Eric has ruined lives before, but never in a way where he had to see the damage. He's capable of wrecking lives in cyberspace, erasing years, information, even people. There was never any doubt in his mind that his keystrokes referred to real, live, living people, with lives and families and a personality, and so much blood.
It was the carnage he wasn't expecting.
He doesn't shoot the suspect in a traditional way, or in any way, really. His gunshot caused the vehicle to explode, killing the man in the process. It was a situation that could never be replicated - the same circumstances would be exceptionally rare, with a shot like that one only happening on the rarest occasions.
A shot that, regardless, determined life or death.
So, like his training taught him to, he aimed, pulled the trigger, and let the bullets fly. He hit his target, just like his training taught him to.
It wasn't training he had sought out on his own - in fact, it had been a seminar he was pushed into, the only proposed way for him to keep working in the field from a purely technical standpoint. It was routine and supposedly preventative.
What did it prevent, actually? The idea that he could be responsible for someone's death? That he'd snip a lifeline?
Yet, those moments were less about remembering his training and more about protection. His life wasn't the only one on the line, and all he could focus on was her safety too. When he pulled his sidearm to aim, his first action was to push her down, out of harm's way. The irony of the situation is realized later - prioritizing the safety of one before killing another.
Regardless, as they sit knee to knee in the boatshed hours later, their faces inches apart, he's never felt further away from someone. In that moment, he feels like he's betrayed her - but knows she understands. Their situation is a convenient distraction to contrast his internal conflict. What they're facing is a different kind of new, less sharp and more dull - laced with age and expectancy, not red-hot and piercing.
He knows enough to seek help, and does just that. He's just one man; one man with a job description that changes by the minute, but a mortal man nonetheless.
Eventually, he can breathe without hesitation, hear loud noises without flinching, not duck his head at flashes of light. It's not a transition that happens overnight, but when it does, it's like the flip of a switch.
The woods still make him anxious, and not even time will change that.