He wakes up when the floorboards creak, rolling into a sitting position and swinging his feet off the couch before his brain fully processes his surroundings. He recognizes her silhouette just before his hand reaches the gun on the coffee table. He sits back then and watches her come; he watches her without words as she curls into his lap and takes his hand in both of hers.
"Booth." Her gaze holds a question he can't answer.
He clears his throat and lets his other hand rest softly on her hip. He says, "Angela. You know this won't change anything."
"I know that. I just - " She shakes her head slowly, letting her gaze encompass a life he can't see. "This is a place I love, and I can't - I can't leave it this way. I need one more happy memory here." She draws their linked hands to her mouth and presses a kiss to his palm. "Can you help me with that?"
He hesitates. A question, and he can't answer it. He needs not to answer it. The problem is he already has the answer - the answer is in her voice and skin and hair, all unbearably soft in the rising light of the desert dawn.
He can hear, or imagine, the quiet cadence of Brennan breathing not twenty feet away, and he feels like he's being torn in half.
"Just this," she says. She presses kisses to his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose. "Just this. Please."
*
At the airport, Angela waves off Brennan's offer of a first class upgrade. "It would be wasted on me, sweetie."
She and Booth end up in the last row. She takes the window and he folds himself into his seat, silently reminding himself not to stretch his legs out into the aisle. She threads an arm through his and sleeps the whole way home with her face pressed against his shoulder.
Brennan stops by their seats once, somewhere over Missouri, and lays a hand on his headrest. "You're a good friend," she says, which is how he knows she knows. He looks hard at the back of the seat in front of him. "I admire your compassion," she adds before moving forward. He watches her go. Angela sighs in her sleep, and the ragged edges of things begin to stitch themselves back together.
*
A/N: Written originally as comment fic for the prompt "Booth/Angela, Season 1, torn."