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Sometimes, when Kutner thinks that Amber doesn’t see him, he’ll glance at her — stare, really — and look away as soon as she glances back. She wishes that if he really had to stare at her, he’d be more subtle about it. Or at least, not look away.
She first notices it after the case with the ergot poisoning (that she solved!), with the patient who was hallucinating her dead mother and god knows what else, which she used to screw with Thirteen, with some success. Still reeling from it all, she smiles as she holds the flower in her hand — unlike Kutner, she hardly cares if it’s a rose or peony — and she notices him looking at her.
She’s used to people glaring at her, at people being annoyed or scared of her, which is fine by her, because she doesn’t need people to like her, as long as she’s right, but —
He doesn’t look at her in annoyance or dismay, if anything, there’s almost a softness in his eyes, a curiosity. It’s not unkind, and she doesn’t know what to do with it, and she turns to properly see him, and he immediately notices it, his eyes widen, and he looks away.
Which, fine, she looks away too.
She was used to people finding her attractive, sort of. Tried to use it to her advantage, dressing in pink and frills and barrettes, but it didn’t really work. Which, fine, she preferred that men fear her rather than ogle at her or do stupid things like try to flirt with her or bore her to death over dinner.
She figured he found her good-looking, striking, at least, saw him check her out a couple times, and didn’t think anything of it because she had other things to pay attention to, but now —
It’s kind of annoying, she thinks. She remembers finding Kutner annoying from the moment he tattled on her, annoying that he kept track of her and noticed that she had kept the patient’s data in her PDA, especially after he set a patient on fire! Especially because House didn’t fire him.
She didn’t like him, she thought. Didn’t care for him and his audacity and lunacy and every single insane new thing he did, found herself so irritated by it. He was almost as annoying as Thirteen was.
But he also was — fun, maybe. Fun in the way that she grew to think of every outrageous thing he did as almost-endearing. Fun, because at least one person was willing to play games. Sometimes, she wanted to hate him, thought, just because she didn’t buy his easy-going nature and air of apathy, just because she saw that he wanted this job just as badly as she wanted it, just because when he played the game people didn’t pay any mind to it.
Just because she didn’t quite know what to do with him looking at her, of the way he looks at her. Didn't want to think about what she’s so afraid of him seeing.
So, now when they’re not having their back-and-forths, Kutner somehow finding new ways to rile her up and her responding in kind, wanting nothing more than to wipe that stupid grin off his face, or when he’s doing stupid (but somehow endearing) things like openly check her out and jokingly flirting with her, he’ll do this — stare at her, in attempted secrecy. Shyly, which is unlike him, like he finds her interesting, like it matters.
Amber thinks that it would be almost sweet, if this wasn’t just a game and they weren’t fighting for the same fellowship.
But she doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want it to mean anything, wants to tell him to quit looking at her and getting a rise out of her, even if it’s interesting, even if she likes fighting back, even if it’s fun, because she isn’t sure if he actually is serious, if this isn’t just another way of screwing with her. Get her to open up, convince her that he likes her, understand her only for him to use it against her — it’s better to keep this a game, she thinks.
In the end, she doesn’t tell him that she can, in fact, see him glancing at her when he thinks she’s not noticing him, doesn’t tell him to quit it. Maybe, if it hadn’t been for Cole and her shockingly finding herself feeling… something resembling sympathy for Kutner, she probably would have. She should have.
She doesn’t care, she keeps telling herself, keeps trying to act like it.
After House fires her, when the world feels like it’s falling in on her, and all she can do is let tears that she wishes she could hide fall, she can feel Kutner looking at her, too. Looking right through her, the only one who cares to look, anyway. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t let him know that she can see him seeing her, but he probably knows.
She half-wishes he’d at least have the courage to do something other than look, wants to tell him so — but what good would that do? There’s nothing he could do, even if he liked her enough to want to, she’s the one who failed.
He doesn’t stop looking at her, not until she leaves the lecture hall, taking in a shaky breath, with her eyes in the ground, trying to pretend she didn’t just cry, she didn’t just lose, and that people didn’t just see how badly she wanted it — the job, respect, love —
But then again, Kutner’s the only one who was really looking.
And when Amber’s dying, in a bed in a hospital full of people who never cared much for her — which she thought she didn’t really care about, because it was better to be feared rather than liked but trampled over, but — and she’s trying to accept the fact that she’s dying, with James by her side, Kutner comes to see her. She doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t quite smile, simply looks at him. She appreciates that he came to see her, she thinks.
He’s ungainly, awkward, doesn’t quite frown or smile either, and it’s strange, because she remembers him as grinning or rolling his eyes and always reacting, and —
He looks away from her, like he has done so many times before. She wants to tell him to look at her — to face her — but she doesn’t. She understands, she thinks.
She supposes they always understood each other, in ways they didn’t quite know what to do with, besides look away.