For the next month Alwil didn't sleep alone. Wídwine, Gallen and I took turns sleeping next to her to help her with Dorn who required quite a bit more care than the average newborn. He stayed mostly in the pot with the rocks constantly needing to be changed and the temperature always needing to be checked. Too hot or too cold, either could be fatal to him. As I had feared he did struggle to breathe and needed to be held and patted from behind or induced to breathe in the steam of the tea I brewed to calm him down. With the exception of Alwil each of us in the house broke down crying at least daily from fatigue and fear. Sometimes two might cry at once, leaving the other with three squalling beings to tend.

Fraca did not cry but his jaw was clenched so tight some days it was a wonder he could speak. He was most affected when he felt that Dorn couldn't breathe and feared constantly that either too little was being done to help his lungs or too much was and we were waking him too frequently. Wídwine, Gallen and I simply cried when we were exhausted. Only Alwil appeared to be immune from fatigue or tears. Having lived through the birth she seemed to think things could only improve from there and accepted everything with a serene calm that kept the rest of us from completely loosing our own.

Of course Alwil also required help healing. After loosing so much blood her own breath was difficult to draw and she could hardly walk ten paces across the room without having to stop to catch it. Also she became woozy when standing still. She surprised me though by how docile a patient she proved to be. In her youth keeping her in chamomile bandages had been a real chore. But now with Dorn in the world and needing her protection she took any medicine with cheer, any prescription for behaviour she followed to the letter. Fraca brought her rare strips of beef at all hours as I had told him it would help replenish her own blood and she ate them without complaint with breakfast as easily as she did in the evening. The bitter tinctures I gave her to prevent her womb bleeding again she took with equal equanimity.

And like all new mothers, she healed with surprising rapidity. Within a week the rose had bloomed again in her cheeks and she could stand and walk without complaint. The ill effects of the birth would be nothing more than a bitter memory for her.

Then one morning I woke next to her and found that she was peering over the edge of the bed and looking down into the little pot where her son slept. "Listen, Lothíriel," she said quietly when she noticed my eyes were open. I crawled over so we were side-by-side in the bed, staring down at the babe in the pot.

"Listen for what?" I said, still muddled with sleep.

"Exactly. His breathing is so quiet, like a baby's should be."

I rubbed my eyes. "You're right."

"I've been lying here for hours listening to it."

"It's a nice sound."

"Today would have been the day he was meant to come."

I grinned. "I'd forgotten."

"I haven't been out of this room in a month."

"I haven't been outside the house in a month. But believe me you're not missing much in the sitting room."

"Do you think he can come out of the pot today?"

"We could try. I'm not sure honestly."

"Let's bundle him up and take him down by the fire."

"Alright."

When Fraca came back from errands in the city later that morning to find us in the parlour, playing with Dorn on the floor he almost shouted with joy. Dorn was still kept close to the fire and on warm skin that his father had hunted but the simple act of leaving the bed, the pot, felt like a real victory. He came to kneel next to us, scooping up his son proudly and cuddling him to his breast.

"We should celebrate!" Fraca announced. "Let me go out and purchase some mead and delicacies to tempt you both."

I leaped to my feet, not wanting to disturb the domestic picture. Fraca and Alwil and Dorn had had so little time on their own it seemed imperative that I shouldn't disrupt it. "Let me go, I know the exact mead shop that sells what I'm most craving. I don't trust anyone to know it exactly but me."

Before Fraca could insist on going himself I was pulling on my boots and a heavy cloak and out the door. I felt extraordinarily good as I stretched my legs for the first time. The air was bitterly cold and Edoras was covered in a blanket of snow that sometimes made it difficult to walk. Still I was pleased to be in the fresh air and took the longest possible route to the merchant I had in mind, then spending an age picking out a bottle and some cheese and sausage to go with it at the shop next door. I tucked the lot into my basket and was just heading home when as shout came from across the street.

"Lothíriel!"

I turned and to my surprise saw Etan waving at me from the door of a shop across the road. He crossed the road and caught up with me, taking my basket and my arm. "Hello, my dear, where are you headed? And where have you been? Éomer that rascal didn't tell me you'd returned."

