Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars or The Clone Wars.
Spoilers: For Episode 19 "Storm Over Ryloth"
Note: Throughout this episode I kept thinking of this statement by a former Burundi military commander: "Sensible commanders always grab whatever weapons are easiest at hand, and no weapon is easier to get or control than children."

Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano

He never tells Ahsoka that it's not his idea to give her command of the squadron. He never tells her that he doesn't even like the idea, because he knows she wouldn't really understand why. He knows his padawan (in so many ways she's just like him) and he knows that she would just take his reluctance for a lack of confidence in her abilities. It's what he would have thought—what he did think—when Master Obi-Wan refused to give him certain missions.

And besides, he has his orders. The little voice in the back of his mind that sounds strangely like his mother reminds him that orders have never stopped him before, but he shoves the voice away. Maybe he could disobey his orders, but Ahsoka is still there, fighting this war alongside him, and someday…

He knows he can't save her. He can save her life, yes, and he has plenty of times already. But he can't really save her.

So he tells her she has command this time and he sends her out, and when she comes back with the shreds of her well-ignored orders and the stragglers of her demolished squad, he tells her that's what it means to lead in a war.

And he lets her sulk, but not for long. He knows what he has to do now. What was it Kitster used to say? When you're thrown you have to get back on the eopie right away, or you never will.

He doesn't give her time to think about it. By the time she's done sulking he's got it all planned out, and he talks over and around her with the practiced ease of command that leaves her gaping in astonishment as he disappears up the shuttle's ramp. Out of the corner of his eye he watches the clone troops circle around her, awaiting their orders, and for just a moment the voice that sounds like his mother threatens to come back. It says that sometimes, never is the best thing.

But it's always like this. He knows that. And he really should have learned by now that things won't change.

It's always like this. There was a little boy named Ani who started racing pods when he was five, even though his mother always cried. And another boy named Kitster who rode in the eopie races and who'd already had eleven broken bones by the time he turned eight, but he kept getting back on, because it wasn't his choice. And there was little Amee with her nighttime visitors, the ones she never talked about, but they all knew. And a fourteen year old girl from a civilized world who'd led a battle to retake her planet before she'd even completed her studies in mathematics.

He tells himself this as he watches their strategy play out flawlessly, watches another fourteen year old girl lead a charge and find an identity and lose that last little bit of herself that was only a child.

It's what he's supposed to do, after all. He's her master, and he's teaching her to be a Jedi. And as he watches the squadron swing around in a perfect arc, the blockade devastated and their role fulfilled, he is proud of her. He is proud of what he's made her.

And he ignores the voice that sounds like his mother. He knows you can never look back.