There was. He quit, went back to Germany, then came back to San Francisco.
And I take back what I said earlier. Nightcrawler hasn't done anything since that last Magik miniseries, and before that he hadn't done anything since the Divided We Stand arc. Otherwise, it's like he wasn't even part of the X-Men anymore. I don't think he showed up at all during Fraction's Dark Avengers crossover. It's like he's been dead this entire time, anyway.
If they kill Nightcrawler during Second Coming, it'll be a case of Nightcrawler crawling back in from obscurity for exactly 5 minutes just so he can get killed off. Basically, they'd be pulling another Caliban.