I blushed. "I'm not... that is I'm not sure if he knows I'm back." I was babbling, remembering the time Éomer had taken Amrothos and me to stay with his friend. The time he had asked us to go to the tournament with him. "I came back in the middle of the night to help a friend with... a personal issue as it were. I've been with them ever since. In fact I've only just stepped out to get some wine and delicacies to help celebrate the first step toward recovery."

"You mean Lady Alwil I assume?" he said with a furrowed brow. "Wídwine said that she had a difficult birth and both she and the baby almost didn't make it." He laughed at my shocked look. "Oh yes, I'd forgotten Gondorians are frightfully squeamish and discreet around the topics of the birthing bed. But Wídwine and I are old friends and I take an interest in Fraca and his wife so of course I wrote when I'd heard nothing from her in a month. I'm surprised she didn't mention you by name though when he wrote, since she knows we know each other."

"She must have forgotten we do. She's been doing a lot recently of course."

In reality Wídwine must have guessed or Alwil must have told her something of what she suspected had happened between me and Éomer for it seemed now likely she'd been very discreet indeed that I'd been in town at all. In my heart I blessed her greatly and wondered at my own stupidity for insisting on simply walking out of the door. Running into Etan was a stroke of bad luck but even just by walking about I was sure to be remarked upon. How long would it take for someone to tell Éomer that I was in Edoras? Not that it mattered. He was hardly likely to seek me out given the way we had parted. But still, I didn't want him to know that I was close. It felt too easy to misconstrue it as chasing after him. What if he were to mistake my intention, or worse feel obliged to visit me at Alwil's home?

"Of course," he said but gave me such a strange, appraising look I knew he suspected more.

"Come and greet them both. We're celebrating today and you can meet Dorn."

"I should be honoured to be included!"

So he came and entertained Wídwine while Alwil, Fraca and I lay on the parlor floor like children, each eager to dandle Dorn as much as possible until finally Alwil had to put him back into the little nest of furs for fear we would tire him out too much. Alwil leaned against the couch, one hand's fingers tangled in Fraca's and the other holding a glass of mead.

She titled her head back with a smile, her eyes closed. "Who knew I could be so happy?"

The heat from the fire rolled over us like a calming wave and I could hear Dorn's soft breathing as he slept in his furs, the most comforting sound in the world for the three of us at present. The bliss of my two friends, new parents and overjoyed, was such a sweet relief in my breast as to almost cause pain. The perfection of their happiness so sublime as to be difficult to regard for those of us outside of it. But for me this perfect moment was tinged with a whisper of foreboding. Etan's hearty laugh in the background as he joked with Wídwine was a welcome and merry sound. But I dreaded the idea that Éomer might soon know I was back in Rohan.

The next week Wídwine announced that it was time for Dorn to be presented to the court of Edoras. Traditionally these celebrations of a new life were held a week or two after the babe was born, when it was deemed that the baby was strong enough and was not likely be carried away to the veil but in Dorn's case the surety had been late to come. She announced it at breakfast one morning when Dorn had come down to sit on his mother's lap and mine, alternately passed between the two of us.

"Dorn's introduction should be in the next week. Lothíriel will help me, Alwil, you needn't trouble yourself."

Alwil scoffed. "Lothíriel has never planned a party in her life. And I'm not a cripple you know, I would be happy to help."

"Lothíriel may need to be throwing parties of her own in the future. And you are not back to your usual self. It will be the two of us who will arrange it."

Alwil considered that for a moment, and then nodded. "Perhaps you're right."

And so it fell to me to do what Alwil normally would. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Training with Ivriniel had prepared me well for this type of task, which required nothing more it seemed then very careful planning and meticulous execution. I wrote down a long list of all we needed to do and then systematically ticked it off in preparation for the day, much as I might for any medicinal formulation I was preparing to brew. I was equally pleased and astonished by the manifestation of what Wídwine and I had sat down to decide more than a week ago as merchants arrived with pastries, sweet and savoury, cheese, bread, cooked joints of meat, ale, mead and all sorts of other things that were needed along with the enormous outpouring from our own kitchen.

The party was to be held in the afternoon and then carry on into the evening. This would allow Dorn to be shown off to all and sundry (inside his mother insisted, and close to the fire in case he caught cold) and then to be put to bed for the adults to enjoy the rest of the evening. We hired a few extra maids from friends of Wídwine's gracious enough to lend us their services for the afternoon. The decorations we found at the same tailor that Alwil had taken me to for my first proper dress.

