A prompt from innatelymagical on Tumblr: Carol and Therese celebrate the Fourth of July – plus fluff. (For an anachronistic soundtrack to this scene: I listened to Wynonna Judd's 'Only Love'.)

To Arizona (Early July)

To Arizona, that had been the plan for the past week or so, but then Therese had asked if they could stop to get a taste of Texas, and then Carol had wanted to spend an extra day in Santa Fe. The result was that when they finally reached Tucson, Arizona – another one of Carol's promised locations from their first trip – Therese pointed out that it was nearly the Fourth of July. 'Christ, no wonder it's so unbearably hot,' was Carol's wry response, as if she had no idea it was July, and as if the entire thing had not been her idea in the first place.

Carol had started looking at maps in early May, in silence at first, and then she had said that she wished they could drive as far west as they had once planned to go, and further still, and south, too, and she asked whether Therese would want to. And Therese had said that she did. It would be their second summer together. Enough time had passed. The prospect was as glorious as it had been before. They had exchanged Carol's Packard for a Chevy convertible and, by early June, they were on the road once more.

Therese was relieved to be away, away from work, away from the city. Her pay was still the same as it had always been, and there were colleagues, men, who had begun to ask her questions about herself, to hang around by her desk, to distract her from her work, and she was not sure how much her work was really about her work anymore. Harkevy was busy with other things, other people. She did not tell Carol all this. When she was with Carol, she was not at work, and the further she went with Carol, the further she reached back to how she had once felt, maybe that day in Frankenberg's, maybe at birth, about what life could promise her.

Carol wanted to go south first, then all the way west, then north, to Washington and over the border into Canada to cool off, then east again, and home. By south, Therese thought that she meant a drive along the coast, but Carol was determined to stay as far away from the swarm of tourists as possible. It took all of Tennessee and half of a steaming Georgia for Therese to persuade her to make for the sea – and then, when they arrived in Florida, another hour to persuade her to swim. But it had been worth it, if only to see Carol walk onto the beach in the red bathing suit Therese knew she had packed.

Then, with the Fourth of July approaching, Carol had gotten it into her head that she did not want to stay in Tucson to celebrate, that she wanted to go in search of some silence. And so, on the day itself, with the sun barely waking over the mountains, they set out to cross the state of Arizona. The heat was already beginning to choke the city as Carol, in a spotless white blouse and tan slacks, packed the last of their belongings into the car. The first strips of light shone down the long, flat avenue. For the years to come, Therese knew that she would remember this the most: the desert, rich and hot and endless, and the way the wind caught Carol's hair as they sped through it.

They would see the desert again, in a very different incarnation, when they reached Reno, but Therese's first real look at the land she had long dreamed of was when they drove out of Tucson that morning. From a mile away, she spotted the tall cacti, their arms outstretched like giants praying, and was shocked by how green the Sonoran was. Then, as if for dramatic effect, they were caught in a downpour as soon as Tucson had disappeared out of sight.

Carol pulled over the car and swore, struggling with the roof, until Therese finally told her to sit down. With a calm that was usually Carol's, she put her lackluster set-building skills to use and saved the car from drowning. 'Rain in the desert!' Carol exclaimed once they were inside and dripping onto the leather seats.

'Actually, this could be one of the first monsoons of the season. They're common here from early July – or so I've read.'

Carol shook her head. 'What would I do without you?' she said, and leaned over to place a kiss on Therese's wet cheek.

Therese smiled, as the rain poured. 'I have no idea.'

They made their way out of the monsoon and took turns driving – although Therese was more patient with the maps – through Phoenix, through the arid forest, through Flagstaff. The heat pursued them, always mounting, always breathing down their necks. The trick reflection of water lured them down the road. In Flagstaff, Carol found a motel with a pool, and they swam. When they got dressed, Therese knotted her blue shirt away from her shorts the way she had seen the girls do in Texas. Carol gave her an approving look, and she blushed, dizzy in the heat.

The fireworks came alive in occasional bursts, over a mountain or a gas station or the neon sign of a hotel, as if a faraway god was sending a signal. By the evening, they had reached the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and it stretched out in front of them, a gaping pit, beckoning, promising. But Carol did not stop there – they drove east, following the Colorado River, and found a viewpoint abandoned for the sake of celebration.

As soon as Carol had parked, Therese climbed up to sit on the side of the car, breathless. She took off her sunglasses. In the desert wind, the red curves and ridges of the canyon seemed to reach for her. She thought of the sets she had been wrestling with. How small and pointless they seemed now, how small and pointless the people seemed. But what could she do, what could anyone do, except try to summon a sight like this on stage, forget everything else and remember only this, remember only Carol, driving and driving her away from everyone else? When she turned back, Carol was smiling.

