This question regards the problem of Generalized Least Squares. Vectors and matrices will be denoted in bold.
Premises. Let $N,K$ be given integers, with $K \gg N > 1$. The transpose of matrix $\mathbf{A}$ will be denoted with $\mathbf{A}^T$. Suppose the following statistical model holds $$ (*) \quad \mathbf{y} = \mathbf{Hx + n}, \quad \mathbf{n} \sim \mathcal{N}_{K}(\mathbf{0}, \mathbf{C}) $$ where $\mathbf{y} \in \mathbb{R}^{K \times 1}$ are the observables, $\mathbf{H} \in \mathbb{R}^{K \times N}$ is a known full-rank matrix, $\mathbf{x} \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times 1}$ is a deterministic vector of unknown parameters (which we want to estimate) and finally $\mathbf{n} \in \mathbb{R}^{K \times 1}$ is a disturbance vector (noise) with a known (positive definite) covariance matrix $\mathbf{C} \in \mathbb{R}^{K \times K}$. The Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimate of $\mathbf{x}$, denoted with $\hat{\mathbf{x}}_{ML}$, is given by $$ (1) \quad \hat{\mathbf{x}}_{ML} = (\mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{C^{-1}} \mathbf{H})^{-1} \mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{C}^{-1} \mathbf{y} $$ and this is also the standard formula of Generalized Linear Least Squares (GLLS). Consider the standard formula of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) for a linear model, i.e. $$ (2) \quad \hat{\mathbf{x}}_{OLS} = (\mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{H})^{-1} \mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{y} $$ As a final note on notation, $\mathbf{I}_K$ is the $K \times K$ identity matrix and $\mathbf{O}$ is a matrix of all zeros (with appropriate dimensions).
Now, for the problem at hand, assume that $\mathbf{C}^{-1} = \mathbf{I}_K + \mathbf{X}$, where $\mathbf{X} \in \mathbb{R}^{K \times K}$ is a symmetric, invertible matrix (and, for the formalism to make sense, $\mathbf{X}$ is such that $\mathbf{I}_K + \mathbf{X}$ is invertible and the inverse is positive definite). In this case, it can be proven (using matrix inversion lemma) that $$ (3) \quad (\mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{C^{-1}} \mathbf{H})^{-1} \mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{C}^{-1} = (\mathbf{H}^T \mathbf{H})^{-1} \mathbf{H}^T + \mathbf{Q} $$ where the expression for the matrix $\mathbf{Q} \in \mathbb{R}^{N \times K}$ can be found (I will omit it here). Now, finally,
Proposition 1. If $\mathbf{H}^T\mathbf{X} = \mathbf{O}_{N,K}$, then equation $(1)$ degenerates in equation $(2)$, i.e., there exists no difference between GLLS and OLS.
The proof is straigthforward and is valid even if $\mathbf{X}$ is singular. Now, my question is
Question: Can an equation similar to eq. $(3)$ (which "separates" an OLS-term from a second term) be written when $\mathbf{X}$ is a singular matrix?
I am not interested in a closed-form of $\mathbf{Q}$ when $\mathbf{X}$ is singular. But I do am interested in understanding the concept beyond that expression: what is the actual role of $\mathbf{Q}$? In which space does it operate?
I found this problem during a numerical implementation where both OLS and GLLS performed roughly the same (the actual model is $(*)$), and I cannot understand why OLS is not strictly sub-optimal. I found this slightly counter-intuitive, since you know a lot more in GLLS (you know $\mathbf{C}$ and make full use of it, why OLS does not), but this is somehow "useless" if some conditions are met. What are these conditions?
As a final note, I am rather new to the world of Least Squares, since I generally work within a ML-framework (or MMSE in other cases) and never studied the deep aspects of GLLS vs OLS, since, in my case, they are just intermediate steps during the derivation of MLE for a given problem.
If the question is, in your opinion, a bit too broad, or if there is something I am missing, could you please point me in the right direction by giving me references? Preferably well-known books written in standard notation.