All in all I was overwhelmingly pleased with our efforts as the first guests began to arrive. Dorn was in high good spirits, snuggled up in a mess of blankets by the fire and giggling with his father, though at what neither but the two of them knew. Having no natural skill with a needle myself, apart from when it came to sewing flesh, I had written to my father for some extra money to buy the new baby a gift from our family. He had replied handsomely and I had frittered it away on an assortment of warm clothes and toys. He was dressed in a fur-lined little cap that and suit that I had commissioned for him.

Someday when he was a grown man I imagined that he might wonder why his mother and I were always pleading with him to be careful in the cold. He wouldn't understand the torment that we had all been through the first days of his life when we'd needed to watch his temperature and put him in a pot, every hour sticking our hands into it to make sure that it wasn't too hot or too cold for him.

But how often would he and I meet when he was a grown man? The thought came to me unbidden. Soon I would run out of excuses to stay in Edoras and would need to return to Dol Amroth. There was nothing compromising about staying with Alwil and Fraca. We had established a close enough connection that she and Wídwine were more than enough to serve as chaperon for me in the court of Edoras. The guards who had brought me had departed almost as soon as they were rested, bearing a letter that I translated from Wídwine with her great thanks to my father for sparing his daughter and begging leave to keep me until I deemed my work was done. My father had written a very gracious letter back saying I was missed but he would not expect me back until I was entirely satisfied. I could perhaps delay a bit, but once Dorn was healthy and hale there would be no reason for me to remain. I would return to Dol Amroth and once again the happiness I felt in Rohan would begin to feel like a dream.

With that melancholy thought hanging over my head I dressed for the party, determined to make the most of it. If I were to only see Dorn in snatches over the years at least I would make sure that he remembered me fondly. Whatever came I intended to at least spoil him from afar and Alwil was sure to return to Gondor intermittently throughout the years, time enough to steal him away for whatever adventures I could dream up for him. Already I could imagine that the shy and bookish friend of his mother would have a difficult time impressing any son of Fraca's. Taking him to a surgery I felt might do the trick perhaps, teaching him to hold back the flesh while I sowed it might be enough to set me apart from all the other adults in his life. When he was grown perhaps I could teach him enough to save a friend in battle by learning to sow a wound or at least bandage it properly.

Alwil stood in the entrance with Dorn in her arms greeting our guests with Fraca. Wídwine and I sat on a couch in the parlour, enjoying a glass of the best mead and the other fruits of our labour. "Thank you for teaching me all that you did for this party." I told her sincerely.

She considered me for a long moment. "You may one day need it."

"I suppose any woman should know how to throw a party."

"You most particularly."

I laughed. "You imagine I will be throwing parties for the herbs I collect? They're hardly likely to notice if the decorations aren't as they should be. I'm afraid your teaching is wasted on me, Wídwine, much as I do appreciate it."

She cupped my chin with one hand. "Perhaps, beloved one." We'd grown quite close in the past month as we'd nursed her grandson to safety and she'd taken to calling me with this affectionate Rohirric name, something like a mix of sweetie and beloved.

I couldn't fathom what she meant. "Wídwine you know... what my prospects are."

"I know what you think they are," she replied. "Now off you go and make sure that the table in the back parlour doesn't need to be replenished."

It was difficult to make my way to the back parlour. The house was packed with people and I was pleased to note that all of them seemed content with their food and drink. Quite drunk men were flirting with young women and, in several cases, the other way around.

I made my way to the table where we had arranged for food and drink and was pleased to note that, though the guests were doing their best to deplete the stores we'd laid in, so far they were holding. I held out my wine glass and it was immediately filled.

I raised the glass to my lips and was taking a drink when a voice from behind me froze me in my tracks. "Lothíriel."

With an enormous force of will I forced myself not to whirl but to turn slowly. "Hello, Éomer."

Wídwine had told me that he was in the Westfold fighting the Dunlendings and wouldn't be back in Edoras for another week or more but clearly her information had been incomplete, for here he was, standing before me in flesh and blood.

He looked tired. He'd clearly been riding hard for the past few weeks, if not more. The usual power was still there in his arms and shoulders but there was a new leanness to him that I heartily disliked.

