this is a disclaimer.
said and done
Ahsoka doesn't cry when they reassign her.
She might want to, but she doesn't. She's a Jedi. Jedi don't cry. They don't get attached. They don't stoop to begging Master Yoda himself to rescind the order, just this once, please, Master, let me stay, but this... attachment... cannot be permitted to continue, Mace Windu was saying over the commlink when Ahsoka arrived at the briefing room and he said "attachment" in a quiet way that made his disgust with the concept perfectly clear. It is the decree of this Council that Padawan Tano be assigned to Master Unduli, who will teach her as befits a member of this Order, and that Padawan Tano and Knight Skywalker are to be permitted no further contact with one another for the duration of the Padawan's apprenticeship and perhaps beyond that.
This is the last time they will ever see each other.
After this conversation, Ahsoka will forever associate turbolifts with goodbyes.
She feels lonely already, small and unprotected.
Anakin kneels in front of her so that he is looking up into her face, and she wants to see his wide, tilted grin again before she goes but she won't and she knows it.
"I'm not much of a Master, Ahsoka," he says. "I'm too reckless, or so Obi-Wan still claims, and too judgmental, and I'm a terrible teacher. Master Luminara can show you all the things I can't."
"Master Luminara," Ahsoka says, loud and clear, "doesn't understand."
Anakin's mouth thins. "No."
"Can't you –"
"Don't you think I haven't tried?" he barks.
She shakes her head no, because she never did think that. She knows him better than to think that.
"What would you have taught me?" she asks.
For a moment, he looks... no, not taken aback. Hurt. Grieving, almost. His blue eyes lock onto a point somewhere above and behind her shoulder and stay there, staring into the past.
"Nothing a Jedi should know," Anakin says at last. His voice is rough and low, he swallows hard after speaking, his right hand flexes, once twice, then lies still against his thigh.
Ahsoka, for the first time that she can remember, reaches out to touch him. His skin is cooler than hers, his cheek scratchy with stubble. Anakin meets her eyes, startled.
"Goodbye, Sky Guy," Ahsoka says.
He stands up and kisses her forehead. "Goodbye, Snips."
Master Luminara is waiting in the hangar bay. Ahsoka takes a few steps towards her, back straight, shoulders squared, and then spins around.
Anakin is still standing in the turbolift, arms crossed over his chest. Ahsoka feels a sudden urge to run to him and be hugged, wrapped up in his arms like she's seen parents and children, brothers and sisters do for one another on dozens of worlds in the wake of a battle.
But they are Jedi, and Jedi don't hug.
"You're the best teacher I've ever had," she blurts out, and watches his blue eyes widen and his mouth stretch into that wide, tilted grin.