One thing I loved about The Lord of the Rings was right at the end when Frodo tries to get back to a normal life and fails. Sam, on the other hand, succeeds. What I think is rightly recognised here is that neither can possibly be the same again after all they've been through and that there are some wounds that are impossible to (a) pretend never happened and (b) overcome.
So what do your characters do here? Can they settle back down, while acknowledging what happened to them, as Sam did? Or do they need to go right away from everything as Frodo finds he must do? (I trust that doesn't spoil the book for anyone and have deliberately not said more but what happens to Sam and Frodo here is the best example I can think of as to how two characters return from something they didn't think they would return from and find they do have to try to make new lives for themselves after all).