He'd been hurt too. Normally Éomer wore his sword on his right hip. I'd seen him fight well enough with either hand but he usually favoured his left, a childhood predilection I suspected as I'd seen him write with his left as well. In addition it gave him advantage over the majority of men who fought with their right. But now the sword hung on his left hip and he was holding his cup of mead with his right hand, meaning he intended to draw with his right hand if he needed to.

The sight of him after so long made my heart race and pound against my ribs.

Despite the clear fatigue, the remnants of battle, his presence was the same powerful and commanding force pressing on my own consciousness that I remembered. The man who stood before me was one whom songs had been written about, would be written about, for generations. The power in his hands, arms, legs and frame had turned the tide of Pelennor. It seemed impossible to stand in his scrutiny. And yet... I wanted to reach out, to take his hand in mine and lead him to some quiet place where he could rest. The urge to caress the dark circles under his eyes was nearly overwhelming. I could imagine so clearly laying his head on the pillow of my lap and stroking those long locks as he drifted off to sleep, watching his breath slow and deepen as he relaxed his grip on the world.

The Lion of Rohan was also the man who had lifted me onto the back of his horse to take me to a woman in peril on only the word of myself and Gallen; who had taught me how to ride with unending patience; who had jumped onto the back of a running horse to rescue me and whose smile made my heart leap with joy...

A man set to marry another, I reminded myself. A man who knows you love him and does not love you in return.

I curtsied as best I could, trying not to tremble visibly. "My lord, it is a pleasure to see you."

"You're back in Edoras."

"I... that is... I came only for a short time."

He looked me up and down for a long minute before deciding his course of action. I wore a dress that belonged to Alwil but both of us had had little appetite or time to eat in the last month. We had been of a size but now all her wardrobe was loose and over-sized on us. The dress hung off my shoulders and wrinkled with extra fabric at the waist and hips. I had added a large and ornate bow at the small of my back, a sad attempt to make it look as though it fit me still. I'd taken a shawl from her closet for just this occasion and pulled it around my shoulders in a self-conscious gesture.

"How long have you been here?"

"A little more than a month."

"You've been staying with Alwil?"

"Yes."

"I heard the birth was difficult, I should have guessed she'd call you. You've been helping Wídwine?"

I nodded, eagerly snatching at an insane idea "Yes, in fact you must excuse me. I think we're running low on mead. I must go to the vintner before we run out."

And with that I practically fled back through the corridor and to the entrance hall. Fraca and Alwil had joined Wídwine in playing with Dorn in the parlour, the guests having all mostly arrived but Alwil noticed as I dashed by the door on my way to the hall. "Where are you going?" she asked when she found me pulling on my cloak in the hall.

"The mead is almost finished, I shan't be long. I'll just go get some more."

"Lothíriel stop!" She called after me but I was already out the door and practically running up the frozen street.

It was snowing again, light powdery mist from the sky that accumulated without really wetting anything. But I hadn't taken the time to change into my winter boots and almost immediately the thin slippers were sodden and my toes began to ache with the cold. I was shaking almost uncontrollably by the time I made it to the street where the vintner's shop was. A dark window told me that I'd come in vain.

I closed my eyes against the humiliation and the cold. To return empty handed after leaving so abruptly... to return and face him was almost unbearable. I stood frozen and shivering hard for a long moment. The street was completely deserted and through the window of the house I faced I could see a rosy and crackling fire. It occurred to me to go to ask the family if I could rest a little by their fire and the pathetic nature of the thought was enough to overwhelm me. Valar, but I was so cold I didn't know how I would walk back to Alwil's residence.

Self-pity welled as tears in my eyes, flowing down my cheeks and dripping off my chin to freeze in the snow.

"Lothíriel."

For the second time that night I turned, knowing who had said my name. I frantically wiped away the tears in my eyes with the back of my hand, hoping he would think it was only the cold. "My lord, I'm sorry I..."

Without waiting to hear what I would say next Éomer bent and lifted me to his chest, one arm beneath my knees and the other around my shoulders. The sudden, unexpected act made me gasp, a puff of warm air that fogged in front of me. "Éomer what are you doing?"

I was glad indeed that the snowy night and dark of the streets meant we were unlikely to be seen by anyone in such an attitude.

"You aren't dressed for this weather. And no vintner is going to be open at this time on a night like this. I'm taking you to Etan's residence in the city, it's just nearby and they'll have a fire to warm you."

