This is a S1 Bree/Rex AU fic in three parts.

I've written a lot of DH fanfic (mostly Bree/Rex) but this piece is one of my favorites so I thought I'd try and post it elsewhere.

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Disclaimer: Desperate Housewives is not mine and no money is being made from this fanfiction.

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Anthem for the Broken Hearted

Bless the Broken Road (Part One: Bree)

They really shouldn't be doing this.

She had stood her ground and hadn't forgiven or forgotten the fact that he betrayed her, and finally he had stopped trying to fight her and he had signed the divorce papers. He had moved out and she should have moved on. Divorce is supposed to be the end, the parting, the death that parted them.

It is hard to remember that when his body is pressed to hers, his lips trailing over her jaw and down her neck, and clothing has already been scattered across the room and it is all so familiar.

The irony that they are having better and much more frequent sex since their divorce is not lost on her. Apparently what a marriage counselor couldn't fix, a divorce could, she thinks as she impatiently unbuttons his shirt with practiced fingers.

"Where are the kids?" he mumbles against her skin, sucking on the sensitive spot right above her collarbone. She will have to wear a high-collared sweater for a few days until his marks fade, but she is used to that. By now she is beginning to suspect that he bruises her skin with his kisses and bites on purpose, marking her as his own since she no longer wore a wedding ring to say so.

She rolls her eyes at his stupid question—he has forgotten the basics since he's moved out, or maybe it is just the heat of the moment. Either way, he does not see her make a face, as she has tilted her head back to give him better access to her neck. "School, Rex. They still go there, you know."

"Right," he replies distractedly, and Bree thinks, amused, that he really didn't care too much at the moment, as long as the answer is 'not here'. His hands reach under her thighs, lifting her up against him, and she locks her legs around his hips when her back hits the wall hard. She bites his neck roughly and he seems to both flinch away and lean into her as he moans.

"Did that hurt?" she asks sweetly. "Sorry." She isn't. He deserves it. And oddly enough, he seems to enjoy it, and so she supposes both their purposes are being met. He takes it as some weird kind of foreplay and she is able to get out some of the unmanageable anger that permanently resides in the pit of her stomach—this is what it feels like to be betrayed by the one person you trust, this is what it feels like to have your heart ripped out and shattered into a million pieces, this is loneliness so powerful it is a physical ache.

He responds by sealing her lips with his, still holding under her legs as she clutches his bare shoulders and clenches her legs around him for support, a careful balancing act. She's never imagined that she'd find herself in this position—she wasn't lying when she told Dr. Goldfine that she loved sex, but she is a bit more traditional than to get into it against the wall of her living room. Then again, she never thought she'd find herself divorced after eighteen years of marriage, so she is learning that what she never thought could or would be true often isn't ludicrous at all.

She hates him and she hates herself because she is just like him now, she is cheating. Because George Williams is so kind to her and looks at her like she is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And his conversation is pleasant and so she allows him a few chaste kisses—quick and friendly—and then she comes home and lets her ex-husband take her as though he still had a right to.

She hates him for breaking her and hates that she cannot move on, and yet she still loves him, loves him so much, and her hate and love is just so muddled up that she doesn't know what to do with them or which emotion is stronger and she finally believes the old saying that there is a thin line between love and hatred.

He impatiently pushes her skirt up around her waist and she feels that flare of triumph, that he may have wandered and gone to another woman but in the end he still wants her, in the end he is still hers.

And she tells herself that she is just trying to get him out of her system. She denies to herself that she is still (and always) his, too.

And then he moves into her and her head falls back against the wall and she stops thinking all together. She moans his name instinctively and thinks that when she eventually moves on, as she still pretends to think she will, she will have to be careful with whomever she chooses to share her bed with. Her ex-husband's name falls from her lips far too habitually for her comfort.

She digs her fingernails hard into his shoulder, smiling when she feels him groan appreciatively against her neck, and she threads her free hand through his dark hair, yanking his head back up so she can kiss him, her tongue meeting his before she bits down on his bottom lip and feels a shiver pass through him. He presses her harder into the wall, driving her against it with each hard thrust, and she rakes her fingernails across his back and her mouth is demanding as she tries to reclaim what should have always been hers and only hers.

