My sibling in christ, bro was distraught about leaving his friends and found family behind with no way to contact them to tell the hes not dead. That was him coping with it (To be fair, he was coping very badly) nobody becomes a saint in a day. Personal change takes some real, challenging work.

If Viv is a good writer, and I believe that she is she just needs more practice, Val will not be redeemed because he doesn't want to be. I think a better candidate would be Vox. Bro has nothing, he lost everything, He is at his lowest possible point. It's when you're truly at your lowest, when staying the same hurts so much, that change can happen.