'What are you looking at?'

'You,' Carol said. 'Or isn't that allowed?'

'It's allowed,' Therese said, with some cheek.

Carol picked up Therese's camera, and Therese began to protest. 'Hold still,' Carol said, trying to look through the lens. 'The view is better this way.'

Therese could not face her. She looked back at the canyon. But she sat a little straighter and fixed her shirt. She no longer fidgeted under Carol's gaze – familiar now, but no less wonderful. Instead, she let it wash over her, let it spread along her arms and legs and into her stomach like a gentle, coaxing current. She felt as though she were being drawn, gradually and irresistibly, into the depths of the canyon's winding rivers.

'I wrote you other letters, you know, after we first met,' she said. She meant letters other than the one, the beautiful one, Florence had found and had given away. She knew Carol would know what she meant. 'But I never sent them.' And she started talking, without knowing what she said, about the first letter she had written. And she told Carol about the image that she had dreamed and then had put to paper, about standing in the desert and raising her arms like the cacti of the Sonoran and hearing the rumble of a rainstorm before it struck. Before she had finished, she felt Carol's fingers on her bare leg. She thought of the rain, trailing down.

She stretched out her leg, and Carol's fingers touched her ankle and took off her shoe. The sand poured out of it. They laughed. 'Is that why you know so much about monsoons?' Carol asked.

'Maybe,' she said.

'My poet.' Carol reached out her hand to Therese.

Therese kicked off her other shoe, but hesitated. 'Can we…here?'

'Do you see anyone?' The air was growing dark around them. The trees leaned down. There was no one. 'Unless you want to put up the roof.'

'No,' Therese said, and she took Carol's hand. She crawled across the seats and onto Carol's lap, and Carol's hands settled on her waist. Carol pressed her cheek against Therese's chest. She breathed, and they breathed as one.

Therese wound her fingers into Carol's hair. 'Happy Independence Day,' she said suddenly.

Carol let out a laugh. Her head fell back against the seat, and Therese buried her face in her neck, in her white shirt. 'Oh, who needs independence?' Carol said. In the silence left by the fireworks, a coyote cried out. And Carol's mouth was there, beckoning, promising, pressing against her own.

(Shortly afterwards, they did hear a car crunch on the sand nearby, and Therese, half-naked, had to throw herself beneath the seats. Carol raised a hand to the new arrivals with a polite 'Good evening!'. She was trying not to laugh, but a giggle from Therese, from below, set her off, and the sound of Carol's voice echoed far across the black canyon.)

A/N: 'The phrases of some letter she had written to Carol and never mailed drifted across her mind as if to answer Richard. I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me.'

This was inspired by both 'Thelma & Louise' and 'Desert Hearts', which I watched recently and which you should watch, if you haven't already, because it's a pretty seminal lesbian film from 1985 (with a happy ending and some amazing love scenes). Desert Hearts actually takes place – not at the Grand Canyon, which is T&L, of course – but in Reno, which is the city that C&T just don't reach on their original road trip because they turn back and head for Colorado Springs. (Also, to be honest, if someone wrote a Thelma & Louise AU for C&T, I'd read it – where the gun does go off, if you know what I mean…)

I do love writing about these two in summer, since that's the season we never got to see them in. Doing a bit of research for this, I quickly mapped out C&T's original road trip on Google drive with notes from the Kindle book (since I found one for T&L but there wasn't one for C&T):
drive*google*com/open?id=18TBYT2A-7jSOJJ9l4VReYCqLh6xdwLDf&usp=sharing
I also roughly mapped out what I'd imagine their road trip 2.0 might look like. It includes all the places that Carol mentions to T in the book but that they don't get to visit (Tucson, Santa Fe, Reno – and Washington is her home state):
drive*google*com/open?id=1pQLy_t94JX12qjCi4nmjZ2jUuqTKmayo&usp=sharing

C&T's outfits are modeled on Vivian and Cay's in 'Desert Hearts'. For Cay/Therese, see the poster (minus the boots):

media*baselineresearch*com/images/309628/309628_full*jpg
For Vivian/Carol – there's actually a better outfit that she wears but I can't find a screenshot, so I guess you'll have to watch the movie to find it – think the outfit on the right but with a white shirt (minus the hat…or plus the hat, eventually…who knows):

stg*afterellen*com/assets/uploads/2015/08/deserthearts7-e1438972543237*png
Find their 1951 Chevy convertible here: i*pinimg*com/originals/c0/18/7a/c0187a1ce5361e25bfab1996994c5027*jpg
For keen readers, the reason Carol starts looking at maps in early May is because she and Therese had argued over Rindy in late April (scene 12)…

Enough from me – happy Carol season! Enjoy this desert dreamscape, because next time things won't be as sunny (you know me)…