A/N: This is my entry to the CSI Forever Online June 2014 Fanfiction challenge: Fix GSR.

I've never done one of these, or written a story in this style before. It's different, and very daunting. It's my chance to be a CSI writer – kind of. I'm basically writing a 45-minute CSI episode with scenes as they would be filmed instead of chapters, but not in script form. So each chapter/scene will be short and snappy CSI-style, and so will the GSR.

I hope I can pull it off and that you'll like it. The rules of the challenge are intricate and very limiting and listed below. I hope not to break (m)any.

Rules
The subject of the story is Fixing GSR. The story must resolve the present relationship between Grissom & Sara in a HAPPY WAY.

The story
- Needs GSR to be restored in a credible fashion
- Needs to be strictly canon (what's aired since Forget Me Not)
- Cannot be AU (dream sequences, time displacement, etc.)
- Should include regular elements of a crime mystery that is solved in this piece
-Think of it as a CSI episode.

Characters
- Grissom cannot physically appear in this story or exchange dialogue with anyone. He may appear in letter form (email, text, handwritten letter.) We have to assume Billy Petersen is not coming back.
- Grissom may appear in past (3rd person) conversations and interactions ONLY.
- Any regular character may be used (except Warrick or any character that has died.)
- New characters may be used

Style
- It may be written as a normal story
- It may be written as a television screenplay (teleplay) if you really want a challenge!

(NOTE: If written as a teleplay, Sara may have a 1-sided phone conversation with Grissom but his responses won't be heard.)

Length
- The story may not exceed 40 pages (the standard length of an average CSI script)
- No word limit, just chapters.

The due date is the start of season 15 – the last Sunday in September 2014.

Mens Rea

Fade in.
OPENING SCENE:

Aerial shot of Beaumont federal correctional complex in the heart of Jefferson County, Eastern Texas, that narrows in on its medium security facility. It's barely nine am, but the sun is already high in the sky, its heat intense despite the early hour.

Camera zooms in. Inmates wearing khaki uniforms are in the yard, exercising. Armed guards patrol the yard, stop to talk and joke with some of the men. A basket-ball game is in full swing, the players' voices, loud, commanding as they give directions. Some inmates are lifting weights. Others are playing chess or cards on concrete tables. One is reading nearby. A group of five are talking in a corner, looking furtive. A couple more are trying to pick a fight. The guards intervene. A small crowd gathers.

Camera zooms right in, past the fight, to two men boxing near the basket-ball court, not aware – or caring – of the fracas. The first man, facing the camera, is young, mid-to-late twenties, Hispanic. His head is shaven under a folded bandanna, his face pockmarked and dripping with sweat. Tattoos are visible on his arms as he holds the punching bag to him while a second man is giving it his all. Short, sharp regular punches. He keeps his back to the camera and his head down. His hair is white, cropped very short. His arm and shoulder muscles are strong, well defined. No words are spoken between the two men.

Off camera, footsteps crunch softly on the concrete, gradually coming closer to the two men. A guard comes into the frame. The young Hispanic looks up, nods at the guard and releases his grip on the punching bag. He reaches for a towel, wipes his face on it. The second man keeps punching a little longer, then slows down and breathing heavily takes the towel his companion is holding out – the same one he's just used himself – and wipes his face on it too.

He's about to turn when the action cuts to inside the building.

There in the air-conditioned waiting room, Sara is sitting on a hard plastic chair, waiting. The room is full of women of all ages, colour and background. Mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, like her sitting, or standing, restless, lifeless, or chatting animatedly. Aside from the armed guard standing to attention near the door, there isn't a man in sight, which is odd really, all things considered. Where are the fathers, brothers and sons, one can't help wondering? Don't they care too?

The air-conditioning is set too low, and Sara represses a shiver, wishes she'd kept her jacket with her. Her face is drawn, tired-looking, as if she hasn't had a good night's sleep in a long time. She hasn't. She looks tense and uneasy, petrified at what she's going to find on the other side of the wall, on the other side of the Plexiglas screen.

She still doesn't know if this is a wasted trip, or if he'll agree to see her. She asked that he wasn't told she was coming, wasn't sure she would be coming, not even after she'd parked the rental in the visitors' parking lot a mere half-hour ago. Is she making a huge mistake? She can just get up, turn around and walk away. Walk away. Just like he did.

After all, she's not supposed to know, is she?

If he knew she was coming he would put a stop to it and deny her the visit. She isn't on his list of approved visitors; no one is. As it is, she had to pull strings to organise the visit without his consent. Well, Brass pulled a few for her, but that's the least he could do in the circumstance. His betrayal still tastes bitter in her mouth. They haven't parted on good terms.

He could still refuse to see her if he so chooses. His selfishness – selflessness Brass called it – riles her. Anger flares deep inside her, and she bites at her bottom lip, shifts uncomfortably in her chair. She is so angry, all of the time. She wipes a tear from her eye, then wipes her face and casts a nervous glance around the room. No one is paying her the slightest attention.

It took a goddamn fingerprint, a partial of his thumb for her to find out the truth and locate him. How could she not have known? How could she not have guessed? How could he keep it from her like that? Doesn't he care anymore? Thirteen months and eighteen days without so much as a word, a note, a call. He could have been dead, and she wouldn't have known. All that time wasted, unaware and unsuspecting, wondering if she did something, questioning herself and their love, and hurting all the while.

She didn't do anything wrong, he did, and now he is paying for it.

No. They're both paying for it.

Fade to black.