When Madeline gave Sam a key to her house, she figured he would only use it for emergencies, so when she walked into the kitchen in just one of Frank's oversized button-up flannel shirts, having just stepped out of the shower, she hadn't anticipated to see the younger man rummaging through her fridge. Luckily, her late husband was considerably larger than her, so the shirt looked like a dress on her.
"Sam," she said, surprise written in her voice and on her face. "What are you doing here? I gave you that key only for emergencies," she added. Sam backed up from the fridge when he heard the familiar raspy voice of Madeline Westen.
"Michael didn't tell you?" Sam asked as he took a bite of the left over food he had just grabbed from the fridge.
"Tell me what?" Madeline asked as she walked further into the kitchen.
"He has something to tell us and he wanted us to meet him here," Sam said. Now it was his turn to be surprised. He figured Michael had told his mother about them meeting at her house. He then went back to looking at the food in the fridge. Before Madeline could respond, she felt a shooting pain from her hip. She often got random pain from her once broken hip. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it was bad. A sharp intake of breath was heard from the older woman as she grabbed ahold of the counter, which took Sam's attention away from the food in the fridge.
"Not again," Madeline said under her breath.
"Are you okay?" Sam asked when he heard Madeline say something to herself and noticed the expression of pain on her face. He moved away from the fridge and walked closer to Madeline as her knees buckled from the pain.
"It's my hip," Madeline said through gritted teeth. Sam had only heard about Madeline's hip pains, but he had never been there when it happened.
"Do you need to sit down?" Sam asked as he walked closer and put a hand on her waist so he could lead her to the living room.
"Sitting will only make it worse," Madeline replied as she grabbed ahold of Sam's arm. She tightened her grip around his upper arm as the pain continued.
"What can I do?" Sam asked, unsure of how to help Madeline. He wanted to help Madeline, but he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to make it worse.
"Put pressure on my hip," Madeline said. Putting pressure on her hip seemed to be the only thing that relieved the pain. Michael and Nate had both gotten the hang of helping Madeline's hip pain over the years and pressure was the only thing they both seemed to do that helped.
"Which hip, Maddie?" Sam asked as he moved his hand from her waist. Using the hand that wasn't gripped around Sam's upper arm, she moved his hand to her right hip. He immediately started putting pressure on the hip that was giving her pain. A minute passed in silence, the pain subsiding a bit.
"Did I ever tell you about how Frank broke my hip?" Madeline asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the two of them.
"No," Sam said as he looked down at the woman who was like a second mother to him. "What happened?" he asked. Madeline looked up at Sam, pain written across her face.
"I was eight months pregnant with Nate," she started. "He came home one night completely hammered." Sam's eyes widened in surprise when she said that she was eight months pregnant with Nate when Frank broke her hip.
"You were pregnant when he broke your hip?" Sam asked. He knew Frank was an asshole, but to break his pregnant wife's hip was unforgivable.
"Bad, right?" she asked. "I don't think he ever came to terms with the fact that women gain weight when they're pregnant," she said. "He was pissed off at how much weight I had gained, so he threw me into the wall and broke my hip. I had to have one of the neighbors drive me to the hospital because I started bleeding and I was worried about the baby," she said. Surprise was evident on Sam's face. He couldn't believe that Madeline had suffered through that, especially alone. "I had to have an emergency cesarean section and then they rushed me into surgery right after to put pins in my hip." The pressure that Sam was putting on Madeline's hip faltered at knowing that Frank had broken her hip while she was pregnant, which resulted in a cesarean section. "Keep putting pressure on it, sweetheart," Madeline said. As if on cue, Michael walked into the the house. He was confused at what was happening between his best friend and mother but when he noticed Sam's hand on her hip, he knew immediately what was happening.
"Is your hip bothering you, Ma?" he asked as he walked closer to them.
"Yeah," she said. The pain had gotten better since Sam started putting pressure on her hip, but she still had shooting pain up her back, which Michael knew from experience, so he walked up behind her and started massaging her lower back. That's when Sam moved his hand away from Madeline's hip,
"You should really get that looked at," Michael said when Madeline relaxed into him and leaned some of her weight against him.
"It doesn't happen often enough for me to get it looked at," Madeline said as Michael continued to knead the tense muscles in her lower back. Madeline's grip around Sam's upper arm started to loosen as the pain subsided even more. That's when Michael noted what she was wearing for the first time.
"Are you wearing Dad's shirt?" he asked. He always forgot how big of a man his father was until he saw his mother wear one of his shirts, which happened quite often. She usually wore his shirts when she went to bed, or when she got out of the shower before getting ready for the day, like she was at that moment. "Were you always that small compared to him?" he asked.
"She's small compared to you, Mikey," Sam said as he laughed. Madeline also laughed. The pain that Madeline felt from her hip was slowly starting to subside, so she relaxed even more into Michael's body.
"I know," Michael said as he also laughed. "I just forget how small she is until she wears his shirts," he added.
"I'm not that small," Madeline said. That's when Michael stopped massaging Madeline's lower back.
"You're small enough to wear Dad's shirt and have it look like a dress," Michael replied. "Does your hip feel better?" he asked.
"Hmm?" Madeline breathed. "Oh, yeah. Just give me a few minutes and I'll be as good as new," she said. Michael softly patted the hip that didn't bother Madeline before planting a soft kiss on the top of her head. "Thank you, baby," she said to Michael as she moved her weight so it wasn't resting against her son anymore. She then turned to Sam, stood up on her tippy toes and gave the younger man a hug. "And thank you, too," she said as Sam laced his arms around Madeline's waist and hugged her back.
"You're welcome, Maddie," he replied.