[This was different than being given information. It was actually a lot harder. The corridor metaphor would've worked well if he knew which figurative door to open.
He (they) went through a series of doors leading to memories, each one frustrating him just a little bit more. Command codes for the Enterprise, a list of names and faces of everyone that served on Enterprise, how it felt to be stranded on an ice planet running for his life and running into some other Spock from another universe, the night he'd stayed up writing the code to hack the Kobayashi Maru, a bar fight when he was sixteen (and he'd slammed the door on that one pretty quicky).
Then he gave an irritated huff (mentally), pulling away from the doors for a moment. Randomly picking ones wasn't working, so there had to be a pattern. He turned about, trying one to his right--and quickly giving up it for it was more memories towards his youth and not what he was going for here.
Jim went through another four doors like this, finding ones that were closer and closer to the time frame in question until finally he was down to just a handful. Then it was just eliminating the possibilities. One a month after he took command, the next a year after that, then it was--
There. It. There it was and--oh god and--fuck.
Kirk pulled himself out of the mindmeld, careless if any damage was being caused as he did it. All he cared about was closing off the connection like it would stop the flood of memories and emotions but it didn't really. But this was what he wanted. So. He couldn't really complain.]
[Spam]
He (they) went through a series of doors leading to memories, each one frustrating him just a little bit more. Command codes for the Enterprise, a list of names and faces of everyone that served on Enterprise, how it felt to be stranded on an ice planet running for his life and running into some other Spock from another universe, the night he'd stayed up writing the code to hack the Kobayashi Maru, a bar fight when he was sixteen (and he'd slammed the door on that one pretty quicky).
Then he gave an irritated huff (mentally), pulling away from the doors for a moment. Randomly picking ones wasn't working, so there had to be a pattern. He turned about, trying one to his right--and quickly giving up it for it was more memories towards his youth and not what he was going for here.
Jim went through another four doors like this, finding ones that were closer and closer to the time frame in question until finally he was down to just a handful. Then it was just eliminating the possibilities. One a month after he took command, the next a year after that, then it was--
There. It. There it was and--oh god and--fuck.
Kirk pulled himself out of the mindmeld, careless if any damage was being caused as he did it. All he cared about was closing off the connection like it would stop the flood of memories and emotions but it didn't really. But this was what he wanted. So. He couldn't really complain.]
"Shit." [He sighed and put a hand over his eyes.]