A/N: I wrote this while wearing Mr. Incredible pajama pants; they're exceedingly comfortable, though I would have much preferred to have just about any other character on them.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Incredibles, but I do love the movie. It's one of my favorites, and yet it is not in my collection. I shall have to remedy this travesty soon.

Warning: This will have femslash, because that's what I write and there's not nearly enough of it in this fandom. If that offends, then please feel free to stop reading.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

It had been nearly ten years since Mirage had last seen the Parr family in person. She remembered that day so clearly; it was the day the man she thought she loved completely disregarded her life in favor of furthering his revenge against Mr. Incredible for a childhood slight, it was the day she had betrayed that same man and helped the family of Supers to get off the tropical island by means of a rocket, and the day she had been stranded on that same island with a shiner and a broken heart for all her troubles. Despite all this she thought of the Parr family fondly, they had treated her better than she deserved for all she'd helped Buddy, no—Syndrome—to do. They had actually treated her like a person, instead of a living day-planner, and that endeared them to her.

It had taken her almost three months to get off Syndrome's island. With both of the rockets gone, no planes, and no access to any funds the escape had not been easy. She had been forced to use the materials in Syndrome's lab to build herself a small boat; she had been a pretty good engineer before she became Syndrome's assistant, so it hadn't been all that difficult to do. What had taken her so long was gathering supplies of food and fresh water, and then navigating her way to safe waters without a map or location device of any kind. When she had landed she was alive but in dire need of a bath and some new clothes. She'd had to start her life all over again. She supposed she should be happy the government hadn't come looking for her once she had arrived stateside again, but that was slightly mitigated by having to become a completely new person unable to use her credentials to land a suitable job.

She had always had a head for numbers though, so she had landed a job in a large accounting firm and had quickly risen through the ranks until she was made a partner and earned more money than she had with Syndrome. It had taken her longer than she would have liked, but she was still young (a mere thirty two, Syndrome had scouted her from her graduating class at university) and able to enjoy her wealth by spoiling herself with a large house, a classy car, and a fantastically monstrous wardrobe. But none of it really meant anything because there wasn't anyone to enjoy it all with her. She had always been a fan of the share-the-wealth philosophy so to assuage her loneliness she often helped in local shelters and made sizeable donations to charitable organizations. Of course this generosity also helped her fight the constant guilt she felt over all those she had wronged at least a little.

Still, ten years is a long time and she had changed a lot from the naïve graduate who'd thought she'd found true love in the quirky brilliant scientist. Now she had a very different outlook on life. She finally recognized that not all people were good, as she had once believed, and that you have to be careful who you trust. It was getting to be easier with the Supers all come out of hiding.

The world had heroes again, of course it also had super-villains again, but having heroes seemed to far outweigh that. And the world's favorite heroes were, naturally, the Incredibles, the crime fighting family of super heroes in matching uniforms. The super strong Mr. Incredible; Mrs. Incredible, formerly known as Elastigirl; their eldest son, the speedster, Velocity; their multi-powered changeling boy, Conversion; and their oldest child and only daughter, with the dual powers of invisibility and force fields, Camouflage. Mirage saw them in the news all the time, saving the world from some dastardly plot or other. She knew their civilian identities and was glad to see them all together still, and surprised to realize just how old the children were now and how mature they had gotten. Violet must be at least twenty four now, maybe even twenty five, making Dash twenty and Jack-Jack ten or eleven.

Mirage couldn't help but compare the Violet she had first seen with this older version. The girl that had once been painfully shy and tragically insecure was now a vibrant young woman with startling good looks, even hidden by the mask, and a brain to match. Mirage found herself wishing she could see her without the mask on, just for comparison purposes she told herself. The girl was incredibly attractive. She made sure to watch every story on the Incredibles and read as many articles as she could, occasionally laughing at the wild speculations of some of the more eccentric reporters. She liked to check up on their progress, they were the closest thing she had to a family now, even though they didn't know it. She would like to one day have them as friends, but she wouldn't even begin to know how to approach them much less how to explain herself to them.

Perhaps then it was a good thing that matters were taken out of her hands when another villain, the Fruitbat, attacked as Mirage was out on the streets returning to her office from a lunch break. The oddly themed villain was destroying the buildings around him and reeling off some speech about how the great and noble fruit bat would one day take over the world when the Incredibles came to confront him. He was really no match for them, and he knew it, which is why he took the first hostage he could and held her at gunpoint. The damsel in distress: none other than the unfortunate Mirage.

*******************************

Violet Parr, a.k.a. Camouflage, looked on as her father tried to speak with this odd villain. "Let her go, Fruitbat!" Mr. Incredible bellowed at the clearly unhinged man.

The response was a loudly wailed, "Not until my message is heard, you over-grown ape!" And for emphasis the gun dug just a little harder into the temple of a very unhappy platinum blonde. Violet studied the woman, feeling like she should know her, like she'd seen her face somewhere before but she couldn't place the blonde in her memory so she focused instead on foiling the enemy.

She made herself invisible after signaling to her family about her intentions and proceeded to sneak up on the unsuspecting man. She was almost right on top of him when she accidentally kicked a rock, signaling her position with the slight sound, and the man whirled around and fired, scoring a hit to her midsection. She was very glad that Edna had made their costumes to be bulletproof; but even so she would have a nasty bruise for a while and she was winded to boot. But she had caused enough of a lapse in attention from him that the rest of her family was able to separate him from his hostage and take the battle away from her. From there her family quickly had matters under control and the Fruitbat was given to the proper authorities.

