If they can successfully block off the treehouse... Then any Assistants trying to quell the riot would have a lot harder time of it. They'd have more time to try to force the Nurse to respond.

Elle nods along as he talks, the picture of someone just attentively listening to her conversation partner. And when he's done, she nods again, firmly, more purposefully -- agreeing with him. But she doesn't reply right away, head tilted to one side, thinking.

"It's hard to say how it'd go... What kind of response it'd get." Her hands move now, gesturing vaguely, but upwards. What kind of response it'd get from the Nurse, she means. "And, in the end... It'd be about getting the chance to talk. Right? The chance to change things?"

Elle shrugs one shoulder, even raises a hand to wobble. "I mean... Trouble, sure. I think there's been a couple of times where some people tried to get organized. But the kind of loud you're talking about..." Here, she shakes her head. "I can't say there's anything I know of."

There it is again. I think most of the Barge folk here are going to be on your side, Elle. She would wonder why, what the difference is, but... no. No, she knows.

"There are a lot of people... who don't like how things are here. But we... It's... really easy to feel -- helpless, here. Powerless." Elle's eyes are on the floor ahead of them as they walk, her voice growing softer. "Hopeless. Like nothing we do is going to make a difference."

She takes a deep breath, now, and lifts her chin, first just... up, looking at the ceiling, before turning her eyes to him. "So... You guys, ending up here -- I know it isn't a good thing. But... I'm glad. Sometimes, what's needed is for someone new to come along and say it's worth trying."

To go to the Barge... Elle remembers that burst of hot envy in her chest when Yunlan was telling her what it was like. And now, with Raylan talking about this -- this far-off dream...

She wants it. She wants it so badly she almost can't breathe for a second. She wants to go home, yeah, see her friends again and check on the Mojave and laugh about bad jokes with Yes Man and curl up next to Lily and Raul and -- To know she'll never. Never. Be brought back here for something as simple as losing her temper at someone. For putting down someone trying to hurt someone she cares about. For just trying to survive. She wants that, too -- But now that she's seen this ship? The miracles it can create? The friendships she's been able to make here, that she never would've had the chance for otherwise... The possibilities --

The choice.

She shakes her head a little -- at herself, to clear it. She finds herself lifting a hand to rub her fingers over the bullet scars on her forehead.

"The Authority?" she asks, because... It's the easiest thing to address, honestly. The rest of it... Her feelings are too strong, too tangled, for her to put words to right now. So she focuses on the unfamiliar, nice and simple. "What's the Authority?"

... huh.

"You know... Not even once, did I wonder if there was something -- bigger, to all this. Like... It makes sense? But I didn't even consider that there were other ships, other... Captains. Other people so powerful to be able to do something like this. Not until you guys arrived. But..." She tilts her head, brow furrowed, but expression more on the curious and thoughtful side, despite what she's about to say. "I wonder... why. The Admiral took the Barge and ran. And what that says about the Authority."

"Every story is important. Even if no one else hears it."

Just saying that makes her homesick. Horribly, fiercely homesick. She wants to sit with Ulysses and watch the Divide storms in the distance. With Joshua and Daniel at a campfire and listen to them discuss the Bible. With Raul and Veronica on the couch while he tells them about his adventures in Mexico.

"But I hope... I hope -- If these stories are all so separate, that someone can connect them. See the whole of it. The heart of it." A beat. "And lay to rest everything that's wrong with it, so it can be reshaped. Rebuilt... into something better."