A/N: It's been nearly a year since my last update. I have no good excuse for this. Though I will mention that the motherboard on my previous laptop died in October and I lost all of my notes for this story and I've been working on two original novels and a non-fiction book as well. Fanfiction took a backburner because of my original work.

Now I need a break from my original work and I'm busy stressing out about getting accepted to Journalism school so I pulled out the old chapters and decided to try writing the next chapter. I'm really sorry it's been so long.

"You died?" Cloud was the first to break the silence.

"A few times actually…" Daniel admitted, a bit sheepishly. His history with death was so well known back at Stargate Command that people didn't even panic anymore. Jack had joked more than once about hearing other SG teams say things like 'Dr. Jackson is dead? It must be Tuesday." Then again…he wasn't so sure Jack had been joking about that.

"Well yeah" Jack said "But this was a pretty specific time." Their hosts looked very interested in hearing the tale and Daniel figured it was easier to start at the beginning.

"Yes, it is. It was on a planet names Kelowna. We were working with the scientists on that planet and I was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation from a reactor. I was dying and Oma Desala, one of the Ancients," Daniel noticed the men and women listening to the tale perked up at the mentioning of 'Ancients'. "guided me to ascension, life on a higher plane of existence. It prevented me from dying completely, but I was cut off from my friends."

"How did you get back to this plane of existence?" Rufus asked.

"I have no memories of my time as an ascended being, but from what the rest of the team told me" Daniel gestured at the rest of SG-1 "I was kicked out for interfering in human affairs too many times. Ascended beings are extremely powerful, so there are rules in place to stop us from getting too deeply involved with 'lower' species."

"What started on Vis Uban then?" Rufus again, while the members of AVALANCHE were willing to let Daniel tell the story at his own pace, the Shinra president was more accustomed to digging for pertinent facts.

"Vis Uban was the planet the Ancients left me on after I was made human again. I had no memories of my time as an Ancient, in fact I had no memories of my past at all. If Jack, Sam and Teal'c hadn't found me on that planet I would probably still be there. That was two months ago and I've regained most of my memories from before I ascended, but that year is still a blank, except for the recurring dreams I've been having. That's one of the other reasons I wanted to visit your planet so badly. There is a woman in my dreams, an Ancient who I think I knew while I was ascended. She has been giving me a warning that something big and bad is about to happen and the two clues she gave me were 'Cetra' and 'Midgar'. The Hari elder who visited us called the Ancients on this planet "The Cetra" and that led us here. Does the word 'Midgar' mean anything to you?" Daniel finally stopped talking and caught his breath. The woman with long black hair, Tifa he reminded himself, spoke up.

"Midgar is one of the largest cities on Gaia. It's the city where Cloud and I live. It's been the center of several big events in the last decade." Something about how she said the words "big events" said that there was much more to that story. Daniel and the rest of SG-1, if he was judging their faces correctly, hoped they would hear it.

"What about these dreams you've had? Who is this woman in them? What does she have to do with our planet?" Rufus asked.

"I don't know who she is. She's communicating with me, but I can't remember how I know her. It's part of the year I lost." Cloud looked pensive and the rest of his team listened as he finally asked what was on his mind.

"These dreams…can you describe them?"

"Sure, um…well they always start out the same. I'm standing in a field of yellow and white flowers and then she appears. Sometimes she's behind me and I can only hear her voice, sometimes I can see her face. She has long brown hair and she's always wearing the same clothing" Cloud cut him off.

"A pink dress and red jacket?" Daniel was stunned for a second and then he responded.

"Yes…, but how…" The same stunned looked was on all the faces of their hosts. Tifa breathed out a sigh along with a word.

"Aerith…"

"Do you really think…?" Yuffie started to ask, her usual energy gone. She sat frozen, still as stone bench she was sitting on.

"Who else could it be?" Tifa asked and Cloud nodded.

"It wouldn't be the first time she helped us from beyond the grave."

"The Stigma…" Rufus trailed off.

"Yes, she provided the cure…and she brought me back to life at the church. She was there, I saw her and Zach at the church, just for a moment, but they were there." Cloud told the group. They had seemed to forget about the presence of SG-1 for the moment, but they were very okay with being forgotten in this case. They were learning a lot about their hosts just from this conversation.

"And the kids" Tifa said, the rest of the group looked at her curiously. "Oh come on, they told us that she told them to wait at the church for Cloud. Who else could they have meant? I was pretty sure about that at the time, now I'm certain of it."

"It sure makes sense" Barrett spoke up for the first time since Teal'c had called him 'Mr. T'. Cid nodded and chewed on his cigarette as he considered the question he was going to ask.

"Daniel, right?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you say that 'ascended beings' weren't allowed to interfere in human problems?"

