be arrested and finding some way to try to rescue them at a later date, after robbing Sterling of everything he was worth. She loves Sophie, Hardison, Eliot, and Nate as much as she has ever loved anything or anyone, but she's still capable of living without them and she's not sure whether that means she's incapable of dying for them. That's the difference between her and Nate, though.

He's been a kind man all his life. She's just a thief who's spent some time learning from his example.