She smiles coolly as she feels his skin break under her perfectly manicured nails. And with his blood sliding over her fingertips and his breath hot on her face and her skin burning beneath his touch it is almost impossible for her to distinguish where Rex ends and Bree begins. She thinks this must be the product of so many years of marriage—once upon a time she had been Bree Mason but she doesn't know who that girl is anymore, and she does not know how to be anyone other than Bree Van de Kamp. She does not know how to be Bree without Rex, or if there can even be a Bree without him.

And she divorced him and threw him out but she knows she'll never really be truly rid of him because his lips are like a permanent brand upon her skin and she can still smell the scent of his aftershave in their bedroom. He flows through her blood. She has forgotten how to not love him.

She moans against his neck when she comes hard, and feels her body go limp, pressed between the wall and Rex and she holds onto him exhaustedly for support until he shudders and follows her, and he leans against her for a moment as he catches his breath.

He manages to maneuver his hands so he is no longer holding her up against the wall but is instead cradling her against his chest, his hands under her knees and around her back, and she tiredly puts her arms around his neck as he carries her over to the couch. She does not resist when he deposits her on the couch, and she responds to his loving kiss as he hovers over her.

She subconsciously relaxes as he plants soft kisses from the corner of her mouth up to her earlobe, ignoring the twisting in her stomach that always follows their—sessions? (She never knows what to call their encounters, ones that are too angry and full of pain to be called lovemaking and far too emotional and binding to simply be called something crude.) She both loves and hates his tender touches after they've finished. They are so similar to the way he touched her when they were newlyweds, when he would whisper to her that he would always be faithful, that he loved her and would love only her until the day he died, and she, like a fool, had believed him.

"Bree…" he breathes into her skin, his forehead damp as he nuzzles her neck. "Bree, I…"

"Don't," she says with sudden clarity. Words that a few months ago she had longed to hear more than any others, the last thing she wants to hear now is that he loves her. Because she had loved him so much that he had owned her, heart, body, and soul, everything she had, everything she was, and the thought of going back to that, scares her. The idea of becoming his again, of what would happen if this didn't work, if she is left alone, heartbroken, once more…she can't. "Don't, Rex."

He sighs and drops his head tiredly onto her shoulder. And she is tired, too. She is tired of hating him too much to open her heart to him again but loving him far too much to let him go. His fingers comb through her hair and she sighs when he buries his face in the red strands and inhales the scent of her shampoo. A memory. She knows every time he hopes she'll ask him to stay, but when she thinks of how much she loves him and knows he loves her, and the feeling of his lips on hers and how he is the only one who can make her feel whole and she is about to say yes, then her mind takes her to the smirk on Maisy's face, to Rex coming in late with another woman's perfume on his coat, to him sleeping on the couch or telling her he is glad she's out of his life or that she sounds like a whore, and then she hates him and cannot trust him again.

She'll never tell him that sometimes she'll bury her face in his pillow or wear one of his nightshirts so that she can pretend he is still there. She'll never tell him that sometimes she almost cries because when Andrew looks at her like that or Danielle turns her head that way, God, she just sees him reflected in their children and it is too much to bear. She'll never tell him that sometimes, many times, she regrets her decision.

She'll never tell him that every time he touches her she is broken and then healed again.

But she thinks she doesn't have to. Her body and lips and hands speak enough. Just as he never told her that he always regrets his decision and yet she knows.

"I love you," he breathes in her ear against her command, and she flinches. "I love you so much."

The tears sting her eyelids and she blinks them back furiously. "You always did have to muddle everything up with emotion," she whispers brokenly and he kisses her again.

She gently pushes him away so that she can get up, trying in vain to smooth down her skirt. It is no use—she'll have to iron it again before she goes to lunch with George. "You need to go," she tells him, glancing up at the clock sitting on the mantle. "I'm going out."

He scowls, his mood darkened as he reaches for his shirt, buttoning it up. "Have a date?" His voice is accusing. "What, with your lame pharmacist again? You two sure are cozy, huh?"

"Not as cozy as you and Maisy were," she says, her voice ice, and he flinches in the truth behind her words. "And it shouldn't matter to you, anyway. We're divorced, in case you've forgotten. You don't get a say in who I date."

"Bree…" And his voice is soft and like a caress again when he gently captures her wrists in his hands. "What are we doing?"

She bites her lip. "I don't know," she answers honestly. "But it won't happen again." The words are meaningless by now; she has said them so many times and as he captures her lips in one more kiss, they both know it's false.

It will happen again and again.

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Parts two and three will follow. I hope you enjoyed, please leave some reviews to make me smile.