Violet was still trying to get her breath back when she felt a delicate hand on her shoulder and heard a slightly accented voice ask "Are you alright?" Violet looked up into the greenest eyes she'd ever seen, into the face of a beautiful woman, the former hostage, and was touched by the concern she could see in the woman's eyes as she knelt down to Violet's level.

Captured by the woman's eyes Violet found herself speaking without thinking and replied with a small smile while asking "Are you?"

The mysterious woman waved a hand flippantly in the universal gesture of no-big-deal and answered "Just fine." She paused for a moment still looking into Violet's eyes, for what Violet didn't know but she wasn't complaining, before pointing out "You didn't answer my question" in that alluringly accented voice of hers.

"I'm alright. A little winded and definitely sore, but I'll heal." Violet didn't know what possessed her to pretend like she was all tough, because that shot had hurt like hell and it hadn't even pierced the suit, but she didn't really know how to stop herself either. Before she knew it she was flirting, "Help me up?" she asked with a little smirk and a quirked eyebrow.

The woman responded in kind with a wide smile and the words "Say please." And suddenly Violet had a rush of memory, of a woman ten years ago who had said that, a woman who had helped her family to escape an island and save the world, a woman who had disappeared. Her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open as she stared at the woman before her, finally recognizing her.

*****************************

Mirage was aware and even a little pleased with the flirting she and Violet had unconsciously fallen into, but was aware something had changed with the young woman before her. Her slack-jawed state and suddenly pale face worried the older woman.

"You," Mirage heard Violet breathe out. "You were there." Mirage watched as Violet returned from her thoughts and focused solely on Mirage. "You helped my family off that island ten years ago. You're Mirage."

Mirage reared back, standing quickly and backing away her own eyes growing wide with panic and her head shaking side to side. If Violet remembered her then she was no longer safe, she would have to become someone new again, but first she'd have to get away. She turned and ran, hoping to escape. She heard Violet struggle up and follow after her calling out, "Wait! Please wait, Mirage!"

Mirage was fast, but she didn't have the practice the super girl did in moving through debris and Violet caught her up just as she entered an alleyway.

"Please, stop," Violet pleaded with a note of desperation Mirage didn't think she warranted coloring the young woman's voice. Violet got a hold of Mirage's elbow and managed to stop them both in their tracks. "Please don't run away," she said as she turned Mirage around to look her in the eyes, nearly crying.

Mirage didn't know what to do now, the girl had her and would most likely turn her in as a criminal. She didn't want to fight, didn't think she deserved to fight, but she wasn't ready for this, wasn't ready to confront her demons, but Violet wasn't letting her go.

"Where have you been all this time?" Violet's voice shook with an emotion Mirage couldn't identify, "We went back to the island to find you but you weren't there anymore. We—we tried to find you once things had settled down again, but you were gone. We wanted to thank you…for helping us." This news truly startled Mirage and she couldn't help but speak.

"You tried to find me—to thank me? Why? Why would any of you want to do that after what I did?! What I helped to do?!" Mirage's voice held a note of agony, believing that she didn't deserve to be absolved for her sins.

"Why? Because you helped save our lives! Because you could have let Syndrome get away with everything but you helped us to stop him instead! Because we were worried about you!" Violet still had a strong grip on Mirage's arm and it didn't appear as if she'd let go anytime soon. And Mirage, to her surprise, found she no longer wanted to be released.

"Why were you worried about me?" Mirage asked quietly, "I nearly got you all killed. Why would you worry?" To her horror, Mirage felt tears slide down her cheeks.

************************************

Violet looked at Mirage for a long moment, watched the tears running down her face, saw the broken lonely woman before her and felt as though her own heart were breaking in response to this woman's pain. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to heal all of Mirage's wounds, the wounds to her heart and soul that she knew had been left there ten years ago when her life had been turned upside down.

"We were worried because we'd left you stranded on that island, injured and with no means of escape. You weren't the bad guy in all of that mess. You were as much a victim of Syndrome's as anybody; the only difference was he broke your heart instead of your bones." Violet couldn't stop herself from wiping the tears from the older woman's cheeks. "We were worried about you because we cared about you. Because we knew that you had been manipulated. Because we knew that you were a good person. We care because you helped us when you didn't have to, even after Mom had decked you." A small smile pulled at both their lips with that last reminder. "We never meant to leave you stranded, and we weren't going to send you to prison either, we all agreed on that. When we couldn't find you we all got really worried. I think, despite everything, you were a friend and we wanted to make sure you were all right."

Violet's right hand was cupping Mirage's cheek now in a shockingly intimate gesture that got even more intimate when she let go of Mirage's arm only to pull her into a tight embrace.

******************************

Mirage was stunned. She had never thought, never hoped, never even dreamed that the Parr family wouldn't hate her, that they would care for her. She had never in her wildest imaginings dared to think she'd be forgiven. But here she was, standing in the embrace of a very relieved Violet Parr and finding she never wanted to be let go. She held onto the girl tightly, trying to commit to memory the feel of her body, her scent, her warmth.

For the first time in ten years she felt safe again, like she didn't have to hide, and damn, that felt really good.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

A/N: I think I'll end it here for now. I'll probably write another chapter later. Anyway, let me know what you think, leave a review.