Twenty-five years. That answer was weighty enough to distract her, even without the complete discrepancy in his appearance, but Ahsoka turned back to him and forced herself to focus on what he was saying, to wait until a break in his explanation to process and ask more questions. The telling of these things hurt him, she could sense it, and so her attention was even more necessary.
What he said next was shocking.
They'd taken her away. Rarely did such a thing happen, at least to Ahsoka's knowledge, as Padawans were chosen to be compatible with their Masters. She'd been chosen to be his, after all, and it had been one of her motivations during most of their first mission, to prove herself worthy to be his Padawan. And they'd given her to another Master for a reason Ahsoka couldn't exactly wrap her mind around initially because it seemed so... mean. How was that compassion, to do that in the face of the hurt she'd constantly sensed in him – 'but you hurt all the time,' she'd told him early on – a hurt that had intensified tenfold while on Tatooine? The bitterness in his voice wasn't the only senseable sign of his feelings and the combination told her the Council had only made it worse.
She was genuinely upset and right now the years of training telling her to move away from that upset only made her feel more discontent.
Waitaminute. Wife?
While she'd been still up until now, debating silently over each new piece of information, Ahsoka finally did move then, jaw dropping as she mouthed the word 'wife' as though it were foreign to her. It wasn't, of course, but the concept of a Jedi being married was. It was against everything she'd been taught, everything Jedi were taught. Measured compassion and unloving detachment, not love shared between husbands and wives and families, no possession in emotional or material senses allowed.
Of course it explained some things, like the way he'd disappear and she'd have to find him, usually at a computer terminal with the excuse he needed to 'think', or his expression when Senator Amidala had pretty much saved them from being executed. He had several distinct faces and she'd known even then he was trying for his 'warrior general' expression but had fallen far short. She never would have guessed wife then, because the idea of her Master being married was that unthinkable.
And yet he was. He was saying so and she had no reason, no sense, that it was anything but the truth.
Those points – the numbers of years that had passed for him, her being taken away and the truth of his marriage – had snowballed into one single baffling weight and served to do what few things could bring about.