"I can walk, my lord."

He misunderstood my protest. "You haven't got on anything like the proper shoes for the snow. Besides my armour weighs more than you do, Lothíriel. Bema you're skin and bones. Haven't you been eating? Hasn't Wídwine been feeding you?"

To his point the extra weight in his arms hardly seemed to slow him down, nor did the light snow. But that was not why I wanted to be let down from his arms. I had let my head lean against his chest in fatigue and chill. This close, even in the chill air, the familiar smell of him – leather, hay and heat, seemed to amplify and increase the already heady feeling of the mead I'd drunk. I had been so consumed with preparing for the party that I hadn't eaten much that day and the drink had gone straight to my head making me feel suddenly woozy and faint.

"It's only... I don't mean to trouble you."
"I will always rescue you, Lothíriel." He didn't meet my eyes as he said it though he usually did, and something about the words made my heart feel like it was compressed by a cold and unforgiving hand.

He made good time through the few streets down to Etan's home in Edoras. It was a stately manner with two guards at the gate into the garden. One swung the door open instantly for Éomer while the other ran to open the door for us. "Stoke the fire and tell the cook we've come and need a meal, something to warm the lady. Whatever she has in the kitchen that's most nourishing is fine," he told them in Rohirric.

They ran to do as he bid and he deposited me in the seat closest to the fire, stripping off my cloak, which had taken the chill, and then bending to take off my shoes. I hurried to take them off before he could, mortified that he should think to do it for me. I moved to cover my feet with a fur from a nearby seat but he shook his head. "Never mind propriety, Lothíriel, I won't look at your legs. And they'll warm faster if you don't cover them."

Knowing he was right I drew back the fur and stretched my toes toward the flames. Already I could feel a painful, prickling numbness spreading across them, which I knew meant that I had risked real damage in my ill-advised jaunt in the snow. I would be lucky indeed if they didn't swell and blister in the coming days.

He turned then and went to a tray of bottles on a table and poured two glasses. He handed me one and then came to sit across from me, leaning forward with elbows on knees and peering into my face.

"Thank you, my lord... for coming after me. I'm not sure what I was thinking going out in the snow like that without proper shoes." I tried to smile. "Not the first time you've had to rescue me, but I truly hope the last."

He didn't take any notice of my attempt at a light conversation. "Though I wish it hadn't required you to risk your feet for the occasion I am glad to have a moment to speak plainly to you, Lothíriel."

I swallowed. "You may request an audience with me at any time, my lord. It is not for the likes of me to refuse to see the King of Rohan."

"It is not the King of Rohan who wishes to speak to you."

"Éomer, I..." I began.

He did not seem to wish to hear the end of my sentence for as I paused to search for what to say he spoke. "You must know that it wasn't my intention to put you in an awkward position when we spoke on the Pelennor. Far less so to make it more difficult for you to return to Rohan."

I couldn't meet his eyes. The memory of that time seemed to rise up into my senses until I could feel the gall churning in my stomach: humiliation and regret twining together like twin vipers in my abdomen. "No, my lord, of course not," was all I could manage.

"I would have told you so before you left if only I'd known you would be leaving so abruptly..." he trailed off and then squared his shoulders as if he thought that were some kind of excuse, unworthy of his honour. "I should have written to say so. But I didn't know if it would be welcome."

I twisted my fingers in my lap, still unable to meet his gaze.

"I want us to be friends again, Lothíriel... to whatever extent that is possible."

Now I glanced up at him sharply and was again overwhelmed at the power he held over me. Without lifting a finger he could paralyze me, with a gaze have me breathless and with a word he could make me act so profoundly against my own better judgment. The rational part of me knew that friendship with Éomer would be a devastating proposition. In an old Elven legend there was a story about a man punished for gluttony by a magic that made the water or wine in his cup recede from him when he tried to take a sip. Being with Éomer would be that same kind of agony, a thirst always with relief just in sight but impossible to obtain.

How could he ask it of me? How could he ask me to endure such torment? But perhaps he couldn't imagine that I felt so strongly. A woman like me would never be perceived as passionate: contained was just another word for cold when it came to young ladies. He might imagine that he had wounded my pride or frustrated a girlish crush but if he had understood the depth of my feelings, he was honourable enough not to have asked me to endure his friendship.

