Fairest of Them All

AN: What the hell am I doing? Hello peeps, let's do this. Quinn Fabray, here we come.

Music: "Ace of Hearts" and "1965" by Zella Day

Quinn doesn't care that she took it a bit too far.

She remembers her childhood, a happy place, with hazy memories of an innocent, beautiful little girl with proud parents.

Mommy? Can you tell me the story again?

Of course, Lucy. Once upon a time in midwinter, when the snowflakes were falling like feathers from heaven, a queen sat sewing at her window, which had a frame of black ebony wood. As she sewed she looked up at the snow and pricked her finger with her needle. Three drops of blood fell into the snow. The red on the white looked so beautiful that she thought to herself, "If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame."

And then what happened?

And then she had a baby, a beautiful, healthy baby with white skin, red hair, and black eyes. Like you! My little princess.

Quinn has always enjoyed that. She knew that at least in her mother's eyes, she was as perfect as she could be. She didn't know that the story was changed until she went to kindergarten, and a mean boy teased her about princesses, and told her that snow white didn't have red hair and black eyes. No princess had red hair and black eyes. Quinn went home brawling her eyes out that day, for some reason, and didn't stop until her mom comforted her and told her that she was a princess too.

Throughout elementary school and even middle school, where the princess things were supposed to be fazed out, Quinn wanted to be a princess. Being a princess symbolized beautiful and popular and a good life, all those things that she had just begun to realize that she doesn't have.

So when the acne broke out, eyesight went from bad to worse, and weight gained, Quinn, or should she say, Lucy decided that she will change.

She got on proactive and worked out at the gym. Every time she even winced Quinn scolded herself because Don't you want to be a princess? Lucy is not a princess, you have pay the price to make her one. Then she took a deep breath and inhaled her health smoothie, the only meal for the day.

After a while, Quinn noticed a difference. She was more or less skinny now, a size six, and her face was spotless. She grinned at herself in the mirror for a few days, basking in pride because she's done it.

But to be a queen, something else has to be done.

"Hi, I'm Lucy Fabray, here for appointment at 4 for colored contacts."

"Of course, have a seat. The doctor will be with you shortly."

"Hello, I'm Dr. Shomberg."

"L-Quinn Fabray." Stop that, Quinn. Be calm. Collected.

"I see here that you want colored contacts?"

"Yes."

"Have you considered a possible color?"

Quinn Fabray walked out of the appointment that day, hazel eyes shining, reflecting off the sun deeply enough to be called green.

But of course, she always takes it too far. That was a distinguishing feature about Quinn: she's over everything. Over enthusiastic in History, over mean to people who were so, so nice, over unresponsive to her parents, and overly nice to the popular people. Another major fault is that she can never get anything right.

"Hello."

"Sweetie, why so nervous?"

"I'm-it's my first dye job."

"Nothin' to be nervous about, honey. What color?"

She swallowed something, what, she didn't what to know. "Blonde. I-I don't want the red to show, at all."

"At all? You sure? The red would be pretty, just a bit?"

"I-no. Nothing. At all."

There's blonde hair on her shoulders, washed and conditioned, at perfect shoulder-length. She sees puffy, auburn hair sometimes in the mirror. But Quinn turns around, and it's just a reflection. She doesn't know to feel regretful or happy. But there's no reason why she would feel regretful, is there?

It's only when Sam tell her she's beautiful that she truly feels it. Because Finn is an idiot, but he would lie to her, just to keep everything the way he feels it has to be. But Sam, he would never, ever, do anything. He's just the oblivious guy he is. And although Quinn doesn't love him or like him, she appreciates him, in a completely platonic way.

But it's nice when she finally feels like a princess. She's done too much work already to not be.

She's prom queen.

She's gone a long way

She's beautiful.

She's Quinn Fabray.

That's what they all say.

But she's falling apart, slowly but surely, and-why can't she be goddamn happy!?-she is happy. Is she? Is she? The plastic crown sits on top of her head and her dress is bedazzled with fake jewels. She looks over at Rachel Berry, with her ugly nose and her stupid pink dress, her arms intertwined around Finn, and she looks beautiful. Quinn is suddenly struck with a sense of loss. She's lost Finn, a long time ago, and she accepts that now. But she's lost herself too, somewhere along the way. Who is she? If not a princess?

Someone broken to pieces, her mind supplies, and she tells it to shut the fuck up.

Santana eventually worms her way through the crowd, and she asks Quinn if she's ok. Quinn says no. Santana smiles, and she waves an arm precariously in the general direction of the crowd, nearly knocking down a poor freshman who tilts dangerously into the punch bowl. Then, as Berry and Finn slowly sway to the music, Santana leans over to her, her red dress fluctuates in waves angrily, and she yells over the music, "Screw them! Those stupid people!"

Quinn looks over at Brittany, who looks like she's having fun in her suit and tophat, and looks back at Santana, who looks like she's trying to imagine the hat as a crown. Santana looks over at Rachel and Finn in the middle of the dance floor, stares intently at her crown, and raises an eyebrow.

Quinn wordlessly leans on her shoulder.

The final goodbye.

It's hard, yet so easy at the same time that it terrifies her.

She wants to leave, so badly. Yet all those years they've stuck it out together has made her like those idiots. Sometimes showchoir isn't that annoying and glee is actually enjoyable and life can be defined by the phrase "pretty great".

But it's Yale: it's her dream school, it's nearly her dream life.

It's only when she comes back again that she realizes that she's been reinventing herself again. Quinn Fabray is a princess of class and good grades and she a good boyfriend whose name is Biff.

(Biff who doesn't know about her skank phase or the baby. Biff who is constantly texting people when they're doing performances. Biff who is such an asshole sometimes that she wonders why she was doing this whole thing, until she remembers how similar he and Puck looked when she saw him for the first time in Logics and Logistics.)

Then she takes one look at Puck and she's nearly broken open again.

It's a while, but not very long, before Puck dumps Biff inside the dumpster and insults his name (Quinn admits that she could have chosen better, at least in the name department) and she's never loved anyone as much as she does.

Then he kisses her and looks at her with so much conviction that she finally feels like a princess.