A/N: Although I posted this as a mini one-shot in my "Across the Stars" collection, I decided to make it it's own thing! Here's the already posted chapter and the brand new second one. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to make this into a bigger story.

He knew what had happened before he dared to open his eyes. The memories may have been blurred but the silence told Anakin everything he needed to know. He should have woken up to shouts of the other men, grunts of hard work and the creaking of the ship as she sailed through the choppy waters… But instead, the only sounds he heard around him were the waves of the ocean and the cries of the gulls far above his head.

That meant that they'd lost the battle he could barely remember.

Forcing his eyes open, Anakin looked around him and squinted. It was dark now, the sky lit only by starlight… How many hours had passed? Why couldn't he remember what happened? It was difficult to make out in the blackness of night but if he looked hard enough, he could see the bodies of his men and broken pieces of what'd been 'the Naboo Rose' floating on the current. So that was that then… His ship was in pieces and who knows what'd happened to any survivors. He was almost glad for the men around him who'd died, it was probably a better fate than their comrades.

He could barely remember the aftermath of the fight against the attacking band pirates, hazy memories of panicking as saltwater filled his lungs and hauling himself onto the piece of wood he currently resided on were the strongest. It hadn't taken long for the exhaustion to take him in the sickening afternoon heat.

Now it was night had come and he was freezing.

Anakin laid on his makeshift raft and watched the stars shine in the sky. Life on the seas was all he'd ever known… After his mother's death, one of the higher-ranking navy-men in the area had taken him under his wing and brought Anakin on board as a personal steward. Even now, years later, he still missed Qui-gon. If it hadn't been for him, Anakin's end wouldn't have been far behind his mother's, starving on the streets, cold and alone… Now, he was going to die on the sea.

Still cold and still alone.

Time passed oddly. Anakin watched the sunrise and set for two days after the pirates' raid on his ship, starving, thirsty and practically delirious as the heat burned his skin and the salt nipped at the cuts he'd gained. With what little energy he had, he sat up to look around the waters. He'd had a small hope what when the ship didn't arrive back as scheduled, Obi-wan might gather a search party to come and rescue him and whoever else might have survived… But they weren't due to arrive for three more days by his counting. The men on the home front didn't know when the ship went down – it could have been months ago for all they knew – and the King wouldn't spare the expense of another ship to search for drowned men. It'd be easier to trudge through prisons and taverns to replace them.

No one was coming for him.

That was a frightening realisation.

If it'd been up to him, Anakin would have preferred a sword to the gut than this. At least that would have been a quick death, painful, but over before he knew what'd really hit him… Laying out here, burning and starving was worse. Who knew how long it would take his body to succumb to death? Maybe, if he could gather the energy, he could roll into the water and just… Let nature take her course. Better that than lying here uselessly.

Something popped out of the water suddenly, catching the Captain's attention. His mind was slower without food and water so it took him a moment to realise it was a fin and it was heading this direction. But why would a shark come here all of a sudden…? The bodies. The blood had to have attracted the beast this way.

As badly as Anakin didn't want to starve to death, being eaten alive by seemingly endless rows of razor-sharp teeth wasn't preferable. Still, despite his horror, the dorsal fin edged closer and closer toward him and the bodies of his comrades. There was nothing he could do. He was trapped.

To Anakin's dismay, a second fin rose above the water from the east. Both fins came to the edge of where the mess of bodies began and circled just as he desperately tried to recall the prayers his mother once made him murmur before bed-time… He hadn't prayed since Shmi's death and he was very quickly coming to regret that decision.

The fin on the east came within a meter of where Anakin was trapped before dipping below the water's edge again and he began to prepare himself for an attack from below. This was it. Time to meet his maker… Closing his eyes tightly, he tried to slow the frantic rise and fall of his chest. If there was a god up there, maybe he'd be kind enough to let Anakin see his mother again, even just for a few moments before sending him to whatever bad place non-believers were sent to.

A plopping splash sound pulled the sailor out of his thoughts and tempted him to open his eyes warily. Neither fin was visible anymore and all seven of the bodies he'd counted were still where he'd last seen them… But – but they'd both been so close! Where could they have –

A cloud of blood rose up from the murky depths of the water suddenly, startling Anakin so much that he almost fell off of his float. What the hell is going on? With wide, startled eyes, he watched as the corpse of a shark slowly rose to the edge of the water, bleeding fatally from its throat. He gave a startled cry at the sight of the beast and moved as far away from it as the make-shift raft would allow without toppling. What kind of monster could kill a shark like that?

Suddenly, a woman appeared beside him, a pale beauty with hair slicked back from the water and eyes speckled with amber. She watched him for a moment before smiling. "Hello." She said warmly, as if they'd merely passed each other on a street somewhere. This was it. His starved brain had conjured up a hallucination to take him to his watery grave. Anakin wanted to laugh – if he didn't, he might just cry instead. The woman placed her arms on the edge of his raft and leaned her chin on them. "Who are you?" She asked.

