The smell of bacon frying woke me in the morning and I frowned, pretty sure that I hadn't left any windows open. When I heard a clatter of cutlery from the kitchen, I sat up and stared in that direction.

My bedroom door was shut, but the events of the day before flooded my head and reminded me of who was out there. My resident crazy man or resurrected, possibly, reawakened King Arthur. Either way, it smelled as if he was making breakfast and that made me very disposed to like him.

As I saw the time on my alarm clock, I groaned. I had slept through my alarm and I was meant to be at work in ten minutes. It wasn't going to happen. Quickly I shoved the covers away, got out of bed and pulled some of my discarded clothes off the floor. I gave them a sniff test before I pulled it all back on again.

The smell of breakfast would cover up what minor odor there was and I needed to be decent. I grabbed my phone on the way out and tapped a message to the team telling them I would be late, but before I could hit send I stopped in front of the kitchen table. Arthur had not only fried some bacon but eggs, mushrooms and what looked like some kind of potato as well.

"Good morning," he said as he turned to me and noticed my presence. "I managed to work this very clever fire you have here and found food for us. I must say, all of this new..." he trailed off as he motioned to the fridge, the cooker and other gadgets in the kitchen. "It's wonderful."

I sat down at the table as he brought the frying pan over and dished up the fried eggs onto each plate. He had also poured two glasses of fruit juice and with the fruit bowl already there, it looked like a small feast.

"I thought this was the least I could do given you have agreed to aid me today."

Although I nodded, I deleted the message I had been about to send on my phone and quickly typed out an alternative one. It was clear that I wasn't going to make it into work today. Arthur had other ideas and it had been months since I had taken any kind of personal day. While my supervisor frowned on us doing so if we could help it, I didn't care enough today.

Without saying a word to Arthur about my initial intentions to go into work, I sent it and turned my phone off.

"Thank you. I had no idea you knew how to cook."

"I confess that there was a little trial and error, but I found what appeared to be some kind of recipe book with pictures and I managed to figure out what to do with the food you had available. The metal container your potatoes were inside stumped me for a while."

I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth as I considered everything he had figured out how to do.

"Did you find the can opener?" I asked.

He shook his head, his forehead creasing just a little.

"How did you open it?" Panic gnawed at my insides as I imagined him using a knife or something else to open the can and hurting himself or damaging a kitchen surface.

"Magic," he grinned, looking pleased at finding a solution. It took me a couple of seconds to realise he meant it literally. He had literally magicked open a can of potatoes.

"When we're done eating I'll show you around the kitchen and teach you how to use everything." I spoke without thinking. Educating Arthur was clearly going to take all day at this rate.

The only up side was that with each passing incident like this, his story that he was from the past became more and more plausible. He was either a phenomenal actor who wasn't slipping up a single bit, or he was telling the truth.

It hit me that I was sitting down in my small apartment, having breakfast with one of the most famous Kings of England and I was dressed in my clothes from the previous day, with unbrushed hair, no makeup and he had cooked.

If I hadn't been living it, I would have thought it insane.

As we ate, I took the opportunity to explain everything I could. He'd never eaten a potato before, had no idea what the juice was made of and most of the fruits in the fruit bowl were ones he had never seen. Within a couple of minutes I was explaining to him that produce moved around the country so fast now that something grown around the world could be on our plates in a matter of weeks and that most fruits and vegetables were grown in every country to some level.

It blew his mind even more.

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"How can there be hunger and poverty when people have achieved such wonders of technology?" he asked, interrupting my explanation of a greenhouse.

"Because the world is full of greedy people who would rather destroy food than sell it or give it to those in need." I shrugged. Until now I hadn't thought about it. Was world hunger something that could be solved. Very powerful people said it wasn't as easy to solve the problem as others thought, and I had trusted them.

Arthur frowned again and went silent for a while. I didn't know what to say to him. It was as if I had admitted that I didn't care about the poor and needy people of the world and I didn't know what to do with how that felt. We ate without speaking until neither of us had anything left on our plates.

"Tell me more about everything," he said after a while. "I need to understand what the world is like now and the country I ruled to know how best to help."

Although I admired his enthusiasm, I knew this was going to be a very long conversation with a lot of twists and turns and it was going to take a long time. I also struggled to know where to begin.

To buy myself a moment to think, I encouraged him to the sofa again and took some cups of tea with us.

"Let's start with democracy and our monarchy," I said as we sat down, both of us turned in toward each other.

Over the course of the next few hours I taught him about our politics, what I knew of how laws were passed, the government and what was obviously wrong with society. He took it all in, asking questions now and then, but also making comments that showed he was piecing together what I was telling him with what he had seen already and making leaps in logical conclusions that were astounding.

One thing was for sure in all of this, Arthur was bright.

We paused to eat lunch and I took the opportunity to teach him how to use more of the kitchen, even showing him the dishwasher. It was yet another educational moment and I laughed at the surprised delight on his face.

"This would save many a maid’s hands," he declared as he helped me put the dirty crockery inside.

Again I felt as if there was so much to explain, but we had barely scratched the surface.

We spent the rest of the day together, talking, watching snippets of news and TV and Movies that helped me show him what I meant. Now and then I pulled up news or articles on my laptop for him to read and by the time we'd finished eating the takeaway I had ordered for dinner, I knew that this was the crunch point.

As much as I had appreciated a day away from the daily grind, we had talked so much I was beginning to lose my voice and there was still more.

"Thank you," he said, uttering the phrase so many times that day that I had lost count. "It is clear from all of this that I have much to learn if I am to be of help to these people. And I cannot decide on a plan without being better informed. You say that you have a great library with many books where I can study?"

I nodded, not sure where he was going with this.

"Will you take me there tomorrow? And every day after, until I know what I need?"

"Of course," I said without hesitation. I hadn't planned to agree to much beyond letting him stay one night only twenty-four hours earlier, but I knew one thing for sure. It kept him off the street and it gave me time to work out exactly how genuine he was. "I will need to work while you're there. Will you be fine by yourself?"

It was his turn to nod. "If you will come and get me again when you are done. I would appreciate being able to rely on your hospitality until I better understand, but I assure you that the kindness will not go unthanked or rewarded. I will be able to find my treasury with a little aid from this library as well and ensure you are paid back."

"Sounds wonderful," I replied, thinking the opposite. These were the things he said that made him sound the most crazy. A treasury? What did he mean by that? Some secret stash of coins? Would any of them even still be there this many years later?

There was no way to know, but I knew that I was going to be kind to him anyway. I was invested now and I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that some higher power might have sent him to us to sort out the country I had once believed in. Because I didn't anymore. Too much was wrong and too many who should be trying to stop it, didn't care.