Last Christmas (ST short story)

Last Christmas was the first short story in the Short Trips anthology Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury. It was written by Simon Guerrier. It featured the Seventh Doctor.

Summary
Samarjit is in the trenches of World War I. His British army mates volunteer him for a dangerous mission. Captain Oakes introduces him to Dr Smith.

Samajit accompanies Dr Smith through enemy lines. They next find a deep impact crater, at the bottom of which is a stone building. The Doctor pockets something that he finds. Next, the Doctor explores the surrounding area and examines every spent bomb he finds; when he finds one that hasn't detonated, he takes its parts with him back to the crater. As he starts to set the bomb for detonation, Samarjit is shot.

When Samarjit awakes, he is in hospital; he has been healed. The Doctor had given him an elixir that healed his wounds.

After the war, Samarjit dies from a cold. However, because of the elixir, his consciousness lives on. He and the Doctor meet every year on Christmas Eve in a pub. Samarjit is angry at everything that happened to him; the Doctor tries to convince him to let go.

Samarjit is especially bitter about Christmas. He has seen people ruin their lives over and over again. Nearly a century after they first met, the Doctor takes Samarjit outside the pub and shows him the happy faces of Christmas. Samarjit is finally able to let go.

In the morning, Benedict enters his pub. He is used to finding the Doctor here on Christmas morning, but this time the Doctor is asleep, his head lying on a table. The Doctor joins Benedict's family for Christmas as usual; however, Benedict doesn't yet realise that this is the last Christmas the Doctor will visit him.

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Samarjit
 * Captain Oakes
 * Benedict

Worldbuilding

 * At the pub, the Doctor always drinks water; Samarjit drinks ale.
 * The Doctor uses his Dr Smith alias.

Continuity

 * The Doctor would later make a similar decision to save someone's life with the inadvertant consequence of making them immortal in his Twelfth incarnation, by using a Mire repair kit on Ashildr. (TV: The Girl Who Died)