where never lark or even eagle flew

She has always known.

...

She has always known, of course, and that was the simple truth of the matter. It did not come to her as a revelation with wings of glory — it was a hiss in the dark, if anything at all. She has known since she was all of three years old and could recite the Lord's Prayer without faltering, and the knowledge of it had always pressed heavy on her heart, but never moreso than when she began and ended her days with Our Father who art in Heaven—

However, knowing it was one thing. Acknowledging it was another.

...

She plays the dutiful housewife now, and is successful at it, as if there were any other alternative. She is fiancée to a young pilot with broad shoulders and an affable smile; when he comes home and struggles with his briefs she offers suggestions and queries — but never questions his competence or intelligence, because he is man of the house — and he writes her words in over his own with a slight twist of his lips, never once offering thanks.

At night, she stares out past the double-glass doors that lead out to a terrace that spans the width of the house; on a good day, it can accommodate at least fifty individuals should she decide to host yet another legendary Fabray Garden Party. Past the closets full of designer-brand clothing that have been specifically tailored for her in styles that haven't even hit the runway yet. Past the diploma that hangs surreptitiously out of sight, the one that recognizes L. Quinn Fabray as graduating UPenn's Wharton School of Business (what a waste of time and money when you should have been learning to keep house, she hears her father's growl in the back of her brain whenever she lays eyes on it; she didn't bother letting him know she'd graduated at the top of her class after his... congratulations). Past her own shining reflection — twenty-four years young with hair just a kiss brighter than her sunset-golden eyes; skin and a face so flawless she should be made a permanent display in the Louvre — engaged to a fighter pilot which means they rank at the top of the Air Force hierarchy — pride and joy of General and Mrs Russell Fabray.

She is Quinn Fabray and everything in and about her life is perfect.

Except for the part where she feels like she's watching it being lived for her, which is every second of every day.

...

"A girl reported in today."

The fact that Finn is speaking to her about something other than sports — that he is speaking to her at all, really — is almost as much of a surprise as his actual announcement is. The note of barely-concealed dismissal wrapped up in the label of 'girl' is not.

There is one other female that flies in his squadron, a Latina woman of some notoriety. Quinn avoids her eyes whenever they happen to cross paths on base; it is averaging out to be once a month, which is once a month too many for Quinn. The female flier's tactless mouth and brusque manner were no secret, and to top it off there were rumors that she was a homosexual.

Homosexual.

The word ricochets around her brain like an echo unwilling to be released; Quinn shuts her eyes and feels some unfamiliar, awful truth rising within her—

— and it is no more than fragments of memories buried somewhere deep, and she dares not let her thoughts linger on it for too long lest the beast stir and raise its head, manifesting itself in the form of a migraine so sharp and sudden it feels like Christ's crown of thorns being pulled from the depths of her soul.

She opens her eyes and smiles at her fiancée. "Oh?"

In response, Finn shows her the front of the base paper he brought home.

There is a girl — no, a woman — standing there, looking both entirely too tiny and yet completely comfortable next to the sharp angles of the jet they have her posed by. Her hair is tied back in a neat bun and the nametape on her flight suit reveals the following: Rachel 'Diva' Berry

She is short and sleight, with nondescript brown hair and a nose that looks like it would be more in-place on a Picasso than her face. Her smile is wide and the curves of her lips are— generous— but it is her eyes that have Quinn's fingertips trembling atop the pages.

Eyes that pressed against those secret secluded places of Quinn's like a lover tucked against her in the dark.

Eyes that made her feel like Hell was only a half-step behind, breath heavy on her neck.

"She shouldn't be doing a man's job," Quinn hears herself saying, and her voice cuts like the edges of her mother's broken cordials (her childhood is the sound of prayers, and shattering glass, and binding her tears up inside of her so tightly that even she forgets they exist. "Tell the truth and shame the devil, Quinnie," her old priest would say, but this isn't truth, it's damnation— ).

"She's spirited," is Finn's response, and there's a hint of something there that makes Quinn taste a sour burning in the back of her throat. His eyes are already on the television and the number of words they exchange for the rest of the night can be counted on a closed fist.

...

That night Quinn dreams of the dark-haired girl: she is staring out at a multi-million dollar jet but then those sin-dark eyes bore into her own. Quinn tries to say her prayers but ends up gasping for air like an infant struggling for its first breaths, and when the other woman speaks Quinn cannot tell whether the words are addressed to the aircraft or to herself:

(ruin has come from less.)