"Actually," Inara was telling Kaylee in her shuttle across the ship, "it's fairly simple. The hardest part is figuring out what people want. After that everything you should do becomes clear. Deciphering what people want, that is the difficult task. That is an art. That requires finesse."

"Can'tcha just ask?" Kaylee asked, and Inara only laughed.

River looked up from the protein cake she was pushing around her plate and across to Jayne, who was trying to eat his own mash while keeping one eye on her chopsticks.

"What do you want?" she asked him point-blank.

He looked startled, then suspicious. "Nuthin," he said. He kept both eyes on her after that. Jayne wasn't a very good test though. Jayne was a liar. Preacher was watching them both but Preacher was a liar too. She gathered up her dignity and left.

Zoe and Wash were on the bridge. Zoe looked up and smiled at her as she came in; Wash reached out and picked up his evil dinosaur.

"Hello, foolish human," Wash said in his evil dinosaur voice. She didn't know why; he wasn't fooling anyone.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"I want to eat--your braiiin!" he said, and hesitated. "Ah...oops?"

"Wash!" Zoe said.

"You," she said, "Not your dinosaurs. You, Wash." Like her, sometimes he needed to be reminded of who he was. "What do you want?"

"I want... it all!" Wash stretched out his arms expansively and leaned back in his chair. "I want everything!"

"Well, you're not going to get it," River felt honor-bound to tell him. It was theoretically impossible, just for a start. But Wash didn't care.

"Of course I will!" he said. "My beautiful and stunning and, might I add, cunning wife is going to steal it for me."

"Wash..." Zoe warned again, but she sounded amused.

"She'll come home at the end of the day one day and I'll say 'Wife, what did you steal for us today?' 'Everything,' she'll say. You'll see."

"But then you'll only have half of everything," River pointed out.

"Ah, but, what's hers is mine. So see, little River, it will all work out just as I've nefariously planned."

River could have argued that point, but she didn't. Wash's initial assumptions were fallacious anyway. She turned to Zoe.

"I've got what I want," Zoe said before River could ask, "mostly. Wouldn't mind a bit of fuel, some supplies in case we run into some trouble."

"Someone say trouble?" Mal asked, walking in as if from nowhere. "Girl, didn't I tell you not to set foot on this bridge without your brother?"

"You told Simon not to set foot on the bridge," she said.

"Exactly," Mal said.

River left without asking what the captain wanted. On her way she made a point of passing Jayne in the hall. "What do you want?" she asked him again.

"Gorram it girl, I want you to get the hell out of my ruttin' way," he said, but he didn't push past her like he would have Simon. He stalked off in the other direction, even though there was nothing there he wanted.

Kaylee and Inara were still in the shuttle talking around Simon, so only Simon himself was left to talk to. What did Simon really want? She went down to sickbay and asked him over and over, wearing him down until he was exhausted to the point of honesty.

"I want you to get better, mei mei," he said finally, but there was no malice in his voice. "You don't have to be the person that you used to be. But I want you to be able to choose who you become yourself. Do you understand?"

She did. Simon was honest with her as he was honest with himself. But even though she knew what he wanted, everything she had to do did not become clear.

Kaylee was in the engine room by now, but it was Inara she wanted to talk to. On her way to the Inara's shuttle she cut through the cargo bay to drop by where Jayne was cleaning his gun in quiet for once, avoiding her on purpose. He knew what she was going to ask before she asked it.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"What do you want?" he mimicked.

"I want to know what you want," she said.

"I want to know what you want," he said.

"Jayne is daì ruò mù ji," she said.

"Zhùzuî," he muttered and stalked off.

Simon would have told her not to do that. But Simon was just sitting in the infirmary looking at his over-organized shelves and seeing nothing. She tired him out with her questions and she felt guilty to realize it, more even than she felt for making Jayne feel stupid when he wasn't really, and when he really wanted people to think he was smart. Daì ruò mù ji, dumb as a wooden chicken, Kaylee taught her that the other week and it was, in her defense, really fun to say.

Kaylee was in the engine room alone now, not-not-thinking about Jubal Early. Inara was in her shuttle making tea, and River really wanted some. But she felt the weight of Simon in the back of her mind, heavy and tired. She turned and went down to the engine room almost without thinking about it.

"Hey River," Kaylee said as she came in. "What can I do for ya?"

River sighed heavily and moved a wrench closer to the toolbox with her foot.

"Simon's in the infirmary," she said. Kaylee stared at her in expectation and she sighed again. "He wants you," she explained. "I think he'd like to talk to you right now."

She knew now why Inara couldn't just ask people what they wanted. They didn't always know. It was a good thing River was around to figure things out.