Ah, I read them in the order they were written, so I knew those kids died, and having to watch young Horatio and Maria being with their kids and loving them so much had this bittersweet super-painful thing to it, cause I knew that Horatio and Maria's story was a tragedy, not just the story of an uptight-but-basically-decent bloke who's trying to get ahead in the Navy and his supportive and loving wife.

To use an example that your username makes me think of, it's like looking at cute little Anakin in TPM and thinking "how wee and adorable and precocious he is" except that you know he's going to become a murdering villain in just a few years. I enjoy non-linear storytelling sometimes, for just this reason.