Genuinely one of my favorite moments of BTVS is during Once More With Feeling when Buffy goes to Spike’s crypt to get info on what’s happening/be alone with him and Spike is trying to politely kick her out because he would LOVE for her to be there and for them to spend time together but he can’t risk breaking out into song in front of her and singing his feelings and losing his recently acquired cool, calm, collected personality he’s finely tuned.
Like seasons 4 and 5 he was mostly a raging, whiney freak who occasionally did creepy, childish, invasive things and eventually he was forced by circumstance to grow up and take control of his soulless existence instead of blaming everything on it and excusing himself from any responsibility for his actions.
He was willing to sacrifice himself to protect Buffy and Dawn, he literally fell off a 100 foot crane putting his body on the line for them, he dedicated his days post-Buffy to keeping an eye on Sunnydale and keeping Dawn safe because besides Willow (who wouldn’t be any good in a physical fight anyways) he was the only one who meaningfully could. He took Joyce’s “I love what you’ve neglected to do with the place” to heart and actually put effort into remodeling his dark, dank pit in the ground into something attractive and comfortable, expecting to have guests over—HUMAN (and demons like Clem I suppose) GUESTS. He spent the nights awake after Buffy’s death sitting with regret for things he could have done differently—could have done better—to save her. He changed so much because loving Buffy was transformative, even when she was dead and gone.
He would love to show her around his place some more, go on a walk, have a drink—he even implies as much when he sadly watches her go and says, “So I take it you’re not staying, then?”
But even more so, Buffy goes to him knowing full well that SHE could sing in front of him. And maybe this could be read as “well she didn’t have any feelings for him so she would have no reason to be nervous or embarrassed” but I take it as she was alone with the only person who would understand whatever song she sung. Hell, she was walking around the graveyard the night before when she was singing by herself (and with random vampires) and she was still a little ashamed about it even without witnesses or singing anything particularly cringe. And my point is only proven correct when, in the end, it is Spike who comes to her rescue in the final act—stopping her from dancing herself to death and telling her exactly what she needs to hear, the very thesis of Season 6, “Life isn’t bliss, life is just this, it’s living. You have to go on living.”
They could have very easily made it a Xander “heart of the group” moment, or a Dawn and Buffy sister moment, or even a fatherly Giles moment—but it was Spike and Buffy because narratively, he was the only one who was actually seeing her and hearing her. It wasn’t a hamfisted attempt to cram Spike into a scene he didn’t belong in like some people imply, it’s actually the only option that makes any sense.
Just such a lovely, layered episode from an incredible season of dark but hopeful television.
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