Cuddy knows House isn't here because he loves her, thought she's pretty sure he does.
She knows he isn't here because of some emotional connection between them that he wants to act upon.
Knows he is here because he is desperately searching, straining, for an escape from the pain of his memories.
He is here because he needs her, the same way she needed him all those years ago.
Is here because he needs that release, that mindless, violent release that they know they can find in each other.
Here because he needs someone to understand him, to understand what he needs, what is going through his mind.
Because he needs what they share between them, the knowledge of what makes the other tick.
He needs someone who understands him more than he understands himself.
Needs someone to figure it out for him, because he has no hope of doing it himself.
Someone who has always been there for him, if only he were desperate enough to ask.
Who has come to him, a two-way relationship of need.
Has seen him through all the years of pain and misery and loneliness.
Seen the way he was before the pain, before the depression got so deep.
The before of himself, the old him, the person who wasn't broken and shattered from so many years of living with himself.
Before he was unable to reach out to another person, before he would be hurt by any small betrayal.
He needed her.
Needed her.
Her.
Her.
The one person who has never let him down.