Summary: Two eighteen year olds fall in love in the summer of 1936. (Bobby/Brigitte, P/T (ish), Rated R for language and sexual content)
Sainte Claire
Part 1: Summer
Authors' Notes:
We would first like to thank Delwin for betaing this monster. Her help was truly instrumental to getting this work out the door. Also a big thank you to Photogirl1890 for reading this before we sent it out the door and making invaluable comments. Thanks also to capitainejuliette on tumblr for helping us with understanding the French school system. Hopefully we didn't mess that up too badly. And thanks to everyone who cheered us on along the way. Your continued interest in a Bobby and Brigitte story kept us moving when throwing in the towel sounded good.
When we jokingly decided to write a 'Bobby and Brigitte Novel', I don't think that either of us realized that this thing might end up being novel length. This is the first of four parts, although each stands alone, so should we never get to the other parts, the reader will not be left without closure.
This part chronicles the summer in 1936 that Bobby and Brigitte fall in love. We took all available facts given in The Killing Game, but then had to round out the stories and the characters. For the purposes of this story, Bobby and Brigitte are real people, therefore, while Bobby can look like Tom, Brigitte is not half Klingon. We picture her looking like Roxann Dawson, but you are welcome to picture her however you like.
It is important to note that Bobby and Brigitte are not Tom and B'Elanna. Although we used Tom and B'Elanna as a base for their personalities, we did try to differentiate the characters from each other. Brigitte is probably a bit more 'different' than Bobby, in part due to Dawson's efforts to portray Brigitte differently than B'Elanna in the episode.
A complicating feature of this story is it takes place in France, and thus largely in French. However, since Bobby is American, English is also spoken. Not wishing to write all the French dialogue in French (even if we could…), we have tried to indicate what language the characters are speaking through other means. Generally, if dialogue is italicized, it means it is in the non-dominant language being spoken in the scene. In other words, if the scene is primarily in French, words spoken in English appear in italics.
Another issue associated with language is that Bobby is a French language learner and Brigitte is an English language learner. As such, both have strong accents and a limited use of their second language. An attempt was made to convey this, hopefully effectively.
Finally, an effort was made to make this as historically accurate as possible. Although one of us supposedly has a degree in history, we are sure there are inaccuracies. If you would like to point these out to us, we are more than happy to hear about them.
We hope you enjoy this piece. It took a lot of effort to produce and was outside our normal Tom and B'Elanna comfort zone. As such, feedback on it would be adored, even if it's as simple as 'well, I don't hate this.'