A/N: Once again thank you for all you patience and encouragement. It means a lot to me!

Head or Heart

"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride."
― Sophocles, Antigone

It was the ultimate cosmic joke. Sherlock Holmes didn't want to believe it, but if one eliminated all other factors. The one which remained must be the truth. And although the consulting detective did not like at all what that meant, he was a man who's commitment to the truth was absolute to the point of grandeur, hence he couldn't ignore it. No matter how much he wished he could.

He had been tricked before – by Magnussen, almost by Moriarty. But never would he have thought that Molly Hooper were the person who deceived him. He had thought she was a blank page, but no one was. So why had he thought that she was any different?

"Everyone has a dark side." That may have been the only true thing she had ever said to him. Everything seemed like a lie now – a blatant manipulation. All the time she had been hiding her true face from his gaze.

How could he not see it? The answer was quite easy: Because he hadn't bothered to look, because he made himself not observe. To keep himself from deducing, from analysing, from coming up with a mean comment about meat dagger-Tom. He had turned a blind eye to everything that had seemed like a potential flaw as not to ruin Molly Hooper's happiness.

The one time he had tried to do the right thing, everything had gone wrong. The one time he should have paid attention, the one time he should have intervened, he had turned away. Could he forgive himself for letting a friend down like this? Could he forgive her for lying to him?

In the last few weeks, the pathologist had been on his mind a lot. The pathologist was a person that stirred mixed feelings inside him. On the one hand it had scared the hell out of him, because he could not deceive her, could not hide behind a mask. On the other hand, he felt relief in her presence. There was no need for pretence, for an act, because she would see right through him. She knew who he was and still accepted him.

Even though Molly had been reluctant to work with him on Tom's case, they had worked well together and things had run smoothly. Working with Molly Hooper was... almost pleasant, and then all of a sudden things had begun to change.

He had never thought it possible, but while he had tried to get closer to Molly, she had desperately tried to keep her distance, and he had felt her slipping away. Never had he believed that Molly Hooper would take two steps back when he would take one step forward – towards her. It was as if life was upside down.

At the time he had thought that maybe she was afraid or doubted his motives. He could hardly blame her. But now he knew better. It was he who should have doubted her motives.

He had started to list what he knew about Molly Hooper – apart from the obvious: pathologist, single, only child, had a cat, was once engaged, had a bad taste in men, her mum died when she was in primary school, der dad died while she was at Uni, she was friends with a colleague called Meena, ... But what did he really know about her? About her past – apart from the things he could deduce? Hardly anything.

He had made the same mistake as most people, as Moriarty: He had underestimated Molly Hooper. Not in the same way Moriarty had, because as opposed to his nemesis he knew that Molly Hooper was capable of much more than most people gave her credit for. But he had to admit that he had made a mistake, he had not looked close enough. He had never bothered to take a minute and see her – really see her. Like she had had seen him.

He had always boasted himself with being detached from being interested in other people's personal lives because it was a waste of time. But now he had to admit that if he had paid more attention to his friend's personal life, things might have been gone a different path and he would not be in this situation. He would have found out that one of his friends lead some kind of double life.

Mary's face came to his mind. But Molly's deceit was very different than Mary's. Her situation was very different. And while Sherlock had also been mad at himself for being so easily fooled by his friend's wife, he had been more worried for John than Mary. Her deceit had not felt nearly as personal as Molly's did.

As much as he loathed to admit it, Molly Hooper had managed to hurt him. Deeply. And now he felt torn between resenting her for doing this to him, hating himself for letting it happen, feeling sorry for her because of what she had gone through, admiring her for her strength and his responsibility towards justice and the law. What was he supposed to do now? What was the right thing? Or was the wrong thing the right one in this case?

He thought about consulting John. After all the former army doctor was his moral compass. He would know what the right thing was. But somehow he felt like it was not his place to tell anyone Molly's secret. Somehow that felt like deceiving her.

So it seemed like he would have to come up with a decision all on his own. A decision, which would alter his pathologist's life forever.