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It’s late when Master Windu approaches her.
“It’s last minute,” he says, remorse in his voice, “but we have a Padawan.”
Ahsoka raises an eyebrow. She's interacted plenty with Master Windu, but rarely casually, just talks of Temple news and new Padawans. “A… Padawan?”
“His name is Anakin. He’s young, only nine, but he’s just been found. He needs to be apprenticed soon.”
“Respectfully, that sounds like a problem for the Crechemasters.”
“We want you to be his Master.”
Ahsoka nearly chokes on the air she’s breathing. “I’m sorry, me? ”
“Yes.”
“Obi-Wan couldn’t have condoned this.”
“He suggested you, actually.”
The Temple around her is dark, quiet, but she can clearly hear the ringing in her montrals. Her knighthood has barely bloomed— two years, just long enough to feel like a real person. Twenty years old, Ahsoka knows, is barely old enough to drink on most planets, but here she is being told by Master Windu himself that she’s the next generation of teachers.
She wants to say, “Master Windu, kark off,” but instead she takes a breath in, two, lets the thought leave her mind and says, “Why me?”
Mace sighs. “Times are desperate,” he answers honestly. “Obi-Wan thinks you’re ready, and right now, on the cusp of war, we can’t afford to put him in the creche.”
Her shoulders tense. “Why?”
“He’s… gifted.”
“He’s a child.” Her eyes harden. They won’t. They won’t. “If you expect me to throw him into this war then you’ll have to find someone else.”
Mace’s expression softens, and if she knew him better Ahsoka might think he’s just as saddened as she is. “You’re a talented General, Ahsoka. It’s not ideal, but having someone train him for war nearly as much as to be a Jedi is… essential, at the moment.”
“You’re asking me to groom a child for war.”
“We’re asking you to raise him a Jedi, and prepare him for war.”
The presence of the Temple will forever be comforting. The countless Jedi, the steady wave of the Force flowing through her, it keeps her feet on the ground and her head straight on her shoulders. Ahsoka forces herself to breathe with its ebb and flow. “I assume I don’t have much of a choice in the matter?”
“You always have a choice.” No. I’m sorry.
“Alright,” Ahsoka whispers. “Alright, yes. I’ll train him. I’d better not regret this, Master Windu.”
“You won’t.”
She has a feeling she will, but that’s beside the point.
========
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “This is Ahsoka Tano. She’ll be overseeing your training.”
She notes the omission of the term master and files that piece of information for later. “It's good to meet you, Anakin.”
His eyes hold fear, but his shoulders are forced forward, tense, but strong. Like he’s been made to stand at attention too long. Blonde, shaggy hair is falling in his face but he refuses to brush it out of the way. “You too, ma’am.”
Well, he's polite. Obi-Wan ushers him off with a short, “Do you remember where today’s class is?” Anakin nods. “Alright, off you go, Ahsoka will meet you at the end of the day.”
The boy shuffles off after his words. Ahsoka's former master stands before her, something sad, but proud, lacing his gaze. His eyes are soft. “Thank you, dear one.”
“Why don’t you train him?” Her words slip out sharply, harsher than she means.
The corners of his mouth tip downward. It’s not quite a frown. “I know you’ve been thinking about getting a Padawan, I suggested to the council that you’d flourish with an apprentice.”
Ahsoka runs her hand down her arm, back up, smoothing out the sleeve of her robe. “I meant down the road, Obi-Wan. Three, four, years. When the war is over. When I can be a Master, not a superior.” She shakes her head. “No one should have to train children amidst war. All they’ll learn is hatred.”
“This boy needed a Master. I trust you.”
“And I’m glad. That doesn’t mean it was the right decision.”
“Does it not feel like it?” Obi-Wan tips his head, looks at her in that way that he did when she was fourteen and questioning and learning, when he knew the answer to her question and he was asking her to figure it out for herself. “Listen, Ahsoka, listen to the Force and tell me this isn’t correct. You hear it, don’t you?”
One breath in. One out. She shuts her eyes, letting her shoulders lean back against the wall. It’s warm against her back where the sun was shining, now through her closed eyes. The Force hums in contentment. It whispers.
Yes, it says. I’m sorry. Yes.
“Yes.”
Her eyes open. Obi-Wan’s looking at her with that smile that says he’s just as sorry as the Force. They both know it’s wrong. Neither feel they can acknowledge it. “He’s come from an outer rim planet, Tatooine, as a slave." There's the lack of a title from earlier. "He’s just been freed, just got back from the Halls, vaccinated, took his chip out.”
His chip. He sounds like a pet. Like property. “Windu says he’s nine?” she redirects.
“Yes. Not quite of age to be a Padawan, but we were all afraid of how he’d be integrated into the creche if we didn’t apprentice him.”
“I take it his training will be a… delicate, situation then?”
“I imagine so.”
Ahsoka crosses her arms. She finds herself switching into what her Commander, Rex, calls her battle position. “He’ll need to be trained from scratch. First year classes, meditation, tapping into the Force for the first time.”
“There’s no good curriculum for this, I’m afraid.”
“It’ll be doable.”
“I believe in your abilities, Ahsoka.” Obi-Wan smiles. His beard is sprouting a few specks of gray, maybe from the war, though Ahsoka recalls him telling her some years ago while she was still fresh faced with lekku barely past her shoulders, that every gray hair he’d ever receive would be her fault. She laughs now, knowing that it was only ever her that kept him young.
He was barely twenty five when she’d been apprenticed to him. He’d been so afraid. So scared of hurting her, of messing up, while Ahsoka was raring to go. Truth be told she’s sure she frightened him some, but where would they be if they didn’t push each other?
“You may not like it now,” Obi-Wan had said, “but knowing the philosophies behind the Jedi Code makes you much more knowledgeable on why you stand for what you stand for. It’s important for any Jedi.”
Ahsoka had groaned and suffered through her philosophy class. She took the second level, then the third, and suddenly she was sixteen and begging Obi-Wan to check out the Knight level books for her to read.
In the same way she needed to be pushed, the look on her Master’s face when he was told he should swim with her in the gardens is seared in her mind forever. It’s one of the memories she recalls when she needs to laugh, because he’d been so disgusted at swimming, casually, the grimace on his face was instinctual. He’d done it anyway, and though he hated just about every second of it that first time, he returned with her. Once in a while Ahsoka will still convince him to join her in the pools for a brief workout.
Yes, they’re so much better off with each other. There is no doubt.
Now, Ahsoka ponders how she will be forced to grow while Anakin looks up to her. She fears what the Force may tell her.
“Talk to me, Padawan,” Obi-Wan says with a hand on her shoulder, “Whenever you need me. I’ll always be there.”
Ahsoka finds herself smiling. “I know. Thank you, Obi-Wan.” She furrows her brow. “First question.”
“Yes?”
“How am I going to meet Anakin at the end of his class if I have no idea what class that is?”
Obi-Wan laughs. Ahsoka finds herself laughing, too. It’s a good sound.