Anakin swallowed dryly. He didn't know hallucinations could talk. "I… I'm Captain Anakin Skywalker." He mumbled quietly.

"Captain?" She raised an eyebrow and looked around. "Where is your ship?"

"It… It was taken down by pirates." His lips felt dryer than before suddenly and his parched tongue did it's best to wet them.

The hallucination nodded understandingly. "That's not good… I'm Padme." Her smile was enchanting and Anakin wondered where he'd seen her face before in his life to conjure up her image now. Surely he wouldn't have overlooked someone like her if he'd seen her. If he had then he was a damned fool. "Are you alone out here?"

Not trusting his voice, Anakin gave a small nod in response.

"Oh…" She said. "You're lucky I came by. There's a little island around half a day from here – there are some humans like you who might help. I can take you there if you want?"

"Wait – wait…" Despite his best efforts, hope began to swell in his pained chest. "You're just a hallucination… Aren't you?"

At that, her face lit up with laughter and Anakin couldn't care that it was at his expense. "I'm quite real. See?" She pushed herself up with her forearms and heaved her body onto Anakin's raft to sit beside him. Only, what he saw almost made him fall into the waters below. Panic and shock numbed the sailor's body more with each second he looked at her. The woman – Padme's upper body was that of a normal human woman… Only with no coverings on her breasts – but the lower end… She was… It was – it was a tale, orange and scaly and like a giant fish.

If he hadn't heard stories about creatures like this and been scared out of his mind, Anakin might have thought the way the light of the sun glimmered against the scales in tiny rainbows was beautiful. "You!" He cried, "you – you're one of those things! A siren!" He'd heard the stories other sailors told over their ales at night, tales of beautiful womanly creatures who'd lure men just like him to their deaths with songs of the sea. Immediately, Anakin clamped his hands over his ears and braced himself.

But no song came, instead, Anakin felt a wet palm wrap around his wrist gently. "What're you doing, Anakin?" Padme's – the siren's – soft voice asked curiously.

The musical sound of his name on her lips made his stomach flip and he cursed the traitorous organ for its reaction. It hadn't been that long since he'd had a woman that he'd could be tempted by a creature out to drown him… Had it?

"Wait," he heard her laugh as her hand fell away, "are you – Oh, I see." She laughed again. "My mother always said humans tell lies about us… Let me guess, you think I'm going to sing you a pretty song and drag you to the seabed, don't you?" The siren nudged Anakin's shoulder playfully. What was this? Some kind of tactic to make him trust her? No! He couldn't believe it… She was a liar. He didn't want to die, not here, not now and certainly not like this! Through the muffling of his palms, Anakin heard her laugh again. "Do you think I'm going to eat you, Captain?"

This wasn't working… He had to do something… Something to fend her off. Oh, yes that was right! His knife! Anakin still had his knife on him! Thank whatever god that may be out there. Now he still had a chance… Especially if she was right about an island being nearby.

Slowly, carefully, Anakin lowered his hands away from his ears and reached for the small weapon in his pocket. The siren was still watching him, amusement dancing in those big eyes of hers, so he acted quickly, withdrawing the blade and pointing it at her. He'd held this blade in many men's faces over the years and watched them tremble and plead for mercy so it was cause for slight irritation when she laughed at him again.

She used his moment of shock to pull the blade free from his palm and inspect it closely, dragging a drying fingertip along the sharp edge just lightly enough to avoid slitting her skin. "I've never seen one of these before…" She drawled quietly and the sheer inquisitiveness on her face made Anakin un-tense just a little. "Is this what you use to fight?" Padme's gaze lifted to meet his eagerly.

"Amongst other things." He muttered.

"You humans are so strange…" Padme's voice took on a note of wonder, "fighting each other and dividing each other…" Her shimmering tail flicked a little water up and created a splash which distracted Anakin from her words for a moment. His fear was fading just a little and replacing itself with his own curiosity.

"You killed that shark?" He asked, eyeing the body just a few meters away.

Padme nodded, "it would have eaten those," she gestured to Anakin's fallen comrades, "and then knocked you off of this… Thing, and eaten you too. I didn't want that to happen."

This didn't make any sense. Sirens were real and didn't want to eat humans apparently and Anakin still wasn't fully sure he wasn't dreaming. "Why? Why would you want to save me?" He asked.

He watched her lean back on her forearms and close her eyes, enjoying the sun on her drying skin and he swallowed, glancing away before his eyes wandered to her distinct lack of clothing. "I like you humans… You're strange things."

Anakin found he couldn't disagree.