An impossible trap I found myself in then, for I could not refuse his friendship without explaining how much I loved him, how much more than brotherly affection I wanted from him.

"Yes of course, my lord."

To my surprise, he looked almost apprehensive, as close perhaps as Éomer ever got to the emotion. "Do you truly mean it?"

"Yes."

Whatever he asked for, I would give. The price of my pride and the torment of being near him was one I would gladly pay. Even the thought of being close to him again, to be able to ride with him again and hear his voice was already something I craved.

A maid came in with a tray of tea and two bowls of a rich stew. The broth was a shimmer of fat thickened with flower and generous with thick-cut, root vegetables and venison. Looking at it suddenly I was starving. The girl put the two bowls between us as well as two halves of a thick and hardy looking loaf of bread. It had been warmed in the oven and there was a generous helping of salted butter spread over each.

"Find a pair of Lady Hema's boots for Lady Lothíriel to borrow on the walk back." Éomer told her once she was done arranging the plates for us.

"Who is Lady Hema?" I couldn't help but ask once the girl had retreated.

"She was Etan's daughter... not his heir, though he had loved her mother and he claimed her openly. She died when she was sixteen."

"How?" As a healer I had long stopped being delicate around such questions. Most people took it as a professional interest and rarely took offense.

"A fever took her."

I didn't have to be told to dig into the soup but rather began to spoon it down gratefully. The hot broth and the cloudy feeling of the wine had relieved the sharp cold of exposure but as it left a new, deeper cold crept in. If I had stayed in Dol Amroth perhaps my feelings would have faded eventually like a flame starved of new wood to burn it would have died down to something smouldering. But if we were to see each other again how could I stop it from blooming again into the inferno it had been?

He had asked me to live in torment and longing for the rest of my days. And I had agreed, for nothing more than the price of him asking.

"I am sorry, my lord... for my part of what passed between us at the celebrations on the Pelennor Fields." I finally managed. "A nobler woman might not have fled the battlefield so obviously. I suppose at the time I told myself it was only to spare you any awkwardness but I think an objective observer might point out that it spared me as well."

His expression was impossible to read, almost tender. His voice, when he spoke, very soft, almost like a tender hand caressing my cheek. "We need not speak of that again, Lothíriel. Now that we've decided to be friends you need not worry that I shall bring it up."

When the boots were brought and Éomer was satisfied that I'd eaten enough soup he stood. "Come, I shall have to sneak back into Wídwine's house so as not to raise a scandal." He laughed at my expression. "We've been gone too long in dark streets to return to the party together."

"Sneak back in?"

"There's a path through the back garden to the back parlour. I'll go that way and you can go back in through the front door. It wouldn't do for us to return together."

We walked in companionable silence through the still winter night back to Wídwine's. Music had started inside and the house seemed alive with warmth and music, warm light seeming to pour from the cracks in every window, shuttered as they were against the cold. But instead of going in the front door Éomer considered me for a second, then took my hand and brought cold fingers to soft warm lips. Then he turned down a dark little alley between the nearest house. I watched him until he reached what seemed to be his destination, then he stepped up onto an irregular stone that jutted from the wall, jumped and pushed with his good hand and made it over the wall with seemingly little effort despite his injured left arm.

Then I turned and slipped back into the party. I hung up my coat and went to find Alwil in the parlour. "The vintner was closed." I said simply.

"So I presumed. I can't imagine why you thought they would be otherwise. It's a wonder you didn't freeze to death out there." She looked at me expectantly for a moment, searching my face but when I made no further remark she only nodded. "I'm just glad you're back by the fire. Come warm yourself a little bit. And, Lothíriel, please don't go out again."

AN: Yay Éomer is back! Boo they're still incredibly thick and working just as hard as they can to misunderstand each other! Lol but you guys know you love the drama and how cute it is that they want to be friends even though they don't think the other one loves them back. Besides, what would even be the point if they didn't make us sweat for it right? Anyway... Wow you guys were SO unbelievably kind about the last chapter. Thank you so very, very much! I read every one of those reviews at least twice, the longer ones it seems like I read a million times over! Please be as kind to this chapter and I will try to keep posting them as quick as I can now that we're in the build up to the climax! Huge thanks as always to Lady Bluejay, she's the absolute BEST! XO Jess