"Well…yes, but the woman in my dreams said that she was being allowed to bend the rules because cleansing the taint from the 'lifestream' of the planet was more important. I don't know what that means, but perhaps it's more than just a human problem now."

"'Taint'?" Tifa asked allowed and then answered her own question. "The Geostigma!"

"Jenova's legacy" Vincent agreed "that would be the taint she is likely referring to."

"but I thought she got rid of that. I mean…the stigma is gone." Yuffie said. Vincent considered this.

"That may have only been a symptom of the taint. If Jenova's legacy is still trapped in the lifestream it could kill the planet."*

"Wait a minute." Jack cut in. "The Hari elder mentioned 'Jenova' to us before we came here. He called her 'The Great Calamity'."

"An appropriate name for her, her genetic legacy has nearly torn our planet apart more than once. I recently translated the contents of a journal that told the story of the part her legacy played in the destruction of the Cetra." Vincent told Jack. "The few remaining Cetra sealed her body away in the crater where she first landed on Gaia. They destroyed their technology and all the research they had before many of the 'Ascended' and left the humans on this planet to survive on their own." Rufus broke into the discussion as well.

"Several decades ago the Shinra company, under the direction of my father, unearthed the body of Jenova and the genetic code had been preserved enough to study it. The lead scientists believed that, combined with Mako treatments, SOLDIER's that were genetically modified with her DNA would be the perfect super soldiers." SG-1 all looked horrified, aside from Teal'c who had seen Goa'uld do many of the same things to increase their armies strength. "Fortunately the DNA modifications were not affective on human genetic structures, but one of the scientists discovered that humans that contained strains of Cetra DNA were receptive to the modification. Hojo's first experiment was his own son, Sephiroth was the perfect SOLDIER, but the modifications eventually drove him insane and he nearly destroyed the planet." Rufus looked ashamed. "If it was not for AVALANCHE he would have destroyed Gaia."**

"Avalanche?" Sam asked.

"Yes" Rufus said and then gestured at the men and woman wearing the pink ribbons. "This is AVALANCHE. Former terrorists, turned saviors of the world."

"Hey!" Barrett shouted, offended by the terrorist moniker.

"Calm down Barrett" Tifa said "we were terrorists. Or don't you remember blowing up all those power plants once upon a time?" Barrett coughed and settled back into his seat.

"Terrorists? Really?" Sam asked.

"Well yeah, I s'pose so…" Barrett admitted.

"In their defense" Rufus shocked all of the members of AVALANCHE with that, he had never defended their actions from before the Sephiroth incident. "they were right. The Mako reactors were a danger to Gaia, even if they weren't an actual health risk for humans. Shinra Power Company was sucking the planet dry of its life blood. My father, as well as myself, were not too interested in listening to anyone's opinions on the subject either." He shrugged. "We all learned our lesson in the end."

There was an awkward silence for a few moments. No one was quite sure how to respond to Rufus' unexpected show of support. Finally Yuffie broke the silence by jumping up from her seat and running over to Rufus.

"Aw! Rufus, that was so sweet!" She attached herself to him in a hug that looked almost painful and everyone in the room started giggling at the look of almost fear on Rufus' face. Even Rude was chuckling as he tried to detach Yuffie from his boss. He finally pried her off and she started to walk back to her seat.

"Yuffie?" Reno stopped her.

"What?" She looked shifty.

"Give the boss-man his wallet back." He said, proving that even when he was laughing too hard to breathe that he was still good at his job. Yuffie looked put out. She flounced back the wheelchair-bound man and dropped Rufus' wallet into his lap.

"You guys never let me have any fun." She pouted and SG-1 couldn't help laughing again.

Once everyone gained their composure again, Rufus spoke up.

"Since it seems we are all laying all our cards out on the table…I have something I need to share with all of you." He waved one hand to encompass everyone in the room, including SG-1. "From what Dr. Jackson has said, I think you should be included. I don't believe in coincidences and this dream about 'something bad' happening soon is quite probably link to what an excavation team found several days ago."***

SG-1 didn't look surprised. They didn't believe in coincidences either.

The one thought going through the minds of AVALANCHE was that saving the world really ought to be a once in a life-time opportunity, but they had a feeling this was going to be the beginning of opportunity #3 for them.

*A/N: Artistic license…I don't know what the taint could do to the planet, but I'm the writer. I am god in this universe. If I want to taint to destroy Gaia then it can do it. *evil laugh*

**Okay, a bit of an info dump, but we all know the story (even if I've added my own spin to a few details.) and SG-1 needed to know the background. I may explain a few more things in detail later, in a more one on one setting.

***Oh don't you just love how I still leave you with a nasty cliff-hanger even when I'm trying to get back on your good side after almost a year hiatus?